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[Rumour] Canucks interested in Brogan Rafferty and Max Veronneau

-Vintage Canuck-

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CRAZY_4_NAZZY Canucks Franchise Player

CRAZY_4_NAZZY

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http://www.nhregister.com/sports/article/Quinnipiac-freshman-Brogan-Rafferty-already-11324220.php

 

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The playmaking freshman arrived at Quinnipiac a virtual unknown. He’ll enter this weekend’s home-and-away series with Princeton with 15 points, tied for the team lead and second amongst the country’s rookie defenders.

“He’s getting a ton of attention,” says Quinnipiac associate head coach Bill Riga. “After every game there are NHL scouts and advisors who want to talk to him or get him to their development camps.”

Indeed, Rafferty is making quite a name for himself, an added bonus when you consider the nuisance of sharing a name with a serial killer.

Obviously, this Brogan Rafferty isn’t the infamous Craigslist killer sentenced to life without parole in 2012. That fact wasn’t so clear in 2011, when both were 16-year old high school students in the Midwest. One local TV news station in Ohio used the wrong photo during a report on the murder suspect.

 

“We were at dinner one night and a friend of my dad’s in Ohio called and asked ‘Is everything OK with Brogan?’” Rafferty said. “’The station issued a public apology.”

Rafferty’s path to college hockey was wrought with hurdles.

In the physical sense, he’s a classic late-bloomer. His original Illinois driver’s license listed him at 5-foot-8 and 130 pounds. When he renewed it earlier this year he informed the DMV he was now 6-1 and 192 pounds.

 

Coordination wasn’t always a strong suit, either. As a kid growing up in the Chicago suburb of Dundee, he says he was so clumsy he couldn’t even hit a baseball. The trouble was due in part to adolescent scoliosis, a curving of the spine that required correcting.

And at 6, his grandmother sensed something wrong with his eyes. Doctors diagnosed him with amblyopia, a sight disorder that reduces vision to one eye. Early detection helped improve his condition, though he’s still considered legally blind in his right eye. His binocular vision is perfectly fine with contact lenses and is only affected when he closes an eye.

“I can still see shapes and stuff when I cover one eye, I just can’t read,” Rafferty said. “It’s something I was born with so I never knew what it was like to have really good vision. I don’t know if it’s helped my game; if it’s made me think more on the ice instead of taking more for granted.”

As Rafferty matured physically, his game improved. Still, he was consistently relegated to lower-level teams. Achieving his goal of playing in the NHL required exposure in a major junior league. At the onset of his senior year of high school, he had no prospects and a rapidly closing window.

A lifelong forward, he switched to defense that summer at the suggestion of his father, Brian, who’d printed out a list of undrafted free agents that made it to the NHL to quell any uneasiness his son might’ve had about trying a new position at such a late age.

“I said the game has changed, Brogan, they need puck carrying defensemen now,” Brian Rafferty said. “With what you have and your gifts, I think you should try defense. He was willing to try, and grasped it quickly.”

The move paid immediate dividends. Rafferty, never able to ascend past Tier II in the Illinois youth hockey leagues, finally made a Tier I roster and a year later was in the North American Hockey League, where he continued to produce, though few noticed.

At the annual draft of the United States Hockey League, considered the best vehicle to Division I college hockey, over 400 players were selected. No one took Rafferty. There were a couple of tryout offers; he was cut both times.

Back with Coulee of the NAHL, Rafferty, now 19, emerged as the team’s top defenseman; a strong skater with untapped ability and hockey sense. A few began to take interest. Riga, also Quinnipiac’s recruiting coordinator, got a tip from an NHL connection in December 2014.

“I told him we were looking for a defenseman and no one was really standing out,” Riga recalled. “He said I’ve got a name for you: Brogan Rafferty.”

Riga followed up quickly and was one of the first college coaches to connect. By early 2015, after a strong showing at a prospect showcase in Minnesota, a handful of other schools were courting Rafferty. Quinnipiac’s offer came in February; Rafferty could barely contain his joy.

