Barn Burner: Boomer & Pinder with Rhett Warrener - 2024 NHL Draft Primer | FN Barn Burner

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

Welcome to the 2024 NHL Draft Primer 🔥Presented by Betway, McLeod Law LLP & Village HondaRyan Pinder, Ryan Pike, Derek Neumeier, and Byron Bader break down the draft from a Flames perspective as they hold eight picks in the first four rounds!TIMESTAMPS- Introduction (0:30)- Flames Depth Chart (2:30)- Conroy's Biggest Challenge (8:00)- Byron's Thoughts (9:30)- Derek's Thoughts (10:30)- D-Core (12:30)- Goaltending (16:00)- Dustin Wolf (18:00)- Flames Draft History (23:00)- Zary (31:30)- Coronato (33:00)- Honzek (36:00)- 2024 NHL Draft Prospects (42:00)- Tij Iginla (01:49:00)- Pick 28 (02:02:00)- Draft Bets (02:08:00)SHOOTOUT TO OUR SPONSORS!!👍🏼 McLEOD LAW https://www.mcleod-law.com👍🏼 VILLAGE HONDA https://www.villagehonda.com👍🏼 BETWAY https://betway.com/bwp/flamesnation Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, friends. Welcome to the Barnburner Flames Nation draft primer. We have a great cast of people smarter than me and draft experts and smart hockey minds as we're going to explore, which should be an incredible opening day of the draft, June 28th, a Friday at the Sphere in Las Vegas. For Flames fans, it feels like one of the biggest days in franchise history since that summer with a lot of days in franchise history. Welcome to the program. My name's Ryan Pinner. Want to welcome our outstanding panel. There's Ryan Pike, the managing editor of Flamesnation.ca. We've also brought in two draft experts, not that Pike isn't an expert, but specific draft experts. We've got Derek Newmeyer of McKin's hockey. He's their assistant director of scouting, as well as the head Western scout, and Byron Bader of Hockeyprospecting.com is back for another year, sir. We'd had fun on the mock draft last year. He's the creator of HockeyProspecting.com. Fellas, thank you for being here. to be here. Yeah, love it. These are the guys that I read to make myself sound smart about the draft,

so it should be fun. You're the three. I'm going to regurgitate until the 28th, so people think I'm smart. Do you see the trickle-down effect, the power you men have? Yeah, I love it. Try not to use it. So we're going to start the program by talking specifically about the Calgary Flames. Now, you're both Calgarians, which is convenient. That doesn't mean you necessarily have rooting interest. Maybe it does, but I don't think the situation the cavalry flames are in, we'll catch either you by surprise. Pike's going to walk us through some org charts and what we'll take a look at exactly what's going on with the cavalry flames because I don't know if you guys remember way back when there was a Battle of Alberta in the playoffs. It was way back in 2022.

There's five skaters left from that team. And one of them is Andrew Maggapanius contracts up of the year. And the other is Oliver Shillington, who doesn't have a contract. Yet. If people are wondering if this is a rebuild or a retool or a re-whatever, pick your own word. Nobody's left from two years ago, Ryan. It's crazy. It's,

the term I like to use is strategic retreat. Because it just sounds nicer. It sounds smart and fancy and like it's going to go very well. So please walk us through the depth chart. All right. Let's begin, let's go left to right, starting it forward. On the wings, the flames have, some guys.

You know, Huberto had a good season last year. Magiopani is a UFA in 2025. Connor Zari is a really nice find, both him and Pospicil, although time will tell if either those guys migrate to center before too long. William Strongren, really good season. Hansik, injury prone last year, just had terrible luck. But he's a guy, again, another guy that could eventually migrate to center. Up the middle, the top two are old faithful cadre,

and backland. Sharon Govich. Maybe a center. Yeah, they have, I think the challenge of the flames is they have, you know, on a, on a team with depth, everyone's down a rung. And the problem is they don't have as much depth they did say two years ago. And so, Cadre is a one that could probably be a two, back one's a two, that should probably be a three.

Sharon Gavis is a three, but probably should play the wing. Rooney's a four. Tim Morton was really good down the stretch. But, you know, we haven't seen a full pro season. from, we only say a month or two of pro hockey. Yeah. So they got some guys right side because Menko's a pending UFA. Coleman is probably their most consistent forward last year.

And then Coronado had a really good learning year. Yeah. But the numbers weren't quite there. But I think if you look at his April and you look at his October, you see a definite progression. But it's a process for him. And meanwhile, you know, beyond that, you know, he has some guys that are either quad A guys.

or depth guys. So they have some guys, the UFA or RFA's, Pell-cha is something, Klapka something, Schwint can play winger center. He was really good in the last two months of the season

when everybody was up in the NHL and he had to be their top center. And Schwint was for the Wranglers yourself. For the Wranglers, yeah. And I think quietly, Schwint might have been their most underappreciated forward because he was the guy that kind of held things together. But if you look at the guys they have,

they don't have a lot of, you know, grade A prospects. would say, and I, you know, these gentlemen will probably regurgitate that as well. They have a lot of good, but not a lot of great upfront. Yeah, and I'm seeing some prospect rankings throughout the year drop. And there is an increase in the number of players that you would like to have in your system, but there still seems to be a deficit of the impact-making prospects that might have a blue chip or the letter A next to them.

