E-Mac's 2011 NHL Entry Draft Top 120: Ryan Strome #7

By Eldon MacDonald

7. Ryan Strome - “Strome18” - Centre - Canada

Vitals: Size - 6’0”, 177 lb.; Shoots right; Born: 11-Jul-93 - Mississauga, ON
Team: Niagara, OHL
Twitter: @strome18
2010-11 Stats: 65-33-73-106-82-(+26) + OHL playoffs 14-6-6-12-19-(-4)
Rankings:
3 - Cory Pronman's Top 100
5 - Christopher Ralph's Top 210
5 - hfboards Readers’ Poll
6 - The Hockey News per TSN
6 - Craig Button's Top 30 of 8-Jun-11
7 - E-Mac's 2011 NHL Entry Draft Top 120
7 - Bob MacKenzie's June Poll of Scouts
7 - Dean Millard -The Pipeline Show Top 30
7 - Guy Flaming - The Pipeline Show Top 30
8 - Future Considerations Final Rankings
8 - McKeen's June Top 30
9 - NHL Central Scouting's Final Rankings (8th North American skater)
9 - ISS's Top 30 - 30-May-11 per TSN
9 - Kirk Luedeke's Top 50
9 - The Scouting Report's Top 100 Skaters

Draft result:
5 - New York Islanders

You don’t have to be on Twitter with Strome18 to be all-a-twitter about Ryan Strome. The thing I most like about Ryan Strome is that year’s enormous success just didn’t happen because of luck and good fortune. It happened because Ryan had the intelligence to know what he had to do make it happen, he had the common sense to do something about it and he had the work ethic to carry it out. That combination is a winner in my books and makes good things happen. In 2009-10, had just 8 goals and 27 points in the OHL as a 155 lb. weakling, maybe close to OK for a rookie year but nowhere close to what he needed to attain in his draft year. So Ryan worked on these areas he needed to improve (what was crazy about writing this is as soon as I finished it, Ryan came on TSN to describe what I had just written over footage of him working out):

• strength, he knew he wasn’t strong enough so he hit the gym with a passion and went from around 155 lb. to 177, a gain of more than 20 pounds
• shooting, he knew he had to shoot more and score more so like Sidney Crosby he shot quite a few pucks over the summer
• skating, he went to the rink and worked on it and the results have been more than impressive

As for skills, Ryan’s skill set looks good compared to anyone named Ryan (or not named Ryan for that matter) in the draft. He has that YouTube, highlight reel excitement about him, check him out on YouTube to get the vibe. So to get 106 points this year in the OHL (a mind-boggling 79 more than last year), you have to have::

• skating, the ability to blow past defenders, the agility to get around them as well and at full throttle
• stickhandling, the human highlight reel
• passing, oh yeah, the sublime to the ridiculous
• shooting, has an accurate shot with a quick release
• goes to the net, a new skill with his additional weight
• vision, elite
• defense, willing to play in all the zones

In summary, he is this year’s version of Tyler Seguin. His main weakness still relates to his strength as he can still get stopped or at least slowed down by physical defenses like Mississauga’s in this year’s playoffs.

As for draft day, he is definitely one of the top nine, showing as high as three in the above rankings.