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“The top guys are really well-scouted and well-known, but it’s great when you can have success with someone in the fifth round. It’s a morale boost for us and it makes you believe in the process.”

Gaudette has a chance to be the Canucks’ most successful story when it comes to bird-dog, eye-test scouting. In his draft year he was eighth on his USHL team in points with 30 in 50 games. By comparison, Brock Boeser was playing in the same league and in that same draft year put up 68 points in 57 games.

In the years since, Gaudette progressed into the player who just led the NCAA in scoring, and Canucks president Trevor Linden specifically identified Brackett as the scout who had a “good feeling” about him.

“In that draft year, his hockey sense was really evident,” Brackett said. “He was always around the play and on the puck. His motor was really good too. The point total wasn’t there, but if you went to watch him play you could see he had chances.

“Maybe he wasn’t strong enough to beat some of the goalies at that level yet. It was a big jump; he had played prep school the year before. Not a lot of guys jump into the USHL and have big point totals in their first USHL year. That’s why someone who did, like Brock, is really special.

“He played the right way. He hounded the puck. And some of us knew him from the year before where he was a top scorer in prep school. We knew he had a proven history of scoring and it was going to come if he continued to work the way he was.”