Scouting Report On Calgary Flames Acquisition Hunter Brzustewicz: 'You'll Be Happy'

Randy Sportak

Feb 1, 2024, 22:34

Randy Sportak

Feb 1, 2024, 22:34

Flames have added a potentially dynamic defenceman with the Kitchener Rangers standout netted in the Elias Lindholm trade

Anne-Marie Sorvin-USA TODAY Sports - Scouting Report On Calgary Flames Acquisition Hunter Brzustewicz: 'You'll Be Happy'

Adam Fox of the Ontario Hockey League. Yep, Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek referred to newly acquired Hunter Brzustewicz in that manner.

Feel free Calgary Flames fans to pause and let your anger dissipate upon mention of the New York Rangers star defenceman who spurned Calgary after he was drafted by the Flames. Curiously, it was the trade that sent Fox’s rights to the Carolina Hurricanes which brought Elias Lindholm to the Stampede City, and a circle completed in Wednesday’s swap with the Vancouver Canucks.

As the Flames faithful digest the trade that saw their team’s top-line centre go to the West Coast, and bring back winger Andrei Kuzmenko, a first- and conditional four-round pick in the 2024 draft and a couple of prospects, the time is at hand to decipher what GM Craig Conroy reeled in with a pair of drafted defencemen in Brzustewicz and Joni Jurmo.

Brzustewicz, 19, is definitely the one considered to have the bigger upside.

The 6-foot, 188-pound blueliner is third in OHL scoring with 69 points (8-61-69) and leads the league with 61 assists in 47 games for the Kitchener Rangers.

And while comparisons to Fox may be unfair, the 75th overall pick in he 2023 draft has potential to be an offensive defenceman in the NHL.

“He understands the game, sees the ice and delivers pucks to the right people at the right time,” said one scout.

Of course, comparisons to known players are required, and examples relayed are a smaller version of Rasmus Andersson or Tyson Barrie.

The Flames would be happy if Brzustewicz could equal the careers of those players.

The big knock on Brzustewicz is his defensive game, which will require work, but the offensive dynamic makes him an enticing prospect.

“If he was bigger and more rounded, he’d have been a first-round pick,” the scout said. “If you ask him to play to his strengths, you’ll be happy.”

As for Jurmo, 21, he is more of a project. The 6-foot-5, 210-pound, defenceman selected 82nd overall in 2020, is currently playing for KooKoo Kouvola of the Sm-Liiga.

“He’s a big, lanky defender who skates well,” a scout said. “He’ll need time in the AHL, but he could develop into a bottom-end defenceman.”

In short, Jurmo is another player in the mould of Ilya Solovyov, Calgary’s seventh-round pick of 2020, who played in a half-dozen NHL games this season.

The Flames also have three other defencemen from that draft in second-round pick Yan Kuznetsov and third-rounders Jeremie Poirier — both playing for the AHL Calgary Wranglers — and Jake Boltmann, currently in his senior year at Notre Dame.