PORRENTRUY, Switzerland — Nobody can quite put a finger on Andrew Cristall.
His draft year in Kelowna this season, were it not for one of his best friends in Regina and a quad contusion that kept him sidelined for five weeks from early January through mid-February, would stand as one of the single-most productive under-18 seasons in the WHL’s recent history.
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He finished sixth in the WHL in scoring with 95 points despite having missed 14 games. His 1.76 points per game was actually third-best, behind only that longtime friend, Connor Bedard, who will undoubtedly be this year’s CHL Player of the Year, and Logan Stankoven, last year’s CHL Player of the Year. His 68-game pace was actually 120 points. Players who produce in that stratosphere are typically picked right at the top of the draft — or close. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ 106 points in 69 games in 2011, and Nolan Patrick’s 102 points in 72 games in 2016, both landed them No. 1 and No. 2 in their drafts respectively.
But Cristall isn’t going to hear his name called in Nashville that early. He probably won’t even be picked in the top 10. He might not be picked in the top 20.
When people around him, or the NHL scouts who’ve watched him, review his game, they point to flaws in his skating and defensive play, plus his size.
But that’s the story of his life. Every game is the next opportunity to show the detractors that they’re wrong.
A couple of weeks ago, they got more ammunition when he registered just a lone goal in a four-game first-round series sweep to the Seattle Thunderbirds in the WHL playoffs.
Last week, he got more of his own ammunition when NHL Central Scouting ranked him 15th on its final list of North American skaters for the 2023 NHL Draft. There were eight CHL skaters slotted ahead of him. He outproduced seven of them.
This week, while wearing an “A” for Team Canada at U18 Worlds, he gets his last opportunity before the draft itself to show them.
And when those who know him are done talking about — or explaining — the skating, and the defence, and the size (currently 5-foot-10 and 167 pounds), they’ll all tell you that’s exactly what he’ll do.
They’ll also tell you about an advanced mind for the game, lightning-quick hands, and a confident player who thinks he can make a difference in every game he plays — and usually he does.
Andrew Cristall. (Steve Dunsmoor / CHL Images)
St. George’s School head of hockey Todd Harkins will tell you his experience coaching Cristall was “a journey.”
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Harkins, a 1988 second-round pick of the Calgary Flames who played parts of 11 seasons in the NHL, IHL, AHL, DEL and NLA, says that three-year journey began with a very talented kid who’d have everything come easy to him in his minor hockey career with the Burnaby Winter Club.
In his first year at the school, Cristall registered 55 points in 33 games playing up an age group on the prep school’s U15 team, and Harkins had to break his habit of taking two-to-three minute shifts.
In his return the U15 team for his WHL draft year, Cristall was named the team’s captain and registered 47 goals and 87 points in just 29 games to lead the CSSHL prep school circuit in goals, outscoring players like Matthew Wood and Zach Benson, both of whom are now top prospects in the 2023 draft (the former is now also a teammate with Team Canada, and he skates with the latter under skills coach and Seattle Kraken player development consultant Justin Rai in the offseason in Vancouver).
Even then, though, he was small and scouts questioned his speed for his size. As the boys around him got bigger and stronger, he had to rely on his hockey IQ and his perseverance in winning loose puck battles according to Harkins.
“He just always had the puck and if he didn’t have the puck he found a way to find and go get the puck. And when the game was on the line, I just knew that he was going to try to find a way to win the hockey game for us. He just had that tenacity and ferocity to go get the puck. He was a fierce competitor,” Harkins said. “(And) he wasn’t the fastest guy in the world but he had great edges and was able to get off of the mark quick, he just didn’t have that explosive speed to be able to pull away from guys.”
In that way, Cristall reminded Harkins of another player he’d coached in the past who was never the best skater: current Panthers forward and 30-goal scorer Sam Reinhart.
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“(Reinhart and Cristall) just always seem to have the puck and put points up and they’re not a defensively liability because they’re just smarter than everybody and they use that smarts to their advantage,” Harkins said. “They find a way because they’re so smart with or without the puck that they just dominate the game that way. Some people are really fast and can’t think the game fast. These guys think the game very fast and find a way to offset their speed with their brain.”
Still, despite the production and the talent level, Harkins had to convince then-Kelowna Rockets head scout Lorne Frey to use the team’s first-round pick in the 2020 WHL Bantam Draft on Cristall.
“People are always doubting him because of his skating and his size but the one thing I told (Frey) is I said ‘If you take him with the eighth overall pick, you will not be disappointed. One day, he could be the leading scorer in the Western Hockey League.’ I actually said that,” Harkins recalled. “And luckily he listened to me because I know they had a couple of other players that they were looking at at that point. But I just knew.”
Andrew Cristall. (Steve Dunsmoor / CHL Images)
Rockets head coach Kris Mallette knows there are things that his leading scorer and alternate captain this year is not.
But whenever scouts called him this year to ask him about the things that he isn’t, he always had a follow-up on what Cristall is.
Mallette always had a but.
A but about the skating.
“He’s definitely not an elite skater,” Mallette said on a recent call. “But what separates him is that he uses his edges so well in regards to riding momentum of a forecheck, or being quick down low. When he needs to be, he’s really elusive. In terms of speed, he’s average. He doesn’t get going real quick. But he puts the work in and his skating has improved from last year to this year and I would only assume that it’s going to continue to get better. You can always work on that and he’s fortunate that he’s got a lot of other tools that are pretty elite.”
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A but about his play defensively.
“He gets picked apart because of his defensive game but he’s my best penalty killer, I just don’t want him out there,” Mallette said. “He’s new age with regards to once possession is turned over, he’s gone. That’s how he thinks the game. And some of the best players in the NHL have that, some of the elite players recognize how to try to get an advantage and he’s no different.
