The third and final player signed by the Oilers to an AHL contract for the 2014-15 season out of junior is a defender that fits everything that Oiler fans love. He’s big, he’s mean, he’s tough, he’s physical, and he plays an abrasive style. His name? Graeme Craig, one of the WHL’s big and bad defenders.
The Means Of Entry:
Craig recently concluded his junior career, splitting the season between the Saskatoon Blades and Prince Albert Raiders. He played in five WHL seasons, split between three teams total, and made his pro debut in the AHL this past spring, getting into a game for the Barons off of an amateur tryout agreement.
Craig agreed to an AHL deal with the Barons following the 2014 season, and will likely see action in both the AHL and ECHL during his rookie pro campaign.
The Boxcars
Craig is a shut-down defender, so the boxcars aren’t exactly groundbreaking. He started his WHL career during the 2009-10 season with the Swift Current Broncos, playing in 61 games and scoring just eight assists all year. The following season, Craig dressed for 72 contests, scoring just six points, including his first WHL goal.
His third year with the Broncos saw him play 56 games and post ten points, a mark that would show some improvement over his previous years. 2012-13 started with eleven games for the Broncos with just one point, and then led into a trade that sent Craig to Saskatoon, where he played in 59 games for the Blades and scored 15 points, making it 16 points in 70 total games.
This past season saw Craig play in 44 games for the Blades before a trade that sent him to Prince Albert was completed, where he played in 27 regular season games and one playoff game. In total, Craig posted 31 points, far and away his best offensive season.
Craig had high penalty minute totals in the WHL, posting 77 this past season, and a career high 122 back in 2010-11. This is a player that usually found himself in the range of 60-70 PIMS a season, indicating physical play.
He was also routinely a minus player, only having a plus rating during the 2012-13 season. While he did play on some bad teams, and +/- is a bit of a skewed stat, this is a little telling.
Craig dressed in one regular season game for the Barons this season, posting zero points and an even rating.
The Player:
Like Holmberg and Winquist, Graeme Craig joins the Oilers a little older than a prospect normally would, as he’s 21 years old. Craig is a big boy, standing in at 6’5” and 202 pounds, and still growing. That’s pro-level size coming out of juniors, which is pretty rare.
Player-type wise, Craig is a shut-down defender that plays a physical game. He uses his size to disrupt the opponents and physically set the tone. He tends to play a solid game in his own zone, and from the very few highlights I’ve seen of him he strikes me as a player built in the Deryk Engelland mold, shut-down defender with a physical side who should play lesser minutes.
Offensively, Craig brings very little to the table. His point totals in the WHL indicate a player that is offensively challenged, and suggest that he will likely struggle mightily to produce offense at the pro level. From what we saw in juniors, it’s safe to say that it will take close to a miracle for Craig to be able to produce anything offensively at the NHL level should he get there.
His passing skills aren’t anything to write home about, and his shot isn’t exactly what you would hope for from a big man. Basically, offensively there isn’t much of anything to like here.
The overview on Craig is simple. He’s a big boy, and he likes to throw his body around. He’s one of those old-school defenders that will rough up the opponent, clear the front of the net, and play most of his shift defending in his own zone. He’s your typical shut-down defender, part of that dying breed.
For an NHL comparable, the player that I mentioned earlier, Deryk Engelland, keeps popping into my mind. That’s not exactly a glowing comparison either I must add.
The 2014-15 Outlook:
Graeme Craig’s outlook is pretty simple for the 2014-15 season. He’s going to be kept to exclusively minor-league duty, and will likely get a top-four role for Bakersfield in the ECHL. He’ll likely get some AHL time in a smaller role as the season goes along and injuries occur at both the AHL and NHL level on the blue-line.
For Craig, this is a highly important season. If he has a good year at the ECHL level for the Condors, where I suspect he’ll play the majority of the season, he’ll make a case for a spot on the 50-man list next season. If not, his pro career could be over well before reaching the promised land of big cash in the NHL.
Graeme Craig, like Mitch Holmberg and Josh Winquist, is long-shot, there is not sugar coating that. For Craig to make it to the NHL, it’s going to take a lot of hard-work and a lot of things falling into place. The odds aren’t good, but we’d be foolish to totally discount him.
Tomorrow, we start looking at the players added via trade during the 2013-14 season, staring with goalie Laurent Brossoit.
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