The Montreal Canadiens drafted Filip Mesar in the first round of the 2022 NHL Draft. The skilled winger had been playing pro in Slovakia before the draft, but moved to North America the following season.
He ended up playing much of the season with the Kitchener Rangers of the OHL. He slowed down near the end of the season but ended up with a very respectable 17 goals and 51 points in 52 games in his first taste of North American hockey.
This season, Mesar was returned to the Rangers for a second stint with the team. When a teenager goes back to the same league, you don’t need them to dominate every shift to convince you they will become an NHL player, but you do need to see growth from them. You don’t want them to end up with a similar points per game total as it suggests they haven’t gotten much better from the previous year.
Well, Mesar did not waste any time showing he has taken his game to another level this season. He had four points in his first two games in the final weekend of October, and then kept his hot play going all through the month of November.
In 13 games last month, Mesar piled up ten goals and added 12 assists for 22 points. That is just under two points per game and he entered play last night tied for 26th in the league in scoring even though he missed 11 of the team’s first 26 games while he was with the Laval Rocket.
This is a huge leap forward for the highly skilled winger. Mesar is showing he can dominate the top Junior league in Canada at the age of 19 with exceptional vision, playmaking and stickhandling as well as a shifty skating style and a great release that goaltenders clearly can not handle.
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