NEWS FILE PHOTO
Medicine Hat Tigers forward Tomas Mrsic celebrates after scoring a goal in the Tigers' 7-4 win March 1 at Co-op Place over the Edmonton Oil Kings.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Tomas Mrsic is looking forward to sharing his NHL Draft weekend with family.
The Medicine Hat Tigers forward is heading out Wednesday ahead of the life-changing weekend, travelling from Vancouver to Las Vegas with around 15 family members. They’ll be celebrating whenever Mrsic hears his name called at the draft, hosted at The Sphere, as well as commemorating the 50th wedding anniversary of his grandparents, Ivan and Drgica.
“It’ll be a pretty special moment, not only for me, but for my family,” Mrsic said. “Just giving them hugs will be a pretty special moment for myself and I’ll just cherish those memories forever.”
The Surrey, B.C. product considers it an honour to be able to go to Vegas and take part in the draft experience.
“Especially with my family who has done a lot for me through the past, growing up, putting me into hockey, doing all those little things, it’s a huge honour and I just can’t wait to be drafted,” Mrsic said.
After a 23-goal, 62-point sophomore season with the Tigers, Mrsic is projected to hear his name called and live out that dream in the second- to fourth-round range. He was ranked 64th among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting and as high as 46th by Elite Prospects. He looks back on his season highly and is proud of how he rebounded from a slow start.
“It was a pretty special season for myself, but for a couple other players on the team as well, and just the team overall, we had a great season,” Mrsic said. “I didn’t have the best start but I think in the second half, I kind of climbed the rankings quite a bit and I was pretty happy with my second half.”
Mrsic says he talked with 27 NHL teams throughout the season and he enjoyed the process but is glad that part is coming to a close.
“It was kind of a cool experience getting to talk to NHL teams, but being done with that stuff is kind of nice,” Mrsic said. “I’m just ready to get drafted and get going on to those things and development camp.
“It’ll be pretty special to wherever I go, going to a new city, exploring that city and then making friends with a bunch of other guys. That’ll be a pretty nice experience to have and going to dev. camp and competing against guys from all around the world.”
Beyond family and friends in attendance, Mrsic has the comfort of fellow Tigers Cayden Lindstrom and Andrew Basha at the draft, as well as other players he’s grown up playing with and against. He’s looking forward to sharing the experience with teammates.
“We’ll probably get a photo all together with our (NHL) jerseys on, which will be a pretty cool experience,” Mrsic said. “There’s more young guys to come up through our organization that will be there next year and the year after, so we’re just building right now and each guy is getting a cool experience themselves.”
