Prospect Report: Jet Greaves taking off with impressive pro debut

If it seems like Jet Greaves was born to be a pro hockey player, maybe he was.
And it's not just because the 20-year-old goaltender is having a standout first season in the Blue Jackets organization. To hear the Greaves family tell it, the one thing that has made him happy his entire life is hockey, something that started at about as young an age as you could find.
"My parents say it was right from when I was born," Greaves told Dylan Tyrer on the latest edition of the Pipeline Podcast. "My mom said I wouldn't stop crying in the delivery room unless there was a hockey game on TV. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what she says. So I think it was natural from there."

So perhaps it's not surprise Greaves started skating in his Cambridge, Ontario, hometown at 2 or 3 years old, then was encouraged to learn the game by his father, who would take him to the local rink after kindergarten classes. Spurred on by Carey Price's gold medal performance at the 2007 World Juniors, Greaves always wanted to be a goalie, but there was still one hurdle to overcome.
He was also an excellent baseball shortstop, and for a time, he wasn't sure which sport he would play.
"I would play baseball in the summers growing up and I would always flip-flop on what I wanted to do," Greaves said. "I knew eventually I'd have to make a choice. In the summer, I'd say I was going to be a baseball player and I'd be done with hockey. In winter, I said I'll be a hockey player and be done with baseball.
"When it finally came to make a choice, our hockey team was better than our baseball team and more of my good friends were playing hockey, so that's what I chose. Obviously it worked out pretty well."
Did it ever. Greaves became a standout junior goalie, leading to a career with the Barrie Colts of the top-level Ontario Hockey League. This year, Greaves inked a contract with the Cleveland Monsters of the AHL and impressed enough that the Blue Jackets signed him to a three-year entry-level deal Feb. 20.

That deal came at a time of desperation -- the Jackets needed a backup goalie after injuries to Elvis Merzlikins, Joonas Korpisalo and Daniil Tarasov -- but it also was because the team sees enough potential in Greaves that he can be an NHL goalie down the road.
"It was something that had been talked about before it became a necessity at that time, but he's someone that we're really excited about to be able to move forward with for the rest of this year and two more years following," said Brad Thiessen, the former Monsters goalie who is now a goaltending coach in the organization. "He's definitely opened some eyes in this organization, starting at dev camp and going to Traverse City and how well he did there.
"A lot of people had probably never heard of Jet Greaves before, but he's put his name on the map and is someone this organization is excited about going forward."
Greaves had been on the CBJ radar for a few years, starting with the summer of 2018 when he was invited to join the team's development camp. It's not uncommon for NHL teams to bring in top but as-of-yet undrafted junior players to get a look at them, and a relationship was formed right then and there.
It didn't help that Greaves lost the entire 2020-21 season to COVID when the OHL didn't take the ice, but his ties to the CBJ organization and his play in Barrie remained strong enough that the Monsters inked him to a deal to begin his pro career despite the fact that he could have returned to the Colts for one final season.
"We just felt like it was such a good fit here," Greaves said. "This was an organization that I really wanted to be a part of, and turning pro, we felt I was ready for it and we felt this would be the best thing for my development to come here, so it was a natural decision. We felt like it was a really comfortable fit here with the Blue Jackets."
Greaves' strong showing at the pro level started when the Blue Jackets had a short development camp in September, followed by impressive work for the CBJ championship squad at the Traverse City NHL Prospects Tournament, in Jackets training camp and in the exhibition games he was able to play in.
So far this year, Greaves has split his time with ECHL Kalamazoo and AHL Cleveland, and the results have been impressive. In 15 games with Kalamazoo, he had a 3.05 GAA and .907 save percentage and has posted even better numbers with Cleveland (22 games, 2.67 GAA, .910 save percentage), largely because Thiessen said he's a quick study.
"He's very self-aware about his game," Thiessen said. "He is someone that when we're watching video or we're talking to him about some of the things we've seen in his game, he's very open to them and he puts them into practice right away. He's super intelligent hockey wise. He knows his game very well. He's a technical guy. He likes to watch his video and pick apart different things.
"I remember even at the beginning of the season, he came into camp and there were a couple of little things we wanted to tweak in his game. Right away into the exhibition games, he's putting those into practice. That ability of his has really helped him take off this year."
Greaves is probably a few years away from a consistent NHL role, but he's shown of late that he can cut it against pro players. In his last 10 starts with the Monsters, he has a save percentage of .930 and has allowed just 21 goals.
It's been a great year for his development, as a strong rookie season has allowed him to put himself on the radar for even bigger things to come.
"I wasn't really thinking too much about where I was going to be or anything like that," Greaves said of this season. "It was just about getting that experience in and trying to play as well as I could and learn and improve as much as I could and try to take it day-to-day and see what happens. I think obviously things worked out pretty well, and we've been fortunate the way there that there's been some opportunities.
"You never want to see anybody get hurt. It sucks that Tarry is hurt right now, but it happens sometimes. That's just the situation right now is taking advantage of the opportunities that come."

