#48 Brayden Burke
Team: Lethbridge Hurricanes
Position: C/LW
Shoots: L
Height: 5’10
Weight: 155
GP: 42
Goals: 8
Assists: 26
Points: 34
Pts/Gm: 0.81
PIM: 14
Player Analysis: Brayden Burke is a slight but skilled forward for the Lethbridge Hurricanes…has some things to clean up in his overall skating but does posses good straight-line speed…speed is aided by the ability to make quick little crossovers as he pushes around the ice…those same crossovers also allow him to make quick east-west moves, forcing defenders to change their hip and shoulder angles while trying to slow him down on the rush…is very light on his feet and doesn’t seem to have very good balance…looks slightly taller than his 5’10 listing, allowing him to have decent reach and length both with and without the puck…reads the play extremely well and possesses good 200-foot hockey sense…excels offensively at being able to slow the play down when the puck is on his stick…likes to enter the zone and put on the brakes to create space for himself…makes subtle dekes or moves as a playmaker which allow teammates to get open or lanes to open up…combines that sense with the ability to pass the puck in an accurate and sharp manner…hands are a bit stiff and rigid at times in pass reception…could get more comfortable handling the puck overall, especially in traffic…is a bit soft on the puck at times and can be considered fairly easy to play against at times due to his lack of strength and balance…will need to get bigger and stronger to play at the next level…his value defensively comes in the form of good positioning…while he’s not overly strong on his stick he does good work with it defensively in the form of quick pokes and stick-lifts…with added strength and explosiveness he should be able to develop a fairly competent defensive element to his game…is not an abrasive or physical player but doesn’t float or take shifts off…spent much of the 2nd half of the season on the LW alongside Giorgio Estephan and Tyler Wong…seemed to really come out of nowhere in the second half of the year, developing immense chemistry alongside Estephan and Wong…his overall PPG rate of 0.81 was 8th best among all first-year draft-eligible WHL forwards…registered 0.64 even-strength PPG which was 6th highest mark among all first-year draft-eligible WHL forwards…finished T-9th in primary assists (with 16) among all first-year draft-eligible WHL forwards…either scored or assisted on 26.15% of all Lethbridge goals during the regular season, the 9th highest mark among all first-year draft-eligible WHL forwards…was a 7th round selection, 145th overall, by Red Deer in the 2012 WHL Bantam Draft…was dealt to the Hurricanes this year in a deal that saw overage forward Riley Sheen head to the Rebels…will have the opportunity to continue to see big develop minutes within the rebuilding Hurricanes organization…overall I see Burke as a smart and fairly skilled player for the Hurricanes and a guy who has top 9 NHL potential if he can grow and follow a nearly perfect developmental curve…if he doesn’t reach that level of success in his career he should have the ability to be a top 6 style of forward in the AHL, offering organizational depth, but he could take a number of years to eventually reach that peak…
