2023 NHL Draft Diary: Brayden Yager

Brayden Yager of Moose Jaw in the Western Hockey League will file a monthly draft diary for NHL.com this season leading up to the 2023 Upper Deck NHL Draft at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on June 28-29. The 18-year-old right-shot center (5-foot-11, 166 pounds), No. 5 on NHL Central Scouting's midterm ranking of North American skaters eligible for the 2023 draft, has 70 points (25 goals, 45 assists) in 61 games this season. Yager was named Canadian Hockey League Rookie of the Year after he had 59 points (34 goals, 25 assists) in 63 games in 2021-22.

Hi hockey fans:
It's getting to crunch time late in the season and clubs are jockeying for playoff position. Right now, we're fourth in the Eastern Conference. We've gone through a little bit of a tough patch of late but we're not going to make excuses. We're going to come out better and we're looking at these last seven games as an opportunity to set ourselves up with home-ice advantage in the postseason and then, most importantly, just feel good about ourselves entering the WHL playoffs.
I feel like I've played well this season. Obviously, you always want to look for more ways to keep getting better but I think one thing I really wanted to work on my playmaking at the start of the season and I think I've almost doubled the amount of assists I had over last season so that's a step in the right direction. I just want to keep playing as hard as I can and feel good going into playoffs since those are the important games. I want to bring the offense but also continue to improve my 200-foot game.
I can kind of take it as a positive playing against the best defensive players and shutdown lines each game this season. It's been a great challenge but I know it's going to make me a better player at the end of the day. I guess I'm kind of thankful that I got the opportunity to play against the other team's best players and coaches have respect for the player that I am.
My parents have wanted me to develop my 200-foot game as a center. I feel just being able to impact the game in different ways is important. Sometimes the goals don't go in and when you don't catch a bounce, offensively, impacting the game in other ways is just as important. Sometimes that's face-offs, sometimes it's penalty kill, just winning battles and competing. I feel it improves your coaches trust if you can impact the game in different scenarios, and that's something I really take pride in.

The WHL playoffs is definitely different than your minor hockey playoffs; it ramps up 100 percent. The checking is tighter and it's almost more systematic, more NHL-like where if you make a mistake, there's more of a chance it's going in the back of your net. The playoffs are the most fun time of the year when every game matters so much. It seems to be a little bit more intense, guys are tracking back and forth, there's big hits and the game is more physical. It's super fun and especially with the fans behind your back and cheering and screaming. It's definitely a different atmosphere but super fun.
I think we could see Lethbridge in the first round and that'd be a good series. There's still a little bit of a race going on, so we'll see if that matchup happens or not. We played Saskatoon last year and beat them, so we kind of have a little rivalry going. We haven't played our best game against them this year, so I think that'd be fun to somehow play against them in one of the rounds and prove we can beat them.
Right now, there's a little virus going around our team, so our coach told us to stay away from the rink on Sunday and Monday this week before we got back to work on Tuesday. We had a couple guys who missed a game last week because they were too sick to play, and we were short numbers; some guys played lots of minutes. I think the extra day of rest was good and hopefully we'll be feeling better going into this weekend's regular-season games against Swift Current.
Finally, I was asked to name who I believe is the best player in the NHL right now. It's hard not to pick Connor McDavid (Edmonton Oilers). I mean, you watch him play and everything he does is at 100-miles per hour. People always talk about how he's the fastest skater in the world, but his hands can keep up with his feet and I think that's just the crazy thing about him. He's going so fast and then he's able to place pucks where defenders can't reach it, in awkward spots where a defenseman can't get a stick on it and then, the next thing you know, they're reaching and he's gone and then you're not catching him.
Well, that's it for this month. I'll check back in April when I hope to be providing some good news on our team in the WHL playoffs.
Photos: Nick Pettigrew, Moose Jaw