Detroit Red Wings 2018 draft pick: Defenseman Alec Regula
By Ash Thompson
The Detroit Red Wings added a solid defenseman with hints of offensive upside in the third round of the 2018 NHL draft. Alec Regula is a Michigan native.
Unlike the first four Detroit Red Wings draft picks, there are few if any questions regarding defenseman Alec Regula’s size. The West Bloomfield Michigan native stands 6’4″ and weighs 190 lbs. The Red Wings used the number 67 pick in the draft, their first of three third-round selections, to beef up their prospect pool. Regula played for the Chicago Steel Clark Cup championship team of the USHL in 2016-17. Then he jumped to the OHL’s London Knights for the 2017-18 season. His partner on the back end was the number ten overall pick, Evan Bouchard.
Regula has not been an offensive defenseman historically. His game is to keep pucks out of the net. I do not recall seeing Regula on any draft lists prior to about the midpoint of the year. I do a lot of research, but I just did not get that far down any lists. His second half of the season, once he adjusted to the increased level of competition, and began to compliment Bouchard better, shot him up draft boards like a rocket. By the end of the year, his listed player comp was the St Louis Blues Colton Parayko. Regula finished the regular season with 13 points in 17 games.
The NHL draft is about projecting what a kid might become. Third round picks do not normally make much impact in the league. Taking safe picks at this point in the draft is only going to win the Grand Rapids Griffons championships. The Wings knocked it out of the park by selecting a raw kid on a powerhouse OHL franchise who is likely to spend next season attached to the hip of one of amateur hockey’s best defensemen. That assumes the Edmonton Oilers, the team that drafted Bouchard, do not force him into their weak D-corp.
By all reports, Regula has good hockey sense, plays a solid positional game, and is relatively mobile for a tall kid. He needs to work on his consistency and reduce the number of times he gives the puck away on zone breakouts.
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Regula is not likely to put a lot of pucks in the net. He may very well fill the fourth spot on the Red Wings D-corp eventually, however. He pairs very well with the Red Wings second-round pick, Jared McIsaac, long-term though both are right-hand shots. The two could be a large part of the Red Wings Stanley Cup aspirations seven to ten years from now.