Is that a fair assessment from your perspective, Derek? Yeah, I would say so. I mean, you look at the players in the system, the guys that Pike just mentioned, you don't really see a lot of guys that truly project as first line players or, you know, top pair defensemen. I mean, maybe Coronado is the first line winger. Maybe like Jeremy Porre could play top 4D in the future.

And we'll get to the D card in a moment. But, I mean, they're just what you saw in that four group, there just isn't a star forward there. No. Maybe Coronado. Maybe Cornado. Maybe Cune have,

like, soon have in another year, maybe. The challenge with Suniav and Byron will get to it is that the probability isn't high of that based on where he's played in the production yet. And to give people a little background on your model as we always should do to start the program. Derek, you guys are a scouting organization. Of course, you don't ignore data, but you're scouting. Byron, your approach is quite different and I love it because I think it gets rid of some scouting blind spots or at least maybe can indicate where, what things data can help add to a scouting profile.

Yeah, exactly. So I mean, like even with a guy like Sunni, when you look at how he's progressing, he goes to college and, you know, he has a decent year. But when you look at the players that were, you know, where he was at the draft and then what he didn't call it. The numbers that I'm looking at where it's kind of like this translation, you know, standardized score basically, where you can look at all the players across the same level playing field. He didn't really move, which is like a really bad thing. He kind of stagnated. So it's like, like, almost like a long shot that he's in NHLer at this point. And a star is like very long shot. And your model will do. You'll separate probability being an actual player and probability being a star, which is important because as we've noted, it looks like there could be a large number of actual players in their system, but they don't have stars.

That's an important differentiation. Exactly. Like, you know, they have Palchay, they have Zari, they have Coronado. They all profile pretty good in terms of like an NHEL probability, like way over 50%. You know, I think Coronado. up to 75 80% like thing corner uh zari looks like he's going to get there too but like in terms of like a star profile like you want to have these blue chippers in the in the system where you look at them and you're like oh yeah like that guy the minute he plays in in the n hl he's going to become

a star like a you know a luke hugh's jack hues all these types of players like the flames don't have really any of these type of guys and to be fair uh a lot of the guys that they have selected in the top 10 are gone as we've seen in the stanley final many of them are in that series What was Cornell drafted? 13? Yeah. And the rest of the guys were in the mid to late 20s. So this totally.

Kind of a byproduct of where they were. And so we'll get to the draft results. But let's go back to the forward board just for a moment because while they're missing stars on the wings, you could probably, you know, Jonathan Huberto certainly was that two years ago. I don't know that he ever gets near that again. But the real challenge I see for Craig Conroy, who's now almost a year, I guess around a year into this full-time position. probably over here. Your two centers, one and two, are in your mid-30s, and you don't have a young prospect center. You've got some depth guys, Ryan, but you don't have a 17, 18, 19-year-old

stud that plays center ice. No, they have guys with the potential. You know, Pospicil was really good. The world's before he got hurt playing primarily up the middle. You know, Connor Zari played the last like three weeks. Like, he played center in juniors. So there's, I would say this, about the Flames forward group, they have a lot of interesting players. I would say they have very few truly exciting players. They have guys who could play and could be useful, reliable, good NHL players. They don't have anyone that you look at and say, that's going to be the guy you build the team around. So, Byron, what is you, how do you feel about sort of positional stuff? I think everyone would understand that go ahead and take the best player, but do you see a distinct need there or the needs

just as great elsewhere that you don't, don't worry about position, go get a star? Yeah, I, I, I, would probably lean towards the star front. You know, they don't have the Johnny Godro come and they don't have the Matthew Kachuk coming. Like, it's just a bunch of like okay guys. So I mean, yeah, obviously like center is the highest priority position. If you can get the star center, but you're probably not going to get that at ninth. Like maybe, Heleneas, maybe.

But like, you probably just want to go with best available. And in my opinion, best available, highest star likelihood that like can, you know, yeah, like is a piece that you can build around, whether it's a winger or a defenseman Norah Center. Yeah. And your thoughts on where the flames are at right now? I know that it feels like this has been, like we said, only five guys from the Battle of Alberta, but really, they really only committed to taking a step back months ago at the deadline

or before it when they moved Lindo. Like these are early days and what probably isn't a quick turnaround. Yeah. No, I like, yeah, like they are kind of, you know, playing around the corners a little bit in the summer. We'll see how it goes. Maybe we can be a playoff team. Then, you know, it's pretty clear, pretty early on that they weren't going to be.

and now they're flirting with that rebuild thing. So I mean, yeah, I mean, it's a terrifying thought because it could be, you know, is it the five year perfect New York type rebuild or is it the Buffalo Sabres? Decades. We're going to go for 15 years. Like, you know, that's a frightening thought. But yeah, they're in the very, very early stages and not a lot there to work around yet. Yeah.

Your thoughts on that, Derek, and just maybe how crucial the next few drafts will be given they've got multiple picks. We'll talk about this year, two in the first, two in the second, two in the third, two in the fourth. They've got Vegas's unprotected 2016. They still haven't played a few cards. They can to get more picks. And they might have their own in the top 10 or they won't have their own in next year's draft.

