Jacob Quillan (4.25 Amateur Rating, NHL Grade — C) Forward
Some of you might be reading this and thinking “Quillan? Really? Draft-able?” Well, quite simply, “Yes”. He may be undersized in the NHL I played in, but in today’s game he might turn out to be a rock star. We’ve been watching Jake for almost 2 years and in every viewing he continues to improve and becomes a more complete hockey player, so much so that on more than one occasion our in game notes say simply “He’s a hockey player.” He is smart with the puck and without it. When he has possession, Jacob plays with his head up and he has excellent on ice awareness. He understands that he is (and can be) successful playing in tight against big defenseman and using their size advantage against them. The only way I can explain this is Jaromir Jagr playing against Hal Gill or Zdeno Chara. You might not remember this, but Jagr told the great hockey writer Stan “The Maven” Fischler – “I would say that Gill is the first defenseman I just cannot beat,” said Jagr, when asked to name his toughest opponent. So you know what we did in Pittsburgh? We countered by having lightening fast Marty Straka line up on left wing while Jagr played right, as soon as the puck was dropped Marty and Jags would switch sides to avoid the match-up. It sounds simple, and it certainly was, but Marty was a smaller guy who loved to initiate contact with larger defenseman, then play with the puck in their feet and use their size against them while he was spinning and attacking the net. Now we’re certainly not saying Jaocb Quillan is going to have Straka’s NHL career (954 games played, 717 points), but we do think that Jacob has the potential to play at a very high level. We said he’s smart… and he is. He also has very quick feet and elite anticipation which only makes him seem faster. He plays with an attitude, consistently wins 50-50 battles and when he attacks the net off of the cycle Jacob has high level poise which allows him to be a dangerous play maker or scoring threat. We feel Jacob will be a power play option in professional hockey and after playing for Coach Rand Pecknold and his staff at Quinnipiac he might be a potential penalty killer as well. Here are a few past Neutral Zone comments on Jacob’s game and it is obvious that he is trending in the right direction; From January 2018 “Quillan wasn’t over-the-top dominant and didn’t play his best here, but he has upside. He has good speed, but we expected to see more from him” . One year later in January 2019 – “Quillan comes to Salisbury out of Midget AAA in Nova Scotia where he gained attention from several junior teams and was drafted in both the QMJHL and USHL draft. He’s a highly skilled player with an effortless stride, smooth hands, great touch on his passes and keen offensive instincts. He played more of a set-up role here in this event but was able to maintain possession through chaos, hold onto the puck for that extra second and dish to his teammates in scoring areas. He had several nice cross-crease feeds or centering passes from behind the net and maybe even more impressive was his ability at the offensive blue line on the power play. He has the vision and the poise to pick apart the penalty kill with precision passes and even threw some low shots to the pad to generate rebounds. He doesn’t rest on his talent, he hustles, he battles in the corners and is the first guy back in transitions. On a deep offensive lineup, Quillan leads the Knights in points and assists. And lastly, this past May – “He had one shift that really spoke to his overall game here; he was stopped on the puck on a zone entry, hustled on the backcheck, caught his man deliver a big hit just inside the blue line then got the puck and carried it through the neutral zone and made a cross slot assist for a one-timer goal. He was all over the ice making plays in all 3-zones and proved to be a complete player who can fill any hole on a team’s roster. Along with his ability; we loved his compete level and edge to his game“. That sounds like a “Hockey Player” to us and his size, quickness and compete combined with his IQ may make him an ideal late round selection in the 2020 NHL Draft.