The undersized, underage winger for Michigan had a great year.
‘Adam Valentini should be a first-round pick’ is my hot take of the draft and it’s not even that hot of a take. If you want a player that is relentless on the walls with outstanding forecheck presence and can take abuse, do I have the player for you.
Adam Valentini is an 18-year-old forward who spent most of the year at left wing for the University of Michigan. Initially, it was expected he would spend this year with the now-Memorial Cup Champion Kitchener Rangers, given that he is only 5-foot-10 and 187 pounds and was 17 for almost the entire year. In August, however, he announced that he’d be joining the Wolverines ahead of schedule, and there was immediate concern about how he would withstand the physicality of NCAA and how it would affect his draft stock.
He recorded a point on his first shift, silencing all the doubters forever.
Ok, maybe it didn’t silence the doubters forever, but it reduced a lot of concerns. He was clearly able to keep up with the pace of play and wasn’t afraid to throw the body.
I saw plenty of Valentini this year as a hockey beat reporter for The Michigan Daily, and he was consistently one of the hardest-working players on the ice every shift. Valentini is an absolutely relentless forechecker, hounding opponents in their zone and forcing turnovers. He’s always working at full speed, hustling with a desperation to get to every puck, which makes up for the fact that he’s not particularly fast off the mark on his skates. He’s often netfront on the power play and sometimes conducts play from behind the goal. Valentini is an intelligent player with strong offensive capabilities, but he really shines with his wall and off-puck play.
He’s tough for a player of his size; he took a ton of abuse along the boards all season, and late in the year, he was deliberately targeted by several teams. He’s extremely willing to throw the body and can do some real damage as he’s pretty strong. Valentini was also always willing to mix it up in scrums, even against players much larger and older than him. There’s a certain fearlessness to his play.
This is the goal that I remember when I think about Valentini. This was his first goal of the season, against Robert Morris in October. Don’t knock the opponent — the Colonials gave the Wolverines all they could handle in this game and it was only through Valentini’s two-goal effort that they came out with the victory.
Watch how the play started. He turned the puck over, looking for all the world like a 17-year-old playing against a much older opponent. But then he hustles to the boards, throws a check, gets into a stick battle and comes away with it. Then he drove to the net and beat goaltender Charlie Schenkel five-hole with his excellent wrist shot.
It’s a classic Valentini play: the mistake, making up for the mistake and converting it into something hugely beneficial for his team. Valentini took a lot of penalties this season, mostly stick penalties that you see a young player take in desperation when they get beat defensively. But he was also the seventh-highest scorer for the Wolverines, and was instrumental on so many plays that he didn’t record a point on.
Here’s how Michigan coach Brandon Naurato described him after the Wolverines’ defeat of Minnesota Duluth in the Albany regional.
“Adam Valentini is an absolute dog,” Naurato said Mar. 31. “As a 17-year-old turning 18 on April 11, he is a winning hockey player. You think that these young, talented players, it's about points and their stick skills, and obviously [he] had a nice power-play goal the other game. I think he's got 26 or 27 points on the year, which is impressive for his age. With how we roll our lines, he's not playing 25, 30 minutes a night, but watch his back checks. Watch him blocking shots. Watch him get run over in the boards by our bench just to get the puck out. And then he gets back up after getting hit by Brady Cleveland, who's, you know, six-foot-four and 220 pounds. And then he goes and runs a guy over later in that shift. He's a hockey player, and this isn't an endorsement for the draft. I'm just talking about him. But start watching this kid and dive deep, because he's a guy you want to bet on.”
One of the youngest and smallest players in college hockey this year absolutely excelled. I have Valentini in my rankings as a first-rounder, though I think he will more likely go in the second. He projects as a complimentary middle-six winger in the NHL.