Monsters Hit Road

Greaves is one of the reasons things are looking up of late for the Monsters, but it still appears the Jackets' top farm team will finish well short of the postseason. Despite an 8-3-4 run in the last 15 games, Cleveland remains anchored in last place in the AHL North Division at 22-24-8-4 overall.
The Monsters are currently in the midst of a four-game road swing through upstate New York that concludes tonight at Syracuse. So far, a Cleveland team that is still without CBJ prospects Josh Dunne and Liam Foudy has a 1-1-1 record, dropping a 5-4 final at Rochester on Friday, falling 6-5 to the Amerks in OT on Saturday, and rallying to beat Utica by a 3-2 score in a shootout Monday.
Among the highlights -- Carson Meyer had two goals and Jake Christiansen had a goal and an assist in the Friday game in Rochester while Tim Berni got his second goal as a Monster; Tyler Angle highlighted five different goal scorers in the Saturday OT loss; and Tristan Mullin and Zach Jordan scored in the Monday win before Robbie Payne sealed things with a shootout goal.
Next up, the team returns to Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland to take on Charlotte on Friday night and Sunday afternoon before hosting a Tuesday game vs. Chicago.

Johnson Enters NCAA Tourney

Just one of the five Blue Jackets draft picks playing college hockey this year has made the NCAA tournament, but it's fair to say Kent Johnson has a good chance to leave the University of Michigan as a national champion.
The Wolverines' stacked roster paid off in a big way this year, as the team won the Big Ten's postseason championship Saturday night and enters the NCAA tourney as the No. 1 overall seed. The Wolverines will play American International on Friday at 3 p.m. in Allentown, Pa., with the regional final set for Sunday.
Johnson had a big part in the Big Ten title-winning game as well, notching the game winner in the 4-3 victory at Minnesota when he drove a one-timer home on the power play to give U-M a 4-1 lead.

Johnson enters the postseason with an 8-27-35 line in 29 games, placing ninth in the NCAA in points per game. He missed time this year twice to play for Team Canada, first at the COVID-shortened World Juniors and then at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Should the Wolverines emerge from their bracket quadrant in the 16-team tournament, the NCAA Frozen Four will be held April 7 and 9 in Boston. If Michigan loses this weekend, it remains possible Johnson could quickly sign a contract with the Blue Jackets with an eye on making his pro debut before the end of the campaign.
In other news, 2016 sixth-round pick Peter Thome finished his college career when St. Thomas bowed out of the WCHA tournament, and the goalie quickly signed with Idaho of the ECHL, where he has a 2.37 GAA and .916 save percentage in three games.

Prospects Notes

• It appears Jackets fans don't have to pay much attention to the battle for the Gagarin Cup in the KHL, as Dmitri Voronkov (2019 fourth-round pick) saw his Ak Bars Kazan team lose in the first round to Avangard Omsk and Kirill Marchenko (2018 second-round pick) is taking part in the minor league playoffs. Despite 12 goals and 20 points in 39 games for the big-league club in St. Petersburg, Marchenko is playing for the top affiliate team, SKA-Neva, in the VHL playoffs. Marchenko, whose contract expires after this season, has two goals in seven postseason games so far for SKA-Neva.
• Not many players in the world let alone Finland's Liiga are as hot as Mikael Pyyhtia right now. The 2020 fourth-round pick moved up to a tie for fifth in the league with 21 goals, with 15 of them coming in the past 19 games despite the fact he's just 19 years old. Overall, the winger with TPS finished the regular season with a 21-14-35 line in 56 games, and now the squad will take on HIFK in a quarterfinal playoff series that starts Sunday.
• With the CHL nearing the end of its season, here's a quick update on the five CBJ prospects in Canada's top junior ranks: D Stansilav Svozil (2021 third-round pick; Regina, WHL): 10-30-40 in 51 games; D Samuel Knazko (2020 third-round pick; Seattle, WHL): 3-10-13 in 21 games; F James Malatesta (2021 fifth-round pick; Quebec, QMJHL): 16-20-36 in 51 games; D Ole Bjorgvik-Holm (2020 fifth-round pick; Mississauga, OHL): 3-9-12 in 46 games; F Ben Boyd (2021 sixth-round pick; Charlottetown, QMJHL): 7-9-16 in 38 games; F Martin Rysavy (2021 seventh-round pick, Moose Jaw, WHL): 7-15-22 in 37 games.
• It's been a bounceback season for Marcus Karlberg, the Jackets' third-round pick in the 2018 draft. The 22-year-old winger had a 21-25-46 line in 40 games for Borlänge of Sweden's HockeyEttan. If there's any negative, that's the third division of Swedish hockey, but Karlberg likely needed a season where he could settle in one place and excel after bouncing around the past two seasons.