Colorado Avalanche Draft Profile: Clayton Keller
By Will Radke
The Colorado Avalanche hold the tenth pick in the rapidly approaching NHL draft. With only about a week left, let’s take a look at possible Avs pick Clayton Keller.
I’ve watched a lot of prospect videos this year, half the reason I do more of these draft profiles is because I genuinely enjoy watching young prospects make other prospects look silly. Plus, then I can lie and say I’m a scout at the bar and one day it will impress some poor, naive girl.
Anyway, I bring this all up because even though I wrote the Patrik Laine and Jesse Puljujärvi and Max Jones profiles, Clayton Keller had by far the most impressive highlight reel.
Now Keller was only playing against other young adults while Laine and Puljujärvi were playing in professional leagues already (and Max Jones nearly killed a guy). Now Max Jones is supposed to fall below the Colorado Avalanche’s #10 pick anyway, but the first two (one of which name I hate to spell) so the Finnish guys, are supposed to go two and three. The fact that Keller’s profile was so impressive makes me actually hope the Avs might take him. In the right circumstances.
The Stats
Position: Center
Shoots: Left
Height: 5’10″
Weight: 163 pounds
Age: 17
Minor Team: USA U18 Development Team
NHL Player Most Like: Johnny Gaudreau
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I’ll start with some honesty — it’s hard to compare the stats of USA developmental teams because they play schedules I don’t understand against varied competition and have age cut offs at weird spots most other leagues don’t. They play college teams and some junior teams and some international teams and some tournaments, etc, etc. They play a lot of random games.
But, you can obviously see by looking at his stats that Keller puts up a ton of points. Regardless of what league you’re in, 107 points in 62 games is phenomenal. And while current draft predictions have him going between 7 and 12th overall, I’ve seen some websites calling for him to go 4th overall.
Obviously he is small, but that’s becoming less impactful in the league for skaters (while the reverse trend is true for goaltenders). And while he’s not going to be laying out hits like Max Jones, his creativity and play-making is phenomenal.
Movie Time!
First of all I love how that video tells me what Keller is doing in each clip. It saves me a lot of time of rewatching replays to know which guy I’m supposed to be looking at — I’d pay 3 dollars for that to be on all highlight videos.
Anyway, I would encourage watching until at least halfway through that video, because while some of his goal scoring abilities are on display early on, it’s later in the video you can see his all around offensive game. And he seems to have it all, by far the most creative player I’ve profiled. Keller isn’t going to out-muscle anyone so he uses his imagination to get the job done.
I know it may seem like I’m pumping this guy’s tires, but the level of awareness I see out of Keller far exceeds any of the other prospects. Sure raw talent is better then creativity at a certain point, but the two certainly complement each other.
Next: Jesse Puljujarvi Draft Profile
Conclusion
It’s not a guarantee that Keller will be available when the Colorado Avalanche pick at the NHL draft, but this is the one forward who they have a reasonable shot at that I would be ok with them taking. Even though he would be another offensive forward that the Avs don’t really need, I think this kid has true potential (no one screen shot this in case I’m wrong). Unless there’s a must-grab on the table when the Avs pick, I’d be pretty happy with Clayton Keller as an Av.