The Post-Gazette has a feature on Upper St. Clair's Vincent Trocheck, who is likely to be selected in the 2011 NHL Draft this weekend. Trocheck grew up in Pittsburgh but followed hockey to Michigan when he was 13. He sees Peter Forsberg as a role model, but Trocheck's problem is that he's smaller than Forsberg, and that bothers some teams. Don't expect the Penguins to take him in the first round, for example.
"[Size] is an issue that he's going to have to overcome," said Jay Heinbuck, the Penguins director of amateur scouting. "It's not size alone that's an issue.
"In today's game, it's when you have that [modest] size, you have to overset it with -- in my eyes -- better-than-average speed. So for me, his speed will need to improve.
"Having said that, that's probably why he's not talked about as a first-rounder. He maybe is on some teams' radar, but in our minds, he's not with that top echelon of players just because of that size-speed ratio."
Trocheck himself names his skating and his quickness as areas in which he needs to improve. A lot of people love Rocco Grimaldi, a fellow draft prospect who is a lot smaller than Trocheck is but could well be a first-rounder. I've yet to see Trocheck described as a first-rounder, but we'll see how things turn out.