“I knew I would say yes,” Rafferty said. “But I wanted to take some time to call my parents because it’s a family decision. I accepted, and I was super pumped.”

Enrollment was put off another year so Rafferty could continue to develop, this time in the USHL, which finally drafted him. The plan has worked perfectly. Rafferty assimilated almost immediately to college hockey, now firmly established as one of the team’s top four defensemen.

Paired with senior Connor Clifton, Rafferty is also on the Bobcats’ first power-play unit. He’s recorded at least one point in 10 of 17 games, scoring goals against UConn and Harvard, and with three assists at Colgate.

Earlier in the year, he found himself on a breakaway. Last weekend against RPI, he showed the poise of a veteran by taking charge in the neutral zone. The resulting play led to Rafferty running a 2-on-1 rush into the Engineer zone and feeding Tanner MacMaster for the game’s first goal.

“He trusts our system in that we want our D to play offense,” Pecknold said. “He’s just taken off like a rocket. We figured he’d be a seventh or eighth defenseman as a freshman who’d get better in our program and eventually be a top six kid. Obviously, the whole process got accelerated, which is great for him and our team.”

Two years ago, it was unclear if Rafferty would even get a shot to play college hockey. Halfway through his freshman year, he’s evolved as a hot commodity who could receive NHL contract offers as soon as this summer.

Rafferty has other priorities at the moment.

“I’m just worried about freshman year, and winning a Cleary Cup,” Rafferty said. “It could be overwhelming, but for me it’s about not letting it get to you and continuing to play your game. I’m trying to win and not thinking about that stuff right now.”

He is a battler thats for sure.

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darkpoet Canucks Third-Line

darkpoet

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1 minute ago, -AJ- said:

And Boeser. And Demko. We've done well with college kids.


It's the only real way to "fast track a rebuild" as most of those *kids are already 20, 21, 22 years old and so you more or less know what you;re going to get.

The problem then becomes acquiring them, because everyone else knows the above as well. 

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combover Canucks Star

combover

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Not many top college ufas will choose a bottom feeder with their first choice. 

 

Since benning took over just how many top ufa college players have signed with Vancouver, my count is one stetcher

 

im not counting the farm hands that get passed over as call ups in favour of Chaput and megna.

Nucks should have interest in any one that’ll listen but I can’t see any player or their agents saying vancouver should be the  first choice.that doesn’t even get into who is under contract next year on d and the favorite sales pitch “we will make room” has been used to many times nobody’s buying it anymore.

 

 

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SilentSam Canucks All-Star

SilentSam

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50 minutes ago, -Vintage Canuck- said:

  


BROGAN RAFFERTY 
BIRTHYEAR	1995-05-28	BIRTHPLACE	Dundee, IL, USA
AGE	22	NATION	USA
POSITION	D	SHOOTS	R
HEIGHT	188 cm / 6'2"	WEIGHT	87 kg / 192 lbs

MAX VERONNEAU 
BIRTHYEAR	1995-12-12	BIRTHPLACE	Ottawa, ON, CAN
AGE	22	NATION	Canada
POSITION	RW	SHOOTS	R
HEIGHT	183 cm / 6'0"	WEIGHT	82 kg / 181 lbs

 

Yes please,  the makings of the 6 foot club.

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Darius Canucks Star

Darius

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6 minutes ago, combover said:

Not many top college ufas will choose a bottom feeder with their first choice. 

 

Since benning took over just how many top ufa college players have signed with Vancouver, my count is one stetcher

 

im not counting the farm hands that get passed over as call ups in favour of Chaput and megna.

Nucks should have interest in any one that’ll listen but I can’t see any player or their agents saying vancouver should be the  first choice.that doesn’t even get into who is under contract next year on d and the favorite sales pitch “we will make room” has been used to many times nobody’s buying it anymore.

 

 

you are prob right, but there are guys like Kerfoot who did go to the worst team in the NHL last year and even Butcher who chose NJ who were a lottery team.

 

There is always hope.  If I were a college kid one thing I might consider is which team would give me the greatest opportunity to play.  It might be a situation where a lack of depth actually helps a team.

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