LA Kings Draft: Three things to know about defenseman Ronan Seeley
By Ryan Sikes
3. Physical stature can be considered a weakness
As noted, Seeley is on the smaller side for defensemen. Scouts consider his slap shot from the point to be a work in progress, but he should be able to develop more thunder as he continues to add muscle to his frame. He tends to shy away from physicality on the defensive side as well but could improve as he gets bigger.
But because he plays so fast, his shot can be deceiving as shown in the clip below. Seeley is on the left side of the clip trailing the rush through the neutral zone. His offense does a great job of setting him up on this particular play.
The left-winger dumps the puck off to his center, who is well aware of the defenseman providing support, and backhands the pass perfectly for Seeley to deliver a strike on net to light the lamp.
He’s often been compared to Minnesota Wild blue liner Jared Spurgeon, due to his size, and the LA Kings would gladly welcome a defenseman who can chip in 10-15 goals with 25-30 assists as well. Because he’s considered more of a distributor, I’d be more inclined to compare him to Aaron Ekblad – strictly from a point perspective – scoring somewhere in that 5 to 8 goals per season while chipping in 35-40 assists.