Vancouver Giants’ Mazden Leslie ‘motivated’ by Top Prospects Game
Third-year blueliner draws inspiration from watching fellow prospects as his own game improves in run-up to the June NHL Draft
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Mazden Leslie’s Vancouver Giants team hosting the CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game at the Langley Events Centre last week gave him a close-up view of proceedings coupled with a jolt of inspiration.
“It was weird watching that game. It was really weird,” said Leslie, 17, a defenceman who’s eligible for this summer’s NHL Draft in Nashville himself. “You’re wishing that you’re out there, but those are some pretty good guys.
“It motivates you because you want to get up to where those guys are. It shows you, too, that maybe you aren’t that far away either in some cases.”
The 6-foot, 193-pound right-shot rearguard was a ‘C’ level prospect in NHL Central Scouting’s players to watch preliminary list published in October, which means they were pegging him to go in the fourth, fifth or sixth rounds. Central Scouting has since slotted Leslie at No. 80 among North American skaters in their midterm rankings, released three weeks ago.
This will go on until the draft, these pundits with the projections and predictions. The rankings will start to come rapid fire now. Leslie doesn’t shy away from the fact that all this is getting some time and space in his head. Credit him for the honesty.
NEXT GAME
Wednesday
Vancouver Giants vs. Prince Albert Raiders
7 p.m., Langley Events Centre. Radio: Sportsnet 650.
“You try not to think about it, but it’s always in the back of your mind,” Leslie said. “It’s not something that kills you. It’s a good thing. If you have a chance to get drafted you’re lucky.”
Leslie’s game does feel like it’s trending up as the season wears on. He seemed to be forcing things in the opening weeks, pushing for points. He’s picking his spots to jump into the rush better now and being more forceful in his own zone.
“I feel like I’m playing more of a two-way game now, like I did in the playoffs, and like I wasn’t at the start of the year,” said the Lloydminster, Alta., product, who was a part of the Giants team that upset the Everett Silvertips in the first round last spring and then lost to the Kamloops Blazers in the second round.
“I think I’m starting to feel like I did last year close to playoff time. It’s good to get that going early this year. I want to do everything I can to help us get a better seed for the playoffs.”
Giants coach Michael Dyck credited Leslie with making an impact all over the ice last weekend, when Vancouver split a home-and-home set with the Kelowna Rockets with a 3-1 triumph Friday at the Langley Events Centre and a 5-1 setback Saturday at Prospera Place.
“I feel like he’s taken his game to another level after Christmas,” said Dyck. “The energy, the physicality and the urgency he’s playing with … he’s set a bar for himself and that’s going to be the expectation going forward.”
Going into a Wednesday visit from the Prince Albert Raiders at the Langley Events Centre, Leslie had eight goals and 33 points in 45 games with Vancouver this year. That’s up from his five goals and 19 points in 64 games last season.
With minor hockey shut down in 2020-21 due to COVID-19, Leslie got to play 17 games as a 15-year-old call-up in the abbreviated B.C. Division hub season with the Giants. He didn’t look the least bit timid or hesitant, and wound up scoring five times.
The last Giants defenceman to fit in that young was Bowen Byram, the former Giants star who got into 11 games as a 15-year-old in 2016-17.
Leslie has other similarities to Byram, including those swashbuckling offensive inclinations.
Any link to Byram can be a hefty one to lug around, of course. Byram’s in the conversation for best Giant of all time. He was the fourth overall selection in the 2019 NHL Draft and saw top-four ice time for the Avalanche in their run to the Stanley Cup title last spring.
“It’s not as much now. I was getting it more when I first came in,” Leslie said of comparisons to Byram. “I still hear about it a little bit.
“When I first got here it might have been a bit too much, but I ignore it now. You’re not going to fill his shoes. I have to play how I play. I can’t try to copy him.”
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