Looking ahead to the 2020 NHL Entry Draft on Friday June 26th in Montreal, Canada; which will be held in the Bell Centre (home of the Flyers-rivals the Canadiens). This is where people will get to see just who will get to hold up that Orange and Black Sweater, and get his chance to be the next big thing in Philadelphia sports history. One guy that I hope to see do this is Canadian-born Dawson Mercer.
Mercer currently plays in the QMJHL for the Drummondville Voltigeurs. Here, he has been often left to develop a large amount of his team’s offense. Beings that the Voltigeurs are not as stocked with talent like they were last year, he plays Wing at the present time, but has played some Center in the past. It is in this position to where it might be more beneficial for Dawson to transfer once drafted, since it is in this position that he possesses all the qualities that one needs to be successful in the NHL.
For Drummondville this year, Mercer finds himself playing on the Power Play, where he pairs his blistering quick release with an extremely accurate shot, which he often times uses to rip insane wrist shots from the Faceoff dots (much like a guy Flyers fans might remember Vincent Lecavalier doing for the Flyers, and against the team for many years). Dawson plays on the penalty killing unit as well, where his determination to regain control of the puck drives him to chase the opposing team all over the ice; Never giving them a chance to catch their breath or time to set up an outlet pass, and commonly forcing turn-overs for his team to go back on the attack.
Another trait that Dawson has is his profound vision of the ice. He seems to know where his players are at all times, which leads to Mercer dishing out the most sublime no-look passes, and setting up his line-mates for excellent scoring chances. Furthermore, Dawson also possesses a profound stick-handling ability which is unmatched by anyone else in this year’s draft class! Mercer weaves through opposing teams with ease- seeming to rhythmically hypnotize them, leaving the opposite team in a trance-like state and them being unable to do anything but watch him work. If you watch tape on Mercer, you will see a hint of Pavel Datsyuk. Mercer time- and time-again draws in two, three, and even four guys onto him as he dominates board battles. Once he has them in his trap, Dawson devilishly breaks their ankles while stick-handling through all of them to set up wide-open teammates in front of the net.
This year for the Voltigeurs, Mercer has 18 goals, and 24 assists for 42 points in just 26 games played. That’s a 1.61 points-per-game average. Currently playing for Team Canada in the World Junior Championship in the Czech Republic, Dawson has been held pointless in five games played. Not to worry though, Mercer is not getting the kind of minutes he is used to averaging, at barely 10 minutes a game and about half the shifts of most guys on the team. It goes without saying he is just buried on the very talented depth chart. Dawson and Team Canada are set to take on Team Russia in the Gold Medal game.
Early mock draft projections are showing the talented Mercer being taken 20th overall. A spot close to where the Philadelphia Flyers might be drafting. With any hope, this dynamic Wingers name will be called by Chuck Fletcher, and be brought into the fold where he will most certainly leave people astonished and wondering just how he did that for years to come.
Photo Credit: QMJHL.Ca
Lance, I would like to commend you for believing the Flyers still will draft great young 18 year olds, but those days ended when Paul Holmgren fired Ron Hextall and brought in Charles Fletcher as the new GM. Fletcher is not a very good judge of draft eligible talent and never has been either at Minnesota, or New Jersey. Last year, Fletcher showed us he had not done his homework by wasting the Flyers first round pick on a very small and thin defenseman, Cam York. York will never play in the NHL, he’s just too tiny to play against big strong NHL forwards. To make matters worse, Fletcher used a s Econ’s round pick on 5’6” Bobby Brink, another tiny player. Brink is a hustler, but as we have seen in the U-20 World Junior Championsips, just not able to handle bigger players along the boards, in the corners, or around the net. Knowing what we do about Chuck Fletcher, he will trade high draft picks away because he can’t judge young talent. Ron Hextall did understand the value of the draft and was on the verge of building a young dynamic team before getting canned by Holmgren. I find it ironic that Holmgren replaced Hextall with a GM exactly like Holmgren himself. As we know, Paul Holmgren was not good drafting prospects either. Signing bid dollar free agents was Homer’s MO, so here we go again.
My guess would be clark made the call
We sadly are playing so badly on the road, that is time to get look at the players in next summers draft! We should also try to trade Ghost to Montreal for another first rounder in next summer! We badly lack skilled power-forward in our organisation, like Khatchuk brothers, so if we are drafting in the low end of first round, we should scout mean but skilled power-forwards to our system! Although right shooting defender with great skill and good size would also be great to have! And because we sadly lack Oskar Lindblom, left wingers should be priority, but just take the best player! I wonder how Isaac Ratcliffe are playing in the Phantoms, cause in him we should have skilled power-forward! I do not think our GM Chucky is any good at drafting, because only pick which was good was Mason Millman in the fifth round, because Chucky finally listened Flyers scouts in picking that one! We also traded up in the second round to get Bobby Brink, but i would have much rather taken Nils Höglander instead of Brink! Even our first round pick Cam York is a question mark, because even USA”s coach did not trust him in worlds juniors! The pick i am hoping that will succeed, is our firth rounder Ronnie Attard, who is labelled boom or bust pick, but i am hoping he becomes our version of Colton Parayko! Of course i really hope that i am wrong about Chucky”s drafting skills, but it is looking bad, although it”s too early to say!
What happened to my comment?
Greg,
Sorry about that. I fell asleep last night to stay up for the game. Really sorry. It’s been posted
Thank you guys for your thoughts, and I appreciate the read. Let’s hope Chuck reads these articles and drafts some decent draft picks.
Our draft-picks last summer were all pretty small sized players apart from Ronnie Attard(apart goaltender Roddy Ross and Mason Millman, which were picks he listened Flyers scouts!), and if we draft small players, they must have be overly good superstar-potential, which i strongly disagree have been the case in our draft-picks from last summer, starting from first round! I have start to think we should use different scouting staff next summer, starting with Chucky, because Flyers still standing scouting staff from Hextall era can draft much better then Chucky”s trusted guys, which he have been bringing with him!