Yeah, I think they've done a good job with asset management with what they got in the Lindholm trade, the Tanev trade, the Hanifin trade. They've got good pieces. You know, they can certainly pull together a lot of quantity of prospects. But as we were just

talking about, they don't have that true blue chipper. So I think it should be a focus. of the flames this year to maybe swing a little bit or at least try and look for players that have high upside. Yeah. You know, every year there are prospects that project really nicely to the NHL, but, you know, maybe they're low ceiling, high floor guys. Sometimes you get players who have a lot of skill, but might have one or two red flags or areas that they really need to work on. But those times, or sometimes those are players that can really pop. And then if that works out, you've got, you know, a top line forward or a top air defenseman. Um, with regards to the best player available,

or position. You can kind of do a little bit of both with where the flames are picking this year, I think. There's so much discrepancy this year from, honestly, from two all the way to about 12 or 13. You know, when it comes time for the flames to pick at number nine, you can't really say this player is going to be the best player available because you're going to get 10 different opinions as to who the best player available is. So at that point, there is a little bit of wiggle room for the flames to look positionally, whether they want to try and look for a center or start to defensemen. You know, I don't think it'll be hard to fault them if there's three guys that are arguably the best player available and they pick one that fits a need that they have the most.

Yeah, I think that's a well-made point. They might have three or four or five guys even in the same box and say, we value these guys the same. And one's an offensive defenseman. The other might be, you know, a flashy winger. The other can play the middle, but maybe it doesn't have upside. Like they're not going to be, there's going to be lots of options at nine. And I think we'll get into that volatility as we start to dive into the draft class in a moment, but we kind of left behind the depth chart. So let's go look at the Flames decor right now, which has been leaned out incredibly. This was a group that if you had Oliver Shillington and you did for a heartbeat at training camp, you had a Shillington's Adorov third pair and one of the better top

fours in the NHL. They deleted that entire second pair, which was their best defensive pair in Tanev in Hannafin. Shillington has not yet signed a contract. If you're watching this now and he is, congrats to everyone involves. Why did this take so long? But there just isn't a lot there. You've got Weger and Anderson at the top, Ryan. Those are absolutely good NHL defensemen, maybe not the best Rasmus Anderson year,

but you can say that's a top pair in the NHL, sure. And then after that, it's guys that were on waivers or beyond top six on everyone else's depth chart, Hanley waivers, Pahal waivers, Miramanov, eighth, huge injury history, tools, but there's nothing that looks like a second pair here. They have two guys left over from the beginning of last season in terms of guys who are on the depth chart who have contracts. That's kind of insane to me, but that's just sort of how things are going.

And I think, you know, I think we've seen Weeger really emerge as potentially a top pair guy. I think the track record in Florida would back that up at the time he spends a backblood there. I would argue he's probably their best defenseman right now. But beyond that, like Anderson, very good. Hanley's a role guy. Miramanov, we'll see. He's only played 20 games. So the jury's still out on him.

I think he was included in McKean's prospect list because he, because he's only played, he's played less than 60 NHL games. So you don't know what he is yet. That's fair. And so, you know, they have a lot of guys that project his role guys. It's very, to me, there's a group of Flings prospects who are,

as you would say, all gas, no breaks, Bruce Devich, Phorier, Moran, Moran, and then they have a bunch of guys that are mostly breaks, very little gas in terms of, you know, Khrushnikov. I put a whole net in that line, Kuznetsov, I'll use the Lobbyov, who took a big step in last year. I'd say Axel Hurtig's in that category too,

but they don't only have anyone that's sort of like an all-arounder the way, say, a Uyghur is where you can put Uyghur anywhere and he'll give you good minutes. Everybody they have in the system, arguably, is someone you have to shelter to one way or another. Yeah, and I'll ask the question of you guys. like what are the odds that any of those guys are top four defensemen on a championship caliber team, not on one plug in holes? Like does Hunter Bristavich have the ability to round out the edges to put with that great offensive profile to be a top four?

Is there more on Grushnikov than he's ever shown because there's very little statistically anywhere? You might be nasty and mean defensive, but you've got to be able, if you're going to play top four minutes to move puck out of your own end and you're going to pick up secondary apples. He hasn't been doing that. Like, anyone in the system that you're particularly more high on the nose, I know Moran is more than is. I know Moran's maybe the more recent one in terms of the second round of last year. Poirier is kind of there as well. Bruce DeVish, I like him. Like he's progressing really nice.

And his D plus one year was massive. There's, you know, a lot like reading the scouting reports and stuff. There's a bit of red flags there maybe that it's like too offensive. And he doesn't kind of have that all around game like Pike's sort of talking. But like the progression that I really like him. And then Moran and then, you know, Porre, those are the three that I. I sort of like as somebody that maybe could be like a PP1 QB if everything hits right type thing. Yeah.

But yeah, those like all around, you know, defensemen that you need, you know, the Pesches and the Slavins and stuff. Like they don't have that type of player in it like in the system at all. So they've got some okay ones, but nothing, again, that's like screaming. Oh, yeah. Like he's going to be, you know, a 60 point defenseman as soon as he hits it. Yeah, fair. thing so and uh yeah like look there's there's a lot of young players in there maybe some of them pop but again you're lacking a blue chip you can argue right yeah okay so let's get to a position

that maybe they do have a real blue chip prospect i guess it's just one of those things until he proves it he's never going to get the benefit of the doubt because he's a goaler that isn't six three you mean four time goalie of the year in various leagues goalie is it four it two two and two and an hl MVP in his first year in the american league that's not something thing we're going to be playing a game called how many of these guys are still in the organization in 12 months, aren't we? Well, Jacob Marksman could be gone by the time you're watching this. Dan Vlodar has a salary that's made him hard to move or he might already be gone. I believe it's just a one-year deal for Ignatio, who comes over after possesses of good numbers

in the second division in Sweden and Finland and back-to-back years. And really, the conversation fellas is about Dustin Wolfe, who could not do more statistically at this point of his career, but yet no one will say he's going to be anything. until he shows it at the one level, the hardest level, the NHL. And maybe that's unfair. Maybe it is fair. How do you feel about goalies and size Byron? Or is it just, data, guys are shooting in the same size net in every league.

