When you watch Jackson van de Leest play, his ability to close gaps on shooters and quickly move the puck makes him standout above the rest.
Oh, and he’s also the second tallest player at the National U17 Developmental Camp.
Van de Leest was one of 66 Western Hockey League players and 111 players in total invited to the Developmental Camp that ran from July 22 to 28 at WinSport Arena in Calgary.
He was also the only member of the Calgary Hitmen to be invited.
It’s his hulking frame, standing at 6-foot-6 and weighing in at 218-pounds according to Hockey Canada, that led the Hitmen to select him with the 16th overall pick during the 2016 WHL Bantam Draft. He was the sixth defenceman taken.
“He’s pretty darn mobile for someone who is 6-foot-6. He covers a lot of ice efficiently, he makes a good first pass, he walks the line well and puts pucks on net,” said Hitmen vice president and alternate governor Mike Moore. “He can also play physical — he has a mean streak to him. We were excited to get him.”
The Hitmen wasted no time getting van de Leest into Hitmen colours. The then-15-year-old debuted with the Hitmen in the club’s first two games of the season, a home-and-home series sweep over the Kootenay ICE.
From there, the towering blueliner was issued off to the Okanagan Hockey Academy (OHA), playing for former Tri-City American standout Stu Barnes, on the White Prep team.
In 29 regular season games, he amassed three goals and 19 points, to go with 52 penalty minutes.
“At OHA, I came in thinking I was a defensive defenceman. I wanted to work on my offensive game so I can contribute on both ends,” said the Kelowna native van de Leest.
“Obviously he is a big boy, but he is also very intelligent, he understands the game very (well) and he has control over his emotions. Those things are pretty rare in most 15-year-olds,” said Red Prep team head coach Robert Dirk, who spent a lot of time with van de Leest during the player development stage.
While out in B.C., van de Leest was able to pick up a couple extra games of junior hockey experience when he appeared in five games for the eventual Fred Page Cup champs, the Penticton Vees.
Because of a unique set of circumstances with other players competing pro camps, van de Leest was able to appear in seven regular season games with the Hitmen, opposed to the five games most 15-year-olds are capped at.
“He handled himself real well with this group and he has a great understanding of the WHL at a young age,” said Moore. “He made big adjustments from the first game of the year to the last playoff game of the year. He had a better understanding of the speed of the game, how to use angles with his big size. He is a very intelligent player.”
The Hitmen believed in van de Leest so much so, that they brought him back for the final three games of their opening round series against the east division champs, the Regina Pats.
Moore remembers van de Leest’s performance well that series.
There was one game when Pats’ speedster Austin Wagner was bearing down on van de Leest. Wagner had 231 regular season games and 42 more playoff games over van de Leest, but the rookie held his ground and snuffed out the scoring chance.
For his effort in the series, van de Leest walked away with an even rating.
It was with that performance in the 47 games last season with three different clubs and his potential, which appears to be the only thing larger than his frame, which earned him an invite to the Developmental Camp.
There, he was still considered to be the big fish in the proverbial pond, but at least the pond was bigger than last year’s.
“We got to see Jackson at the U16 Western Canada U16 Challenge Cup (last year). He proved there that he is a top player in the province, one of the top players in the tourney and looks like one of the top players in this country. It proved to us that he was an obvious selection for this camp,” said Hockey Canada director of player personnel Ryan Jankowski.
Van de Leest was selected to train and compete with the Team White, one of six teams in camp.
Joining him on the roster were standout defencemen Mitchell Brewer (2017, 15th overall selection by the Oshawa Generals), Nathan Staios (2017, 17th overall selection by the Windsor Spitfires and son of NHLer Steve Staios), Daniel Baker (2016, 28th overall selection by the Medicine Hat Tigers) and Jérémy Jacques (2017, 23rd overall selection by the Moncton Wildcats).
Even with all those high-caliber blueliners in the locker room, van de Leest grabbed a leadership role at the beginning of camp and ran with it.
“He wants to improve every time he steps on the ice. Off the ice, he leads our warm up phases with great pride, and it turns out, he is a pretty funny guy, too. He is great for the mood in the room,” said Team White head coach Eric Landry, who is the head coach of the Gatineau Olympiques.
Lucky for van de Leest, he had a little bit of a heads up in what to expect in the weeklong camp.
The Hitmen have provided a steady stream of prospects for the U17 program. Guys like Travis Sanheim, Tristen Nielsen, Mark Kastelic, Jake Bean and Beck Malenstyn all came before him.
