One of the most bizarre draft decisions ever. I mean the guy even said he hoped to become a 6th defenceman. Stunning.
You mean a player understanding his skill set, role and worth to a team via an honest self assessment, after gaining insight from coaches and experts, then expressing it, is stunning to you?! For me, it is no more stunning that Danny DeVito saying he wasn't right for the Tom Cruise role in Top Gun.
I could post in scouting report after scouting report on the guy and they all say the same thing. I'll stick with NTDP, his role there and his role in the USHL.
“The best word I can use to describe Brady is tough,” NTDP head coach Dan Muse told The Rink Live. “He’s a crazy tough kid and if you’re ever on the ice when he is, you have to keep your head up. Whether you’ve played against him before or it’s your first shift, you find out pretty quickly who he is because he doesn’t shy away from that physical element.
“You just don’t see many kids play like he does in today’s game and when you do have someone like Brady, it impacts the entire lineup. But I think the other big thing with Brady is his play in his own end. He’s got a great stick, he kills plays, he can skate and I thought he did a really good job moving pucks up for us. Plus he was someone we trusted a lot on the penalty kill. So with all of those and his physical element, he can add a dynamic that not every team has.”
“I’ve coached against Brady for a while now and he knows his identity and plays it well,” said one opposing USHL coach. “I think his overall game has come a long way but he’s one of the better tough, stay-at-home defensemen we saw this season and he’s extremely hard to play against. I think his skill has gotten better too, but he’s a force on the back end and that’s the type of guy teams love to have back there.”
“He’s just an old-school defenseman and he’s somebody you don’t want to mess with,” added another USHL coach. “He’s really good at killing plays in the corner. He’s a good north-south skater for a big man. And he’s not afraid to block shots.”
“The physicality is his calling card and he’s done a good job with it,” said one NHL scout. “He’s a big kid, really tall, and I just remember when they first brought him up last year to the U18s he just hit everything that moved. Everybody knew he wasn’t ever going to pass up a check and I think he started off that way this year too, but he really started to evolve his game and play a more calculated role as the season went along.
“He still plays with that edge and physical style, which has gotten him to this point. But I think you saw him picking his spots more and playing a better two-way defensive game which is only going to help him going forward.”
thehockeywriters.com
