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jjlangabeer · 03-21-2024, 02:04 PM

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2x Draft Media

“This upcoming draft season has a prospect coming into that many have had their eyes on for years. Lucas Raymond is a many could believe to be a franchise center but there are still a lot of questions about his game and his recovery. As many know Lucas was playing last season in Nevada with the Nevada Battleborn but what not everyone knows is the recovery it took to get even the SMJHL let alone to still be ranked in the SHL rankings. It's now been one year since he had what many would call a truly unfortunate injury when he went head-first into the end boards and fractured two of his vertebrae, but Lucas didn’t look at it that way. While many were letting him know how severe his injury was, Lucas decided to find the positives. There were not a lot of people in the emergency room when he received his diagnosis but that was when Lucas realized just how lucky he was. The doctor was able to tell him just how close he was to severing his spinal cord,  two millimeters, he was lucky enough that the sheared vertebrae never made contact but it was certainly a little too close to comfort. One week in the hospital, two titanium rods connecting six of his vertebrae and twelve screws later to tie it all together, followed by nearly a year's worth of rehab, and Lucas was finally able to put his stamp on the SMJHL and now he wants more.

Lucas Raymond prides himself on one thing, and that's the ability to play anywhere on the ice. His ability to be fluid within his team and play a two-hundred-foot game is something a lot of scouts have noticed and would love to add to their team, but now the question is at what cost. Many believe that Raymond will probably slide down the draft board a good bit this year, how far is still unknown but most expect him to make it to the second round, which he takes as the perfect opportunity to play draft steal.

Raymond is a six foot two, all-around center who weighs in just shy of 200 lbs. The Gothenburg native spent his time playing in the junior Swedish leagues before making his jump over to North America to challenge himself with the smaller rinks and bigger bodies that tend to thrive on this side of the hemisphere. Raymond was not aware of just what give of challenges he would face and was surprised at just how extreme some of those challenges in front of him became but he has found a way to keep proving himself. 

Lucas had, in the words of the infamous Borat, Great Success when he first arrived in the States which started by working his way through Bantams and midgets. It is never an easy thing to do when it comes from leaving your country and moving oceans away, setting up home in a billets home, and finding your footing, but it was a task that Raymond seemed to take not only in stride but relish. The seasons he was having at his young age were impressive and caught the eyes of a lot of scouts throughout the SMJHL and his name started to show up on recruiting lists for Universities across North America. Unfortunately for Lucas, not everything works out as planned but that does not mean you give up. 

It is pretty obvious whenever anyone hears about a back injury a lot of alerts go up, and people panic and speculate even before there is a prognosis. It makes sense in a way, that watching a highly touted prospect roll off the ice on a backboard and a stretcher would send a lot of chills down anyone's back, especially scouts. One thing that often goes overlooked is having to be in this situation with your true family is nearly four thousand miles away. There were a lot of phone calls and thankfully in this day and age, a lot of Facetime. What also helped keep the Raymonds back home in a good and healthy mindset was how incredible Lucas’s billet family was at taking care of him. 

The timeline throughout the injury was pretty remarkable. It was a Sunday morning when Raymond’s life took a sudden left turn and it took was a bad divot in the ice, unfortunately, that divot was right at the goal line which propelled him headfirst into the boards an no chance to react. Time crawled as they had to wait for medical staff to arrive and talking to Lucas now there were a million things through the process he never thought of during the whole process. He lay face first on the ice afraid to move but knowing he couldn't keep his face pressed against the ice followed by the same with his hands when they removed his gloves. 

Hockey players put their gear on and take it off so many times it is impossible to count, it doesn’t seem that big of a deal until the moment you can't. In the back of an ambulance, they cut away his jersey and pants, untied his skates, and saved whatever equipment was possible but not everything survived. Lucas always said it felt like hours but also felt like minutes from the time he was laying on the ice, till he got CT scans and finally got the full diagnosis. It is a moment that will be etched in his mind forever but one that he has decided to build off of.

It took two full days before they could get him into surgery but Lucas even surprised himself when he was walking, with assistance just two days after. It was a total of six days that Lucas was confined to that room but he left it with a different outlook on life.

One year later, and Raymond was starting to feel back to his normal self.  A year is a long time for any hockey player to be out of the game, especially with as extensive of an injury as he had, but as many in the game know, that does not me that it ends your will to play. Lucas's billet family was nice enough to let him continue to stay with them until he was healed and the next chapter of his hockey career began, and Lucas was ready to give up.

Before the injury and everything went down the scholarship offers and the junior contracts were filling up the mailbox as he was one of the next Swedish phenoms to come over to North America, 1 year removed from the game though will change that quickly. Lucas needs it would not be an easy task to climb himself back into the conversations of the SMJHL let alone the SHL but when you pride yourself on being a two-hundred-foot player you know the amount of effort it takes to exceed in that role, but the effort was what made Lucas the grade A prospect before the injury. 

