Tuesday, July 28, 2015

30 Teams in 30 Days - Minnesota Wild

The Wild have a couple of late round picks playing in the OHL right now.

1. Gustav Bouramman - Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds
Fantastic first season in North America for Bouramman, who managed to be a consistent contributor for the competitive Hounds. Once the team acquired Anthony DeAngelo and Connor Boland, his ice time was slashed pretty significantly but his play never dropped. Bouramman's standout strength is his ability to start the rush. He's got great vision up ice, and makes very good decisions with the puck in his own end. His smooth stride and excellent mobility makes him a hard player to forecheck effectively, and the majority of his assists this year came from making good first passes. Defensively, the effort level is unquestionably there, but he needs to get stronger to be an effective defensive player. Strength will also help his point shot gain velocity, which would make him more of a weapon on the power play. Overall, he's just a very smart player who I think gets better. Next year, the Hounds hope to continue to be competitive on the back of young, improving players like Bouramman. He'll have a chance to play on their first pairing next year and will definitely be running their top power play unit. I'd expect him to at least match his offensive output from this past season, perhaps even cracking the 50 point barrier (goals increase).

2. Pavel Jenys - Sudbury Wolves
The Sudbury Wolves were awful this year. No bones about it. But Jenys did lead the Sudbury in scoring, which has to be considered an accomplishment following his first season in North America. His 45 points paced the Wolves and Jenys looked quite comfortable on the ice. He's a real honest player. Not necessarily the most skilled, but I liked how he worked off the rush, and off the wall, and showed a penchant for creating scoring chances with some pretty decent first few steps. He's certainly not shy about throwing his weight around either and can be active on the forecheck. That said, he was prone to being invisible too. He needs to play with a higher intensity level every shift. Coming into the season, the scouting reports I got praised him as a shoot first kind of guy, but that wasn't necessarily something I saw in Sudbury. Would love to see him shoot more. Sudbury's rebuild will continue next year, although they will most definitely be better than they were in 2014/2015. Jenys will be at the heart of that as a returning player. With a talented playmaker like Sokolov entering the fold, as well David Levin, Jenys should have some help. I'd love to see him around 25 goals and 35 assists next year.

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