Tim Benz: Penguins 1st-round draft pick Owen Pickering's amazing growth spurt — and how it could shape his progress
The Pittsburgh Penguins’ first-round draft choice Owen Pickering had to be exaggerating. Right?
After being selected as the 21st pick in the first round of last week’s NHL Draft, the 6-foot-4, 180-pound defenseman claimed that he was only 5-foot-6, 130 pounds three years ago.
That had to be hyperbole. That couldn’t be accurate, could it?
It turns out it wasn’t.
He actually weighed even less.
“It was 5-7, 125 in my bantam year,” Pickering reiterated to reporters after a Penguins development camp practice Sunday. “It was a big growth spurt. … It’s been only positive so far. I think it helped my skating. My stride length, no doubt. And it’s just about filling out now.”
The general manager of Pickering’s Western Hockey League club, the Swift Current Broncos, is Chad Leslie. He claims Pickering isn’t exaggerating.
“No, he isn’t,” Leslie told me on 105.9 The X last week. “When Owen was in bantam, he was just a small, little puck-moving defenseman. A really intelligent guy. You could tell the lack of physical strength was really dictating still. But his dad is about 6-foot-1. So we expected him to get to that 6-foot, 6-1 situation. But never did we dream he’d be 6-4 or 6-5.”
While Pickering is enjoying his newfound frame, he insists he held onto the attributes that made him a quality defenseman even when he was smaller.
“The smaller defensemen in the league have to be very mobile. Very shifty. Have the ability to move the puck fast and quarterback the power play. That’s the successful small D-men you see. I tried to mold my game that way when I was younger. I feel I’ve kept some of those skills growing. That’s helped out. Then you learn how to be a bigger body out there and use your size,” Pickering said.
By Pickering’s own admission, the next step in his development is to increase his physical strength. Even though his goal is to make the NHL roster, as Pickering phrases it, “putting on his scout’s glasses,” he can see that likely won’t come in Pittsburgh this year, and he may have to go back to Swift Current.
After that, he needs to learn how to use whatever muscle mass he gains to his advantage.
“Owen is a competitive person and a competitive player,” Leslie said. “That part of his game will develop as he physically gets stronger. There is a willingness to compete and be physical and defend hard. He is a character kid. He is a team-first kid who puts his body on the line to win and for his teammates.”
J.D. Forrest, head coach of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, was at the development camp’s first practice. He anticipates there will be a learning curve for Pickering to grasp how much he’ll be able to use his body once he fills out. Especially since he rarely had a size advantage growing up as a young player.
“You’ve got to get familiar with your own body,” Forrest said. “To continue to learn how to utilize that size as a tool, and an advantage — (don’t) forget that you have that. Know that this is something that you can utilize in every aspect of the game.”
Pickering has said that he models his game after Scott Niedermayer, who was roughly 6 feet tall and 200 pounds. So not exactly an overly big defenseman himself. Pickering, born in 2004, admits he only remembers Niedermayer from the 2010 Olympics. But that’s why he wore No. 27 in Swift Current. That’s who he emulates.
“Very good skater. Smooth. Played in the league a long time. I obviously grew, so there are a lot of role models now. But he’s definitely one of them,” Pickering said.
Despite the age and size gap, Leslie sees how Pickering has picked up nuances of Niedermayer’s game.
“Because he grew up being undersized, he had to figure things out. Use his head. Use his stick. He defends very well. He moves his feet and thinks very well. And suddenly, he grows into a 6-4 frame, and he has the small player skills to go with it. … Certainly, it does make sense who he was patterning his game after, that’s for sure,” Leslie said.
Niedermayer played over 1,000 games (18 seasons) in the NHL for the New Jersey Devils and Anaheim Ducks. He was a four-time Stanley Cup champion and won the Norris Trophy in 2004 and the Conn Smythe Trophy in 2007.
Regardless of size, if Pickering is even half as successful as Niedermayer, he’ll be considered a first-round steal.
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Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via X. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
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