The 18-year old Brett Howden couldn’t have seen then what the 20-year-old Brett Howden does now.
Months after he had been picked 27th overall by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2016 NHL Draft, Howden was cut from Canada’s World Junior Championships team. It was a devastating blow for the kid from Oakbank, Manitoba, but a lesson he now believes he needed for his own good.
“I think getting cut my first year really helped me become the player I am right now,” Howden said Tuesday after the second day of the Rangers’ prospect development camp.