DeBrincat of Red Wings continues to defy expectations with 2nd All-Star appearance

DETROIT -- Alex DeBrincat will be sitting in a chair on the ice at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Thursday, waiting to hear his name called in the Tim Hortons NHL All-Star Player Draft (6 p.m. ET; ESPN2, SN, TVAS).

If you were one of the captains, how high would you pick the Detroit Red Wings forward for the 3-on-3 tournament in the 2024 Honda (U.S.)/Rogers (Canada) NHL All-Star Game on Saturday (3 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, SN, CBC, TVAS)?

"I'd make him sweat a little bit," laughed forward Patrick Kane, DeBrincat's teammate with the Chicago Blackhawks from 2017-22 and now with the Red Wings. "I'd wait maybe until I really think someone's going to pick him and then pick him. That'd be funny."

Seriously, though, the captains best be careful.

Remember how DeBrincat fell to the second round in the 2016 NHL Draft despite putting up eye-popping numbers during his time in junior hockey?

Yeah, well, the 26-year-old will play his 500th NHL game when the Red Wings play the Ottawa Senators at Little Caesars Arena on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET; BSDET, SN, RDS).

He has 416 points (205 goals, 211 assists) in his 499 games, third in his draft class behind Toronto Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews, the No. 1 pick, who has 600 points (339 goals, 261 assists) in 527 games, and Florida Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk, the No. 6 pick, who has 542 points (208 goals, 334 points) in 559 games.

So what if DeBrincat is 5-foot-8, 180 pounds?

"You're just hoping to play one game, let alone 500," DeBrincat said. "So it's definitely a cool thing and will be a cool game for me."

DeBrincat was passed over in the 2014 Ontario Hockey League draft and signed as a free agent with Erie of the OHL on April 28, 2014. Kris Knoblauch, then the coach in Erie, now coach of the Edmonton Oilers, said DeBrincat was about 5-foot-6, 140 pounds at the time.

Though he had 104 points (51 goals, 53 assists) in 68 games in 2014-15 and 101 points (51 goals, 50 assists) in 60 games in 2015-16, DeBrincat wasn't selected by the Blackhawks until the No. 39 pick in the 2016 draft. He had 127 points (65 goals, 62 assists) in 63 games in 2016-17 and was named the Canadian Hockey League player of the year.

It's true that he played with Connor McDavid in 2014-15 and Dylan Strome from 2014-17, but it's not like he wasn't an elite player in his own right.

"I think he got overlooked and got passed up in the draft, or pushed back, because he got so much attention, or people thought he was benefitting, from playing with some pretty good centermen, whether that was McDavid or Strome," Knoblauch said.

"But I know with us, his points per game was actually higher when he was away from those guys, when he was actually a centerman on a line with Kyle Maksimovich and Taylor Raddysh. Those three hit it off really well. I guess not enough scouts saw him play center in that role. But yeah, he was a really good player.

"I don't think he got enough credit for that. I think he would have been easily a first-round draft pick. I think a lot of teams underestimated him."

DeBrincat had 307 points (160 goals, 147 assists) in 368 games with the Blackhawks from 2017-22, including 41-goal seasons in 2018-19 and 2021-22. He had 66 points (27 goals, 39 assists) in 82 games with the Senators last season and has 43 points (18 goals, 25 assists) in 49 games with the Red Wings this season.

It's true that he has played with Kane in Chicago and Detroit, but again, it's not like he hasn't been an elite player in his own right. He had 24 points (13 goals, 11 assists) in 24 games this season before Kane debuted with the Red Wings on Dec. 7.

He has a high hockey IQ and a great shot, and has the will to go with the skill.

"Oh, he's feisty," Knoblauch said. "He's got a lot of compete in him. I've seen him in the OHL have some fights, sticking up for teammates. Probably one of the biggest things that probably doesn't get noticed is how strong he is on the puck, being able to strip players, whether that's with his quickness or just with a strong stick."

Kane said DeBrincat doesn't just want to win.

"He wants to be the reason that the team wins," Kane said. "He's a big-time player, and I think that's the thing I've really enjoyed about getting to know him over the start of his career and into his prime now. He's just very competitive. He wants to do well every night."

This will be DeBrincat's second All-Star appearance, after he represented Chicago at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas in the 2022 NHL All-Star Game. He had two goals and an assist for the Central Division in an 8-5 win against the Atlantic Division in the semifinals, then had a goal disallowed by an offside call in a 5-3 loss to the Metropolitan Division in the final.

This will be his first All-Star experience with the draft. He watched it growing up, when the NHL used the format in Carolina in 2011, Ottawa in 2012 and Columbus in 2015. He remembers how Washington Capitals forward Alexander Ovechkin wanted to be the last player picked in 2015 so he could get a car as a consolation prize.

"It's a cool thing where you're not restricted to your division," DeBrincat said. "I think it's definitely cool to get intertwined with some other guys."

The captains are Matthews, McDavid of the Oilers, Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche and brothers Jack Hughes of the New Jersey Devils and Quinn Hughes of the Vancouver Canucks. No one really will make DeBrincat sweat, right? Especially not McDavid, his old Erie teammate.

"I would hope he'd want me on his team, but it is what it is," DeBrincat said, smiling. "I guess we'll see how that plays out."