Vancouver Giants winger Aaron Obobaifo is an NHL draft prospect you need to know about

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Keeping an eye on which NHL teams are keeping watch on Aaron Obobaifo will be one of the fun sidebar stories with the Vancouver Giants this year.

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The WHL regular season opens up on the weekend, and the Giants start out at home Friday, hosting the Seattle Thunderbirds at the Langley Events Centre (7 p.m.).

Pundits and prognosticators are yet to pump out predictions about the 2025 NHL Draft, but Vancouver winger Cameron Schmidt, 17, has got some early buzz as a player to watch in that regard, coming off his 31-goal season last year and playing first-line minutes with Team Canada at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup this summer.

Here’s suggesting that Obobaifo, 17, is another intriguing prospect for NHL clubs. He’s in his first year of draft eligibility. There are pro aspects to his game already. He wins puck battles all over the ice and he drives to the net like there’s some sort of gravitational pull dragging him there. 

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Through training camp and the pre-season, the 5-foot-10, 186-pound Obobaifo has looked considerably more comfortable in this second year for him with Vancouver. He was dominating in a 5-2 Vancouver exhibition win over the Kelowna Rockets on Sunday in Ladner. He scored twice, fired eight shots on goal and was a factor seemingly every shift.

Both teams were missing players to pro camps that day, but it gives you some idea of what’s possible for Obobaifo. NHL teams are bound to notice if he keeps trending this way.

“He’s only 17. He looks like he’s 19. He has the presence of a 19-year-old on the ice,” Vancouver general manager Barclay Parneta said. “He goes to hard areas and he’s got a good skill set.

“I think he had a fantastic summer. He was in the top five in several of our fitness tests. He’s gained a step and he’s gained confidence. I’m really excited about how he’s looked so far.”

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Asked if he’s going to get NHL attention, Parneta said: “I think so. He has the heaviness of a pro game to his style.”

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In the NHL, players make incremental improvements season to season. The gains aren’t always obvious. In the WHL, the swings can be massive. This year’s fourth liner can be a second liner next season and a league all-star the year after that.

Giants fans saw it with Craig Cunningham, who went from zero goals to 11 goals to 28 goals in his first three seasons with the club. In his fourth year as a 19-year-old, Cunningham put up 37 goals and 97 points for the Giants.

Brendan Gallagher’s another example with Vancouver. He had 10 goals as a 16-year-old. He had 41 goals as a 17-year-old, the first of three straight 40-plus campaigns on his way to becoming the franchise’s all-time leading scorer.

Those are the most extreme of cases. You can still expect an ample bump in stats for Obobaifo from last year’s six goals and 18 points in 56 regular season games.

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There’s history there. Obobaifo was a first-round pick, No. 19 overall, in the 2022 WHL Draft. Vancouver had three first rounders that year, landing Schmidt at No. 7 and centre Jakob Oreskovic at No. 22.

Obobaifo, who’s from Calgary, had 44 goals and 91 points in 52 games in his WHL draft year at the 14 and under level for Shattuck-St. Mary’s, the celebrated Minnesota hockey academy. The following season, he notched 39 goals and 63 points in 49 games at 15 and under for Shattuck.

Kyren Gronick, 20, has been centring a line with Obobaifo and London Hoilett, 19, through the pre-season with Vancouver. He’s in his fifth year in the WHL, so he’s seen top players come and go in this league.

“He’s been unbelievable. I’ll be really surprised if his name is not called early in the draft,” Gronick said of Obobaifo. “He’s got stronger and faster in the off-season and he’s got an unbelievable skill.”

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Obobaifo added: “I feel like I’ve taken a step from last year. Last year I was confident sometimes. This year, I feel really confident.”

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Vancouver as a team is looking to build off last year’s 32-32-4-0 mark that left them in sixth spot in the Western Conference. They lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Everett Silvertips in five games.

The B.C. Division certainly looks decidedly tougher. The Prince George Cougars and Kelowna Rockets were No. 7 and No. 10, respectively, in the initial Canadian Hockey League national rankings, and the Kamloops Blazers and Victoria Royals both appear markedly improved.

Vancouver does have a bona fide game breaker up front in Schmidt, and one of the best 16 year olds in the league in defenceman Ryan Lin. The blue line corps also includes Mazden Leslie, 19, who could be closing in on a top five spot in franchise games played by year’s end.

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The Giants are inexperienced in goal, with Matthew Hutchison, who turns 18 in a month, and Burke Hood, 17. They have 21 WHL regular season appearances between them, and all from Hutchison. 

More importantly, this was a team that was too loose too often in its defensive zone last year under new coach Manny Viveiros, who had signed on just a couple of weeks before training camp. Viveiros knows his charges better and vice versa now, and throughout the entire Giants organization there’s been talk about pushing to be a tougher squad to play against this year.

“We want to be a harder, faster, heavier team. We don’t want to be a one-and-done (offensive chance), soft hockey team. We want to be a hard, fast, skilled team,” Gronick said.

@SteveEwen

SEwen@postmedia.com

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