(Buffalo) Fall 2020. We have recently learned that there is no point in frantically washing your cans of creamed corn on the way back from Steinberg’s. But the world remains in the middle of a pandemic and everyone is experiencing their challenges.

At Mount St. Charles Academy, a prep school in Rhode Island, a 14-year-old from Trois-Rivières named Sacha Boisvert sets up shop with almost zero knowledge of English.

On this Wednesday, Boisvert is exactly where every hockey person wants to be at this time of year: in Buffalo. It was in a luxurious hotel in the no less luxurious city center that La Presse met him, during the NHL evaluation camp for the draft.

Boisvert has continued his development in the United States since the famous fall of 2020, but he arrives here as the best Quebec prospect in the 2024 draft. His entourage expects the 6’2, 176-pound forward to be claimed between 15th and 25th row. It is in these waters that the main expert rankings place it. He comes in at 22nd on Bob McKenzie’s (TSN) prospect list, 21st on Sam Cosentino’s (Sportsnet) prospect list.

Once the top 10 is gone, the rest of the first round can be very volatile, since the trading possibilities are higher. In the very eventful 2022 draft, picks 7, 11, 13, 25, 27 and 29 changed hands the same day as the first round.

In these circumstances, Boisvert therefore has a meeting with 29 of the 32 NHL teams this week. The three exceptions: Tampa (no picks in the first three rounds), Vancouver (no picks in the first two rounds) and New Jersey, ready to trade its 1st round pick and already lacking a 2nd pick.

Boisvert offers an interesting range for an NHL team. He describes himself as a “talented power forward, good at both ends of the ice. I can throw, give checks, play the physical game. The physical game is what makes me so charming with teams. I’m a good player, but I also have the competitive element. » The kind of mixture that the Canadian is not full of.

The numbers match its description. With the Muskegon Lumberjacks of the USHL, he scored 68 points in 61 games. With 36 goals, he finished the campaign ranked 5th on the American junior circuit. But we also note his 86 penalty minutes. In an interview with RDS colleague Éric Leblanc, he said he fought six times this season, a figure validated by an analysis of the summaries of his matches.

“I fought a couple of times to defend my teammates, if not to change the momentum. This is my competitive side, I am a leader, I am ready to defend my teammates. I did boxing when I was younger, my father is a boxing coach. I’m not afraid of that and it’s part of the game, there are still battles,” he argues.

Boisvert accomplishes all this at a time when the recruiters of the 32 teams are looking at the Florida Panthers, a team certainly led by Aleksander Barkov, but where Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett also deploy this happy mixture of offensive talent and robustness.

That said, Boisvert does not name Matthew Tkachuk, or his brother Brady, when asked about the player he would like to become.

Boisvert will find out more about his future on June 28, during the draft in Vegas. But his next destination will nevertheless be the University of North Dakota, where he will play starting this fall. It was pointed out to him that he did not exactly choose the college closest to home, knowing the number of hockey programs in the Boston area, a five-hour drive from Quebec.

Except that we are talking here to a young person who left home at 14 to help him achieve his dream. “I’ve made sacrifices since I was young. I would be willing to go to Australia to play in the National League! »