Yeah, well, like from the skater side, like I'm not as bothered by the size thing, you know, even just looking at the data and stuff, but from the goalie side, size is very important. And Wolf certainly doesn't have that. He's very, very tiny when you watch him in the net and stuff. So if like the model is kind of like 50, 50 chance on him. And it's because basically he's so small. And so he had the same numbers at 6.3. What's the model say?

Yeah. I think he would be at like 75% chance of like being an NHL at this point. But like it really kind of dings him because he's so tiny. And that's just so he has to be a statistical outlier to make it essentially. Yeah. I mean, who is a goalie in the NHL that's like basically six feet or below like. Soros. And then who else is sneaking in it?

You could you can make a case though that, you know, we've been hearing very like I was at that draft in 2019 where he was the fourth and last guy drafted. And dating back to when he broke into the Western League as Carter Hart's backup, the entire thing was, oh, well, he's going to have to be a statistical outlier to be a good Western League goalie. Oh, he's going to have to be a statistical outlier to be a good American League goalie. And he's been a statistical outlier every level he's played at. Yeah, that's a good point to make too.

That said, it doesn't yet have them projected to be. Look, there's just not a lot. lot of guys is his size to get this far right it's just the numbers are against him but he's beaten all the odds thus far right he's he's become i think if he plays a handful of more games next season he'll be the i think the first flames drafted goalies since uh trevor kid to play as uh i think over 30 games of the the flames i was gonna say like the really the only goal they've hit on in the last ever is leremprosw he could make a case he had a decent career but they like threw him in the schmid deal outside of trevor kid it was mike vernon in 82 they're anyone like they've they've

had a they've had had luck taking net minders in any round there's probably some luck and there's some other things too i derrick thoughts on dust and wolf yeah it's n hl teams are always looking for what works what works in nchl now and they use that to provide value to players that they scout and the players that they draft and wolf statistically has been phenomenal but like you guys were saying there's just not a lot of goleys in the n hl who look like him or play like him and there haven't And going back quite a few years now, you know, Saros? Yeah, he's about what, 5-11? Halak had a nice career, but a little bit bigger than him probably.

He's also listed at six. Yeah, that's hard to say. You see him standing on the blue one for anthems next to guys that are listed at six. And you're like, I don't know if he's six. Yeah. He's got skates on here. They're measuring with the skates on or something. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know. But, I mean, from where the plans are standing, I mean, they got this guy in the seventh round. Like any free money. Yeah, free money. any games he plays it's a win he's proven himself at the w hl level and at the a hl level he deserves a chance he deserves that chance at least at the backup to see how he plays and if he earns the starting job by all means give it to him right he's he's incredibly talented incredibly smart like if you're looking at pure technical skills in a goalie he's exceptional understanding of the position exceptional the way he tracks

play exceptional like he's a phenomenal young goalie and lateral movements really Like you watch you, you're like, okay, now I can see why he's the outlier to this point. Yeah, he can move around the crease with such ease, right? Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of great tools to his game. You said earlier that, you know, the nets are the same size. But at the NHL, the shooters are better, generally speaking, than shooters in the dub and shooters at the HL level. So it becomes a little bit easier to exploit the holes in the goalies form when he's that size.

Sure. You know, a little more room over the shoulders or what have you. So there is some risk there. But I mean, at this point with what he's proven at this far in his development, like you got to give him a chance at some point and just see where things go. I mean, and like you guys are saying, you know, he's exceeded expectations up to this point. Yeah. It's hard to deny the possibility that he could continue to exceed expectations.

It's a tough spot for him and the team because he's going to be evaluated in a horrible environment for a while, unless we see a serious, serious couple moves to affect the blue line. Yeah. And that might be okay. As long as everyone's patient and we trust the process and we throw away the standard numbers that we've evaluated goalies with for 50 years. I know by some of the expected goals numbers or goals saved above expected, he rated out better than Markstrom from the time they traded that second pair on. You know, I don't think anyone's going to tell he's a better goal in Jacob, Marks and the NFL. But the results for two months when he finally got a chance were.

And so there are still reasons to believe in this. This isn't a bad stock. it's just a really, really volatile one. And he posted his numbers in the AHL took a dip this year, but he was also with him being the yo-yo guy. Yeah. And playing in front of what, to be very polite, was kind of a hollowed out Wrangler's defense group by the end of the year.

Yeah, well, the flames called up some guys for sure. Like, we saw a lot of guys you didn't think you were going to be seeing this year. Yeah. On that third pair, like for Soloviov and Kuznetsov and, you know, obviously Gilbert, but then Austerli down, he had a serious amount of time there. Then Pahal, on and on it went. There was a lot of guys that should have been Wranglers

if this team wasn't liquidating UFAs this year. It's going to be an interesting 12 months, I think, for both the NHL and NHL and HL and HL show club because they have the ability to a lot of different things, both levels. And both of the teams could have a radically different defensive group this season they had in previous years. So the needs are everywhere.

