Florida Panthers Prospect Profile: Jayce Hawryluk

With the 32nd overall pick in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft, the Florida Panthers selected center Jayce Hawryluk of the Brandon Wheat Kings (WHL). In his final two seasons with the ‘Kings, he amassed 77 goals and 171 points and, put on some impressive playoff performances.

Jayce Hawryluk
Center — shoots R
Born Jan 1 1996 –Roblin, MAN
Height 5’10 — Weight 194 lbs–Springfield Thunderbirds — 38 GP, 7 G, 13 A, 20 PTS

At 16 Hawryluk, played his first WHL season with the Brandon Wheat Kings racking up 18 goals and 25 assists and never looking back. His numbers would only progress from there and he would go on to win a WHL championship in 2015-16, his best statistical season of his young career.

After just a short season in the AHL, it seems like he may be one of the Panthers most NHL ready prospects. Hawryluk boasts a well-rounded skill set, very fast, deadly shot and always looks for the right play. He also has the ability to agitate opponents, playing a gritty game he can pull penalties and also gets to the dirty areas to score.

He’s not shy to drop the gloves either, as a Wheat King he racked up 260 penalty minutes but also broke his hand in a rookie camp bout with the Washington Capitals’ Jakub Vrana. The downside, his hand would require surgery and Hawryluk to sit for the first 18 games of the Springfield Thunderbirds season.

That unfortunately wouldn’t be the end of Hawryluk’s injury struggles. On December 2nd, in his AHL debut he would get blindsided by Connor Jones of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. After what was just his best season of his WHL career, racking up 47 goals and 59 assists. Add on his championship and 7 goals and 23 assists in the playoffs, everything must’ve seemed so distant for the young center just trying to get back to health.

He would be sidelined another 11 games until returning to the lineup to face the Sound Tigers once again. Then he would go on to register his first AHL point that night with an assist on a MacKenzie Weegar goal. In his 9th game with the T-Birds he’d get the monkey off his back and score his first AHL goal off a sweet feed from Denis Malgin, this would coincidentally be against Bridgeport as well.

Though I said he’s our most NHL ready prospect, playing such a short first AHL season isn’t ideal to his development of course. He will have a shot to make the team out of training camp as is the same with other young talent, there will be some roster spots up for grabs. The probability of him starting the season in Springfield is also there too, so we’ll ultimately have to wait and see once training camp and preseason as nothing is guaranteed or set in stone.

As writing this Tom Rowe was quoted saying “We are going to bring some young kids up from Springfield next week.” So Hawryluk we might see him here in the NHL sooner than expected. Either way, this guy models his game after Brad Marchand (his favorite player) and even though that’s FAR from my favorite player I would love to see him bring that intensity and scoring ability to a team that very much needs it in the middle/bottom six.