There’s a funny thing about drafting hockey players when they’re 18 years old and that’s that you have just a slightly better chance of picking the best ones than if you draft them at age 10.  Don’t get me wrong, the really gifted ones are pretty easy to spot, but after that it’s a lottery.  It should come as no surprise that some kids aren’t even drafted until they’re in their 20s.  Dustin Penner may never realize his full potential, but he never played top level hockey as a child either, so you just never know for sure.

This year the New York Islanders picked up an American defenseman most of you have never heard of and those who have need to find balance in your life.  Tony DeHart was selected in the fifth round so he wasn’t exactly a hail mary, but let’s face it taking a 20-year-old in the late rounds of a draft that had a few elite players and a bunch of maybes isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement.

Here’s the line on DeHart: he’s 6’2 and 202 lbs., so he’s got good hockey player size.  The defender started his junior career in London with the Knights and put up a whopping one goal and four assists in 38 games.  He followed that up with one goal and three assists in 34 games, so it isn’t any wonder NHL teams passed on him during his draft eligible year.

The following year he found himself in Oshawa and improved on his numbers exponentially with seven goals and 20 assists in 63 games, and once again every NHL team including the one in his home state of Missouri decided to take a pass.

This is the point in the article you start saying “is there a reason I’m still reading this” and the answer is in the trend-line.  Last year as a 19-year-old DeHart nearly doubled his offensive output.  He scored 10 goals and added 40 assists in 68 games and even managed to land a brief two game stint with the AHL Springfield Falcons.

A player who’s drafted at age 20 and is taken deep in that draft has a much smaller window of opportunity than those taken in the first three rounds.  That window is now, and if that trend line keeps going up he’ll get a shot and he couldn’t have been drafted by a better team.  The Isles are by and large small and soft on the back end.  DeHart could offer just the right mix of offence and sandpaper, which is hard to come by these days.  Hell, DeHart has even stood toe-to-toe with Zack Kassian, so he’s got just enough crazy to make him a fearless player.

If you’re looking for a guy who’s totally under the radar, but in a perfect situation to succeed consider DeHart.  Watch his first year of pro and you might find yourself ahead of the game with the next Jason Demers.  Like DeHart, Demers was drafted late in the draft when he was 20 years old.  But after just one season in the AHL, Demers became the next big thing in fantasy hockey pools, scoring 21 points in 51 NHL games.  With even better size and more experience in NHL development camps (he’s suited up for St. Louis more than once, including the 2009 Traverse City Prospects Tournament), DeHart could easily follow the same career path, and become a household name among poolies.

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