McCann is a fun throw back defender who bring size, mobility, and a real edge to his game. He attacked this tournament as if he was playing pissed off all the time and you could feel the competitive juices flowing on every shift. He brought that mean streak and physicality to the forefront with some huge checks in this tournament and you got a sense that opposition forwards were keeping track of when he was on the ice to avoid direct confrontation. When he fully fills into his lanky frame, I think he will be a handful. McCann’s stride is powerful and athletic, and he uses it to full effect to drive the puck up ice. His counting stats for zone exits and entries would be among the leaders, and he is tough to stop when he gets a head of steam. I love that desire to be a difference maker, but I’ll be curious on how he adapts when he can’t just outskate and outmuscle every forechecker. He skates out of trouble a ton, but he can skate into trouble frequently as well. I find defencemen at this level who rely on their feet to transition over puck movement fall into two camps: Those who lean on skating because they can’t process quick enough to find an outlet and those who lean on skating because they can skate past everyone, so why pass? I think McCann falls into the latter as I have seen him use his teammates more effectively for Airdrie, but he will need to make sure he’s picking his spots more deliberately as he progresses upwards.

There aren’t a lot of defenders who you can clearly tell are aware of their strength element and how to use it to protect the puck and wait a half a second longer to make passing decisions. Kale is a nice blend of size, powerful stride, and heavy shot release wrist shot from the point. After watching him battle against the top Saskatchewan teams and see him take on the tougher match ups in the AEHL, he has shown to be consistently effective on puck retrievals in how he can skate or pass out of pressure with his D partner. His skating strides get excellent power even while stickhandling through traffic and he can certainly close gaps to stay as a trailer in the play very effectively. He’s a really interesting two-way defender.

Airdrie is blessed with some stronger defensive players with heavier wrist shots from the backend. I noticed him rather early on as he was pinching off gaps and delivering some hard outlet passes which landed crisp on the stick. In the offensive zone, he can flash some mohawk stride evasion moves in order to push into better shooting lanes. He’s a powerful player already and someone who is younger for this draft too. Most of his decision making and effective shot/pass results I thought were very solid. Whenever you see a player who is well-rounded and solid, then it just comes about how much offensive potential there is to unlock. Looking forward to seeing his play unfold this season.