Drake Berehowsky remembers the first time he saw Andrew Nielsen play. He was the head coach of the Western Hockey League’s Lethbridge Hurricanes at the time and had driven more than four hours on a weeknight with his assistant coach, Mike Craig, to watch the Triple-A Red Deer Chiefs Midget team.



As soon as the pair left the rink, they called their general manager and begged him to sign the bulky defender.



“He was one of the kids that I was really happy to get in Lethbridge,” said Berehowsky, head coach of the Leafs’ ECHL affiliate Orlando Solar Bears. “He’s a big man, he was a kid at the time but he looked like a man. He had a hard shot, he moved the puck really well (and) he had a crisp first pass.”



Nielsen’s stock has been on the rise. He was selected in the third round of the 2015 NHL draft by the Leafs just a few years after playing Double-A hockey in his hometown of Red Deer, Alta.



“Sometimes...