OverDrive - McKenzie on Schaefer leading the NHL Draft rankings, the skill on the blue line and outlook of the picks

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

TSN Hockey Insider Bob McKenzie joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines around his Final Draft Rankings for the NHL Entry Draft, Matthew Schaefer ranking atop of the list, Schaefer's dynamic skill set on the blue line, the outlook for the rest of the draft and more.

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dreamed of. Big day for the Hockey Hall of Fame. Big day for the Hockey Hall of Fame. There are 18 prestigious people in that room that vote. Yes. And one of them happens to join us now. Here he is. He's in the Hall of Fame. Here's Bob McKenzie. What's happening, Bob? It's actually 17 prestigious people and me. Yeah, right. You're in the Hall of Fame. You're a Hall of Famer. your all favorite you jacket or what now i i i i want to know more for his reward which is a very nice honor from the professional hockey players association

uh... and they like the any child broadcast in the association with the foster he would award uh... they get to have a display in the great hall of the hockey hall of fame but to suggest that i'm an actual hall of Famer, I would not make that leap. But I do have a jacket that looks exactly like the one the players wear, except if you

look at the embroidered crest on the pocket, it says Media Honoree. And I got the jacket, I think it was 2017 when I got the award and received it at the luncheon and I was very honored to do so. They gave me the jacket and I put it on for pictures and I've never put it on since then and I never will because it looks too much. Bobby, why wouldn't you wear the jacket the cocktail parties are banshee anything like well we have a little with you and you were really full on my jacket will go with that

and i think i'm crazy if i went to a summer wedding or something and where my leaf alumni jacket and they think that's insane now we we could go and dumb and dumb are aware that together i like that idea that you get two jackets it i like it uh... well bob let me ask you, because we've been debating, Noodle's and O'Reilly are convinced, they are of the belief, you cannot even speak about the Hall of Fame, like in any capacity because of your voting duties. That's correct.

So that is correct, you can't say anything about anything, including the players that went in, or how does this work? Not really, other than the most important thing is there's the maximum size class going in so James Duffy on induction night has to work extra hard and extra long because there will be eight speeches and that makes me happy to know that Jimmy's got to do extra work. Yeah, you're not allowed to speak about it. You and I've talked about it. I've you know, there's just, I was just trying to establish it. You're not allowed. It's sworn to secrecy. Okay. But here's what's fair, and I respect it. But our bigger debate, Bob was, if there was anything that was going to change, it's not about making James Duthie's night a little tougher, but if there was maybe

six guys that were we would call first ballot Hall of Famers, like have they ever thought about maybe expanding as to like the amount of people go in in that draft class as opposed to just you guys voting on who deserves those spots? I don't know the answer to the question, but I honestly believe that the reason the numbers are limited. So my understanding, I think I can't talk about this because this is all public knowledge.

The most number of male players that can go in any given year is zero to four. I should say this, the range of number that can go in in the male player category is 0-4. You do not have to put any band if you so choose. The maximum number of players including skaters and goalies in the men's division is 4. The maximum number of skaters and goalies in the female players category is two, zero to two. And then you've got two builders, zero to two builders available to be inducted.

But if there's a separate category for NHL on ice officials. And I believe it's the, if one of the on ice officials is inducted, then it reduces the builder category from two maximum for the builder category from two to one. So as I say, this is all basic knowledge. And I don't know the pure motivation for it, but I actually do believe it's so at the ceremony doesn't become a six-hour ceremony already like two three hours and and i think for the

people that are going into the hall of fame you wanted to be special for them and you don't want twelve people going in on that in a night because and just sort of the nation's spotlight a little bit i would think that's that's my take on it well uh... bob you were a lot of hats these days because you're also you know And it just sort of diminishes the spotlight a little bit, I would think. That's my take on it. Well, Bob, you're wearing a lot of hats these days because you're also, you know, you put

