The Detroit News posted its latest “Octopulse” podcast, and therein, Sportsnet’s prospect guru, Jason Bukala, discusses several Red Wings prospects who were drafted during Bukala’s time with the Nashville Predators and Florida Panthers:
Bukala was a scout with the Nashville Predators for five years, an assistant director of scouting for five years with the Florida Panthers and the director of scouting for the Panthers for four years. He’s now the founder of Pro Hockey Group, which focuses on player evaluations.
So:
On the Red Wings taking defenseman Moritz Seider with the sixth overall pick in the first round in 2019 instead of high-scoring forwards Dylan Cozens, Trevor Zegras and Matt Boldy.
“That was fascinating when Steve (Yzerman) stepped to the podium to select Moritz,” Bukala said. “We in Florida had tracked him very vigorously as an underage. We tracked him through the B pool with Germany being a B-pool team at the U18 level and the world junior level back then when Seider and (Tim) Stutzle were coming through. They had some really good players who were sort of elevating the program in Germany.
“We had him (Seider) eighth on our list. We weren’t surprised he went as high as he did. We really valued him for a couple of reasons. Obviously, a big, strong right-shot defenseman. He was a leader with his club team every step of the way. He punched above his weight in terms of being way more mature than his age, his birth certificate. He played with the older guys and never looked out of place.
“On top of that, he’s got a ton of character. His personality stood out in the interview. You could tell this guy wasn’t not going to be easily distracted. He’s also got some growl in his game and he can be a little bit borderline dirty sometimes. It’s never a straight line of development, especially for defensemen. We thought he would be close to a complete player and do a lot of different things for our team.”
Continued; here’s the podcast:
