Toronto Maple Leafs select Wyatt Schingoethe with the 195th overall selection in the 2020 NHL Draft

With the 195th overall selection in the 2020 NHL Draft, the Toronto Maple Leafs have selected 5’11, 201-pound American center Wyatt Schingoethe of the Waterloo Blackhawks (USHL).

One of the youngest members of the draft class with an August 2002 birthdate, Schingoethe has a two-year track record of solid offensive production in the USHL as a 16- and 17-year-old: His 30 points in 47 games in 2019-20 included 17 goals, which ranked him inside the top 30 in league goal-scoring on a strong Waterloo team.

The Illinois native is a University of Denver commit for 2021-2022, meaning the Leafs will have a long runway with the prospect as he spends his time developing within a credible NCAA program. This season, Schingoethe is back with Waterloo in the USHL, where it is tentatively expected the season could start in early to mid-November.

Director of Amateur Scouting John Lilley on Wyatt Schingoethe

He is a good two-way player who had just under a point-per-game this year. He has another year in Waterloo and then he is off to Denver. That is a really good development program for him. We saw value in him late. He has a long development path.

Wyatt Schingoethe Scouting Report

courtesy of the 2020 Blackbook (buy now)

A younger player for this draft class as an August 2002, Wyatt Schingoethe has been on the radar for a few years now. He had a decent season in Waterloo (USHL) with 17 goals and 38 points in 47 games to go with a plus-17 rating on his first-place team. While his scoring output improved, we were actually left wanting a little bit more in terms of progression from his rookie season.

Schingoethe works at the game and plays with decent pace. His hockey sense is a positive at both ends of the rink. He’s an all-situation player that earned plenty of opportunities for ice all season. His shooting and shot release game is one of his better attributes, but his catch and release ability still needs some tightening up. He has some real hiccups with the puck, especially on pass receptions, that we were hoping would be ironed out by now. His shooting is fine, but he doesn’t give off the vibe of a pure finisher. Pucks don’t necessarily explode off of his blade and his finishing ability in tight is below what we’d expect from a true finisher at this level – too many misses, too many goalies hit.

His hands are okay, but it’s still pretty tough for him to make people miss. What’s more is that he doesn’t really have great puck control – it gets away from him pretty easily or gets exposed pretty readily as he nears the house and we didn’t think he had a lot of success getting to the inside. Wyatt looks more comfortable with the puck down low and along the boards. He even offers a glimmer of hope in terms of misdirection when he’s working off the cycle. Given that his hands have stagnated a bit, the natural move would be for him to hone in on manufactured offense as opposed to organic rush offense. He’ll likely have another year of junior to keep his options open in this regard.

His skating stride is on the shorter side and his first-step quickness and closing speed are both lacking. The stout forward gets around the ice fine, but he’s just not an overly dynamic package between the skill and the skating. As a result, he doesn’t offer a lot of misdirection or the ability to back defenders off in open space. Outside of some fairly safe passes that are either go back into softer areas or laterally into the adjacent lane (i.e. ones that do not cross the net line), he’s normally just resigned to shooting it. His defensive game has improved as the year has gone on. There’s a more scalable technique to it now in terms of body position and lane management. He goes for some more hits than we were used to seeing, but they only connected here and there – his physical game is still under construction.

The thought is that he’ll return to Waterloo next season before going to the University of Denver in the fall of 2021. This will give him another year at a lower level to really try to tap into a greater offensive ceiling. If that fails to make the grade, he’ll still have some very good hockey smarts and an improving defensive game to work with as a role player.

Wyatt Schingoethe Statistics