A few days before the draft, TSN's Cameron Gaunce did a video about very under the radar UFAs.
I watched it and made a rude comment after the bit he did on who he thought the Leafs should be interested in. And then I looked again. You might remember Gaunce, who did a one-year stint on the Marlies near the end of his career. He played mostly in the AHL, and now he's a regular on various TSN shows.
Full marks to Gaunce for noticing Jeffrey Viel, even if his sales pitch on him wasn't great. Most of what he said about Viel was how he's tough and he hits and one time he fought Zdeno Chara. But a deeper look rewards the curious.
Viel is not overly large considering his reputation, and is 29 years old – young for a UFA forward you'd even consider signing this year. He is a left-shooting winger, and like most players of his type, he plays either wing.
He is from Rimouski, and he played in the Q as a junior where he had around a point per game once he was established and a lot of penalty minutes. He won the MVP award when Rimouski won as QMJHL champion in 2018. Undrafted, he signed with the San Jose Barracuda that fall, and then got an NHL deal with the Sharks a year later at 22. He barely played in the short season in 2021, his first in the NHL, and he became a Group VI UFA after his ELC ended in San Jose. He tried a year in Winnipeg where he never left the AHL and then two in Boston where he did get in some NHL games, but Boston traded him to Anaheim in January.
Why this guy? Why even look at a guy whose claim to fame is hard hits and penalty minutes – although, as usual with this type of guy, he cuts those back a bit in the NHL. That's what I wondered when Gaunce segued from a discussion of the analytics on fringe defender Mike Reilly – an analytics darling of old – to an energy guy.
Viel has some offence, that's why. He's not useless with the puck.
That is really good shooting location and quantity from a guy playing 10-12 minutes a game on a minimum salary contract. That's twice the xG that Steven Lorentz had last year. Viel played with the lowest ranked forwards in Anaheim and faced nearly an average level of competition, so he was no sheltered fourth liner who only ever played against his opposite numbers.
If you compare him to the two players discussed here:
You find him in the sweet spot in terms of shooting style between the very opportunistic Dakota Joshua and the nearly irrational pattern of Nick Robertson. He's in the sweet spot between them in terms of speed, physicality and energy. He takes too many penalties, that's his only really bad trait. A remnant of the circus that is the CHL sometimes.
The Ducks used him with some depth players for some time and then moved him up the lineup as he outclassed his linemates. Not a hard hurdle to clear, but he was a good get for them.
That's the whole pitch: he's big-ish, tough, plays hard, has more offence than you should expect from a player in the bottom 25% of your forward corps and is not going to bust the bank on a contract.
I'm sorry I doubted Gaunce, a guy who knows the difference between a good AHLer and a depth NHLer.