together your final draft rankings where it's officially draft week. And I don't think it's surprising that you have Matthew Schaefer atop your list. And I believe he's been there for the majority of the season. How do you like how do you go about trying to describe this player? You always see mock drafts, it's like, this guy reminds me of Bobby Orr, this guy reminds me of Wayne Gretzky. What is a reasonable expectation for this kid? Yeah, it's hard to know because I think the thing with comparables is people lose their minds when you use a comparable. And I understand that. But if you're trying to denote a style of play,

then that's fair. So we'll discuss with Niedermeyer. OK, well, now you've started to get an idea. This guy must be a really good skater. He must be able to skate the puck up this guy must be a really good skater. He must have escaped the puck up Yeah, he must be a bit of a punch. Let's be He can really get back on defense and shut plays down He's got a good stick and doesn't blow people up, but he's real good one-on-one So yeah, so that's that's not a bad comparison

But nobody it's too early to say on this particular day that Matthew Shafffer is going to the Hall of Fame like Scott Niedermeyer did, or that he's going to win the Cubs like Scott Niedermeyer, or the gold medals in the Olympics and everything else that Niedermeyer won. So that's a perilous game. And it's funny, you say Bobby Orr, I was watching play at the game half that he played and I think I turned around and I said, Oh, Oh, I'm not for this guy, be Bobby or or anything else, but watch him for a face off and look at how bold his legs are the way Bobby or his legs were bold. And then watch him when he gets the pocket how fast he is with it and he's constantly changing direction and

he actually and then one scope did mention this in terms of the guy broke his collarbone driving to the net and It wasn't because somebody hit him into the net. It was because he was so Fearless in going to the net that He he put himself in harm's way. And one of the things I talked to said, he's going to have to learn not to put himself in so many perilous situations because the next level he's going to be up against big men who want to take your head off.

And it's one thing to build a state like the wind, like he does and do cutbacks or whatever. But Bobby Orr himself once told me the reason I got as many knee injuries as I did so early in my career was because I was so fast, I was somewhat reckless and I was fearless and I would change direction and try to make plays that maybe I shouldn't have made and then you end up, you know, and the guy's trying to get a PCA, you dodge out of the way and the next thing you know your ACL is gone. So there are elements of his game that do remind me of Bobby Orr, both in a good and a bad way, but he's a top pair defensemen at the worst and maybe

a number one guy. I should be able to run a power play and should be able to be a top penalty killer. Should be able to play 25 minutes, 30 minutes a night. And as I said, tenor defense, Adam is the top guy. And the guy at number two is no slow T there. Michael Miza, he was literally an exceptional player by Hockey Canada in 2022. He got exceptional player status. The head of the league is a 15 year old in the OHL and he averaged almost very close to a goal a game in the OHL this year and he averaged two points a game in the OHL for Saginaw. He's a six foot one center,

He's a 6 foot 1 centre, smart as a whip, real good scaler, great hands. So the scouts kind of said they think Schaeffer is the number one guy. There's a little bit of a gap, or depending on the scout you talk to, maybe a little more than a little bit of a gap between him and Miza, but there are some scouts who say, hey, it's 51-49 for Schaeffer, but Misa's right there. And then after those top two guys, then it does open up a more considerable gap between two and the rest of the class. Bobby, I can't remember, I mean,

you do the draft ranking and stuff. I just kind of focus on the power play at the World Juniors and who did what, but I can't remember a guy, because there was some discussion who was going to be the number one pick that made a bigger impact on his draft status in such a short amount of time like this guy played a couple pre-tournament games and was outstanding and everybody was it was building steam and then he played like a game and a half or two

games whatever you played and everyone was like, that's the first overall pick. It was incredible the impact he had in such a short amount of time. It was. And oh, think about this for a minute. He had mononucleosis to start the season, so he missed the first nine games, nine regular season games of the Erie Otter and pretty much all of training camp. So he comes into play at the end of September, beginning of October, whatever it was, and he proceeds to play 17 games to early December when it

was time to go to the World Junior Camp. So he goes, oh sorry, there were two more games in there, so maybe 19 games, because they had that two game showcase in November between the CHL draft eligible against the US draft eligible and so they played the game in London and the game in Oshawa. He was brilliant in both of them. And so he played 19 games going into the World Juniors. He plays one and a half, not even one and a half games though. And we saw him, he was

