When NHL scouts asked Andrew Basha what his biggest motivation was in advance of the 2024 NHL Draft, he’d tell them a story about being cut from his Calgary Royals Bantam AAA team.
If you ask Nick Symon, the head coach of that team, about that same story, he sighs. He talked to some NHL scouts as part of last year’s draft process, too, and they all brought it up to him.
Thankfully, after spending his first year of Bantam back in AA, Symon didn’t make the same mistake twice and Basha was on his Bantam AAA team as a second-year player. At the end of that season, his 57 points in 33 games were second on the Royals and Basha was selected by the Medicine Hat Tigers in the fifth round of the 2020 WHL Bantam Draft.
“It’s funny to be the coach that cuts him and the coach that helps him get to the next level,” Symon said on a phone call last week.
A few years later, the Calgary Flames have since called his name in the second round of the NHL Draft.
His journey from that cut at almost 14 to second-round NHL Draft pick at 18 is a testament, Symon and all those who’ve worked with him along the way say, to the ultimate competitor.
Those around Andrew Basha know he is the ultimate competitor. (Courtesy of RFJ Productions)
There were reasons Basha wasn’t on that team. Limits to the number of first-year players and a talented age group that also included Aiden Oiring, who was on the team as a first-year, then captained and led it in scoring as a second-year before getting picked ahead of Basha in the WHL draft. A lack of physical maturity and a stockiness that just needed a bit of a growth spurt.
“He just wasn’t quite there,” Symon said.
There were reasons he was a fifth-round pick into the WHL, too. Questions from WHL scouts as to why he was cut in his first year and “Is this his peak?” Concerns about whether he’d consider the NCAA route.
“Talking to scouts that year there was just that little bit of uncertainty,” Symon said. “From a scouting perspective, he made such a big jump that there was uncertainty about whether he’d topped out. He has come a long ways.”
But one by one, Basha has simply answered each of the questions that have popped up around him over the years.
At the NHL Scouting Combine shortly before the draft, the scouts and managers who were asking the questions remarked on a kid with a chip on his shoulder. When you talk to him, it shows.
His agent Allain Roy of Roy Sports Group, who began working with him after RSG’s Shane Corston recruited him in that WHL draft year, talks about a player who has been shaped by adversity.
“He is who he is because of what he has faced,” Roy said. “Everything that has not happened for him has made him better. He finds a way and keeps finding a way. … He never gives up. He never gives up.”
It started, according to Symon, when Basha had that growth spurt between his first year of Bantam and second, taking him from small to “average-sized” in AAA for his WHL draft year: “Strength-wise he definitely matured and his body matured and he kind of got rid of that baby fat that you can’t do anything about except time.”
His skating “improved dramatically” from first-year Bantam to second, too.
“He went from a very average skater to a higher-end in the whole league skater,” Symon said. “He passed tons of guys just by his skating. And then once he had that skating, the skill was always there, he thought the game very well.”
Symon could see it coming when he showed up to a summer skate before that second year of Bantam. Immediately after, he texted his assistant coach, “You won’t believe Basha, he’s a different player.”
But more than anything else, there was a determination about him that was palpable. In practices in his WHL draft year, Basha would regularly “piss teammates off” with how hard he went — “And he wasn’t trying to be an a——, he was just competing,” Symon said.
“He obviously used (getting cut) as motivation and I think the biggest thing that I can say about Andrew: he’s motivated,” Symon added. “His skating, his tenacity, his competitiveness, all of that, he just took it to another level. And that’s what separates him. We had a really good team with some really good players that have also moved on, but no one’s got to the point where Andrew has and I think that tenacity and that competitiveness is what sets him apart.”
Years later, that reputation now precedes him in Medicine Hat and in Doug Crashley’s gym at Crash Conditioning as well.
Before the draft, Crashley, who trains many of the local NHL players and prospects in Calgary, felt Basha was a late first- or second-round pick specifically because of who he is as a person as much as what he is as a player.
As scouts filtered through Medicine Hat, at first to watch top prospects Gavin McKenna and Cayden Lindstrom, Basha began to catch their eye more and more as well.
“Guys that like him like him a lot and I think that’s because of that competitiveness and that obsession with getting better. There’s a ton of people who appreciate that and it makes up for stuff,” Crashley said.
He thinks Basha “can overshoot his natural physical genetics by being so super competitive and smart.”
In his time in Crashley’s gym, he has already done that.
“He has come a long way. He was one of the worst movers on Day 1 and he has actually become a pretty good mover since then in the gym, and I think it has translated to his skating,” Crashley said. “Bash (is) competitive almost to the point where he’s OCD competitive. He’s got a little bit of Jordan Eberle where you look at a guy and you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, you’ll stab somebody to win’ and I think that’s highly valuable. And he’s not afraid to tell you, either. He’ll get under your skin.”
