Once ranked fourth among North American goaltenders by NHL Central Scouting, Gould was still on the board heading into the second day of the draft on Wednesday afternoon.
The rounds went on and on, and by the time all 217 players had been selected, the Colorado Springs native had found himself passed over by all 31 NHL teams through seven rounds, with 20 other netminders having heard their name called.
But Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary had a message for Gould, and every other player who wasn’t selected in the draft this week -- it ain’t over, not by a long shot.
“I just spoke with Matt Weninger, our goalie coach, about it and for goaltenders it often takes longer to get to the level of playing in the NHL and there’s no timeline for that kind of success,” O’Leary said. “I think the biggest thing with Brock is he has the tools and he has the body make-up to be an NHL goalie. It’s the mindset that there is no rush and he just has to continue on the path he’s going down.”
That means keeping up with the hard work, doing everything to improve and never letting up no matter what happens.
“You want to improve every year and whether you're drafted this year, next year or just become a free-agent signing like Zach Sawchenko, it doesn’t matter,” O’Leary said.
Ah, Mr. Sawchenko. The former Warriors netminder has become the team's recent gold standard for being spurned by the NHL and fighting tooth and nail to create a career afterwards.
Heading into the 2016 Draft, Sawchenko was the sixth-ranked North American netminder. He’d go unselected and a year later, would forgo his 20-year-old WHL season to join the University of Alberta Golden Bears.
The rest is legend.
Sawchenko would backstop the Bears to the USports national championship and reach the championship final the next season. A few months later, he would sign a professional contract with the San Jose Sharks and has since emerged as one of the organization’s top goaltending prospects, even earning the franchise’s ‘Prospect of the Week’ honours in late January this past season.
Then you have Ed Belfour, who went undrafted out of college but signed as a free agent with the Chicago Blackhawks, went on to win every individual honour a goaltender could win in the NHL and a Hall of Fame career. Joe Mullen, Hockey Hall of Famer and arguably the greatest American player ever? Undrafted. Hall of Famer Martin St. Louis? Undrafted. Dino Ciccarelli, Adam Oates, Borje Salming? All enshrined, all undrafted.
“Names like that, you can use in conversations about players making the best of things,” O’Leary said. “It’ll be up to Brock to see how he responds to this, but it’s like anything, things happen all the time and how you respond is going to determine the outcome and it’ll be no different for him.”
