No Harm Dunn – Could Vince Dunn be a first round pick in 2015?

In my write up on Blake Siebenaler I made a couple notes on his defence partner and fellow rookie Vince Dunn. I noted how they are very similar players. Had Dunn been eligible for this year’s draft he would have likely went right around where Siebenaler did in the third round. Being an October birthday however pushed Dunn to this season’s draft. In watching Dunn play last season I believe he has the tools to become an NHL first round pick next June.

Dunn is a very good skater. Has an effortless stride that he uses to get up and down the ice quickly. He is not afraid to stick handle the puck in his own end and attempt to exit the zone with a controlled entry. This is a very good skill to have. Sheldon Keefe the head coach of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds stated in an interview discussing the Kyle Dubas hiring and analytics, that the risk of carrying the puck in your end is offset by the benefit of leaving the zone with a controlled exit. This was even more prevalent in Niagara as the neutral zone is so small that a controlled zone exit is basically a controlled zone entry or carry in, which we know leads to more shots and scoring chances.

Dunn put up 33 points in 63 games (0.52ppg) this past season. That point total was among the top ten for OHL 16 year olds per extraskater, and tops among defencemen. What makes that total even more impressive was the fact that Dunn played with a poor Niagara team. I made this point in the Seibenaler piece but it is worth mentioning again. As the second defence pair Dunn never really had a chance to play with Brenden Perlinni, who went in the first round this draft, or Carter Verhaege, who formed a solid first line for the Dogs. The quality of competition and quality of teammate’s numbers (again from extraskater) support this observation, as Dunn played the fourth toughest competition and had the fourth best teammates among Ice Dog defencemen.

Dunn-Siebenaler should be the top pair next season for Niagara. If they don’t start the season as the first pair I expect them to finish there as they are much better than Luke Mercer and Aaron Haydon, the current top pair. That will allow them both to get more ice time as well as the chance to play with more skilled forwards. This combined with being a year older should help Dunn blow past his scoring total of 33 from last season. I would expect somewhere around 50+ points from Dunn which would be more than enough to get past the 0.6 “barrier.”

A smooth skating puck moving defencemen who puts up points sounds an awful lot like a first rounder to me. However what may keep Dunn from that status will be; you guessed it size. Dunn is undersized for a defencemen at six feet tall. His smallish stature limits what he can do physically which makes him appear to be a weak defender. This may very well be true but he does such a good job creating offence that he's playing defence less than you would expect. Dave Tippet has a great quote on this sort of player;

                

       “We had a player that was supposed to be a great, shutdown defenseman. He was supposedly the be-all, end-all of defensemen. But when you did a 10-game analysis of him, you found out he was defending all the time because he can't move the puck. Then we had another guy, who supposedly couldn't defend a lick. Well, he was defending only 20 percent of the time because he's making good plays out of our end. He may not be the strongest defender, but he's only doing it 20 percent of the time. So the equation works out better the other way. I ended up trading the other defenseman.”

That quote is a few years old so you may have seen it before, but I thought it was worth mentioning as it is very relevant to Dunn.

I think the other thing with Dunn is what Tyler Dellow referred to as the “Big Mistake.” People are inherently biased and will remember the one big mistake rather than the five or ten good little plays. That is just human nature, and is one of the major short comings of the eyeball test. Dunn handles the puck a lot and with that comes turnovers which can lead to goals against. That coupled with his lack of physical play could cause Dunn to slide on teams' draft boards.

To answer the question posed in the title, yes I think Vince Dunn has a chance to be a first round pick. He has the tools and the opportunity to have a big offensive season. He may not be the best defender but that isn't a major problem as he spends a lot of time in the offensive zone. When he is forced to play defence he can use his good skating to carry the puck out of the zone. If Dunn is able to continue improving and build on last season he could very well wind up as an NHL first round pick.