With the 25th overall pick the Toronto Maple Leafs selected Stuart Percy from the Mississauga St. Mike's Majors. This is a great pick for me because I can go to see him play a lot. Just kidding, Leafs fans don't watch junior hockey. Stuart Percy grew up in Oakville, played hockey locally, and is a lifelong Leafs fan. He's also on Twitter @StuPercy5. Down Goes Brown noted that Percy was born the day after the Clark/McSorley fight while Tyler Biggs was born the day before Nikolai Borschevsky's game 7 OT winner. I don't know what that means but maybe they are good omens.
The story is that Percy wears number five because he idolises Nik Lidstrom and likes to model his game after him. I hope it works out better than Anton Stralman. Seriously, he played on Ontario's U-17 silver medal winning team and the Canadian team that won gold at the Ivan Hlinka tournament. He is at least two full seasons away from even being considered for a spot as an injury fill-in so we're a long way off from figuring out if this was a good pick or not.
TSN Analysis: Percy continuously got better as the season progressed. He's a smart player who knows how to make the right plays in all different situations.
Now let's see who wrote that...Craig Button...shit. Ok, after the jump for more and a video.
Strengths: Percy just seems to be one of those invaluable defensemen that coaches can consistently rely upon in tough situations to eat up significant minutes. For such a young player, Percy plays with a tremendous deal of poise and always seems to make the right decision in the defensive zone. He’s a well-built individual who does all the little things well; he plays with an active stick in passing lanes, has good reach and is positionally sound. Leading the rush into the neutral zone, Percy displays an excellent first pass with the ability to hit forwards in stride, but does shy away from the riskier stretch passes.
- Alex Tran, Maple Leafs Hot Stove
That sounds...good? Yes, good. Now, don't follow that link. Trust me.
We had Percy up pretty high in our mid-terms and are still high on the Mississauga defenseman but feel he’s been eclipsed by some of the other players as the season has progressed. Percy is still a solid value pick as he plays a very smart game and plays mistake-free hockey in a lot of situations, but his high-end potential is a bit of a detractor. He isn’t an overly physical player, but Percy does use his reach well and is positionally smart. With his strong showing in the Memorial Cup, he could certainly go higher than our ranking here, which would not be a poor move at all.
Let's take a look at his NHL.com draft profile:
At the 2011 Memorial Cup, he led all defensemen with four assists and was named to the Memorial Cup All-Star Team – Mississauga lost in the final to the Saint John Sea Dogs.This is good!
Favourite music artist: BostonWhat? Jesus.
And just in case you doubted the lad's truculence because of his two first names (can't be trusted) here's a lot of videos of him fighting.
How do you rate this pick?
| Wendel Clark | 63 |
| Brett Lebda | 40 |
| Cliff Fletcher | 97 |