But the good news is the flames have lots of picks. And they also have lots of cap space if they want to go about things that way. In the first round, they select ninth and 28th, and they've got two picks each of the next three rounds, two, three, and four. No pick in the fifth. And they have,

I believe, their own in six and seven. Let's take a look at the draft history for the last nine years. We'll start with 2015 to 17. Correct me if I'm wrong on the timeline pike, but this would have been Bradshaw living second draft. But the first three really would have had a chance to make the list rather than just show up and pick off it.

Yeah, 14, you showed up. I'm still kind of amazed. They let him sit at the table. But some teams are finicky about that and some teams aren't. But 15, I think, was probably one of the top two or three, just do what you can with what you have drafts. Okay. So we, yeah, and I don't want to go line for line here.

We'll be, we're going to be 40 minutes in the show before we've been talking about this draft class. But if you look at 15 at the bottom there, you end up pulling Anderson, Shillington, and Manjapani out of a draft class where you didn't have, of a first rounder. Follas, that's a huge win, right? Yeah. Oh, it's one of the, like, looking at all the drafts that any team has ever done, like looking at that draft and what they pulled out of that with the picks they had. So, like, you know, looking at the expected what they should have

got out of it, they maybe should have got, like, one fringe NHLer. And they got a top line D, a guy that maybe is still a top 4D and, you know, a middle six winger. Like, that's one of the best value drafts ever. Except that they followed up with one better. They had way more picks, but when you pull Matthew Kachuk and Adam Fox out of the same draft class, that's exceptional. Dylan Dubay's also in there, who, you know, certainly in NHL. You're looking there at almost 250 games. Matthew Phillips, very good A.H. Ler at the very least. Yeah.

And again, like, you know, that hasn't affected the NHL roster. It's a good pick. But just the three, the two superstars in one draft class, Byron, has got to be. Oh, yeah, like that. Maybe one of the greatest draft class last 10 years is where you. that sounds the flames fans yeah yeah i mean like getting two superstars from one draft is very very rare i mean if you get two stars like even guys that aren't quite at that superstar level it's still really rare to get that from one team and one draft i mean typically teams draft like a star once every three

or four years so they get two superstars in one draft is just incredible value so if they actually got fox on the team and he played some games here that would have been big win that's what makes it tough to grade right then well the reason why the flames were even able to get fox that late that year was because everyone kind of knew he was going to go four years and then become a free agent. And it's a unique situation for that to happen because a player has to be a late bloomer to stay in college for four years. Because if he's putting up the type of numbers in his three there in his first year, you're hurting your own development by staying in that league. You're already dominating. So it was a certain combination of things. And I think it's scared a lot

of people saying don't draft Americans. But as someone said to me the other day, it's like, drafts already hard enough. You start limiting passports, your success rate is not going often. Yeah. So then we look at 2017, didn't have a lot to do there with only one pick in the first three rounds, but Yuselamaki, that's a mixed result. You feel for his offseason injury, that one really derailed him and has not looked like a star potential since then or even a regular initial or Byron. I mean, that one offseason would have ruined his. Yeah, like he was He was like skyrocketing up. And then that injury where it took him out for the whole season,

like basically stonewalled him at that point. So I mean, yeah, he was really trending up. And then, you know, he's worked out to be basically an average run-of-the-mill defenseman, but nothing special. But he was really trending up before that for sure. And if you look at Flames history, some of the most disappointing draft selections, the common denominator is poorly timed injuries.

Brent Cron got injured the year after. he got drafted. The flames at a first rounder that broke his ankle running down some stairs immediately after returning to college after being drafted. Valamac, he loses a year and a half of development in his first three years. It's hard to come back from that. Bennett with the shoulder.

Yeah. Do you think that's factored who he's been as a player? It's a key development all year. I shouldn't. Yeah, I mean, that was like, that's like his big year.

He's a young, you know, summer born kid and he has a great season, gets drafted, you know, fourth overall. and then he has an injury that takes him out basically right to the playoffs. So I think that hampered him a little bit in terms of what he could have been.

His playoffs was so good and then he scores 18 as a rookie the next year. And he was really after that that he dipped, right? That was odd. Yeah. But maybe if he arrives on time, the exercise some different playbook with him. I don't know. Derek,

that's a tough one. Yeah, it's such a key part of his development when that injury happened, right? Like from 18 to 23 or 24, or like that's the most important time for a player's career. You know, that's where the most growth happens, the most muscle development, most skill development. You kind of become who you're going to be, right?

Yeah, exactly. So, and we've seen it with a lot of other players. They get hurt in that time frame if it's a serious injury. Some guys just never quite come back 100% to where they were. Bennett had a bit of a weird career. I don't know how much you can say the injury caused it. It just, at some point, it seemed like you just kind of fell out of the flames. He just, he wasn't the right fit anymore for the team.

And, you know, then his play took off after that trade to Florida. Somebody had mentioned it. There's five head coaches that he had a chance to impress and win a top six job from. He couldn't do it. But that also probably didn't help him. No, agreed. Agreed. It goes both ways.

He probably didn't need five different coaches. But it wasn't like one guy had to out for him either, right? And I also, I have this pet theory. And we're getting a little off topic. But I don't know that Sam embraced the player he's had to be to be great in the NHL while he was here with the weight of the highest selection in franchise history. And is a guy that I think thought he was going to be in number one center. Like he's a checking absolute hardest working guy in the ice, heavy hitting middle six

centerman. Yeah. Like if he's playing on the Oilers, he's a third liner. And as we saw with the depth chart, we'll get into that as we go along. If you look at, you know, the Sam Bennett, he got drafted and they were trying to figure him out. And then a couple years later, Matthew could Chuck comes in. And Matthew Kuchuk was basically fully formed the moment he got here. And took somebody's job.

