The Ottawa Senators Great Success With Late-Bloomers

Shane Pinto

2nd Round (32nd Overall) in 2019

Pinto follows a much different path than the aforementioned Drake Batherson and Alex Formenton, as he’s always had the physical ability it was just a matter of making hockey a priority.

Appearing on the Wally and Methot show alongside teammate Jacob Bernard-Docker, Pinto never looked at hockey seriously until he was 16.

"“I think when I was about 16, I kinda really got serious with hockey”"

That’s crazy. Most players get drafted to junior when they’re 15 and to think Pinto didn’t even consider Hockey as his number one sport until that age is insane. The native of Franklin Square, New York was considering playing baseball full-time before he made the decision to focus on hockey. With elite talent in his arsenal and now a full commitment to hockey, Pinto started to improve by leaps and bounds.  He made the move to Connecticut in the 2016-17 season in order to attend a prep school where he would hone his skills for a couple of seasons and then would make the jump to the USHL.

Pinto would score 59 points in 56 games split between the Lincoln Stars and the Tri-City Storm in his draft year, skyrocketing him into 2nd round talks in the upcoming NHL Draft, something that seemed like a far cry just two years ago.

Many pundits didn’t expect Pinto to go as high in the draft as he did but there’s no surprise that the Senators put a high priority on attaining the raw, talented forward that had so much room to grow over the next couple of years. Over the following two years, Pinto enjoyed a successful tenure at North Dakota where he’d quickly blossom into their best player and as a freshman, Pinto would score 7 points in 5 games with the Americans at the 2020 World Juniors.

The Senators and their ability to target late-blossoming players with tons of talent has been a strength of the team and is one of the reasons why the future in Ottawa looks so bright.