When the team with the best record in the league pushes all its chips in on a mid-season deal, it has to be the news of the week. Exactly how the Erie Otters’ acquisition of Brendan Gaunce works out will have a lot to do with the way the OHL shakes out.
Gaunce, a Vancouver first-rounder in 2012, went along with a fifth-round draft pick from last-place Belleville to Erie for winger Stephen Harper and a load of futures (Ottawa’s second-round pick in 2014, London’s second-round pick in 2016, Kingston’s third-round pick in 2015 and Erie’s third-rounder in 2016).
NHL scouts I spoke to this week thought the Otters overpaid for a short-term rental. As one scout said: “They always do.”
Scouts were left puzzling over Gaunce’s fit with the roster, though. Partisans in Vancouver had hopes that Gaunce might push for a third- or fourth-line centre spot with the Canucks back in training camp. Would the Otters clear out the cupboard to acquire a rental who would be a third-line centre? It looks like that’s what they’re doing. The two centre slots in Erie are well occupied. Wunderkind Connor McDavid’s story is well-known at this point and Dane Fox is leading the OHL in goal scoring with 25 goals in 25 games.
So a guy who was projected (over optimistically) as a third-line centre with an NHL contender winds up as a third-line centre for the team previously known as the OHL’s perennial doormat. What gives?
Said a scout based in Eastern Ontario: “I’ve seen him five times so far this season and he hasn’t been playing very well for the Bulls. He showed nothing in the Subway (Super) Series game. I liked him a little more in his draft year but that was projecting some improvement in strength and his skating. His skating hasn’t improved at all the last two seasons and it gets exposed at centre — even at this level.
The same scout could only guess at the Otters intent: “I think they’ll move Gaunce to left wing. That would be a decent place for him. I don’t think the kid would be happy playing behind (McDavid and Fox) as a third-line centre. And I don’t think (Erie’s first-rounder last June) Dylan Strome would be very happy with someone cutting into his time at centre. It wouldn’t be good for his development either, not what the team would want.
“I think they’ll be moving Gaunce to left wing and he can be insurance in case something happens with injury to those other three. I don’t mind (Gaunce) that much on the wing but that doesn’t really seem to be much of a need for Erie the way they’re going right now. It wasn’t the trade that I thought they’d make. I thought the Otters would be looking at their blueline. Then again, so will London and everyone else.”
Of those on the radar for the world junior team, the one player who might have helped his stock most in the Subway Super Series, at least in the OHL games, was probably London LW Josh Anderson, a Columbus fourth-round in 2012. Anderson rocked a couple of Russian defencemen on the forecheck and generally made an impression every shift. NHL scouts thought he was one of the few who showed up ready for the game in Oshawa and probably the best on his team in that game.
“He would give them size (six-foot-two, 193 lbs.) and toughness up front that they haven’t always had and that they missed,” one scout said. “He competes hard every time I’ve seen him. He’d be an ideal third-line guy for them. He’s not a scorer (23 goals in 68 games last year, just one in 19 playoff tilts) but he wouldn’t have to change his game a lot to fit into a role with (Canada at the under-20s).”