2023 NHL Draft prospect profile: Cole Burbidge could be a late-round steal

It is no secret that the odds of drafting an NHL player drop exponentially as the selection process drags on. But there is a reason why they don’t just cut off the picks after two or three rounds – you can, and sometimes will, find players far later in the draft than their eventual careers would warrant.

Cole Burbidge, a versatile forward for the Saint John Sea Dogs in the QMJHL, is one such player who could really reward a team for taking a chance on him.

Birthplace: Falmouth, Nova Scotia
Date of birth: August 26, 2005
Shoots: Left 
Position: C/LW
Height: 6’1″
Weight: 161 lbs.
Team: Saint John Sea Dogs (QMJHL)

Selected in the second round of the QMJHL draft by Saint John back in 2021, Burbidge made his debut with the Sea Dogs just this season. Joining a rebuilding team that lost a lot of key players after their Memorial Cup win the year prior, it was far from a picture perfect situation as a rookie in his draft year.

But Burbidge fared admirably as a Swiss Army knife for the Sea Dogs, playing up and down the lineup, both at centre and on the wing. His 50 points were second on the team only to over-ager Brady Burns, and good enough to take him from completely unranked on scouting service lists, to popping up on several ahead of the draft next week.

Burbidge’s game centres around his stellar hockey IQ. He thinks the game at a very high level, and has excellent off-puck positioning, keeping himself several steps ahead of the game at all times. He’s very capable in his own zone as a result, a combination of long reach and positioning allowing him to cut off a lot of passes and head off in transition.

We see that positioning pay off in the offensive zone as well, where he fills the right lanes, and makes himself available by driving wide and to the net. He also loves to attack the middle, and makes up for his slim frame with some nifty stick-handling to get around defenders.

He is a very capable playmaker as well, displaying high-level decision-making, and precision accuracy in his delivery. He’s creative with the puck, and uses his deceptive puck-handling to open up passing lanes, the smallest of which he can exploit. His 31 assists may pale in comparison to what he does next year as the Sea Dogs improve around him.

The main impediment to him becoming an NHLer is his skating. He has a somewhat choppy and awkward stride, and projects as a significantly below average professional skater if improvements aren’t made. As it stands, he relies heavily on his positioning to compensate for a lack of agility. It works for him in Junior, but the concern is how that could hypothetically translate to the next level.

He does effectively mix crossovers into his stride to gain speed, which helps him particularly in transition. Overall, however, the stride is the number one thing he’d need to improve in order to give himself a shot at the NHL.

Size and strength is another area in which significant improvement is needed, as he’s currently knocked off pucks a little easier than one would like to see. The good news is that his 6’1″ frame should provide plenty of space for that to happen, as he currently just looks like a teenager who has yet to fill into his body.

His shot doesn’t have elite velocity, but like his passing it is very accurate, so I’d call it a plus tool for him at this stage with the potential for it getting better as he adds strength. He favours a quick release snapshot, which won’t wow you with velocity, but can still beat goaltenders clean to the corners.

He’d be classified as a project, but what player taken beyond the fifth round isn’t? With his hockey sense being an extremely projectable quality, I’d argue that any team in the later rounds would be very smart to take him, as he could be in for a big breakout in the QMJHL next year, and then you may have to spend a higher pick to get him in 2024.

Preliminary Rankings
FCHockey: #135
Hockey Prospect: #206
McKeen’s:#136
NHL Central Scouting: #110 (North American skaters)

His solid season did put him on some rankings, but only a handful as of this writing. When I spoke with Scott Wheeler from The Athletic, he said it could go either way; a team scoops him up late to bet on a breakout, or he slides out of the draft altogether. Again, I think it would be a mistake to let him slide this year when he could be available in the sixth or seventh round, because you just don’t find hockey sense like his late in drafts.

The physical and skating elements can be improved quickly. A 17-year-old who stands at 6’1″ and only weighs 160 pounds could hypothetically be 185 by the time the next draft rolls around, and beyond that, even bigger. We’ve seen players like Joshua Roy slide in the draft due to skating, only to make significant improvements and look like they deserved to go way earlier than they did.

If he can make the skating adjustments, he has the potential to become an NHL player. If he can add strength as well, we could be talking about an overlooked kid who becomes a solid two-way middle-six player in the NHL. The possibility of adding a capable middle-six forward late in the draft is too good to pass up.

Of course, the flip side is that he could fail to make the NHL without the necessary adjustments. But given that the overwhelming majority of players picked in the later rounds never make the NHL anyways, I’d argue that betting on hockey sense is the best decision.

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