Tyson Baillie has a lot to smile about heading into his third season in the WHL.
Because of a late birthday, Baillie has the luxury of entering his draft year with 139 regular season WHL games under his belt and has 40 goals to show for it.
The 17 year-old scored 26 times last season.
Those numbers could have been even better considering the third round bantam draft pick of the Rockets got off to a slow start last season with four goals in his first 14 games.
Baillie is a player, a big time player. Need proof? You may want to look back to last years playoffs were he starred on a team that was hampered by injury. Baillie didn't suck on his thumb and pout about that captain Colton Sissons, Mitch Wheaton, J.T Barnett and Carter Rigby were unavailable going into an opening round playoff series with Seattle. When Jesse Lees and MacKenzie Johnston were also injured in that first round seven game marathon, which would have taken the air out of any teams sails, Baillie ramped up his game and scored three times in the game seven series clincher.
Baillie was a horse in that series and showed in round two against Kamloops (four goals in four games) that it was no fluke.
Did you know that in Baillie`s final 19 games last season (final 10 in regular season and 9 in playoffs) Baillie scored 14 times! He got better as the stakes got higher.
Well liked among his teammates, I can't see why he wouldn't be considered a captain down the road. To be honest, I think he would be a good pick now, but hey, what do I know?
Don't answer that!
I predict a big season from Baillie. The good news is he is just getting started.
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