“I spoke with Jonathan Smart of the Regina Pats, he was at the same camp two years ago; we workout together in the summer. A couple of the guys on the Hitmen also gave me a heads up, but I was excited to find out the journey myself,” said van de Leest.
Following an exhausting, condensed first four days of camp, van de Leest finally got to don the Canadian jersey with his teammates in a game for the first time July 26 when they took on Team Green at the Markin MacPhail Centre rink B.
“It was an honour to put on the maple leaf for the first time. It’s one thing that I have been dreaming about all my life — it’s surreal,” said van de Leest. “I am loving every minute of it.”
Against Green, all of the van de Leest skills were put on display.
Early in the first, on the penalty kill, he locked down on of the top QMJHL prospects.
Xavier Parent, who was the fourth overall pick by the Halifax Mooseheads in 2017, tried to go at the big d-man three times in one shift.
First, Parent tried a couple fancy moves — a toe drag, then tried to turn him inside out by slipping the puck between van de Leest’s legs — but was swiftly denied. Later on the same shift, Parent took the puck at the top of the zone, cycling to the faceoff circle, looking for an opening by the left of the goal. He tried to quickly feed a pass past van de Leest, but that extra long stick swatted the put out of the zone.
“Right now, we are trying to get him in all situations of the game. We know he has a great shot on the power play, but we also want to see how he handles the penalty kill. He has a big body that clogs up passing and shooting lanes and keeps guys to the outside with his long stick,” said Landry.
With Team White down 2-0 in the second period, Parent took a hooking minor midway through the frame.
On the ensuing faceoff, the puck came back to van de Leest, who walked the line, buying time for his partner, Navrin Mutter, to find some space. When he was open, van de Leest slid the puck over, as Mutter walked in and piped home White’s first goal.
This marked the first goal in a comeback that would be completed when Team White edged Green 3-2 in a shootout.
In White’s second game July 27 against Team Red, van de Leest was matched up with some of the WHL’s top offensive talent in Peyton Krebs (2016, 1st overall selection by the Kootenay ICE), Ethan Browne (2016, 14th overall selection by the Everett Silvertips) and Dylan Cozens (2016, 19th overall selection by the Lethbridge Hurricanes).
Early in the game, van de Leest picked up a blocked shot and crunched Nick Wong (2017, 38th overall selection by the Oshawa Generals) behind the glass to get the puck out.
Van de Leest might have been saddled with a minus-2 for his performance in the 4-1 loss, but it was of the unlucky variety.
Lucas Rowe (2017, 18th overall selection by the London Knights) coughed up the puck while exiting the zone, leaving van de Leest the only man back on a 3-on-1 rush, allowing Browne and Cozens to go to work.
Van de Leest also showed how his height could generate offence.
In the third, he gloved down a dump in that would have soared over most defenders, and sent Samuel Poulin (2017, 2nd overall selection by the Sherbrooke Phoenix) in on a rush, who promptly rang a wrister off the crossbar.
Playing his final game of the camp against Team Blue, van de Leest showed once again his defensive acumen on the penalty kill against, when he laid out in front of the net after his group over rotated, blocking Aidan Prueter’s (2017, 24th overall by the Saginaw Spirit) one-timer chance on the doorstep.
Later that shift, the puck came back around to him after another Blue entry attempt. He corralled the loose puck, made the simple pass over to his partner and a breakout started the other way.
Despite his best efforts in his own zone, van de Leest and Team White wrapped up the tournament with a 1-2 record, following their 3-2 loss to Blue.
Some might look at van de Leest’s performance this week as a coming out party, but those around the Hitmen know that the best is still to come from the 16-year-old.
“We think that surrounding him with veteran guys and guys that gained a year of experience last season will help his transition from midget prep to this year with the Hitmen. It’s going to be a big jump for him regardless of how many games he played last year. 72 games is a lot when you combine the travel and his high school education. We want to support him properly, not to put too much pressure on him and watch him develop and learn the game,” said Moore.
Van de Leest is ready to go, though.
“I just want to attack the year. I got a chance to get my feet wet and learn about the speed and the physicality of the game last year, and I think this camp has done a great job preparing me for that next step. I have some goals that I set for myself, but I just want to come in, be my best and prove that I have what it takes to fulfill any role that is needed on this team,” said van de Leest.
And if he keeps progressing the way his current and former coaches believe, who knows where he might end up.
“He has a ton of potential. It wouldn’t shock me if he ends up being a second-round pick by an NHL club or even a first-rounder, for that matter,” said Dirk.
