Three Forwards That The Washington Capitals Could Draft In The First Round
By CJ Witt
Jake Neighbors
Every year there is usually one guys scouting report that I read that gets me excited. This year, when looking at forwards who could be available late in the first round of the draft Jake Neighbors was that guy. NHL.com has Neighbors ranked at 26th and TSN’s Bob McKenzie had him ranked at 31 in his final ranking.
When you read about Neighbors you don’t get “star” when you read what he brings. To me however, what you do get is NHLer who thanks to some of his attributes has a good chance of having a long and successful career.
Reports I’ve read has Neighbors as a good skater who works hard on both ends of the rink. He’s good on the forecheck, will get to the dirty areas, will battle along the boards and still has a good shot.
He’s a physical player despite his smaller size, 5’11”, 201lbs. He can be a pain thanks to his physicality and scoring ability, one report saying some have compared him to a Matthew Tkachuk kind of player.
He’s a guy who can play both power play and penalty kill as well.
While the Tkachuk comparison is exciting, another report had his style compared to Chris Kunitz. A pesky kind of player who will work hard and still put up forty, fifty, maybe sixty points depending on his team. Kunitz is the kind of player though who won four Stanley Cups in his career. A Kunitz like player is a player teams need to make Cup runs. Get your skill guys, then get your work guys around them.
Neighbors sounds like a heck of a work guy to me. A hard working, little bit of a pest, scoring player who can play in the middle six. I think that would be a pretty good pick late in the first round.