Christian Kyrou

August 2022 – With their 50^th overall selection in the 2022 draft, Dallas hopes to have struck gold again with Christian Kyrou. Selecting both Jason Robertson and Logan Stankoven in the second round, Dallas has had significant success in that section of the draft lately, and Kyrou is a prime candidate to exceed his draft slot. Although he is slightly undersized, Kyrou is a mobile and creative defender, and shows similar qualities to his older brother Jordan. This craftiness shot him up draft boards, with D-1 projections having him undrafted. In Erie, Kyrou was exceptional, with 60 points in 68 games, and he is poised to grow even further with the upcoming campaign. Kyrou projects as a Swiss army knife type of player, who can drive play with the man advantage, while being responsible enough defensively to have an impact on the back-check. Expect Kyrou to take advantage of his mobility in the juniors for the next two seasons before making his jump to the pros. Aaron Itovitch

July 2022 – The Dallas Stars have selected Kyrou in the second round of the 2022 NHL Draft, 50th overall. Nick Richard

May 2022 – Although Kyrou is the oldest ranked prospect in the 2022 NHL Draft, he’s got a lot of runway to grow his game and make his already-promising offensive involvement even more effective. His 18 goals and 42 assists in 68 games for the Erie Otters place him third on the entire team in scoring. He finished second among all OHL draft-eligible blue-liners behind Pavel Mintyukov for points, and first for goals.

Kyrou’s aggressive shooting mindset doesn’t come at the detriment of his teammates; when he feels that there’s a better passing option available or an opportunity to give and go, he takes it. His skating is fluid, his execution speed and accuracy are refined, and he shows some great flashes of defensive ability as well. His breakout game is intelligent and efficient as well, hinting at a high hockey IQ. The only major knock on his game is that he can get caught up-ice and be left scrambling back to prevent an odd-man rush. If he can refine that element of his game, there’s a slim chance he ends up as a top-pair guy, and a realistic chance of him being a regular top-four defenseman. Hadi Kalakeche