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Three players of color chosen in first round of 2017 NHL Draft

24 Saturday Jun 2017

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CHICAGO – Three players of color took center stage at the 2017 National Hockey League Draft at Chicago’s United Center Friday night.

Two major junior hockey players of Asian heritage and a black French-Canadian player were chosen in the first round of the 31-team draft. And Ryan Reaves, a pugnacious veteran forward, was traded by the St. Louis Blues to the Pittsburgh Penguins, a move that capped the first day of the draft.

Thirteen proved to be a lucky number for Nick Suzuki, a forward for the Owen Sound Attack of the Ontario Hockey League. He was taken with the 13th pick in the draft by the expansion Vegas Golden Knights.

Nick Suzuki of the OHL’s Owen Sound Attack hopes to be Vegas-bound after being drafted in the first round by the Golden Knights (Photo/Terry Wilson/OHL Images).

“It’s not every day you get picked by an expansion team,” Suzuki said after he had his named called  and donned the fledgling Golden Knights’ jersey. “I’m really happy about being picked by Vegas and I want to get there pretty  quick and see the new building.”

Suzuki was ranked as the 10th-best North American skater by NHL Central Scouting. The 5-foot-10 native of London, Ontario, was Owen Sound’s second-leading scorer last season with 45 goals and 51 assists in 65 games.

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His younger brother, forward Ryan Suzuki, was the first player chosen in the 2017 Ontario Hockey League Priority Selection Draft in April, plucked by the Barrie Colts.

Nick Suzuki said he has no worries about joining a new NHL team that’s bound to have more losses than wins in its first few seasons.

“I don’t think I’m nervous,” he said. “I’m more excited to see what Vegas is like. I don’t know if there’s pressure. I kind of just take it as a new team and you have to show them that you’re a good player.”

Kailer Yamamoto is looking forward to someday playing with Edmonton Oilers snipers Connor McDavid  and Leon Draisaitl  after Edmonton selected Yamamoto, a forward with the Western Hockey League’s Spokane Chiefs, with the 22nd pick of the draft.

“I’m really looking forward to going to that skill team,” Yamamoto said. “I think it’s going to definitely benefit my game.”

The 5-foot-7, 140-pound  right wing was listed as the 17th-best North American skater by Central Scouting.

Spokane Chiefs’ Kailer Yamamoto hopes to prove that size doesn’t matter after the Edmonton Oilers chose the 5-foot-7 forward in the first round of the NHL Draft (Photo/Larry Brunt/Spokane Chiefs).

A Spokane native of Japanese and Hawaiian heritage, Yamamoto led the Chiefs in scoring in 2016-17 with 42 goals and 47 assists in 65 games. His older brother, Keanu, was Spokane’s fourth-leading scorer last season with 26 goals and 43 assists in 72 games.

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“My dad’s dad, he’s from Japan actually, he was in the internment camps,” Kailer Yamamoto said. “My dad’s half Japanese so that makes me a quarter Japanese. It’s unbelievable to be Japanese, get the Japanese heritage, and hopefully be in the NHL someday.”

Right after Yamamoto had his name called, defenseman Pierre-Olivier Joseph was chosen with the 23nd pick of the draft by the Arizona Coyotes.

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Joseph patrolled the blue line last season for the Charlottetown Islanders of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, where he had 6 goals and 33 assists in 62 games.

Joseph wasn’t a stranger to the spectacle and hype of draft day. He watched his older brother, forward Mathieu Joseph of the QMJHL’s Saint John Sea Dogs, get drafted by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the fourth round in 2015.

Still, the younger Joseph – who was ranked as the 27th-best North American skater eligible for the draft by Central Scouting – admitted to having a case of the jitters on Friday.

“Obviously, I didn’t want to think about the draft,” he said. “I played cards and watched movies as the day goes on, but as I sat in the stands and watched the names go by, I was thinking whether I’d get called or not.”

He credited his older brother and his parents for helping him achieve his draft day moment.

“I was a bit of an underdog,” Joseph said. “Obviously, I had my brother and my family to push me. Everyone has been there for me to push me and make me the player I am now.”

Thanks to Evan Moore for contributing to this report.

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey.