When the Flames drafted him with the 41st pick in the 2024 draft, director of amateur scouting Tod Button spoke about his hockey sense, skill and quickness, but he also described the 5-foot-11, 187-pound forward as a “worker” who “plays in the hard areas,” saying Basha ranked in their top 25 and was the top-ranked player they were hoping would be available when it was their turn in the second round.
Craig Conroy, the team’s general manager, talked about similar traits — speed, skill, hockey sense — but added “he kind of has it all” and insisted he thought Basha would go a little earlier.
In Medicine Hat, he proved himself one season at a time to head coach and general manager Willie Desjardins. Desjardins, like everyone else, starts with his desire.
“I think he can be really good. … And I really think he wants to be good. I think that’s the biggest driver he has is he really wants to be good,” Desjardins told The Athletic. “And he’s smart enough and he’s gifted enough to do that. I think he’s a guy that can get better as time goes on — and will.”
After registering 14 points in 48 games as a 15- and 16-year-old, Basha registered 56 points in 67 games at 16/17 and then 85 in 63 in his draft year at 17/18.
He finished the year as NHL Central Scouting’s 26th-ranked North American skater, despite not being at 100 percent in the second half after a skate laceration on Jan. 7 left him hobbled — “That really affected him more than people know,” Roy said. “And again, that’s his character, right. Instead of saying ‘OK, I’m going to sit it out,’ it was ‘No, I’m going to play through this.’”
NHL Central Scouting’s report described him as follows: “A skilled prospect who has consistently produced offensively. Possesses high-end puck skills and can both make plays and score. Has impressive skating speed and agility to shake off and beat defenders. Moves smartly and smoothly with and without out the puck. Always looking to get himself into scoring areas and can finish with an accurate shot. Excellent vision and creativity and can make difficult passes looks easy. Controls the puck and can make plays with speed.”
Ask Basha to describe his game and he’ll describe it as fast, smart, skilled, tenacious and competitive.
“I play with a lot of speed, I’m very creative and I probably find passing lanes that others can’t. I try to use my brain as my biggest attribute and I’ll continue to do that,” Basha said. “(And I’m proud of) my play-driving and controlling play. I’m able to control things and was definitely better (last) year at driving play and taking over games.”
Basha describes his game as fast, smart, skilled, tenacious and competitive. (Courtesy of RFJ Productions)
About six kilometres southwest of Scotiabank Saddledome, there’s a restaurant called The Garrison Pub & Eatery. It’s an institution and a gathering place for hockey people in Calgary, and it’s owned by Richard Basha, Andrew’s dad.
Richard is originally from Newfoundland via Lebanon. Andrew’s mom, Ronda, is a psychologist from the predominantly French community of Janeville, N.B. But Andrew was born and raised in Calgary. There are hints of his parents in him: he speaks fluent French and went to a Francophone school until Grade 8. At the combine, he did some of his interviews with teams and the media in his second language.
But Calgary is home and he grew up in the Garrison. He enjoys cooking because of the Garrison. After the draft, when WestJet cancelled all outbound flights from Vegas, he and his family made the 21-hour drive home to the Garrison, where friends and family waited for them decked out in Flames gear.
His favourite players growing up were Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan. He wears No. 34 because of Auston Matthews and Miikka Kiprusoff. “I loved Kip,” he said.
Button called his Calgary roots a bonus post-draft and it is. Moving forward, though he’ll continue to train with Crashley, he’ll also have access to the Flames’ staff during the offseason. Since being selected, Symon and Basha have exchanged texts about how cool it is that it’s the Flames.
“He’s an amazing kid and he has an amazing family. He’s so grateful for everything, thank yous, and all that stuff. He’s just a great kid,” Symon said. “He has just been grateful for what we did for him and then at the end of the day it’s up to him, and he’s the type of kid that has it within him.”
Before the Flames, though, he’s got more questions he plans to answer. After not getting an invite to play for Canada at August’s world junior summer showcase, Basha will try to prove people wrong and earn an invite to December’s selection camp.
He’s also got his sights set on a WHL championship and then a Memorial Cup with the Tigers, who’ve recently added Wild second-rounder Ryder Ritchie via trade and Utah’s Veeti Väisänen and Dallas’ Niilopekka Muhonen via the import draft.
“We have a pretty special group. It’s going to be fun. I’d say we’re probably the top dog in the WHL coming in this year and it’s going to be important that we don’t get too far ahead of ourselves and make sure we work hard. I’m sure if we do that then good things will come,” Basha said.
Even when talking about that, though, the chip on his shoulder shows itself once more. The Tigers aren’t just Gavin McKenna’s or Cayden Lindstrom’s team, he’ll have you know.
“Any time you share the ice with other good players you know you’re going to get some looks. And I knew coming into (last) year that they were coming to see me as well,” Basha said. “You’re always fortunate to play with some special players but at the end of the day I think the scouts were coming out to watch me as well and see what I could do out there.”
(Top photo of Andrew Basha, center, at the 2024 CHL Top Prospects Game: Dale Preston / Getty Images)
