Forward Jake O'Brien was "forced into" being a Penguins fan as a kid by one of his older cousins while growing up in Toronto.

"Then they won a few Cups, so I kind of fell in love with them," O'Brien told me at the NHL's scouting combine earlier this month in Buffalo, N.Y. "I used to go (see the Penguins) in Toronto all the time with my mom whenever they came to town. I'd go with my cousin, and we always used to wear Pittsburgh jerseys and yell and scream when Leafs fans were cheering for their team."

O'Brien, who grew up idolizing Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, never had the chance to see his favorite team play a home game in Pittsburgh -- "I wish," he said. 

He might just get that wish and come to town as the Penguins' first-round pick.

O'Brien, 18, is projected to go in the No. 8-12 range by just about every major ranking service, right around where the Penguins are set to pick at No. 11 overall. If he's the pick, he could be the high-end center prospect the Penguins' pool could use.

O'Brien spent the last two seasons with the OHL's Brantford Bulldogs, and ranked third overall in team scoring with 98 points (32 goals, 66 assists) in 66 games, good enough to tie for seventh-best in the entire league. He described himself as "a very smart, high-hockey-IQ player. I'm good at making passes through tight seams and under pressure. I'm a good 200-foot player, and I make players around me better."

He might be underselling it. The Elite Prospects Draft Guide says that "there’s not a more generous player in the draft class" than O'Brien when it comes to setting up his teammates. "His playmaking is second to none in the draft class, and, in terms of creativity, he may be in a tier of his own."

O'Brien's head coach in the OHL, former Penguin Jay McKee, told NHL.com that O'Brien is "a combination of a very cerebral player, very, very high IQ, but also very competitive,

"He's not just competitive in games, but in practice," McKee said. "He's really driven. But I think his IQ, the way he thinks the game, he's one of those guys where when he has the puck and things are happening fast, the game seems to slow down for him in his head. His playmaking ability is very, very high. He's a guy that can just delay the game, find open ice. You think he's going to be pinched off and he finds the route out of the coverage and then makes a great play. Players like that have the ability to draw a couple defenders toward him, and when that happens he's making the creative plays to hit a guy."

O'Brien said that his exceptional vision is just something he thinks he was "born with, and then you develop over time."

"As a kid, I was always moving the puck around instead of trying to skate through everyone," he recalled. "I slow the game down a little bit, and I'm good at finding those seams."

If there's a weakness to O'Brien's game right now, it's his strength, which isn't too unusual for a player his age. He's 6 foot 2 but weighed in at the combine at 177 pounds. He thinks he'll be able to get his weight up to 185 or 190 by the end of the summer, and 190 or 195 around them time he's going to start pushing for NHL time. He's also working on just getting more explosive in his first three steps on the ice, and putting work into faceoffs.

O'Brien met with the Penguins at the combine, noting that he was a little "starstruck" during the meeting because of his childhood fandom.

For now, O'Brien's plans are to go back to Brampton for next season and continue to play in the OHL, but he's hoping to come into an NHL training camp in the fall and show well enough to earn a few regular-season games as a tryout out of the gate.

The Penguins just need high-end prospects, period, at just about every position group. O'Brien could be that real, future top-six center that the Penguins' system is lacking.