That's what Bennett could do. Andra Mangupani, late, late round pick for him before spent, he had the time in the HL that Bennett was not afforded. And then Manchipani figured out what he need to be. And by the time Manjupani showed up, he was almost fully formed. Whereas Bennett, you know, he took a little while to figure out. And other guys, other guys figured out quicker. Okay, let's look at the 18 to 20 draft classes.

There's three there. This is the middle third of Bradshaw Living's tenure here. 2018 boy you would have felt a lot differently about that marty posses will pick although it is a fourth round that's kind of free money as well if you sign your NHL contract you're probably beaten the odds is the fourth round right yeah so that one looks like it um some decent cuts though they want they chase some ceiling in the fourth round as much as left there uh 19 pelchea were waiting i didn't love his postseason Ryan but it's also you're in the mid 20s of the first round this is kind of a you are going to need a a while to figure out if a guy's a guy. Yeah, late, round guy, ton of motor, ton of heart, skill depends on who you talk to. But he's, he's always been, I'd say, if you look at how he was in that one world jingers, where he came out in the fourth line and they just used him to plug holes. Maybe he'll be a Paul Byron type who just is used to plug holes in every which line he can. He has that versatility. Yeah, and Wolf in the

seventh round round, we talked about it. That's, yeah, you just hit the penny slot. That's unreal. Seventh rounder, you shouldn't be able to find players there, never mind, potentially. starting goaling that shell even a platoon guy uh 2020 zeri they turned it down twice i believe to select zeri and it was in the 20s not at 13 there was they went they were they went from i think 22 to 24 then 24 to 26 yeah something like that uh because netzov this was not a great bet statistically with the defensive profile playing college we'll see if he's anything or not porre you're chasing some offensive ceiling he's had injury issues uh and solovia the last pick you made might ryan have the best chance of breaking camp with this team outside his area you take a toolsy

overage or a size they drafted him uh you know as a as a as a 19 coming out of uh or the oh he went back to the k played a year at minsk uh as a bell russian a six seven a six seven guy in a k as a 20 year old then you know three years in the flame system he's he's progressed and he you know he was up for the last little part of the regular season but the flames uh he would probably project as a poor man's Chris Tenev, all due respect to Chris Tanov and Salaviov. But I think if he turns into a B minus Chris Tenev in the seventh round for a guy that basically was sort of on the scrap heap in terms of prospects,

that's a really good find. Last three years, this is the last two Triliving Drafts and the first Craig Conroy one. Coronado at 13. Big year for him as he went pro. Very good H.L results run. but you noted that it was not a dominant first national campaign. I don't know that he should have had one.

It's a really hard thing to do coming from college. Oh, yeah. I mean, for sure, especially jumping into the NHL like that early. Like, I think it was fine. Like he kind of got like a little sample here. And then it was like, I don't think it's working quite yet. And then they sent him down a day. And he did great.

And like the way the model works for me is I always take where they kind of showed best. And he showed really well in the NHL. Like I think that was like a fine development thing. They could see early on that it wasn't popping right away. So send him down. And I think he had a great year. So I think he'll help him going forward for sure. Derek,

I thought on this, like other organizations that were deeper, he might not have a sniff of the NHL at all. It might have just been a straight full HL year. And how differently might you feel about a guy if he's at a point per game in the A, his first year pro? There was no failures at the NHL level, right?

Yeah, it's true. I thought Cornell had a pretty good season overall for his first year and pro is pretty much in line with what I expected. I expected the flames to give him a call. up, you know, because they're going through this retooling phase or whatever you want to call it. They wanted to see what he could do. He showed something. I mean, he wasn't terrible.

He didn't look completely underwater. So that was good. And he showed him, Pruma, Ryan, as you noticed. Yeah, I would say, I have some affection for the players because I really like the way he plays the game. And I think you can make a lot of parallels between how the flames are approaching things and how they handle a Coronado because he was given every opportunity to make the team.

He made the team out of camp and he deserved this. spot and then he was given an opportunity to keep a spot but he was sort of just bounced to the lineup because they had bigger problems like nothing was working in the first 10 games it was not a coronator problem is a calgary flames problem and then they they sent him down in november he gets some swagger back he figures out the a hl game he comes back up looks pretty decent they sent him back down and i thought you know he came up uh in in march march february he came up like towards the the last chunk of the season where guys started disappearing via trades and i thought he was better and better as the year went on.

I really liked how they used him in the bottom six just in terms of allowing him. Like, I would, the, a lot of the offensive guys are only good offense. And I think if Coronado is going to be effective, the NHL, I don't think they have the ability to shelter everybody. And so you need to have guys that can play everywhere. And they used him in the penalty kill of the A. He did a good job. They used him in a lot of different situations when he came back up.

They had him playing in the fourth line with AJ Greer and Kevin Rooney and I didn't think he looked out of place. In fact, I thought he helped create a lot of scoring chances for a fourth line that had not really done it all year. And I think that was, he showed a lot of progression. I think he might have shown a bit more dimensionality to his game than I think a lot of people expect it. Yeah, I think if you had thought of, okay, he's just a shooter, you've missed how hard he can hound a puck in the ozone. We saw more of that when he was in the A and then at the end of the year when he was back up. It's like he had to adjust pro hockey and he made an adjustment. I saw it. Yeah, fair. Yeah. And I, and I,

think, you know, I don't think he ends up as a fourth line guy. No, he ensures. But, you know, I'd say, you know, if you look at what makes Michael Backlin so damn effective, Backlin was sort of handled very similarly where they, you know, Brent Sutter basically parked him on the fourth line and said, okay, you're going to get heavy D zone starts. You're playing with Tom Costoplas and whoever else is playing on the fourth line. And you're going to have to move the needle for us.

