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Antoine Mathieu Rabid Habs

Published on Tuesday, June 21, 2016

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With The Ninth Pick: Logan Brown

LOGAN BROWN
CENTER
6’6.25’’ & 220 LBS
LEFT HANDED
WINDSOR SPITFIRES, OHL
59 GP, 21 GOALS AND 53 ASSISTS
FINAL RANKING ON NHL CENTRAL SCOUTING – 7 (NORTH AMERICAN SKATERS)
PLAYER COMPARISON: MATS SUNDIN

PLAYER PROFILE

Logan Brown probably offers the most potential of any player outside of the consensus top five (Matthews, Laine, Puljujarvi, Dubois and Tkachuk). His combination of soft hands, top notch skating, lethal shot, and outstanding passing – all in a six-foot-six frame – will make any scout drool.

Despite having had a relatively solid rookie season with 43 points in 56 GP, the son of former NHLer Jeff Brown didn’t get much hype until his game really started clicking after Christmas. That’s when you started seeing his name climb up the rankings on scouts’ lists. He finished with 38 points in the final 24 games of the season and concluded the year in fantastic fashion, with a brilliant showing at the U18 tournament with 12 points in 7 GP. This offensive outburst can be attributed to one big change in his game; he started attacking the middle of the ice a lot more consistently, and when he does, he’s nearly unstoppable with his combination of skills and size.

Brown is probably a year away from being NHL-ready. I think another season with the Spitfires, where he can continue where he left off offensively and work on the little things to make him a more complete player, would be ideal for him. Also, Windsor will be hosting the Memorial Cup next year , so it will be interesting to see how Brown does against the top teams of the CHL.

PROS

• EXCELLENT SKATING ABILITY FOR A PLAYER OF HIS SIZE
Unlike the majority of very tall players (over six-foot-four), Brown is an excellent skater. For that reason, I think it’s likely he’ll be an NHL player in some capacity. Although there has been a recent trend online where people start favoring smaller players over bigger players with the dominance of players like Gaudreau & Kane, I believe Brown is simply too good for fans to keep following the new movement towards smaller skilled forwards.

• MOST TALENTED FORWARD WITH SIZE AT OUR RANGE
Considering the Canadiens’ current prospect pool, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to add a behemoth like Brown to the organization. Realistically speaking, you simply cannot have all of our small prospects (Artturi Lehkonen, Charles Hudon, Martin Reway and Sven Andrighetto) playing a role on the team. That’s without even taking in consideration Brendan Gallagher, who’s clearly here to stay. Size doesn’t trump talent, but at the end of the day you can’t have a top nine consisting of players all under six feet tall; it just doesn’t work. I have a hard time imagining a team filled with Patrick Kanes, Johnny Gaudreaus and Mats Zuccarellos getting through four grueling playoff series.

As of today, the team has TWO prospects with size that could become top six forwards, and they both have question marks. The first is Nikita Scherbak, who had an up-and-down season with the IceCaps. He dealt with some nagging injuries that obviously hurt his game and it took him some time to get used to a new league, but finished the season on a high note with 15 points in 22 GP. The other is Michael McCarron, who at the same age as Logan Brown was a much bigger project and considered an inferior prospect. I’m still high on the Canadiens’ 2013 first round selection, but I wouldn’t bank on him being a top six forward. Adding a player of Brown’s profile could go a long way in making the team’s prospect pool much more intriguing, as well as bigger and harder to play against long term.

• BEST SECOND HALF OF ANY PROSPECT (OHL & U18)
As pointed out in Brown’s player profile, after a decent start in which he had 36 points in 35 GP, he exploded offensively down the stretch with 38 points in 24 GP. He also put up six points in five playoffs games and was arguably the Spitfires’ best player in the first round versus the Kitchener Rangers. After getting cut from Canada’s camp last summer, he bounced back brilliantly this year and not only made the team, but was also one of the tournament’s top players with 12 points in 7 GP, playinga huge role in Team USA taking home bronze. This remarkable second half for Brown shows how high his upside is and the potential production that could come out of the tools he possesses.

CONS

• DOESN’T USE HIS SIZE AS MUCH AS SOME WOULD LIKE HIM TO
Logan Brown “suffers” from Joe Colborne-itis. Definition: a player with a big frame who doesn’t use it to dish out hits and punish his opponents.

He prefers using his size to shield the puck and slow the play down. It’s not necessarily a flaw in Brown’s game, since many top six forwards with size are guilty of this(Joe Thornton, Jeff Carter, Eric Staal, etc). Not every player has to be Milan Lucic or Dustin Byfuglien, a mean streak and aggressiveness is one of the few things in a player you can’t develop over time, you either have it or you don’t. It might drive some coaching staffs or fans mad that Brown won’t finish his checks or be a wrecking force every night, but the team that drafts him can’t try to mold him into a player he’s not. They’ll have to accept him for the player he is and let him play his game. If the Canadiens draft him, they can’t repeat the same mistake they made with Guillaume Latendresse when they tried to transform him inro a player he wasn’t.

• PROBLEMS WITH CONSISTENCY
Like most players his age, Brown has some problems with consistency. On some nights he can look like a monster and be a threat every time he steps on the ice, on other nights he can be pretty invisible. His lack of consistency from game-to-game was perfectly displayed by the fact that during his hot stretch he had multi-point games in half of those 24 games. If Brown can learn to bring the same intensity and effort every night then watch out.

• CONCERNS ABOUT HIS CONDITIONING
Similarly to McCarron, Brown has some issues with his conditioning, which is perfectly understandable when you consider how huge he is and the speed he moves with on the ice. You  often notice that he is out of gas near the end of his shifts. It can be a result of his cardio not being up to par, or that he’s not using his energy wisely (kind of like an MMA fighter who goes all out in the first round of a five round fight). Sometimes less is more.

• DEFENSIVE GAME NEEDS SOME WORK
Brown has a tendency to watch the play when he doesn’t have the puck. He could learn to exploit his long reach to cover passing lanes or to take away the puck from his opponent on a more regular basis. He could also exploit his frame more prominently to cover his man or to win his battles down low.

• WILL NEED TO START SHOOTING MORE
He has a great shot and he should start being confident in his shooting abilities, because if he is he’ll be even more unpredictable at the next level. The best play makers (Nicklas Backstrom, Ryan Getzlaf, Claude Giroux) have a lethal shot that they can rely on if the other team gives them too much space or focuses too heavily on his teammates.

VERDICT
Brown is far from a perfect player, but when you’re picking ninth overall, you’re going to get a player with some flaws. That being said, I think all of Brown’s flaws are things that are easy to work on. None of them have to do with something he can’t work on, such as lack of size or hockey sense. Many notable sources are reporting that Brown won’t likely last until our pick, but if does, I’ll be ecstatic if the team chooses him. A center group consisting of Galchenyuk, Brown and McCarron sounds amazing.


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