Edmonton Oilers Prospect Countdown #19: Bauer Berry
A note about the criteria of to be included in this countdown. The player must be 25 or younger when the season starts and he must have played less than 50 NHL games. As such, a player like Noah Philp is excluded because of his age. Players like Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg are excluded because of the number of NHL games played.
Bauer Berry
Position: Left Defense
Shoots: Left
Nationality: U.S.A.
Date of Birth: October 31, 2005
Drafted: 7th Round, 2024
Height: 6’4″ / 193 cm
Weight: 198 lbs / 90 kg
Ranking last year: N/A
Shoots: Left
Nationality: U.S.A.
Date of Birth: October 31, 2005
Drafted: 7th Round, 2024
Height: 6’4″ / 193 cm
Weight: 198 lbs / 90 kg
Ranking last year: N/A
Whenever you get a chance to draft a big, physical, defensive defenceman in very late rounds of the NHL draft, you simply must do it — or so goes the story with the Edmonton Oilers. This team has cornered the market on taking these types of players and turning them into very good players. Vincent Desharnais, Michael Kesselring and Max Wanner are the three most prominent of this group with a shout out to RW/D Phil Kemp who got a game this season.
So it should be no surprise the Oilers did the same in the 2024 NHL Draft. This time it was 6’4″, 198 pound left shot defenceman Bauer Berry. Berry played his rookie season in the USHL with the Muskegon Lumberjacks. He tallied 1-13-14 in 59 games with 83 penalty minutes. Berry is a smothering defenceman. He does punish attacking players sometimes, but more often he uses his length and size to extract pucks and get moving up the ice.
As a skater, Berry is just above average. When he gets a chance to build speed, he does so, and is a very powerful skater. His footwork is actually for a young player of his size. He transitions nicely from forward to backward and has decent lateral mobility. If he has an area to work on it is his posture. He can get a little straight-legged with his upper body tilting a bit and it takes him off balance sometimes. This is a fairly easy fix and will make him a very difficult player to attack physically. Here is a clip that illustrates his skating as a whole.
