Neutral Zone Headed to Erie for PBHH

After the Ontario Hockey Legaue was officially shutdown and many NHL Draft prospects unable to play infront of scouts this season; a group of players led by Owen Sound’s Andrew Perrot, created a pre-draft league from June 1-13th to provide that opportunity. They put together six teams that will play against eachother over a two-week period including 22 prospects listed on the NHL Central Scouting Final List and 15 NHL Draft prospects for the 2022 NHL Draft.

“I love what these players are doing by creating their own league,” said NZ President Steve Wilk. “This is a first-of-its-kind event and given the challenging circumstances they were up against I give them a ton of credit for pulling this off.” Wilk was so moved by their efforts he booked hotel rooms in Erie, PA before he even knew what the rosters looked like. “It’s a bonus that there are so many talented players lined up for this but we were going to cover it regardless because of the fact it’s by the players and for the players.”

Once the rosters were released NZ NHL Director of Scouting Ian Moran, former longtime NHL defenseman, decided to push back the release of the NZ NHL Draft Final Rankings to give all the players in the league a chance to be seen.

“We were planning on releasing our final list on June 1st but given the efforts these players put forth to put this together and the sheer number of legit NHL Draft prospects attending we feel it’d be premature to post our final list prior to this event,” said Moran. “I think these players have earned that and we are really excited to get eyes on these guys as we haven’t seen them in over a year.”

Typicaly the CHL represents over 1/3 of the NHL Draft player pool and over 1/2 of the first round talent but this season the OHL didn’t play a game, the WHL played less than half a season and the QMJHL played an abbreviated 30-40 games. This creates a difficult scenario for the NHL scouts who spend their year watching draft eligible prospects. With border closures and seasons delayed or cancelled there are a lot of talented players who didn’t have the chance to show what they can do.

“We start scouting players at 14 and 15 years old,” said Moran. “So Neutral Zone is well positioned to handle these unique challenges because we have a lot of history and know how the players have been trending.”

In a draft where prospects aren’t typically called upon for several years after their picked, Moran says its essential to understand how players have progressed over several seasons to make the most accurate draft selections. “When I watch a player I want to know his journey; did he have a stride issue in Bantams that he had to overcome; was he a power play kid who had to learn to block shots and kill penalties at the next level? Did he go into a program and play a role position and then climb his way up the lineup and beome a captain or a top line player?” To Ian that is almost as important as the individual skills the player progresses.

“There are players in the AHL that are more talented than those in the NHL,” said Moran. “It takes more than skill to make it. So we look forwrad to covering the PBHH but i’ll also be looking up their reports from two years ago on where they were ranked headed into their OHL Draft year and what our scouts had to say about them then. Have they improved? Have they corrected some of their deficiencies or do they have the same problems today that they had 2-3 years ago? Having that information available to us is a great advantage and its the reason we see a lot of NHL teams subscribing to our site.”

The rooms are booked, the event schedule and rosters have been posted and NZ is excited to head to Erie, PA and get a last viewing of these prospects before the draft.