Sunday, June 06, 2010

Calvin Pickard / G / Seattle WHL

Calvin Pickard / Seattle Thunderbirds WHL

G-L / 6-0.5, 195 / 15-Apr-92

Quickness: 55 / Glove: 60 / Reads: 55 / Technique: 65 / Poise: 70

Strengths: Excellent mental approach and consistency. Technically advanced game. Handles the puck well.

Weaknesses: Might be slightly lacking overall quickness. Makes occasional wrong read. Average size.

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Plays with great poise and confidence. Aggressive and comes way out to challenge shooters. Excellent at waiting for shooters to make the first move. Much, much less scrambly than he was in his rookie season.

Has a quick glove, but does not always catch the puck cleanly. Decent leg quickness - his overall quickness might be a bit underrated since his positioning is so good. Very good on rebound control with the pads. Gets post to post pretty well.

Very consistent and always played his best despite playing a ton of minutes and seeing a ton of shots. On some rare occasions did not read plays correctly, but that's probably inevitable with the chaos that was the Thunderbirds defensive corps in front of him.

Summary: I might be slightly overrating this guy because of the dearth of decent goaltending prospects in the west for the last few years. Slightly better prospect than his brother was at the same age, but Chet had better size. But he seems like a safe bet to become at least a solid #2 for most teams.

Draft Day: I'd guess he'll go in the 2nd half of the 1st round. A slide to 30-40 range isn't unthinkable, but would surprise me a bit.

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