Ah!! The Jackets 5th round pick that they traded to Edmonton for Justin Schultz at the trade deadline is now back with the Blue Jackets with the Oilers have signing Nikita Nikitin. Here’s who I think the Jackets should take with the pick so consider this me adding it to my mock draft that came out earlier this week.
5TH ROUND-137
NAME: Reid Duke
TEAM: Lethbridge Hurricanes (WHL)
HEIGHT: 6’0″ WEIGHT: 189
POSITION: Center
HOMETOWN: Calgary, Alberta
RANKING: 137TH North American Skater
Duke Reid was the second line center on a terrible Lethbridge team (team was 12-55-2-3) and was the third leading scorer with 40 points in 62 games. Reid played big minutes and helped carry a team with few veterans. Reid manned the point on the Canes power play with half of his points coming with the man advantage when he was able to utilize his strong passing abilities.
Duke is good at finding space and creating his own chances – this is important since a lot of times when he passed the puck he didn’t get it back since few of his teammates were able to keep up with him. Duke is willing to go the rough areas and has a mean streak. He also finishes his checks and doesn’t tolerate opponents taking liberties. According to the Hockeyprospect black book Duke is one of the best prospects in the draft at the faceoff dot winning 75-90 percent of his draws when they viewed him and it is worth noting that many of those came from winning big draws late in games.
Duke appears to be another high character player as he remained loyal to the organization unlike at least five of his teammates, but probably more according to Yahoo Canada WHL Correspondent Kelly Friesen.
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