Nico Hischier is a long way from his home in Switzerland but the 18-year-old hockey phenom has smoothly settled into life in Halifax.

Hischier is having a monster rookie season with the Halifax Mooseheads — he leads all rookie scorers in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League with 37 goals and 76 points in only 43 games.

His stock has quickly risen in NHL draft rankings and he's now projected to go second overall in the 2017 NHL entry draft.

"I don't really think about that too much right now," said Hischier, following a recent team practice. "After the season I can look forward to the draft, but not right now."

Hischier was one of the top players at the 2017 World Junior Championship where his Swiss team narrowly missed upsetting the eventual gold medal winning Americans in the quarter-finals.

Hischier finished the tournament with four goals and seven points in just five games.

"What he's accomplished, it's surprised all of us," said Halifax general manager Cam Russell. "He's adapted so quickly and he's become so comfortable and he's been so consistent on a nightly basis."

'No limit to what he can do'

When Russell drafted Hischier in last year's Canadian Hockey League import draft he knew he had a good player, but not this good.

"There's no limit to what he can do, he's such a well-rounded player," said Russell, who is in Europe for the next two weeks on a scouting trip.

"He's got great skills but one thing you never hear anybody talk about is his defensive game. He's our best defensive player and he's great on faceoffs. He's a player who once he gets to the NHL, they're going to play him in every situation in the game."

History of finding overseas talent

The Mooseheads have had great success in beating the bushes overseas to bring top-level talent to the big house on Brunswick Street.

Timo Meier (Switzerland), Nik Ehlers (Denmark), Jakub Voracek (Czech Republic) and Martin Frk (Czech Republic) are some of the more recent Europeans to wear the Mooseheads colours and are all now playing professionally.

Further back, Mooseheads fans will remember Milan Jurcina (Slovakia), Petr Vrana (Czech Republic) and Ladislav Nagy (Slovakia). Nagy scored a team record 71 goals for Halifax in the 1998-99 season.

Hischier said he's not thinking too much about the NHL draft and is instead focused on his season with the Mooseheads. (Halifax Mooseheads)

Clearly, the Mooseheads staff are good at doing their European homework.

"You've got to get out and see as many players as you can and you have to talk to the agents and then when you do identify the player, are you able to secure the player, is he going to come over and play for your team," said Russell, who played 10 seasons as a rugged defenceman in the NHL with Chicago.

"A lot of these kids are so good they have a lot of options back home and it's a big jump at that age to leave their country and cross the ocean and play in the CHL."

This may be the only season Halifax fans will see Hischier play.

Whether he continues to rise up the draft charts and take the Number 1 spot remains to be seen, but the odds of the 6-1", 175-pound forward coming back to Halifax for another season are growing slimmer as he continues to improve his game.

"It's still a long ways off and I will see what happens this summer," said Hischier.