Jason Bukala

He had a hell of a year in Sault Ste.

Marie.

But you have to incubate all that information, and then you have to be realistic about it.

So where I'm going with this is – and I had some heated debates overseas recently in Slovakia, and some of the debate revolved around this –

They were expecting some people, for Keaton Verhoff, for example, to run the first unit power play.

Well, Team Canada didn't bring him over there to do that.

That was Ryan Lynn's job and some other guys on that roster's job.

Keaton Verhoff played 24, 25 minutes a night at even strength and on the penalty kill.

Hard matchups all night long.

Why?

Because they knew he could handle it, right?

They knew he could do that.

so here's where i'm going on my list and this is where it's going to get dicey and i think i have verhoff as the top right shot defenseman available in the draft class i have him right now like my my top five guys i'll tell you are stemberg mckenna maholtra a center then verhoff then carson carls so i think that san jose is going to target personally verhoff or reed where's that discussion go or even daxton rudolph who's a heck of a player where's that discussion go where's that discussion go listen

When Keaton Verhoff rolls over the boards at the NCAA level stuff, a fourth-line matchup for Keaton Verhoff in the Western Hockey League compared to a third- or fourth-line matchup in NCAA hockey, it's like apples and oranges.

You're up against a 23-year-old guy.

who's going to play heavy, hard in the bottom of a college lineup.

There's no shifts off for him at that level.

So I have to take a look at his entire body of work.

And then at the end of the year, hold him accountable for what he did very, very well.

And I think that that's part of the process.