And he figured it out. And I think there's some parallels with that with how Cornado is going. Let's look at Craig Connery's first draft class. Hansik at the top, Moran in the second round, Sunyev out of Penticton, who went to college, Lepinski, another Vancouver giant who had a very good year as a big centerman. And then Ygorov and Hurtig at the bottom. Did they chase enough ceiling with Hansik?

Are we overreacting to an injury plague draft year, or could it be both? It was more of a ceiling pick than a safe pick. Really? At least that's the way we saw it in the Queens. I mean, you've got a guy with size, who's got mobility, who's got good puck skills. Like if everything were to come together for Samuel Hansick, you've got a top six forward there. And possibly a guy who could play center.

We were hoping to see him play a lot of center this year. Didn't. But didn't happen. But again, injuries, right? Now, the nice thing about Hansik is he does kind of have a decent floor as well,

because there's a big guy who moves. Well, you're always going to be able to plug those guys in the NHL somewhere. But Hansick, yeah, he was on a really nice trajectory in his draft year. He was rising and rising and rising up draft boards. not just ours, but others as well.

And he just showed these flashes at times where he was a guy who could take over a game single-handedly. They weren't there all the time. So there was a bit of a swing that the flames made to take him as high as they did. It was risky. There's no doubt about it. But, you know, if it would have just gone a little bit differently, if you would have had some better injury luck, also would have played on a better team.

The Giants as a whole this year weren't very good. It just wasn't a good situation for Onzic. So there was potential there. but it was kind of like you have to squint to see it it's it's off in the distance what did the model think of him byron yeah kind of you know older player showed a little bit in his draft year but like you know certainly above average but nothing like like crazy numbers and then his pre draft year wasn't anything exceptional either so as you know those ones like yeah like i agree like he probably has like a high floor like i keep on saying like he's kind of like a marty hansel like that like a

third pro body so massive guy yeah like that's what i could see him being but in terms of like that star potential didn't really ever see it um you know when you look at guys like that like you know especially that drafted like kind of like the top 10 like that like they hit his stars like one set of six one set of seven times like i really like musty and perro were two guys that i was kind of like you know hoping those were those really high ceiling you know skilled guys that maybe have some other flaws, but you could get maybe a star out of those, and they're trending that way. And so that was sort of my next follow up was that that was considered an exceptional

first round draft class. Maybe it was the other options they had more than Samuel Hansick that is what maybe left some wanting more. Yeah, I mean, they left some guys on the board that had higher ceilis. Yeah, yeah. I think there was like probably four or five guys that I really liked at that point that, you know, when they went to Hansick, it was kind of like, you know, could have been better was my immediate reaction when that happened.

Yeah, and then the injuries hit, and it's tough because you want a guy to dominate, and it's tough to dominate when you continue to get injured, and you're just getting back to full health, and you're injured again, or you're playing through something. Connor's area of the similar experience coming out of his, I believe there's two drafters. He also had the COVID screw up, but the model wouldn't have loved his year at all, but the injuries are a thing.

They do happen, yeah. So he kind of plateaued in the same way. I mean, yeah, he had that weird COVID year where he's in the H&H, and then he's, you know, he can't really count too much towards it. And then he gets really badly injured in his D plus two year. And then, yeah, and he kind of plateaued out. So then it was like, oh, I don't know what this guy's going to be. And he, you know, he's probably still not a star.

Like when he's coming, he had a good couple first months. But now you're looking at him. He's probably like a 50 point guy, which is good. It's great value. But like he's still not, you know, hitting that like point per game type thing or that, you know, year in, year out, like 60 to 70 point guy. But yeah, he's a good player. But yeah, the injuries, you know, you kind of see that in the model where, you know, they still make the NHL.

You know, same thing like with Bennett. Like they make the NHL, but they just never hit that mark that Derek's talking about, like where they were before. They never get back up to it. And they're always kind of on the treadmill trying to catch up. And then it's like, well, now there's all these prospects coming in and you just never catch up. Yeah, think of it like a line graph, right? You're going up. You're going up.

And then the injury happens. And then you dip. And then you start climbing back up, but your trajectory is off. So you're not going to hit that same height that you might have if you didn't dip. Interesting. And Fender, I'll say this. You mentioned all the injuries that had in Vancouver. Don't sleep on Jaden Lipinski.

Had a great year. They were missing so many guys all year for all kinds of different reasons. Lipinski was very quietly, one of the top two or three face off centers in the entire Western League. He took a ton. He won a ton. Big body. And yeah, he's big.

