The first Junior A player taken in the first round of the NHL entry draft was a defenceman, John Van Boxmeer. He was selected 14th overall in 1972 and had a productive NHL career, putting up 465 points in 588 games.
There have been a few other Junior A defencemen taken in the first round since then: James Patrick at 9th overall in 1981, Jason Marshall at 9th overall in 1989, Brendan Smith at 27th overall in 2007, Dylan Olsen at 28th overall in 2009, and Dennis Cholowski at 20th overall in 2016.
Cale Makar could be the highest drafted Junior A defenceman ever. The AJHL MVP is a potential top-10 pick according to several draft rankings, with Bob Mckenzie bumping him up to 7th overall in his most recent rankings. He’s among the top ranked defencemen in the draft with Timothy Liljegren and Miro Heiskanen; it wouldn’t be a surprise for any one of those three to be the first defenceman named on June 23rd in Chicago.
The question for Canucks fans is if the Canucks will be the ones saying Makar’s name.
What was somewhat lost in the hubbub over Jim Benning’s “North American heart” comments last week is that Benning has made it clear what kind of player he wants to select with the fifth overall pick:
“We’re still going to get a really skilled player at five and at the end of the day, even the player we get at five could be as skilled as any player in this draft. We’re excited about that. There are some playmaking centre icemen and some power play defencemen that are in the mix.”
Side note: I’m not sure there’s a clearer indicator that Jim Benning is an old school guy than the phrase “centre icemen.”
While the makeup of the top-end of the draft and the Canucks’ current needs would indicate that it’s time to pick a centre, particularly since top-end defencemen can be dug up in the second round and beyond, the Canucks have both centres and “power play defencemen” in the mix.
Another side note: the Canucks biggest need at defence isn’t really for someone who can quarterback the power play, though that would be a nice added bonus. The Canucks need defencemen who can effectively transition the puck up ice at even-strength. It’s not just that the Canucks couldn’t score on the powerplay; they couldn’t get the puck out of the defensive zone at five-on-five.
Picking a defenceman at fifth overall wouldn’t be a terrible move, by any means. As Will pointed out on Monday, a team can get by on good, but not great forwards if they have a great, puck-moving defence corps. The Canucks defence definitely still needs a lot of work and adding a blue-chip defenceman is a defensible move.
And if the Canucks want a defenceman, Makar would make a lot of sense. He’s an elite skater with high-end skill who can take over a game. The one question mark is that he’s playing in the AJHL: it’s not like he’s taking over Major Junior games or playing against men like Heiskanen or Liljegren.
The thing is, Makar is utterly dominant. The next best defenceman, Dennis Cesana had 23 fewer points and half as many goals as Makar and also happened to benefit from being Makar’s defence partner. Makar had 50 points at even-strength; Cesana had 52 points total. Also, Cesana is a year older.
In his 16-year-old season, Makar had 55 points in 54 games, finishing second among AJHL defencemen. At the World Junior A Challenge last year, he put up 4 goals and 8 points in 4 games, tied for fourth in tournament scoring.
There are certainly many arguments against picking Makar — he’s a bit undersized, has question marks surrounding his defensive game, and is on the older side of players eligible for this draft — and he would be a bit of a reach at fifth overall, but there’s a strong argument in his favour: the Canucks have never drafted a defenceman with Makar’s offensive upside.
