A generalist on the back end for Prince George, Samson is a big, right-hand defender with a lot of raw potential. Played in all situations for the Cougars, logging north of 25 minutes per game on a regular basis. Skating projects to be a big part of his game, and even though you want the foot speed to improve he is efficient with his stride and can cover a ton of space with his glide and range. He could make a career of managing the game by under-handling pucks and making simple passes, but he is also a guy who likes to activate on the rush and get parallel in the attack to provide an option. There’s not a lot of flash to his game, but his ability to battle hard on 50/50 pucks, evade opponents, or move pucks with precision with little processing time are impressive. Needs to get a bit more aggressive off the line and do more than hammer pucks with his fairly impressive slap shot, but he’s getting more efficient at walking to the middle and moving pucks from the front to his hip to just give that extra bit of room to create a shot or pass lane. At times he can get a bit unbalanced and hunched over with his torso, which may lead to him being limited with movements and in physical confrontations. He’s fairly clean in how he deals with the rush and odd man breaks, but he needs to get out ahead of plays a bit more and be more assertive in stepping up and using that size to push bodies off the puck and box the net. Has a tendency to grip his stick with two hands in his zone and at times get tunnel vision, which limits his coverage and awareness of seam threats. You’re going to see him play the same slow-pace, low-panic game most of his outings, but that’s a fine approach as long as he continues to maximize his chosen playing style.

– FCHockey’s 2021 NHL Draft Guide