Tanner Molendyk is a 2023 NHL Draft prospect and plays for the WHL’s Saskatoon Blades.
He’s originally from Kamloops, British Columbia and had played locally with the Thompson Blazers in his youth.
For the 2019-20 season, he joined the Yale Hockey Academy Prep U15 club and averaged 2 points a game. He led the CSSHL U15 league with the most points for a defenseman. Following the conclusion of season, he was drafted by the Saskatoon Blades with the #5th overall pick in the 2020 WHL Bantam Draft. Molendyk made his WHL debut the following season.
This past season, Molendyk played in 67 games for the Blades and recorded 37 points (9 goals and 28 assists). While the point totals are on the lower end compared to other 2023 NHL Draft eligible defensemen playing in the WHL (i.e. Luca Cagnoni and Lukas Dragicevic), his production became far more consistent in the latter half of this season. In the first half of the year, he was struggling with his shot and was trying more defense to defense (D to D) passing along the point then passing to the slot. But, his game evolved. I’ll explain more in the next section.
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Prospect report written by Josh Tessler of Smaht Scouting. He writes about the mobile and shifty puck moving defenseman in his latest for Smaht Scouting.
If you would like to follow Josh on Twitter, his handle is @JoshTessler_.
