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If ever there was a lesson in size doesn’t matter, this was it. But you could say the same about experience, especially because Stecher’s out-of-nowhere rookie year came one season after Ben Hutton did the same thing.

To expect it to all happen again is, well, ridiculous. But the Canucks at least have a shot to get another candidate.

For months the Canucks have been linked to pending OHL free-agent defenceman Darren Raddysh, and the team is at least giving a nod to the interest.

“He had an excellent year this year,” Vancouver GM Jim Benning said. “He got lots of points playing on a real skilled team.

“I don’t know that we’ll go down that road, but we’ve talked about it.”

The 21-year-old was named both the OHL’s overage player of the year and its most outstanding defenceman, after an impossible-to-ignore season in which he led the league in points from the blue-line.

Raddysh is not the perfect prospect, but as far as overage, undrafted defencemen still playing in the CHL go, he’s about as promising as you’re going to get.

He may not have elite size; he’s 6-1 and 200 pounds. He may not be an elite skater, probably closer to average. But there just aren’t many blue-liners skipped in the draft who put up 81 points in 62 games, a production rate which Raddysh has come close to maintaining in a postseason that’s seen him get 20 in 18 games.

He’s been a top-pairing defenceman on Erie all season, and when he’s been on the ice at even strength, his Otters have controlled 68 per cent of the goals scored.