He’s a big, smart, skilled player. He’s fast, straight ahead, but needs to work on his agility and mobility a little bit. He’s a really smart player. He sees the ice and has the skill to make plays and score goals.

Brent Gates, Jr. is a different situation. We really liked him at the USHL Fall Classic last September, and we were early getting lots of games seen on him throughout the fall. In early January or late December, he broke his leg near the ankle. It was a significant injury, and he had to have surgery. It was a tricky surgery, but we felt really confident at that time with what he was as a player. He had 27 points in 33 games at that point, and he’s a strong two-way player with offensive upside. He’s got good hockey sense and good skill. We did our homework. The injury has healed and he’s cleared to skate. He skated for the first time since January. Everything is going well, and we’re really happy to have landed him in the third round.

Deven Sideroff is a kid who both [Amateur Scout] Glen Cochrane and [Head Scout] Jeff Crisp really liked out of Kamloops. At this point, he’s still physically immature, but he’s continuing to grow. He’s almost at six feet. His progression throughout the season was steady and impressive, both in terms of performance and production. He had a good Under-18 with Team Canada in April. That cemented our view of him as a future offensive player at the pro level. He’s got some ways to go in terms of physical strength, but we’ll take our time with him. He’s a great kid - a hard-working kid. In time, he’ll be able to add the mass and strength he needs.

Troy Terry is another kid who progressed throughout the season and continued to grow. He came into the U.S. National Development Program as a 17-year-old, but he wasn’t there last year as a 16-year-old. That’s a tight-knit group. Those kids spend two years together, and that first year is huge. It’s the first time leaving home, and they all get together and go through that experience as a group. Troy had to come in and fit in as an outsider and earn the trust of his teammates and his coach. As the season progressed, his responsibilities increased and he continued to grow physically, as well. He’s a smart, skilled offensive centerman who is also a really good penalty killer. He was the first penalty killer they used. He’s a really smart kid. We were sweating a little bit for those 60 picks between our third-round pick and his pick. We actually tried to move up a number of times, but it turned out we didn’t need to. We weren’t able to, and we didn’t need to. We’re happy.

Steven Ruggiero is a big, strong and athletic defensive defenseman. We don’t have many guys like him in our system. Even though we were looking away from defensemen after taking Larsson yesterday, we couldn’t pass Ruggiero up. No forward in our mind compared to him at that point in the draft, so he brings something different to our prospect pool.

As for Garrett Metcalf, we were going to take a goalie in the sixth round regardless. We had a number of guys targeted, but he was the one we felt most comfortable with. We think he’s going to be able to grow at UMass-Lowell under good coaching.