Red Wings draft Jared McIsaac 36th overall

The Detroit Red Wings have drafted Jared McIsaac 36th overall.

From Future Considerations:

Selected by the Halifax Mooseheads with the second pick of the 2016 QMJHL entry draft, Jared McIsaac did not have far to go to join his junior team, as his hometown of Truro, Nova Scotia is only around one hour north of Halifax.

Reportedly, his parents also moved to the bigger city, allowing him to combine the high level competition of the QMJHL with the comforts of a home cooked meal. In any case, McIsaac has more than earned his distinction as a likely first round pick in the NHL draft thanks to his possession of above average tools across the scouting board.

The positivity starts in his feet, as he is a fantastic skater, whether going forward or in reverse. This trait allows him to lead offensive rushes with the command of a skilled forward as easily as he shuts down rushes against him by steering forwards into a dead end. Moving on to his arms, McIsaac has an accurate, reliable shot, if not the hardest in the draft class, that he can use to pick out a weakness in the opposing goaltender’s game. The shot works from the blueline, and is outright dangerous when he steps into the circles to fire a wrist shot on net. When not shooting, he is an impressive puck distributor from the point. He consistently hits tape when passing from the rush and can start a rush with a clean breakout pass from deeper in his own zone. He is not one to try to skate through five layers of defense with the puck, but he can stickhandle his way out of a jam if need be and has a few tricks up his sleeve that he can pull out. Moving out to look at his overall body, essentially how he uses it for physical impact, McIsaac is not an especially aggressive hitter, but has more than enough strength to handle himself along the boards and in puck battles. If he can gain 5-10 pounds of muscle without sacrificing speed, his physical game could end up as very impactful. Finishing off our look at McIsaac with his head, we see a young defender who keeps things flowing on both sides of the puck. He has a high panic threshold, reads opposing forwards as well as he reads opposing defenses when he is quarterbacking the offense from the blueline and generally plays a composed, poised game, whether or not he has the puck. Although he is no longer seen as the top defenseman from the QMJHL in the draft, that is through no fault of his own as he has met expectations in his draft year and still projects as a solid #3/4 defenseman at the highest level.

Here’s NHL.com on McIsaac:

• McIsaac led Halifax defensemen in goals, assists and points with 9-38—47 in the 2017-18 regular season (65 GP) and added 0-4—4 in nine postseason contests with the Mooseheads.• He was named to the QMJHL All-Rookie Team in 2016-17 after posting 4-28—32 in 59 games and earned the Raymond Lagace Trophy that season as the QMJHL Defensive Rookie of the Year. He became the the third player in franchise history to receive the honor (since 1980-81), joining goaltenders Aleksei Volkov (1998-99) and Zachary Fucale (2011-12).

• Internationally, McIsaac represented Canada at the 2018 Under-18 World Championship (1-2—3 in 5 GP) and in their gold-medal entry at the 2017 Ivan Hlinka Memorial (1-2—3 in 5 GP).

• His uncle is NHL referee Jon McIsaac.

• Models his style of play after Kings defenseman Drew Doughty.

 

 

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George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, and have worked with MLive and Kukla's Korner. Thank you for reading!