Owls' Quick Draft Hits: Alexandre Texier
#Alexandre Texier: Bruleurs de Loups de Grenoble (Saxoprint Ligue Magnus)
And now, for something a little different: Alexandre Texier, on deck to become the first player ever to be drafted out of the highest tier of men's hockey in France (or, in fact, any tier of hockey in France). Basically, if you're a hockey player of relevance from France, you either started playing somewhere else (Phillipe and Tim Bozon), moved out of the French system when it became clear that you had a chance at being drafted (Stephane Da Costa, Cristobal Huet, or Antoine Roussel), or you played in France during your draft year, went undrafted, eventually moved to a higher level league, and were picked up as a free agent (Yohann Auvitu and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare). The best French players do not play in France (of the World Championship roster -- i.e. the best of the French best, only 10 of 25 players played in France last season), and neither do the best imports, and that makes the quality of competition lower. The coaching is poor, which makes development harder. Junior teams play far fewer games than an equivalent U16 or U18 North American or Swedish team, which means even the best players don't get as much actual game time. All of these things put together give you a situation where there's a lot of hurdles for most top level French players to get good development, hence why they've never produced a prospect of note... and then comes Texier.
I'll admit that overcoming the odds here and coming from a non-traditional market gives me a bit of a soft spot for Texier, but that doesn't mean I'm highlighting him for no reason: Alexandre is a dynamic forward (won the award for best forward in the U18 D1A WJC this year and basically carried the French team to gold in that tournament, while being better than PPG in both the U18 and U20 tournaments for France this year) with excellent puck-handling skills -- soft hands capable of very creative dekes and handling in traffic, very comfortable in tight spaces, and slippery in board battles and under pressure. He isn't afraid of the dirty areas of the ice and crashes the net hard, and excellent vision and passing means that drawing the defenders to him doesn't end the play. He's got a good wrist shot but it's unlikely to be enough to carry him into the next level, so he'll need to improve it (and widen his shot repertoire as scouting becomes more of an issue) if he wants to be well rounded as he moves up.
However, Texier's a very flawed player, and that starts with his skating: his top speed is good, but his acceleration is terrible, which means that he takes far too long to get going, and his edgework and technique is a huge part of that. Additionally, being an offensive force in leagues where the competition is weak has meant that his defensive game basically doesn't exist (since he's always playing with the puck). Lazy back-checking, missed assignments, and bad defensive awareness are hallmarks of a player who didn't really ever have to learn how to defend.
In summary, Texier's a project pick. He's got amazing skill and raw talent, but being from a non-traditional country means he's missed out on the high quality systems and skill coaching/development that an equivalent Canadian, Russian, or Swede would've received, and natural talent just isn't enough in today's NHL. If he's the kind of person (Zuccarello) who'll put his nose to the grindstone to learn the defensive systems and fix his skating, he has the potential to be the best French NHLer ever (though admittedly, Antoine Roussel is the competition. That basically means he projects to be more than a third liner). If he's the kind of person (Semin, Yakupov) who'll ride on skill and athleticism without actually changing how he plays, he's unlikely to be much more than a European pro.
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Posted May 27, 2017, 4:58 AM UTC