The Prince George Cougars’ goaltending tandem has made the NHL grade.
Tyler Brennan joined the New Jersey Devils’ family, picked in the fourth round, 102nd overall in Friday’s NHL draft in Montreal, while his Cougar counterpart, Ty Young was chosen in the fifth round, 144th overall, by the Vancouver Canucks.
For any junior hockey team to have both their goalies picked in the NHL draft in the same year is a rare exception and nobody in the Cougars’ organization knows of that happening to any other team.
“it’s very exciting for our hockey club to have two goalies get drafted in the same draft,” said Cougars head coach and general manager Mark Lamb. “It makes us better. They’re two guys that are NHL-drafted players now and they’re both Number 1 goalies so it’s going to be really good competition. They’re two young goalies who haven’t played a lot, it’s very special.”
Brennan was in the building at the Bell Centre to hear his name called and he put on a Devils jersey as he walked up to the stage to greet the New Jersey team staff. He was there with his girlfriend, his parents, Jenny and Jarro , and his older brother Ryan, who just completed his junior career as a defenceman in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League.
“It’s an honour, it’s a dream come true for me, I’ve been dreaming about this my whole life,” said Brennan, at a media conference in Montreal. “Now it’s finally happening it’s something special that I’ll never forget.
“I sat down and every pick I was kind of on the edge of my seat but I think when that pick came around, New Jersey, I had a good feeling about it and then when I heard my name it was a surreal moment.”
Young was out camping with friends at Keho Lake north of Lethbridge and was on the golf course with his mom Tina, older brother Zach and a few friends from school and was monitoring the draft on his phone when he saw his name suddenly appear the draft list. Shortly after he received a text from Canucks goaltending coach Ian Clark. For Young, a diehard Canucks fan, it was like winning the lottery.
“I was just driving the next hole and my name popped up and it was an unreal feeling, just getting congratulations from all my family - It was a surreal feeling,“ said Young, who grew up in Coaldale, a town of 8,800 located a 10-minute drive east of Lethbridge. “I’ve been a Canucks fan probably since I was five or six years old, ever since I started watching hockey. My mom and my brother are Flames fans but my grandparents (on Vancouver Island) are both Canucks fans. I spent a couple week there and they pushed the Canucks on me and I ended up caving in and I’ve liked them ever since.”
Now he’s Canucks’ property.
“You come from a small town and you never think that’s possible,” said Young, who tries to emulate the athletic butterfly style of Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko. “You’re told all your life it’s the hardest thing to do in your hockey career, so just being able to accomplish that is just unreal to me and an awesome feeling.”
Brennan and Young both will head straight to their respective NHL development camps this weekend.
Brennan played in 39 regular season games for the Cougars in 2021-22 and sported a 3.58 goals-against average, .899 save percentage and four shutouts. He especially stood out in the playoffs as the Cats were swept in four games by the Portland Winterhawks. His 1.86 GAA and .954 save rate led the WHL in the postseason.
“It’s well-deserving for sure and it’s very exciting for the organization,” said Lamb. “We knew he had a very good chance of getting drafted and once you are drafted the anxiety is over with. Hopefully it’s a real good spot for him.
“He’s certainly got the makeup and all skills to be a top goalie and this is just part of it. The draft is one thing and now it’s putting in the work and getting better every year, every day, and this guy’s got a chance to be a pro.”
Like most junior goalies in the WHL dealing with cancelled seasons and reduced schedules as a result of the pandemic, Brennan and Young’s ability to develop their puck-stopping skills was hampered by the COVID outbreaks during their 16- and 17-year-old seasons which left them few game opportunities.
For the first half of last season, the 18-year-old Brennan was battling for playing time in Prince George behind 20-year-old veteran Taylor Gauthier, whom the Cougars tried to trade long before he was actually moved to Portland last December. Brennan played just four WHL games in 2019-20 and was limited to just 15 games in 2020-21.
“That’s a testament to how hard he worked and his development,” said Lamb.
“You’ve got to be in different situations and that (lack of previous WHL experience) happened to both our goaltenders last year where you have to go through struggles. It’s absolutely normal for every player and when you’re a goalie it’s just a bit more magnified. It’s the most important position on the hockey team and it was just Brennan finding his way.”
Brennan, who turns 19 on Sept. 27, is one of three goalies invited to Hockey Canada’s 2022-23 world junior team camp in Calgary, July 23-27. The Cougars chose Brennan in the first round, 21st overall in the 2018 WHL draft. He played for Canada White at the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge in 2019 and was part of Canada’s U18 team that won the world championship in Texas last summer.
Ranked as the top North American goalie available, the six-foot-four, 185-pound Brennan was the third netminder selected at the draft proceedings. The Buffalo Sabres chose Topias Leinonen of Finland in the second round, 41st overall, and Finnish goalie Niklas Kokko went 58th overall, also in the second round. Goalie Mason Beaupit of the Spokane Chiefs (WHL) was picked 108th overall in the fourth round by the San Jose Sharks.
Young, a six-foot-two, 181-pound native of Coaldale, Alta., will celebrate his 18th birthday on Sept. 11. He was the sixth-ranked North American goalie eligible for this year’s draft. Drafted by the Cougars in the eighth round, 158th overall in 2019, he played 23 WHL games for the Cats last season and posted a 3.50 GAA and .899 save percentage.
While Brennan has been recognized throughout his junior career as one of the top goalies in his age group, Young didn’t have that status early in his career. As 16-year-old he stuck with the Cougars when they played the short spring 2021 season in the B.C. Division bubble and benefitted from being with the WHL team when Brennan left the team for the world championship. Young’s progress, especially over the past season, turned him into an NHL prospect.
“Ty Young is such as competitor and he’s worked so hard for everything he’s gotten now, he’s always kind of a fighter, and Ty Brennan has always been at the top and has always been recognized and he’s confident and calm and used to being on everybody’s radar,” said Cougars goaltending coach Taylor Dakers.
The two are a contrast in styles. Where Brennan excels in positional play, staying calm while trying to outthink shooters ahead of time, Young is more active in the crease and depends more on his quick reflexes and reactions to the play to stop pucks.
Young started the season with the Cougars but with a three-goalie logjam that included Gauthier and Brennan, he was sent to the AJHL to play for the Calgary Canucks. Calgary was one of the weaker teams in the league and Young benefitted from regularly facing 50 or more shots per game. He played 17 games for the AJHL Canucks and compiled a 3.38 GAA and .918 save percentage with one shutout.
“I don’t know if you could get a better situation for him,” said Dakers. “He wanted to be in the Western league and his 16-year-old year he was able to be with us in the hub, which was fortunate because we lost Brennan for three-quarters of it. We sent him the Alberta league and he was in a position to be in every game and play for a team that gave up a lot of scoring chances and that could have hurt him but he took it and did so well.
“We were kind of astonished at times how many scouts were at our games watching Ty Brennan and through the year I was astonished how many scouts were at Alberta Junior games watching Ty Young. He was making 55 saves on 56 shots. Even the middle-of-the-road teams were demolishing the team he was on and he was giving them a chance to win, and then he came up to us and showed us he was capable of doing that here too. When he gets that high shot count and gets going in a rhythm he can really take his game to another level.”
Three other Prince George Cougars – all defencemen - were on NHL Central Scouting’s final draft ranking list, including Hudson Thornton (109th), Keaton Dowhaniuk (120th) and Viliam Kmec (186th). None were drafted this year.
