At this time last year, the name of Shane Wright was on the lips of all of sports Montreal. We were two weeks away from the NHL Draft and no one imagined the Canadian daring to draft another player in his place.
The CH chose in the first row for the first time since Doug Wickenheiser in 1980 and would get their hands on their long-awaited number one center, the reincarnation of Patrice Bergeron and perhaps even the center of the first trio from 2022-2023 ahead of Nick Suzuki .
Here we are a year later. Shane Wright’s season ended… Wednesday night. Who knew?
Wright, drafted fourth overall by the Seattle Kraken after Juraj Slafkovsky, Simon Nemec and Logan Cooley, finished the year in the American League, after his junior club was eliminated.
The Kraken’s farm club, the Coachella Valley Firebirds, reached the Calder Cup final, but lost badly in overtime to the Hershey Bears in the seventh and final game.
In 24 playoff games, the 19-year-old Wright had nine points, including two goals. He hasn’t been naughty, especially for a young man his age. It would have been difficult for him to produce more being ruled out on the power play and playing 8-10 minutes per game (except in games requiring overtime), with fringe wingers like Austin Poganski and Carsen Twarynski, two players under 30 points per year in the American League.
Had he been drafted in the second half of the first round, or later, we would have been talking about an interesting performance and a hope to keep an eye on. Defensively, Wright wasn’t bad either, though often pitted against opposing third or fourth lines.
But other youngsters his age drafted in the first round in 2022 have done even better offensively. Joakim Kemell, drafted 17th overall by the Nashville Predators, scored eight goals in fourteen games for Milwaukee and had ten points. His club was eliminated by Coachella Valley in the semi-finals. Jiri Kulich, the 28th overall pick by Buffalo, had 11 points, including 7 goals, in 10 games with the Rochester Americans.
The American League remains highly competitive and tough for a youngster, especially in the playoffs, but it’s not impossible for an 18-, 19-year-old prospect to make an impact there either.
Wright needs to be sent back there if he doesn’t deserve a job in Seattle next season. Will he be able to do that if he’s unable to make an offensive impact at the American League level? Wouldn’t he be wasting his time in the junior ranks playing a fourth season there, a fifth if it hadn’t been for the pandemic?
Some have blamed the Canadian for his handling of Juraj Slafkovsky’s development. They deemed him too young to be full-time in the NHL at 18. Slafkovsky had limited production, with 10 points in 39 games, before getting injured, but he was guaranteed a dozen minutes of use per game and his playing progressed. He also, above all, remained in the same environment.
Wright started the season in Seattle, where he was regularly scratched from roster. He was sent back to the American League in November to get back into shape. He was loaned out to the Canadian junior team, where he provided an adequate performance at the World Championship in the shadow of Connor Bedard. He then joined the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Junior League, where he played 20 regular season games and four playoff games before returning to Coachella Valley to finish the season there. Lots and lots of travel, coaches, game systems, hotels…
With less than a week to go until the 2023 draft, we must keep in mind the weeks leading up to the 2022 vintage. Daring to question Shane Wright’s potential was heresy. Wasn’t he compared to Patrice Bergeron for three years by specialists and qualified as a savior by a majority?
This year, only one certainty: Connor Bedard will be the first overall pick by the Chicago Blackhawks and will become a great player in the NHL. His domination in the junior ranks and against his peers on the international scene is so monstrous that one can hardly think otherwise.
After him ? Will Adam Fantilli be the second choice as many are suggesting, or will he slip a few places? Will we have to rip his shirt off if the Canadian shuns Matvei Michkov in fifth place, given the risks? Is right-handed defender David Reinbacher’s potential really limited because some dare to exclude him from the top ten?
Among the winners of the Calder Cup of the American League, we find among others Zachary Fucale, 28, second round choice of the Canadiens in 2013. He however played the role of auxiliary to a certain Hunter Shepard, 27, never drafted, in the ECHL barely a year ago. Shepard started all 20 games and Fucale came on as relief in two of those games. The two men will be entitled to full autonomy in about ten days.
Otherwise, Hendrix Lapierre, the Washington Capitals’ 2020 first-round pick, 22nd overall, six spots behind Kaiden Guhle, has six points in 20 games after a 30-point season in 60 games. Lapierre turned 21 in February.
Another Capitals late first-round pick, Connor McMichael, 22, 25th overall in 2019, had ten points. He spent the winter in the American League after playing the entire season in Washington the previous year.
