I've now watched two ~30 minute shift-by-shift videos on Bowen Byram and I still don't get the hype with this guy. To my eye, he doesn't have a single elite trait in his game, so I find it very odd that almost everyone has him pencilled in as a top6 pick in this draft. He's not even a particularly dynamic skater. How did this guy get so highly rated? Because of his passport and WHL draft pedigree?
I think he's the 3rd or maybe 4th best defenseman in this draft at best. Again, I don't really see a major difference between him and Tobias Björnfot (and I'm not even particularly high on Björnfot). Might be Byram is a slightly better offensive player but Björnfot is a better skater, more polished defensively and plays at a faster pace.
I don't like Byram defensively that much, I find that he doesn't compete or move his feet nearly enough in the defensive zone or the neutral zone for that matter and he's relatively easy to beat off the rush. His backwards skating needs a lot of work. Luckily he does generally have pretty good anticipation and awareness to make up for that but for a highly rated guy you expect more.
I think Byram is mostly a 1 zone player. He's not doing any great work defensively or in the neutral zone, he doesn't carry the puck or break up plays a lot. But in the offensive zone he does a lot of good work with his puck patience, shot selection and how he walks the line. But that's really where it starts and ends with Byram for me. I don't understand the fascination of him beyond that. I haven't made a list yet but I'd probably have him ranked in the teens or somewhere close to that.
I made some gifs from the recent video I watched on him to illustrate some points.
Here he has plenty of time to go and collect the puck and quickly move it around the net to his D partner and avert any sort of danger, a routine play for most high-end defensemen, but instead what happens? He doesn't move his feet at all, lets the Kelowna forwards catch up to him and when he gets in close to the puck and the boards he doesn't manage to shield the puck at all and just lets the Kelowna guys have it. Zero willingness to compete for a loose puck in a relatively dangerous area in that sequence.
This may not be the greatest example but I see similar things happen relatively frequently. In this sequence he doesn't read the pass quickly enough and gets caught flat-footed in the neutral zone. If the Kelowna forward has an extra gear he'd be able to break in in front of the net and possibly score.
Finally here's a pretty poor shift by Byram. I don't know if he's gassed here or what but you can see what I'm talking about here with how he just doesn't move his feet (quickly) enough. Again, his feet are pretty stationary in the 1-on-1 situation and if that's a faster forward he'd be in trouble. Really don't like his backwards skating. Luckily his d partner covers for him and collects the puck before passing it back to Byram behind the net who has all the time in the world.
What does he do? Lackadaisically skates the puck up the ice without any sort of speed at all and lets the Kelowna player close him down really quickly. However he obviously still is able to make the play to his teammate and not turn that dangerous situation into an immediate turnover but because of how slowly Byram made that play, Kelowna is able to overwhelm that side of the ice and immediately three guys surround the Giants player which leads to a turnover that then becomes a breakaway for Kelowna, a drawn penalty and eventually a power play goal.
So that whole sequence and that goal against stemmed from Byram's inability to move the puck up the ice fast enough.
Byram also had a pretty silly Kris "starfish" Russell impersonation going on but I can't link the video directly because you can't link more than 3 media in a post but you can just click here:
starfish - Streamable