 

 

 

Players of color power their teams to Mastercard Memorial Cup tournament

18 Thursday May 2017

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The 2017 Mastercard Memorial Cup begins Friday and players of color are poised to play starring roles at the major junior hockey championship.

The Saint John Sea Dogs, champs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, Seattle Thunderbirds, winners of the Western Hockey League crown, Erie Otters, kings of the Ontario Hockey League, and the Windsor Spitfires, the tournament’s host, vie for the coveted Cup.

Saint John Sea Dogs forward Mathieu Joseph was second on his team in scoring in 2016-17 (Photo/David Connell/Saint John Sea Dogs).

The offensively-potent Sea Dogs are powered by right wing Mathieu Joseph and left wing Bokondji Imama.

Joseph, 20, a 2015 Tampa Bay Lightning fourth-round draft pick and a member of the Silver Medal-winning 2017 Canadian World Juniors team, was the Sea Dogs second-leading scorer in 2016-17 with 36 goals and 44 assists in 54 games.

Saint John Sea Dogs’ Bokondji Imama showed he’s more than a fighter by scoring 41 goals in 2016-17 (Photo/David Connell/Saint John Sea Dogs).

Imama, a Tampa Bay sixth-round selection in 2015, accepted the Lightning organization’s challenge to prove that he’s more than the feared fighter that he’s been throughout his QMJHL career.

The 20-year old showed that his shot is as hard as his fists by being the Sea Dogs’ fourth-leading scorer with 41 goals and 14 assists, all while accumulating 105 penalty minutes in 66 games.

Seattle Thunderbirds defenseman Ethan Bear was a scoring threat from the blue line in 2016-17 (Photo/Brian Liesse/Seattle Thunderbirds).

The Thunderbirds also reached the Memorial Cup tournament because of their impressive offense – from the blue line by defenseman Ethan Bear and up front by right wing Keegan Kolesar.

This was the view a lot of Western Hockey League goaltenders got of Seattle Thunderbirds forward Keegan Kolesar during the regular season (Photo/Brian Liesse/Seattle Thunderbirds).

Bear, 19, who is Ochapowace First Nation, was the definition of an offensive defenseman. He  finished third on the Thunderbirds in scoring with 28 goals and 42 assists in 67 regular season games. The Edmonton Oilers 2015 fifth-round draft pick also tallied 6 goals and 20 assists in 17 WHL playoff games.

Kolesar, 20, a third-round draft pick by the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2015, was the Thunderbirds fourth-leading scorer in 2016-17 with 26 goals and 34 assists in 54 games. He had 12 goals and 19 assists in 19 WHL playoff contests.

Jeremiah Addison of the Windsor Spitfires. (Photo/Aaron Bell/OHL Images).

When it comes to leadership on the Windsor Spitfires, there’s “Addy” and “Chatty.” Left wing Jeremiah Addison, 20, and defenseman Jalen Chatfield are such integral parts of their team that they both were voted captain toward the end of the regular season and alternated wearing the “C’ on their jerseys every other game.

“Our players selected these guys equally. They’re two great people,” Spitfires Head Coach Rocky Thompson said in March. “They are both deserving and both represent what it takes to be a leader.”

Windsor Spitfires defenseman Jalen Chatfield provided offensive pop from the blue line (Photo/Aaron Bell/OHL Images).

Addison was the team’s third-leading scorer with 24 goals and 19 assists in 51 games. Addison, a seventh-round draft pick of the Montreal Canadiens in 2015, pitched in 5 goals in five OHL playoff games.

Though not as prolific as Seattle’s Bear, defenseman Chatfield, 21, provided some offensive pop from the Windsor blue line. He had 8 goals and 20 assists in 61 regular season games and 2 assists in seven playoff games.

The Vancouver Canucks were impressed enough with Chatfield’s game to sign him to a three-year entry level contract in March.

Windsor’s Cole Purboo, left, is ranked as the 189th-best North American skater eligible for the 2017 NHL Draft (Photo/Terry Wilson/OHL Images)

Windsor right wing Cole Purboo contributed 11 goals and 6 assists in 68 regular season games. The National Hockey League’s Central Scouting ranks Purboo, 17, as the 189th-best North American prospect eligible for the 2017 NHL Draft June 23-24 at Chicago’s United Center.