I mean, his ability to anticipate the game, and I get that it’s a cliché word and overused, but his hockey sense and hockey IQ is off the charts. It’s some of the best I’ve ever coached and I’ve had some pretty good players in my time here. The way he sees the game two or three steps or plays ahead of most is pretty remarkable. He understands the game.”
A but about his size.
“His hands in tight are very, very quick. Some of the best players have made very long careers playing small-area games where you’re able to pick apart a defender just by the way his stick or feet are. And there’s more and more players like that. It’s not so much of an anomaly, as it was,” Mallette said. “He has the ability in the WHL to draw two or three defenders to him and then out it into an area, whether it’s on the tape or something that they can just skate into. It’s quite impressive. So how does it translate? Well, it’s quicker, bigger, stronger, faster when he gets to that next level, so it’s just getting bigger, stronger, more mature. Because he’s got a leg up now and if he keeps pace he could be something really, really special.”
A but, even, about his playoff series against the top-ranked Thunderbirds.
“I know that he would love to go back and re-do Seattle,” Mallette said, “but it’s hard when you’re only one of potentially four or five guys on your team that is required to drive the bus and score those goals for your team night-in and night-out against a team with the depth like they had in Seattle. And so for him, scouts questioned, and as did I, I told him ‘As frustrating as it is for you, the best players have to find a way’ and it’s a learning experience for him and our group. But I think now being able to go over to U18s and play a prominent role offensively again could hopefully bring his draft stock back to where it probably was before his injury where he was being talked in the top-15 conversation (instead of) top 30.”
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And Mallette also knows one thing that Critall is: “An offensive threat every single time he’s on the ice.”
He also knows the kid and his family. His dad, Alex, who works in real estate, his mom, Jodi, a school counselor, and his brother, Tyler, who played Division I hockey at St. Lawrence University, set the right example according to Mallette. And the kid gets high marks across the board.
“The scouts whenever they talk to him really like him, so that bodes well. They’re not getting someone without personality. The on-ice is one thing but potentially the person and character could also separate him. He’s very respectable, very outgoing, very confident but not to the extent of cockiness. He’s a confident player who is aware of his abilities but would never be a guy who is deemed as a selfish player,” Mallette said.
“Guys gravitate to him. He likes to have a good time and loves to be on the ice, and those are the types of players that are infectious within a group. And he’s a leader with the way he plays and carries a strong voice in the dressing room even at 17. I can lean on him pretty good and we may butt heads here or there but the thing is that I know at the end of the day that if I’m going after Andrew to be a better player for himself or the team, he may not like it at the time but I know that I’m going to be getting the best version of him in trying to do whatever he can to help our team win.
He’s an ultimate competitor.”
Andrew Cristall. (Erica Perreaux / CHL Images)
Cristall describes his own game as competitive, hardworking, determined, motivated, and creative.
But standing inside Raiffeisen Arena in Porrentruy, Switzerland, on Friday afternoon, he said his three biggest strengths are his hockey IQ, hands, and vision.
“I use those three things to manipulate defenders and gain my advantage of the ice there,” Cristall said. “The game of hockey is all about the little battles and in tight plays trying to gain the advantage on the other team.”
He has honed his hands, he said, in skates with Rai and in a Wednesday night roller hockey league in North Vancouver. His teammates? Bedard, Kent Johnson, and Jake Christiansen — “Our team’s pretty good,” he said, smiling.
As for the concerns about his size and skating? Well that’s nothing new, and the latter is something he began working hard at with skating coach Barb Aidelbaum last summer. When he’s done playing for Canada in Switzerland, he’s already got skates lined up with Aidelbaum and plans to make getting faster his No. 1 priority this summer.
“There’s obviously going to be criticism of you but I’ve been a smaller player my whole life so I now use that as a chip on my shoulder to go out there and prove everyone wrong. My skating is getting better. There’s still a lot of strides I have to take, but as I keep getting stronger and get my man legs, I think my skating is definitely going to come,” he said.
NHL Central Scouting describes his game as follows: “Elite offensive player with excellent puck skill and playmaking ability … more quick than fast and wins more than his share of races for loose pucks … knows where everyone is on the ice at all times and has the ability to find openings in all zones … not big but uses his edges and agility to protect the puck and elude checks … plays his off wing but can also play on his strong side or in the middle … among the top offensive players in the WHL and in the 2023 Draft.”
On a phone call before the start of U18 Worlds, Team Canada’s head coach Jeff Truit, who also coaches against Cristall in the WHL with the Prince Albert Raiders, described Cristall as a “dynamic forward with speed and energy” in a bit of a departure from the critics.
“He brings that enthusiasm and intensity to the game. He loves to play the game. It’s very evident. He’s a guy that’s looked to for offense on this team — someone who is going to apply pressure on pucks and create offense that way,” Truit said. “But we also know he’s got leadership qualities from Kelowna. He’s a dynamic player, a real heady player with hockey IQ and finishing.”
His last chance to show them didn’t start how he’d hoped it would, though. In Thursday’s tournament opener, Sweden routed Canada 8-0. But on Friday, he bounced back against Germany in Canada’s second game of the tournament, drawing a penalty on his first shift of the game and assisting on Canada’s second goal of the game.
But in the end, whether or not every team believes in him won’t matter, because one will.
Harkins, who remains close with Cristall and his parents, remains convinced that the NHL team that picks Cristall won’t regret the choice.
“I’ll tell you one thing: Andrew is full of confidence and he will always believe that he can be the best player on the ice. He’s a big-stage guy,” Harkins said, chuckling as if that were an understatement.
“I’m so proud of him and I just can’t wait for him to get that opportunity and fulfill his dream. And he deserves it because he’s such a great competitor.”
(Top photo: Steve Dunsmoor / CHL Images)