The unsurprising quality that led Alex Newhook right to the Avs

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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – The NHL draft is a weird world of its own. Whereas the NBA and NFL drafts feature players who are mostly expected to contribute quickly to their clubs, the NHL is more like the MLB draft in selecting players a few years away. The highest drafted players in the NHL typically reach the NHL in two-three years, whereas the MLB guys take much longer.

Like I said, a world of its own. Trying to get NHL players out of teenagers is incredibly difficult and even tougher on players who get labeled as “raw.” Those guys are also some of the most tantalizing players in the draft as they possess kind of untapped potential teams lust after when they aren’t drafting in the first several selections.

Then there’s a team with both.

The Colorado Avalanche decided they could have their cake and eat it, too, when they selected Bowen Byram fourth and followed it up by using the 16th selection on Alex Newhook. They went “safe” with Byram, the draft’s top defenseman, and then went all-in with Newhook, the third Canadian Junior A player selected by the Avs in the first round since 2016.

Newhook’s speed and skill are obvious as soon as you watch him fly around in a Victoria Grizzlies jersey. In the wake of his destruction of the BCHL was a league MVP after a 102-point season (38g, 64a) in 53 games played. Newhook’s blazing speed and high-end offense carried over to Team Canada in the U-18s as he racked up 10 points (5g, 5a) in just seven games as he played next to fellow first-rounders Peyton Krebs and Dylan Cozens.

“I think my strengths are my quickness and my hockey sense,” Newhook said, echoing every scouting report written about him. “I think I think the game really well and I really use my quickness to create offense that way. I’m a guy that I try to work on my speed in every aspect. That’s the biggest thing, just trying to keep that edge skating-wise. If I can keep that, it’ll help me to continue to be the player I am.”

The skating is top-notch and was an obvious draw to Colorado, who fancies itself as an organization who prioritizes skating as one of the main components of its identity. Watching them fly around and create problems even for a matchup mismatch like San Jose drives home the success they’ve already had in building that identity. In Newhook, they saw an opportunity to say, “More of that, please.”

The path for Newhook has been unconventional as he hails from Newfoundland but found himself drafted on the other coast in Canada right down the road from where he dominated the BCHL. His two years in the BCHL almost never happened as Halifax owned his QMJHL rights and he was tempted by the possibility of playing in the Memorial Cup.

“It was a tough decision,” Newhook said. “With Halifax having the Memorial Cup and then being such a great organization but I was committed to playing with the Grizzlies to do as much as I could to help our team win there and going back and being a captain and being a part of that group was something that meant a lot to me. Great two years there, I’m very happy with my decision.”

That decision allowed him to come back and captain the Grizzlies for one last run with a team he built an unbreakable bond with. That support was reciprocated tonight when they showed up to support him on the biggest day of his life.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” Newhook said. “Having the guys here from Victoria that you shared all those memories with throughout the year and for them to want to be here so badly and to support me I think it means a lot.”

The decision to eschew Halifax also allowed Newhook to maintain his NCAA eligibility and he’s committed to Boston College next season. He will join Matthew Boldy and Spencer Knight, both Americans drafted just before Newhook, at BC as they look to inject some life into the Eagles program.

“It’s just another step in the path,” Newhook said of what comes next. “I think it’s going to be a great spot to develop, a great spot to go in and learn as much as I can and take in every step to becoming a pro.”

Colorado is familiar with this path as they selected BCHL and AJHL stars in 2016 and 2017 and watched both go off to the NCAA. Tyson Jost signed after one year and Cale Makar stayed to annihilate college hockey a second season. Both are now with the Avs and given Jost’s NHL struggles and Makar’s dominance, it seems to make sense to expect Newhook to play at BC for at least two seasons.

“My approach going in is to taking it year by year,” Newhook said. “Just learn as much as I can, be the best I can for that time and when the time is right to become pro and step into pro with the Avs, that’s when it will happen.”

With Newhook apparently not in a hurry, the Avalanche shouldn’t be either. Newhook’s outsized talent is going to take time to refine. He was simply too talented for the league he spent the last two years in. The way he dominated, however, is what attracted Colorado to him early in the season as they were in on him early.

“I think so,” Newhook said when asked if there was an obvious interest from Colorado. “On draft day, anything can happen. Throughout the year, I definitely had a good connection with them. It definitely felt it could be a fit. I’m really happy to be part of the Avalanche family right now.”

The initial contact between scouts and player are a vital part of the relationship building process and outside of talent, nothing gets players drafted quite like relationships. This was a connection Newhook felt early on and is glad paid off in the end.

“I feel like the first time I talked to the scouts in the organization, it felt like a team that was interested,” he said. “It felt like a team that had a really good connection. It’s definitely nice to have that and be part of a team out of that connection.”

With his megawatt smile and infectious enthusiasm, it’s not hard to envision Alex Newhook creating a connection with Avalanche fans in Denver. How fast he gets there is to be determined but given how the speed with which he does everything else, Avalanche fans can expect it to be sooner than later that he dons the Avalanche ‘A’.

It all comes back to speed. Of course it does.