When Raymond first got back on the ice, there was still a lot of PTSD in the back of his mind and that was for sure going to take a lot of work to erase, but he wasn’t going to let it hold him back either. As many know the most important aspect in the game of hockey is your confidence in your skating ability and that was something Raymond had to gain back. It wasn’t easy but hours and hours on the ice alone, with friends and ex-teammates, and though putting himself in the position to rebuild his skills and stamina while also regaining his confidence was not easy it was a task that Raymond couldn’t stay away from. Lucas had one goal and one goal only and that was to return to the sport he loved.

It was his billet family by his side when he first started to finally receive some interest, it wasn’t on the scale of what Raymond dreamed of before his injury but the interest in him was there. Of course, there were a lot of local 

              Junior teams in the conversation and it felt like                                      things were going to end up there until the phone

rang and it was the Nevada Battleborn on the other line and they were calling with more than just interest. 

The Nevada Battleborn called Lucas to offer him a contract, to join the SMJHL. Of course, Lucas jumped at the opportunity but there were some strings attached to the contract. Raymond who grew up his entire life playing forward and usually playing center was asked if he would be willing to slide back onto defense.

Lucas has always prided himself on having an all-around game but playing strictly on defense is something that he had never done before. Overall it was pretty easy for Lucas to make a decision, although it was a 

risky one that could threaten any chance he had left at making the SHL it was one that he had to take. Lucas knew the odds of him receiving another offer within the SMJHL were slim and he was more than up for the challenge of playing a new position knowing it was only temporary and a chance for him to put himself back on the radar of professional teams back home but more importantly here in the North East. 

As the season began Raymond started to figure out just how different of a situation this was and it was more than just a learning curve, it was a task that he took on head first, and knew that for his dreams to come true and to finally get a chance to play at the highest level that he would need to find a way to succeed. 

It was a slower start than Raymond would prefer but he knew the offensive numbers and the glory of scoring that game-winner would have to wait, as this was the first time he was solely focused on nothing more than keeping the puck out of the net. It took a little bit but he finally started to find his way around the back end of the defensive zone.

Overall it wasn’t an overly successful season for the Nevada Battleborn it was a season that Raymond used to hone his all-around game while also truly finding his comfort out on the ice. As the season came to a close the Battleborn found themselves in the last playoff spot with a final season record of twenty-four wins, forty-two losses, and remarkably not a single overtime loss. This gave them the chance to make an appearance in the playoffs which of course no team would ever deny. 

As for Raymond, it was as expected a large learning curve and his offensive numbers struggled. Lucas ended the season with only two goals and nine assists to finish the season with only eleven points. What hurt was the plus-minus rating of minus forty-five on the season. As a whole the Battleborn did not excel in the plus-minus department but his defensive game was always a point of pride for Lucas it did not sit well internally

Finally, the playoffs rolled around and the Battleborn found themselves facing off the number five seed (which is the top for receiving a bye) in the first round. A lot of teams had the Battleborn beg to be an early exit in the S75 SMJHL playoffs but Nevada had other ideas as did Lucas. 

The Battleborn started slow with a rough six to four loss on the road to start the series but that is when things turned around. Nevada went out and rattled off three straight wins to put the Regina Elk up against the ropes before finally closing them out in game six. In those 6 games, Raymond ended with five points in total which also included two goals. Nevada shocked everyone by dispatching the Elk in six games but the journey through the playoffs was about to get a lot harder.

Going into the second round the Battleborn found themselves up against the first overall team in the league who finished with an astonishing one hundred and five points on the season, a full fifty-seven points, and a total of fifty-one wins compared to the twenty-four of Nevada. As expected the series ended as many presumed but the Battleborn did give the Quebec City Citadels a small scare before being dispatched to the fairways in game six of the series. Raymond only attributed one point to the severely overmatched Quebec series but overall it was a success for the Nevada Battleborn. 

As the draft is right around the corner and everyone is trying to fine-tune their mock drafts, scouts are trying to make their last-minute assessment of players and general managers are trying to decide whose name they are going to call when they take their place on stage, no one is quite sure who will end up where. Of course, there are always your early favorites to go within the top three or five of the draft but that is when things get interesting. 

Included this season in those interesting discussions is a prospect who was known as a phenom under life got in the way. Through all of it though Lucas Raymond has shown that his will to not only battle to hopefully return to that star-studded form he once had but also to adapt to the roles he needs to play remains undoubted. Without a doubt, there is always excitement hearing your name get called on draft day, but for Raymond, achieving that goal when many thought it was gone will feel that much better.

The excitement has been making it extremely hard to sleep or focus. The draft day simply needs to get here.

I can’t even begin to stress how awesome meetings have gone. The SHL is truly a top-notch league and I’m excited to join it.

Vintage Lucas

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