Scott MacDonald
Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic has never kept it a secret about how he runs his drafts every year. Justin Barron
“Our goal going into every draft, especially in the first round, is to take the best player available,” Sakic said following the first round of the 2020 NHL Draft on Tuesday.
Colorado used its 25th overall pick to select defenseman Justin Barron of the Halifax Mooseheads.
“It was super exciting and you almost black out for a minute there when you hear your name called. It’s pretty surreal,” Barron said. “I couldn’t be happier to be a part of the Colorado Avalanche.”
Barron joins a now-replete core of young defensive talent that Sakic has drafted over the last few offseasons. The Avs GM has gone very defenseman-heavy in his drafts over the years. Since he took over the reigns as the team’s general manager, Sakic has selected a D-man 14 times, which represents nearly a third of all of his selections.
“At our pick, he was our top player on our board. We’re looking at not necessarily position-wise, but the best available player, who just happens to be a D-man,” the Avs GM said of Barron. “It just so happens the last few years, it’s been defensemen. To us, that’s a good thing. Defensemen, they’re the hardest type of player you can trade for. When you have them, you feel pretty lucky to have that ability to put out a roster where you have a lot of real good, young defensemen that can play two ways and that can move.”
Justin Barron adds to the stocked cupboard of defensive talent in the Avalanche organization that includes recent early-round selections like Bowen Byram, Conor Timmins and, of course, NHL Rookie of the Year recipient, Cale Makar. With the addition of Barron, the future of the Avs blueline certainly looks bright.
“As you know, you can never have enough good young defenseman,” added Sakic. “I like the way our team is built from the backend, to move the puck, play North-South speed game, and we think Justin is the perfect guy for that. He can fly out there and his first instinct is to move the puck and jump up in the play. Our roster is built to play a certain way and that’s a speed game and North-South.”
Justin Barron was projected as high as a top-15 pick in this year’s draft before a blood clot in his arm shut him down for parts of last season in Halifax. He, nor the Avalanche, are worried about the clot affecting his game. Barron recently had a procedure done that has sidelined him in his offseason training. The recent Avs draft pick, however, is confident he’ll be back on the ice with the Mooseheads in the next “two to three weeks,” he said.
“I think getting the procedure done on the blood clot was the right decision in my career. We informed all the teams of that and sent them all the medical records. At that point, it’s really up to them,” Barron added. “Obviously Colorado saw that the procedure was done well and it was a good decision and they could kind of look past that and look at the bright spots in my game.”
There are many of those “bright spots” in Barron’s game. He’s a smooth skater and well-filled-out for his size. The 6-foot-2, 200-pound Mooseheads captain will bring a different set of elements to the future Avs blueline than a Byram, Timmins or Makar. He’s also a right shot, which are few and far between in the organization.
“I think I’m a two-way defenseman. I think I skate really well and I think the game really well. I think those are probably my two biggest strengths,” Barron said. “I pride myself as a guy that can play on the PK, play on the power play, play last minute of the game and a guy that can play against other team’s top lines. I think I bring a mix, that two way style defenseman game.”
Sakic offered his own scouting report of his newest blueline prospect.
“He’s a bigger guy, he skates really well, moves the puck. He may not be the highest point-producer but he plays a real solid two-way game, and he’s going to really compliment our D-core,” Sakic added. “…He’s really going to add to the way we like to play the game. We like to play from the backend, a lot of speed, a lot of puck-moving ability and he’s a real good two-way player.”
Barron joins a cast of Nova Scotians already in the Colorado system that will make the newest Avs prospect feel right at home. There are not many players who hail from Nova Scotia around the league. The Avalanche happen to have five of them, including Nathan MacKinnon and Ryan Graves, as well as a few prospects.
“I know Alex Newhook, Bowen Byram, Matt Steinburg, Shane Bowers — I know all them pretty well,” Barron said of his fellow prospects and provincemen. “I was able to skate once with MacKinnon when he was home before returning back to Colorado. It’s pretty cool to see all the great players that they have in their organization. A lot of them I happen to know and it’s special to now be a part of that.
“Sometimes the maritimes get overlooked for hockey and prospects, but I think the past few years we’ve really shown we have a ton of great players from around here. I think the hockey down here is really on the come up and it’s only getting better.”
By the time Justin Barron met with the media over Zoom immediately following the final pick in the first round of the draft, he said he had already gotten texts from a couple of his future teammates welcoming him to the team.
“I got a text from Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar. That’s definitely pretty cool,” he said. “I’ve been lucky enough to meet Nathan but I haven’t met Cale Makar before, and obviously he’s a special player and I love to watch him play. That was pretty special.”
Barron projects to be a few years out from joining the NHL. The Avalanche, and Barron, have the luxury of taking their time developing, given the well-stocked cupboard of defensive prospects that are now flooding the organization’s pipeline. With a top-six that could include Makar, Graves, Byram, Timmins and now Justin Barron, the future of Colorado’s blueline looks bright. That may be a few years away, but for now, Barron is just enjoying the moment.
“It just so happens I was there at 25 and Colorado picked me,” Barron added. “I couldn’t be happier.”