Red Wings 2024 draft pick Ondrej Becher missed the Red Wings’ Prospect Games with an ankle injury, and Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff explains why that’s important in a subscriber-only article.
Put bluntly (so I don’t swipe the whole article), Becher is 20 years old, and he played for the Prince George Cougars last season through his 20th birthday in February.
Once you turn 20, you’re considered an “overager,” and teams are only allowed to carry 3 players who are at or over 20 years of age, so it is completely uncertain as to whether Becher will play for Prince George again, whether he’ll be traded to another WHL team, or whether he’ll end up with the Toledo Walleye or even the Grand Rapids Griffins:
The optics of seeing a high draftee back for an overager junior season are not good. Secondly, Becher is coming off a 32-goal, 96-point campaign with the WHL Cougars. Would it be serving his development curve wisely to give him a third year of junior hockey against younger competition?
No, he needs to play pro. But where?
“It’s a great question,” Cleary frankly admitted. “Honestly, this certainly is not ideal. You know, the whole idea was, I guess, for him to come in and experience prospects, get into training camp.”
Before assigning the 6-foot-1, 1984-pound center a place to play, they’re going to need to see Becher play against other pros. Beyond that, they’ve also got to get his name on a contract.
So the Red Wings need Becher to get healthy, and they need to get him in some preseason games to determine whether they send him back to the WHL, whether they ink him to a pro deal and send him to Toledo, or whether he’s ready for Grand Rapids.
At his weight, I guess he might have ankle problems…lol