Lassi Thomson still needs to prove this fall he can be a full-time NHL player, and even if he does, job openings on Ottawa's blue line are going be scarce.
The Ottawa Senators made six selections in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. All six of them played in the organization last season. All have played at least one game in the NHL and two have found full-time work in the show.
First-round pick Lassi Thomson, 19th overall, is still not one of those two full-time NHLers. At 22, it's too early to push the panic button and wonder if the Senators whiffed on this one. However, playing only 18 games during a period when the Senators were in a rebuild, and obviously evaluating prospects, does make you wonder what the Senators' brass are thinking right now.
By his own admission, Thomson felt like he had a lot of ups and downs this year and that consistency is the thing he needs to work on most.
"I feel like it wasn't my best year," Thomson said last month in an interview on the AHL team's website. "Obviously, when you play a full year in the AHL, it's not the goal or (the league) you want to make. Obviously, we're here and we want to make the NHL. It's gonna be a lot of work this summer to get there next year and not be here (in the AHL) full-time."
After being selected out of the Kelowna Rockets in the WHL, Thomson elected to take his act back to Finland to play for Ilves Tampere in the Finnish Elite League. Although COVID-19 rendered that decision irrelevant, Kelowna was slated to host the Memorial Cup in 2020 and Thomson felt it best to leave that situation. To an onlooker, that seemed an unusual move.
Regardless, he played two shortened seasons in the SM-Liga before coming over to play for the B-Sens for 35 additional games in the 2020-21 season, which didn’t begin until 2021. All signs were positive in his first full season in Belleville in 2021-22, which also included 16 games in Ottawa.
At that point, it was clear that he was a mobile, puck-moving defenseman, who had the confidence to carry the puck and use his speed to generate chances at the offensive end or to bail himself out on the defensive end.
His awareness in his own zone was clearly the weaker side of his game. But his skill set seemed to cover for that.
A comparable prospect within the organization would be Jacob Bernard-Docker. Both are born in 2000. Since he was born after September 16th, Thomson was chosen a year later. They have the exact same frames at 6’0” and 190 pounds but use them in completely different ways. If they weren’t both right hand shots, they might make an intriguing pair down the road. Instead, they're competing for a job.
For some reason, after early optimism, the shine on Thomson’s apple appears to be gone. DJ Smith hasn't been quick to trust any young defenceman, but especially not Thomson, who played just two games last season with the parent club.
There have been no public endorsements from GM Pierre Dorion so Thomson is generally seen as a longer shot to win an NHL job at camp this fall, especially with the top five defensemen in the organization – Thomas Chabot, Artem Zub, Jake Sanderson, Jakob Chychrun and Erik Brannstrom – all pretty much locked in. And Thomson partnering with Brannstrom in the bottom pair wouldn't provide the defensive, physical presence Smith would be looking for.
Thomson still seems like a viable NHL prospect who might simply need a change of scenery to realize his potential. It will be interesting to see if he becomes trade bait in an attempt to fill another need. Perhaps there's a forward in another organization who's also blocked by a daunting NHL depth chart? Obviously, Thomson wouldn’t fetch the 19th overall pick that was used to acquire him if he were moved this offseason.
It's a good bet, as an RFA under club control, that he'll be at Ottawa's camp in the fall where he'd like to show he can be more than a six or seven in the rotation someday.
The jury is still out on Lassi Thomson.
PROSPECT RATING: B