just dominant. He was the best player on the ice. He was just breathtaking in terms of what he was doing. He breaks his collarbone. He's done for the year. He finally gets cleared to come back on May 1st, but the Erie Otters are done by then. And it's almost like absence makes the heart grow fonder. The scouts didn't need to see anything more than that. And no player has been drafted number one overall

on such a small sample size in his draft year. The closest anyone got was Gord Kluzak in 1982, first year I was editor in chief of the hockey news. And I went to the draft, Boston took Gord Kluzak number one, and he only played I think 34 games that year because he blew his knee out.

So I always remember that path because the first three players taken were Gord Kluzak, Brian Bellows and Gary Nyland. Gary Nyland was on crutches because he blew his knee out. The Leafs took him and Nyland and Kluzak, he was on crutches. He was on crutches and the Bruins took him first overall on thirty four games but to play only seventeen games in the regular season two in a showcase game and one and a half at the world juniors and still be

the number one guy it tells you that you're pretty special I did ask the scouts I said hey do you think there's any chance that um... if he had played more games that you would have started picking his game apart. Oh, you know what? He did this. He did this morning. And one of them said, well, yeah, you know what? Familiarly does breed contempt, but we still think he's got all the tools to be a top pair of number one

defenseman in the national hockey league. And, uh, whether they're, whether it should be flipped between him and Miza, some scouts may debate that. But nobody seems to be arguing with those two guys being clearly at the top of this year's class. Did you just say that Leafs took a guy who was on crutches? One of their better picks. Never got off him. Grant's lamp pick. You don't like that philosophy for team building? Some guy that can't stand? I should also point out it, and I can't remember, Kamo Solani was another guy who if I'm not mistaken, in his draft year, had full cast and clutches, but he seemed to do

all right. I love those guys. That whole coming up to the drafting crutches is a double-edged sword. Usually you're looking around somebody, like you tell your scout, find me an athlete out there in the crowd, not find a guy with like a knee brace, crutches, a cast. Oh man. Yeah, that would have been probably Harold Ballard. He's sitting down and we're up in a chair, he's like, they're putting his jersey on his lap.

Because like, what's going on here? Like, obviously. And that was at Nyland though? Gary Nyland? Gary Nyland. Yeah, I played with Nyland. Like he was actually a hell of a player. That would have been interesting back in the day where everyone was up in the seats. He's on the

floor. He's in a wheelchair on the floor. Oh it's ridiculous. Just wheel him up. That's the future of the Maple Leafs right there. He is awesome though. Well we'll see what comes of it Bob. Yeah it's gonna be a fun week with the draft and we got McKenna next year. Like that one, that feels like it's gonna be a big one doesn't it? Gavin McKenna? They all do but I mean it's one after another I think. I mean when did it slow up? I mean Bidard and Celebrini, Schaeffer kid and next year McKenna and also you know the pipeline young talent from all the countries but Canada's done real well we will come to these kids at the top so we'll see what happens. I wish we had more time we could have done the outsider segment where I tell you I have

no clue where Mitch Marner is going I have no clue where anybody's signing I don't know anything about any of the trades and I'm the outsider. I got you breaking the big one on Tuesday I got Bob coming over the top, Mitch Marner staying in Toronto on an eight year deal. Just a massive bombshell. We got our eyes on you Bob. You may well be disappointed AZB. Yeah, possibly. Bobby, just do your old trick like you used to do and just conserve energy.

Like usually about an hour before a free agency you would send out a tweet with six guys and where they were going and then you would just sit there all day and say I already told you guys this at 8 a.m. There's no tampering rules anymore it seems so all these all these deals most of these deals all be done In the 48 hours before the thing actually kicked off at noon on on Tuesday, that's right Well draft later this week free agency free agent frenzy on Tuesday. We'll catch you then Bob. Thanks for doing this boys Great to talk to you. Have a good one. Always great chat with you Bob McKenzie TSN hockey outsider. from 2SLGBTQ Plus Canadian artists. Be yourself and stand proud.

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