In the NHL right now, bigger is better.
When you look around the league, there’s clearly been an emphasis on size of late. The Florida Panthers have won two straight Stanley Cup thanks to a physical, in-your-face style of play – even if one of their top disturbers this past postseason was the 5-9 Brad Marchand – and sports is nothing if not a copycat culture.
What wins one season is what organizations chase the next, and that’s been shown in the way teams have constructed themselves and drafted the past couple of seasons. This year’s NHL draft could have been confused for the NBA’s, as a parade of prospects well over 6 feet tall crossed the stage at the Peacock Theater.
The Blue Jackets have been no stranger to this trend under general manager Don Waddell, selecting 6-3 center Cayden Lindstrom in the first round last year and a bevy of skyscraping defensive prospects in the past two drafts led by 2025 first-rounder Jackson Smith.
But while size does matter in the NHL, the game has shown over the past decade that smaller players have more of a chance to succeed than ever, and the Blue Jackets aren’t opposed to bringing in smaller but skilled players – if they check off the right boxes.
“If you’re on the smaller side, 5-10 and that, you have to have hockey sense,” Waddell said. “You look around the NHL right now at how many 5-10 players have success, they’re all players that are very smart players. We talk about this all the time – 5-10, 5-8, 5-9, anybody can play in this league, but it comes down to what kind of hockey sense you have.”
Which helps to explain how Owen Griffin heard his name called by the Blue Jackets with the final pick of the fifth round in this summer’s draft. The Oshawa Generals forward is listed at 5-10, 160 pounds, but he checked off a lot of boxes that the team was looking for when they got later in the draft.
At the top – a high level of hockey sense and a competitive nature that allows him to play bigger than his size.
“I think my hockey IQ and my compete are two things that maybe make up for my size,” Griffin said. “I think just my compete level I bring every shift, whether it’s going to the net or in those battles working my hardest.”
Griffin is coming off a season in which he just got better and better as the year went on for a Generals team that made it to the OHL final. The Markham, Ontario, native finished the year with 22 goals and 51 points in 62 games, but that doesn’t quite tell the story of his campaign.
Griffin became an indispensable part of the Oshawa squad as the year went on, posting a 14-9-23 line in the last 19 regular-season games. In the playoffs, he led the OHL with 16 goals and added 13 assists for 29 points in 21 postseason games.
That earned him a predraft comparison to longtime Tampa Bay center Anthony Cirelli from Dan Marr, the director of NHL Central Scouting, as well as plenty of plaudits from the CBJ decision makers.
“You always want to see how players respond under pressure and in the postseason,” Waddell said. “I don’t care what level you’re playing in, it’s always harder to play in the postseason because everybody puts everything on the line. That helped his cause. ... When it was our pick and his name was there, it was unanimous that we pick that player.”
“He was very noticeable in the playoff games,” director of amateur scouting Ville Siren said. “You didn’t have to look for him. He’s a little bit of a smaller size, but he played hard, he competed hard against bigger players and he was able to produce.”
Blue Jackets assistant director of amateur scouting Trevor Timmins said it appeared Griffin grew into his game as the year went on, and it helped that he was given the opportunity to skate with such top players in Oshawa as first-round NHL draft picks Beckett Sennecke, Colby Barlow and Calum Ritchie as well as CBJ third-rounder Luca Marrelli.
“I think me and my linemates built some good chemistry over the last bit of the season and going into the playoffs there,” Griffin said. “We were just clicking very well and the puck was going in the net. There’s a lot of high-end talent on that team and they make it easy to play with.”
He was able to come to Columbus for the team’s development camp, presented by Bread Financial, with one of those players in Marrelli, the team’s third-round pick in the 2024 draft. A breakout player in the OHL a year ago himself, Marrelli said he was watching the draft this summer and heard commentators talking about how they were surprised Griffin was on the board, only to be excited a few minutes later when the Blue Jackets made the pick.
“Unbelievable player, even better human being,” Marrelli said. “Such a smart player, he’s tenacious, can score goals, he’s crafty, defends well. He’s the total package, and I’m really happy for him.”
Given his production a season ago, Griffin likely would have gone higher in the draft if his size hadn’t worked against him, but the hope is his hockey sense, skills and all-around game can make him a diamond in the rough for the Blue Jackets.
“I maybe would have wanted to go higher, but I’m happy with where I landed with Columbus,” Griffin said. “It’s a great organization here, and I’m happy to get started with them.”