There are no minority players on the Erie Otters roster.

The 2017 Mastercard Memorial Cup games will be televised live in Canada on Rogers Sportsnet and on tape delay on the NHL Network in the United States. However, the network will carry the championship game live on Sunday, May 28.

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey.

 

Lightning draftee Bokondji Imama goes from bare-knuckled brawler to bar down scorer

17 Tuesday Jan 2017

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Saint John Sea Dogs left wing Bokondji Imama has gone from scrapper to sniper.

The rugged 20-year-old, the Tampa Bay Lightning’s sixth-round pick in the 2015 National Hockey League Draft, has a reputation as one of the fiercest fighters in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.

But these days, Imama is scaring QMJHL goaltenders as much as opposing skaters. He has 27 goals and 10 assists in 40 QMJHL regular season games, up from 7 goals and 19 assists in 47 games during the 2015-16 season.

“I always try to prove to everyone that I’m not just a fighter, I’m also a player” Imama told me recently. “I consider myself as a power forward. This year, I’ve had a chance to prove it with the ice time that the coach gives me.”

Thanks to summer work on his shooting and skating, Saint John Sea Dogs forward Bokondji Imama a scoring threat this season (Photo/St. John Sea Dogs).

Thanks to summer work on his shooting and skating, Saint John Sea Dogs forward Bokondji Imama is a serious scoring threat this season (Photo/David Connell/St. John Sea Dogs).

Imama is the Sea Dogs’ top goal-scorer this season, one ahead of right wing Mathieu Joseph – a Tampa Bay 2015 fourth-round draft pick who played on Canada’s Silver Medal-winning team at the 2017 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship –  and center Matthew Highmore.

Imama’s 37 points – the combination of goals and assists – makes him the team’s fourth-leading scorer. Highmore’s 65 points – 26 goals and 39 assists  in 42 games- tops the team. Joseph, who signed a three-year, entry-level deal with the Lightning before the World Juniors, is second with 26 goals, 24 assists in 31 regular season games.

Imama’s  evolution from a bare-knuckled brawler to bar down goal scorer is also reflected by fewer trips to the penalty box. He has 62 penalty minutes so far  this season.

He collected 86 penalty minutes last season and probably would have had more except for a 15-game suspension  in December 2015 for leaving the bench to defend an under-age 15-year-old rookie teammate against an experienced enforcer and a seven-game suspension in April 2016  for a hit on then-Cape Breton Screaming Eagles defenseman Tobie Pauquette-Bisson.

What’s most striking is that Imama is fighting less this season. The website hockeyfights.com  notes that he’s fought only three times in QMJHL games so far this season. He had one scrap for the Lightning in a September 2016 preseason game against the Nashville Predators.

Imama had five fights in 2015-16 and a whopping 15  bouts in the 2014-15 season, according to hockeyfights.com.

The change in Imama’s game is part of a plan to show that the Montreal native, the son of immigrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa, is more than just a pair of fists as he completes his final QMJHL season and embarks on a professional hockey career.

“It started from my summer training, pretty much. I hired a skills coach, working on my offensive side, working on my power skating, working on my hands, working on my release,” the French-Canadian Imama told me recently. “The Saint John coach (Danny Flynn) has given me more responsibilities, putting me on the power play, putting me in different places. I’m doing great going to the net, putting puck on net.”

Lightning officials were impressed with what they saw of Imama offensively at the team’s development camp in Florida June 2016. He led a camp  3-on-3 tournament with 8 goals and tied Sea Dogs teammate Joseph for overall points in the tourney with 10.

Saint John Sea Dogs forward Bokondji Imama is putting the puck in the net more and fighting less, per instructions by the Tampa Bay Lightning (Photo/Saint John Sea Dogs).

Saint John Sea Dogs forward Bokondji Imama is putting the puck in the net more and fighting less, per instructions by the Tampa Bay Lightning (Photo/David Connell/Saint John Sea Dogs).

Still, Tampa Bay cut Imama during September’s training camp and sent him back to Saint John, the largest city in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. But the ‘Bolts organization gave him to-do list for his return to the Q.

“From the first day they released me from camp, it was clear: they don’t want to see me fight,  they don’t want to see me get suspended,” Imama said. “They want to see me on the ice, working on my game, scoring goals obviously, making some good plays, being an effective hockey player for my team.”

