This in from the Edmonton Oilers: “Oilers prospect Carter Savoie has signed an amateur tryout contract with the Condors! The 2020 fourth-round pick & St. Albert product is coming off an NCAA Ice Hockey Championship with Denver University Hockey.”
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my take
1. Carter Savoie is the Edmonton Oilers draft pick with a bullet who has a bullet. After two eye-popping seasons with the University of Denver, Savoie is surely one of the fastest risers of the 2020 draft. Indeed, he’s rising with a bullet and would almost certainly go a few rounds higher in any redraft based in large part on his bullet shot and bullet passes.
2. There were few more offensively gifted players in the 2020 draft class than Savoie. As the 2020 Elite Prospect draft prospect guide said of him: “Savoie reads defenders like few other players in the draft. He is acutely aware of opposing sticks and actively baits them. Savoy is deceptive; he looks off his targeted play and keeps the same grip on his stick, whether he’s passing, dangling, or shooting. Savoie fires with power, precision, and with some trickery; using screens to his advantage. ” In a post-draft report, Dave Stevenson of Puck Prose singled out Savoie’s shot as a lethal weapon. “If you’re talking pure shooting ability, he might be the second-best in this class, trailing only [#7 overall pick Alexander] Holtz.”
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5. Wheeler watched Savoie as a junior player in Sherwood Park but I didn’t so I can’t speak to his game for the Crusaders. But I did watch a number of Savoie’s games for the University of Denver in his rookie season. If someone had told me that Savoie had been the Oil’s first round pick in 2020, I would not have been disappointed. The kid was that good. His eyes of him were always up, always. When he got the puck he knew exactly what to do with it and he had the skill and co-ordination to make the right play. He carried the puck rather far in front of himself, presumably to keep half an eye on it while he was also looking around the ice and assessing his options from him. He also loved to shoot and he would do so from all angles. My Cult colleague sharp-eyed Bruce McCurdy also watched Savoie in Denver and came to the following conclusions: “Interesting player. He does n’t jump out at you for raw talent: slightly undersized, average skater, OK but nothing special on the defensive side of the game, but he put a puck on his stick and look out. Very deceptive player with a full bag of tricks, including a knack for drifting nonchalantly into better position, maybe changing the shooting angle in the process, and WHAM.”
6. In his rookie season, Savoie was tied for 11th in conference scoring with 0.86 points per game. My expectation for him was that if he kept developing, he could be expected to put up a point per game, if not 1.2 points per game. He came close to that with 1.15 points per game, a total right near the very top of peak offensive development for him.
