Vancouver Giants winger Mathis Preston is having a sizzling Under-18 world championships in Slovakia, and it is easy to think he is helping his chances of being picked in the second half of the first round of June’s NHL Draft.
That would put him in contention to be a Vancouver Canucks selection. The Canucks have the Minnesota Wild’s first-rounder from the Quinn Hughes trade, and Minnesota had the league’s seventh-best regular season record. The Wild and Dallas Stars were knotted at 2-2 in their best-of-seven first round going into Game 5 on Tuesday night.
The Canucks have two first-round choices. Vancouver’s own pick will be in the top three, dependent on how the draft lottery plays out.
Canada (3-1-0) faces Sweden (2-2-0) in an Under-18 quarterfinal on Wednesday morning (5 a.m. Pacific) in Trencin, Slovakia. Preston has two goals and five points in the tournament to date, which is tied for third in scoring for Canada. Giants teammate Ryan Lin sits second on the team, as the defenceman has six points, including one goal. Lin is projected to go somewhere in the middle of the first round.
Preston, 17, has shown high-end offensive abilities. He is quick and creative. He gets rid of the puck in flash and has been capable of beating netminders cleanly, even when they are set.
Coming off their last-place season, the Canucks clearly have various needs. That includes pure goal-scoring types. Jonathan Lekkerimaki, 21, is the most obvious one in the system with that billing right now, but in February he underwent season-ending shoulder surgery, which is exactly what you do not want to hear regarding someone whose shot is his carrying tool.
Preston, a Penticton native, had first-round buzz coming into the campaign, but he put up pedestrian numbers (14 goals, 32 points in 36 games) with the Spokane Chiefs, considering his flashy skill set, and was dealt to the Giants just ahead of the January trade deadline. First-round picks rarely get moved in their draft year.
Preston followed that up by scoring a highlight-reel overtime goal in Vancouver’s 4-3 triumph over the Tri-City Americans in his first game as a Giant on Jan. 9, but he took a knee-on-knee hit versus the Wenatchee Wild in the first period the following night and was sidelined for eight weeks. He finished up the campaign with 18 goals and 44 points in 46 games.
He is ordinary size by NHL standards, listed at 5-foot-11 and 177 pounds. There were only four players under 180 pounds drafted in the first round last year. There are pundits who have stayed with him as a first-rounder. Elite Prospects, for instance, has him at No. 26 in its most recent rankings. Others have stepped back, including Craig Button of TSN, who slots Preston at No. 57 in his latest look at how the draft could play out.
Last month, Preston downplayed the idea of worrying about how early he might hear his name called at the draft.
“For me, I just want to go to a team where I can make my mark early. I don’t really care about the number,” Preston told Postmedia. “I want to go to an organization where I can come in and play my game.”
“Obviously, as a competitor, you want to go as high as possible. But in every draft there is someone who goes 30th and is playing in the NHL and someone who goes fifth and is nowhere to be found. I don’t think it really matters.”
“Some guys get caught up in it. I try not to think about it. … I think you also can forget why you play the game in the first place. You are playing because you love playing and not because of some draft ranking.”
Preston and Lin are close friends, and Giants brass talked openly about how they wanted to pair them up and have them lead the team next season. Lin changed all that when he announced earlier this month that he was leaving the Giants to play for the University of Denver come the fall.
Preston is represented by The Sports Corporation, the Edmonton-based player agents firm led by Gerry Johannson and former Giants general manager Scott Bonner. The Sports Corporation has long-standing ties to former Giants coach Michael Dyck, and, with rumours that Dyck will take over the Giants’ vacant general manager and bench boss spots next season, that would seem to up the chances that Preston will be back in Vancouver colours rather than going the NCAA route.
Dyck is currently in his third season as an assistant coach with the Toronto Marlies, the AHL farm team of the Toronto Maple Leafs. With the Maple Leafs firing general manager Brad Treliving, sweeping changes are expected in the Maple Leafs system. The Marlies open the best-of-five North Division semifinals against the Laval Titan on Wednesday.
