Despite the Canucks season being over a few weeks ago, the news is non-stop in Canucks-nation. It appears that the organization has made their first invitation to development camp this summer.

As it was reported by Jonathan Sigal that the Canucks have invited un-drafted defenceman Adam Brubacher from RIT (Chris Tanev’s Alma Mater):

The mention of his invite in the article is here:

Brubacher is expected to return to RIT next season, but as we’ve seen with players like Troy Stecher, an invite to development camp means that there is some interest there and is a player to keep an eye on going forward. He is 21 years old, thus is ineligible for the 2017 NHL Entry Draft is a free agent.

Brubacher is a 6’4″, 205 lbs defenceman who had an impressive rookie season at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

The Elmira, Ontario native ranked 2nd in goals (6) amongst RIT defenceman, 1st in assists (17) and 1st in points (23).

He was tied for 34th for points by NCAA defenceman. His 107 shots were 8th amongst that same peer group, and his 2.89 shots per game put him 7th.

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All of those stats are extremely encouraging signs, in particular his shot totals, for a rookie – given those totals it’s no surprise that he was named the Atlantic Hockey Conference Rookie of the Year. He was also named to the All-Rookie Team for the AHC.

Brubacher was leaned on by the RIT coaching staff, despite being in his first season of NCAA hockey. He was regularly on the powerplay, penalty kill and used in a shut down role against other teams top players. Through various reports and articles, the Tigers coaching staff praise the left handed defenceman’s poise and ability to adjust to everything thrown at him.

He is good at moving the puck and making the high percentage plays.

When we use pGPS to look at the freshman, a very impressive 16.7% of comparable players went onto becoming NHL regulars.

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He is slightly older than most of his cohorts, and the matches aren’t anything special – but that success rate is still encouraging.

The Canucks are in a position that they should be leaving no stone unturned, and Brubacher represents that. At times, there has been criticism that their development camp invites had very little chance of ever amounting to anything. But the invites of Troy Stecher (2014), Michael Carcone (2016) and now Brubacher (2017) represent players that look like legitimate options as prospects.

This invite in particular is extremely promising.

As mentioned, Brubacher will return to the NCAA next season – but he will be a player to keep an eye on in early July at Development camp.





