21 June 2008

Meet Daultan Leveille


Listen, I want you to remember as you read these articles and snippets, that this kid is a senior in high school. Or just graduated. And is going to MSU in the fall. He passed on major junior so he could go to college. Do not salivate overly much as you read about this guy, because it is very doubtful he will be coming to Atlanta for more than rookie camp. And that's not even in Atlanta! It's in Duluth! So... dream for the future, my friends. We got a great centre for Kovy, who probably won't see the N for 2 years.


Wait nearly over: Leveille heading to Ottawa for NHL draft this weekend (REALLY good article!)

Daultan Leveille's HF profile

Daultan Leveille ends his season with a bang!

Congrats from the Mountainview Falcons

Leveille has emerged as a Golden talent

Leveille's profile on NHLentrydraft2008.com

There are not a lot of articles about Daultan on the web, being that he was definitely a dark horse (1st Jr B player drafted!), so I turned to message boards (which normally I do not do), and there were a lot of good posts about him. Please note, spelling and grammatical errors are left intact. Proper spelling of Leveille's first name is D-A-U-L-T-A-N.

HFBoards:

Wow! Daulton Leveille! I had to double check and make sure that was him. Great kid, good character, an unselfish player. My son and Daulton played on the same line with the Buffalo Prospects a few years back. And Daulton had some serious wheels then. As I recall, his father was one of the coaches, along with Kevin Quick Sr. (as some of you may know - Kevin Jr. was drafted by Tampa). Good to see Daulton doing so well.
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ive seen him play once and he is a real good player, and also today i was talking to a kid who plays for another team in that league thorold and is preparing to face st. catherines in the finals. he said that leveille is extremely fast and that his first few strides are just crazy. he did however say that he sometimes gets knocked off the puck easily and is gonna have to hit the weight room this offseason, but im sure he will.
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Daultan Leveille may turn out to be a real sleeper pick for the Spartans. He passed on a spot offered by the 67's this past fall and decided on the NCAA route. ALways skilled but undersized until a growth spurt the past year. He is attracting alot of attention from NHL scouts. 15 teams were present at Monday nights (in March) St Catharines playoff game in which he had 5 points in a 7-3 game. He had 4 points in in a 4-3 game 2 days earlier.

SpartanTailgate:
Daulton Leveille, a forward for St. Catherines (Junior B, GOJHL), is getting a lot of attention as a really good find for MSU hockey; he has a blazing first step as a skater and is a prolific goal-scorer. He has put up incredible multi-point numbers in the Falcons' run through their league's playoffs. In a recent game, there were approximately 15 NHL scouts who witnessed Leveille's overtime game-winner. This could be a two-year player (for MSU) at most, but what a gem - it seems.

DeathValleyDriver:
Daulton Leveille, if he were chosen in the first round would be one of the very few, maybe only, players drafted in the first round out of Junior 'B' hockey.

The300Level:
Here's the latest 'came outta nowhere'...

NHL scouts and management types will tonight be flocking to Thorold, Ont., -- just as they have been for the past couple of weeks to St. Catharines – to get what could be their final look at one of the rising stars of this year's NHL entry draft.

His name is Daultan Leveille, a 17-year-old speedster who plays for the St. Catharines Falcons of the Golden Horseshoe Jr. B League.

A few months ago, the kid who is now being billed as one of the fastest skaters in the draft was barely on the radar screen of most NHL teams, but now he's looking more and more like a solid first-round pick for the 2008 draft.

Leveille is listed at 6-feet, 160 pounds, but has only recently gone through a growth spurt of several inches. That's when pro interest picked up in a big way.

On any given night in St. Catharines recently, scouts from 10 to 15 NHL teams have been there to watch Leveille, who will attend Michigan State University next season.

And Leveille has not disappointed.

In spite of a leg injury that is limiting his explosive speed, Leveille has 12 goals and 28 points in 15 playoff games.

None of the goals were bigger than the game-winner in overtime on Friday night, when the Falcons evened their GHL championship series with Thorold at three games apiece, setting up tonight's Game 7 finish in Thorold.

If the Falcons win this game, NHL scouts will continue to get a good look at Leveille as the winner of tonight's game moves on to the Sutherland Cup round-robin provincial championship for Jr. B teams. But if Thorold should win, Leveille's season will be over.

"He may well be the fastest skater in this year's (NHL) draft," one NHL scout said. "He has a lot of skill. He sort of came out of nowhere and now everyone is rushing to see him."

CalgaryPuck:
Daulton Leveille - He is a small, skilled quarterback on the power-play type player who might be a candidate at any hockey school as the example "how to skate" player; he is a great, fast form skater. He almost single handedly took the St. Catharines Falcons further than a lot of teams would have expected.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't get too excited yet. The league he played in has the two ref system and there were not enough skaters in the league to catch him. He has a long history of being soft and once he plays at Michigan State and gets tagged a couple of times, he may never step on the ice again. On the other hand, if he is able to play the perimeter and never have to see a corner he may do some damage.

Tiffany said...

Why you gotta break my heart like that? Altho who knows, maybe Comley'll toughen him up!