Ethan Bear’s season has just come to a close. His Seattle

Thunderbirds lost in the WHL final to the Brandon Wheat Kings after

steamrolling the competition up to that point. No doubt he’s disappointed right

now, but the Edmonton Oilers should be excited about the progress Bear made

during this campaign.

Bear was drafted in the 5th round, 124th

Overall in the 2015 NHL entry draft. With a June birthday, he’s still just 18

years old. He has not yet signed an Entry Level Contract with the team, but that

should be coming soon. At this point, Ethan Bear is possibly the club’s most

promising prospect defender and certainly the most promising in the CHL.

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The young defender has one trait that makes him stand out from

the crowd of prospects that includes Reinhart, Musil, Oesterle, and Jones: He

shoots right.

Of course, shooting right isn’t enough all by itself to make

him bypass all those developing players. That said, it’s enough to draw a

pretty big spotlight onto his play. There’s no doubt that virtue of being one

of only a handful of right-shooting defenders in the entire organization the

club has a vested interest in his success.

Well, “a handful” might be overstating things. Here are all

of the Oiler players or prospects that shoot right in the entire system:

Mark Fayne

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Adam Clendening (RFA)

Eric Gryba (UFA)

John Marino (NCAA)

Ethan Bear (WHL)

That’s the expansive list. It’s all of five players long,

only one of whom has an NHL contract for next season. And, if we’re being

honest with ourselves, if Mark Fayne is a regular defender for the Oilers next

year then the blueline is still a wreck.

Ethan Bear was drafted after a 69GP, 13-25-38 campaign. He

has played for Team Canada at the U-17s and U-18’s and after this season he

should be a strong candidate for the World Junior Championship U-20 team as

well.

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Bear took a huge leap forward offensively, leading the

blueline for the Seattle Thunderbirds. Seattle’s blueline was very much a

hodgepodge of undrafted over-agers and kids, with Bear as the anchor. During

the regular season in his first post-draft season Ethan Bear contributed a

stellar 69GP, 19-46-65 which was third on his team behind only New York

Islander prospect (and one time possible Oiler draftee) Mathew Barzal and New

York Rangers prospect Ryan Gropp.

On the Thunderbirds, Bear’s 65 points were 24 more than the

next closest defenseman, 20 year old Jerret Smith. If Barzal was the offensive

tide raising all ships in the harbor then he did a poor job raising the other

blueliners. It’s clear that Bear became a key to the offense of his club.

In terms of his place in the WHL as a whole, Ethan Bear was

5th in WHL scoring by defensemen. Numbers 1 and 2 in WHL D scoring

were by Ivan Provorov (73) and Macoy Erkamps (71). So Bear managed to get

within 8 points of the player taken 7th overall in the same draft

that he, himself, went 124th overall. What makes it doubly

impressive is that the Wheat Kings scored 319 goals in the regular season while

the Thunderbirds only scored 228. So Bear picked up just 8 fewer points than

Provorov while his team managed 90 fewer opportunities for him to pick up

points at all.

This takes us to the Playoffs.

During the WHL playoffs, Ethan Bear’s club crushed

opposition right up until they ran into the Wheat Kings. They did that, in

part, because Bear’s offensive game geared up yet again. Bear finished with

18GP, 8-14-22 during the run the Thunderbirds made. Mathew Barzal lead Seattle

in scoring with 26 points. Bear was 2nd in Thunderbird scoring with

22 points. The player in 3rd place on the team only had 15 points.

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Bear’s offense during the post-season placed him atop the

WHL’s scoring by defensemen. Wheat King forwards were 1, 2, 3, and 4 in overall

scoring with 21 games played and yet their highest scoring defenders had just

15 (Clague), 14 (Erkamps), and 13 points (Provorov). Bear picked up 7 more

points than the next highest scoring defender in the WHL playoffs and he did it

in 3 less games.

THOUGHTS

Ethan Bear is a prospect the Oilers can be excited about. He

was a late pick who just came off of an incredible regular season and playoffs.

He is playing an integral role on his WHL club and he just happens to play the

exact position that Edmonton is lacking the most.

That’s not to say that we can pencil him in for NHL duties

on the top pair in the Fall or anything quite so preposterous. It would be

folly to try to push him along in his development faster than is good for the

kid, but he has to be properly identified as Edmonton’s best CHL aged defender

right now. He’s proven to be worthy of further investment without a doubt.

A lot can happen between now and when Bear is ready to make

the jump to professional hockey. He’s a shorter defender at 5’11” but he’s a

stocky 200 pounds and as a right-shot he can overcome the fact that he isn’t a

tower. He was previously regarded highly for his defensive play before the

offense bloomed this season. While at the open development camp this past

summer, indeed Bear was one of the few defensemen that Connor McDavid didn’t consistently

embarrass in drills.

Bear is already a pleasant surprise doing what he has done

as a 5th rounder. By virtue of his shooting preference he had

everybody’s eyes on him this season. What he did while we were all watching was

impressive enough that we should be excited about this young man’s potential.



