For a prospect looking to make a push to get high on an NHL team’s radar in his draft year, you can’t perform much better than Dawson Mercer did in a pandemic-shortened 2019-20 campaign. Months after clocking in just shy of the point-per-game mark in his second QMJHL season, he hit the ground running with the Drummondville Voltigeurs.
From the start of Drummondville’s nine-game winning streak that began on October 4, he went pointless one time in the next two months. That hot start was impossible for Hockey Canada to ignore, and despite not being invited to 2019’s World Juniors camp, he got his chance to tryout with the national under-20 team in December, and earned the rare distinction of making the final roster as an NHL-draft-eligible player.