Is Tyson Foerster the Next Corey Perry?
The 2020 NHL draft concluded on Wednesday evening, and the Flyers came away with five guys who will hopefully wear the orange and black in the future.
The biggest and most notable selection for the Flyers came when they selected Tyson Foerster with the 23rd overall pick.
This might have been a totally different selection if the Washington Capitals didn’t trade their 24th and 80th picks to the Calgary Flames for the 22nd selection which they used to select Hendrix Lapierre. The Capitals must have had a good feeling that the Flyers were going to take Lapierre with their 23rd pick to give up the 80th pick just to leapfrog the Flyers. Hendrix Lapierre is a Canadian center, who was considered to be a top 5-10 selection through most of his juniors career until injuries became a concern when he suffered three head and neck traumas in a nine calendar month period, which is why he slid as far as he did.
Now, I wouldn’t be totally sure if the Flyers would have actually picked Lapierre, and instead selected Foerster anyways with their pick, since they had twice passed on goal-scoring machine Cole Caufield in the 2019 NHL draft. Though we can debate this for years to come and I’m sure many Flyers fans like myself will compare Lapierre and Foerster’s and careers for many years to come.
Tyson Foerster is an 18-year-old Canadian center from the Barrie Colts and measures at 6’2 and 194 lbs. He has a lethal shot, great one-timer ability, and loves to shoot the puck so he’ll rarely pass up on opportunities to shoot the puck unless there are better opportunities to make a play.
His one-timer is considered to be the best in this draft class as he can adjust his shot to less than perfect passes really well.
He is the type of player that many Flyers fans have been wanting to see the team draft for many years now as he is the definition of a shoot first sniper. In watching the tape of Tyson, you can see that he has a preference to set up shop near the top of the left circle and just unload shots on net. He led the OHL in slot passes last season, which ultimately meant that the Barrie Colts relied on him offensively and were constantly looking for him. His skating ability has been heavily criticized and is the main reason why he was ranked as a second-rounder in a lot of the pre-draft prospect rankings by analysts.
Although for some good news, according to reports, he has been working really hard on his skating in these past 6 months so we can only cross our fingers and hope that he gets his skating fixed. He has played 2 seasons for the Barrie Colts of the OHL and scored 103 points in 126 games. Foerster didn’t have a great 2018-19 campaign, as he only collected 23 points(10 G, 13 A) in 64 games. But he made major strides in the 2019-20 season where he notched 80 points(35 G, 44 A) in 62 games which ranked him tied for 16th in total points in the OHL this past season.
The selection of Foerster has seemed like a bit of a reach by general national consensus, but in all honesty, the selection of Foerster would only be considered a bust if he doesn’t fix his skating and doesn’t pan out in the NHL. Foerster compares his game to T.J. Oshie, but I had previously compared his style of play to Alexander Ovechkin and Steven Stamkos because of his love of one-timers and shooting from almost anywhere. Although the biggest player comparison for Foerster has to former Anaheim Duck, Dallas Star, and upcoming free agent Corey Perry.
If you were watching NBCSN’s draft coverage on Tuesday night, you might have seen Craig Button essentially yelling at other analysts’ opinions on Foerster and defending him saying that scouts and analysts had the exact same criticisms of Corey Perry before he came into the league.
The Corey Perry comparison was one that peaked a lot of people’s attention since Corey Perry has had a stellar NHL career as he’s scored 776 points in 988 games and had a phenomenal 2010-11 season where he had 98 points(50 G, 48 A) in 82 games.
If you watch a tape of Corey Perry and Tyson Foerster together, you can see the major overlap of both of the player’s games. They are both very physical right-handed players, who love to shoot, and set up a shot near the net to give themselves an opportunity to a puck between the pipes. Corey Perry also had concerns about his skating before he came into the draft, and he was able to fix it and have a successful NHL career. There were concerns about Oscar Lindblom’s skating limiting his effectiveness in the NHL, and he has been able to be really productive in the league in his NHL career.
Featured Image: Barrie360
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Categorized:Flyers