By following their prescription,  Imama says this has been his most rewarding season in the QMJHL.

He hopes that it ends with the Sea Dogs – currently in first place in the Q’s Maritimes Division – winning the President’s Cup league championship and later capturing the Memorial Cup as the top Canadian Hockey League team.

But  the 6-foot-1, 217-pound forward has no illusions about what will be expected of him in his pro career, whether it’s with Tampa Bay or its farm teams  in the American Hockey League or the ECHL.

“To be realistic, when I’m going to pro level, I’ll have to come back to myself, to be more of a grinder, more of a fighter,” he told me. “Right now, as a 20-year-old, I have the chance to play a more offensive dimension. So I’m pretty grateful and I’m having a lot of fun. But once I start playing pro, I have to get back to the old me, if I can say that.”

To that end, Imama looks to Philadelphia Flyers right wing Wayne Simmonds and Edmonton Oilers left wing  Milan Lucic  – tough customers who are also elite goal scorers – for inspiration.

“Those kind of players, I love to watch them play,” he said. “They’re big guys, tough players, they bring  size and meanness to their team. But also, the coach will put them in different situations.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tampa Bay draftee Mathieu Joseph to play for Canada at 2017 junior championshp

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

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Congratulations to forward Mathieu Joseph, a 2015 Tampa Bay Lightning fourth-round draft pick, for being selected to play for Team Canada in the 2017 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship.

Team Canada's Mathieu Joseph (Photo/Matthew Murnaghan/Hockey Canada Images).

Team Canada’s Mathieu Joseph (Photo/Matthew Murnaghan/Hockey Canada Images).

Joseph, 19, will represent Canada for the first time at any level internationally when he takes to the ice for the tournament that begins December 26 in Toronto and Montreal.

Canada will open with a tough matinee match against Russia at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre while the United States plays Latvia in an evening contest at the arena.

 Joseph is the second-leading scorer on the Saint John Sea Dogs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League with 25 goals and 20 assists in 29 games. The 120th overall pick in the 2015 National Hockey League Draft has scored 80 goals and 91 assists in 176 QMJHL games since the 2013-14 season.

Mathieu Joseph in action against the Czech Republic in exhibition game play during the 2016 National Junior Team Sport Chek Selection Camp Photo/Matthew Murnaghan/Hockey Canada Images).

Mathieu Joseph in action against the Czech Republic in exhibition game play during the 2016 National Junior Team Sport Chek Selection Camp. Photo/Matthew Murnaghan/Hockey Canada Images).

Joseph got an early Christmas present in December when the Lightning signed him to a three-year entry-level contract on the eve of the IIHF tournament.

Joseph’s game is about high energy and enthusiasm – traits he carries on and off the ice. He’s a gregarious personality, something he inherited from his parents.

“I’m a pretty outgoing guy,” he told  Canada’s TSN. “Honestly, it’s easy for me to talk. My family has been raised like that. My parents are like that, maybe not as hyper per se, but I”d say they raised me like that.”

Joseph isn’t the only one in his family who was recognized this month for his hockey prowess. His younger brother, defenseman Pierre-Olivier Joseph of the QMJHL’s Charlottetown Islanders, was selected to play in the 2017 Sherwin-Williams CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game in Quebec City on January 30, 2017.

Charlottetown Islanders' Pierre-Olivier Joseph.

Charlottetown Islanders’ Pierre-Olivier Joseph.

Pierre-Olivier Joseph has 4 goals and 23 assists in 32 QMJHL games this season. NHL Central Scouting lists him as a player to watch and projects him to be a second or third-round pick at the 2017 draft to be held June 23-24 at Chicago’s United Center.

USA Hockey will announce its final 23-man  U.S. roster   for the IIHF world juniors on Dec. 24. Three players  of color who were also chosen in the 2015 draft are in the hunt for roster spots: Caleb Jones, a defenseman for the Western Hockey League’s Portland Winterhawks and an Edmonton Oilers fourth-round pick; Boston University forward Jordan Greenway, a Minnesota Wild second-round draft choice; and Providence College forward Erik Foley, a Winnipeg Jets third-round pick.