Blue Jackets add scorer with No. 6 overall pick

Columbus chose 18-year-old center Derick Brassard.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- The Columbus Blue Jackets have been stockpiling young scorers. On Saturday, they drafted another guy to get the puck to them.
Derick Brassard, a 6-foot-1, 172-pound center who climbed the scouting charts in the last year, was taken by the Blue Jackets with the No. 6 pick in the first round of the NHL draft.
Brassard, 18, joins a stable that includes young guns Rick Nash, Nikolai Zherdev and Gilbert Brule.
"Lightning speed, great hands, great vision," Blue Jackets president and general manager Doug MacLean said of Brassard. "A point-producer."
Knows his strength
There's no question what Brassard thinks his strength is.
"It's my hockey sense," he said by telephone, moments after his name was announced at GM Place in Vancouver, British Columbia. "I had 72 assists a year ago. I'm a playmaker. I'm always looking for the open man."
Brassard will be yet another threat -- possibly not for another year or two or three -- on a Columbus team that feels it is inching closer to contention in the new NHL. The Blue Jackets, with Nash injured and Zherdev struggling, won just nine of their first 35 games. After they returned to form and MacLean added Sergei Fedorov in a trade, the Blue Jackets went 26-18-3 the rest of the way.
"I was just watching Nash on TV. He's very good," Brassard said with a laugh. "He's a great scorer. Maybe we can play together some day."
Needs to get bigger, stronger
That would also be MacLean's wish. Brassard is skilled but not strong or big. Count on the Blue Jackets to put him on a weightlifting and conditioning regimen to better prepare him for the rigors he will face as a pro.
"We love his speed for the new game. We love his vision. He really puts some points on the board," MacLean said. "He could play with an extra 15 pounds on him. You can tell by looking at him he's going to get bigger, taller. He's still got a baby face."
Brassard scored 44 goals and had 72 assists in just 58 games last season for Drummondville of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League -- despite the fact he broke his wrist in November.
He comes from an athletic family. His father, Pierre, was a sixth-round pick of the Montreal Canadiens in 1976 and his sister is currently a standout for Concordia University in Montreal.
Asked if his father ever made it to the NHL, Brassard said, "He was in the Canadiens organization while they were winning three [Stanley] Cups in a row. They had Guy Lafleur and all those other big names, so there wasn't much room for young guys."