He's American. But, like, apparently the good kind of American because he plays in Canada. And, you know, he's one of those guys that I don't know if he'll play in the entry level system this year simply because they have so many damn bodies he could i could play for the ranglers is the discussion that you're you're talking i could see him sort of be on a parker bell this year where they sign into an entry level deal is a reward for how much work he's put in sent him back to the dub as an overager they burn the first year but he gets the signing bonus he gets a lot of reps in vancouver is an overager and then he comes up next year with a bit of swagger to him because i just think you know

the flames had that had that trajectory with parker bell last year where they just they had so many bodies for the Wranglers that Bell wouldn't have gotten any reps. And I think we'll see how that goes next year with Parker Bell. But I think that's sort of the playbook with Lipinski. Interesting. Okay. Let's get to the actual draft for like 40 minutes in. And we have got to,

hey, there is so much consensus in this draft, guys. Everyone agrees on who's going number one. Totally. And then what? And then from two, you tell me, I have seen guys. And there's certain poster boys for it. probably some guys that have smaller windows, but there's a lot of guys that you'll see in some

mocks in the top five that are falling into the teens and others. Derek, you went out of your way to talk about it early. I think it's the theme of the draft. I thought at the beginning it might be it's a defenseman that'll be the theme of the class. And there are some great defensemen, maybe six in the top 10 potentially. But just this complete volatility team to team where you might have saliva of it too and someone else has them a 13. Like what? We used to be talking about ledges at three and five and eight. You're talking about a two to what ledge here? Possibly 12 or 13.

Wow. Yeah. There are going to be guys that are two on some boards and 11 or 12 on others. 13 may be a bit of a stretch. But you'll get names like Perak, Yakimchuk, Boo-Yom, you get to about 12 names in total, I would say that are right there. And then you've got a few other guys like Constellinius, Michael Bransignaggard, maybe Michael Hage.

Those guys could be top 10 players. on some teams as lists. So there might be a guy that, you know, everyone's like, oh, this is a consensus, you know, top five or top seven pick. That guy could still be there at nine. What does the draft cast as a whole look like to you, Byron? And for the models lens, is this a typical class or is it different than others?

No, it's, I'd say at the very top end, it is quite deep, like in terms of model projections. Like, there's a lot of really good, you know, look like future stars in there. and it extends kind of further down than most drafts. Like normally you kind of run out of like the really high value guys by like, you know, pick 12 or 13. Then you're kind of down to like the next tier and then the next tier after that. And then by, you know, the kind of back end of the top 30 essentially by my model. Like you're you kind of have a bunch of guys that are all grouped together.

And they're sort of like above average, but nothing crazy. But like this draft, like the really, really good ones last like all the way down to like, you know, 1520s. And then there's even like some really good potential model-wise that goes all the way to, you know, 30, maybe even to 35, 40 type thing. So I'd say it's, it's deep at the top end, but there's not as many of those, you know, pretty good looking bets that kind of extend into the third or fourth round type thing. There's not as many of those. There's overagers. There's very few like of these overagers that are, you know, popping in their D plus 1 or D plus 2 season that you always see coming through.

There's like almost none of them this year. but at the top end there's a lot of gems it looks like and so the cavalry flames you pick at nine and 28th never mind the good the very good player that you're hopeful you get a star at nine but maybe at 28 you might be able to find a very good at each other as well yeah i mean i think there's going to be a couple guys that i mean in the model they they have a really good star profile but like everything you read about them like they're going to fall like a guy like cole hudson lane's brother i mean kind of similar to lane maybe he's not quite as dynamic but lane just signed with montreal all right very high prospect. And he looks fantastic. And like Cole actually looks better than Lane did in his

draft year in the model. And he's like six months younger or five months younger. So I mean, he's probably for sure going to fall out of the first round. I would guess. I mean, Derek probably has a better sense of that. But like that's a guy that could be around 28. that could be super high value for, you know, somebody like the flames to take there. Let's talk about the only bit of consensus we have. Celebrity is not going to go to the flames unless something absolutely insane happens, fellas. But talk about the player that's at one. you know, where are we had on the, he was the first player that year, like, oh, my God, what a year to pick first?

Yeah, he's phenomenal. I mean, what can be said about him that hasn't been said all season, right? He came into the year as the projected number one pick, and he did absolutely nothing to lose that spot at no point that anyone ever really get close to him. He's just an incredibly well-rounded, talented center. There's nothing about his game that you could consider a weakness. I mean, everything about his game is honestly above average to well above average. Great skater, great shooter, great puck handler, really good defensive play.

Like, just a really solid player, like excellent hockey sense. You know, his dad is a strengthening coach for the Golden State Warriors, I believe. So he's like, you know, he's been around professional athletes his whole life. He understands the nutrition, the training, you know, just what it takes to be a day-to-day professional athlete, better than most players do, aside from maybe, you know, the sons of former NHLers. So there's just something about Celebrini that there's just such a nice safety to him. It's hard to think of an exact comparable to him.

For a while, I thought maybe like a Stephen Stamcoast. The one that most people kind of go to now is like a Jonathan Taze where maybe he's never a guy who leads the league in scoring, but he's going to be there for any international opportunity. He's going to be a guy who can wear the sea for his team, maybe wear the sea internationally. He's going to be a guy that, you know, come playoff time. You can play him 20 minutes,

tonight in the cup finals, all situations, matchups, defending late leads. He's going to be a guy that's just a workhorse for, I was going to say whatever team drafts him, it's going to be the shark. Yeah, that's a cool story too. You know, he played some of his junior hockey in the Bay Area. So that's a huge win for the sharks.

And then interestingly, he goes to the, his Vancouver kid goes to the USHL and then Boston University. When you see a player heading into their draft playing at college, and you see these types of point totals, almost two points a game is a 17 year old. This is off the chart stuff. Is it not? Yeah, I mean, he's, I mean, most of the time when you see the very rare cases when you see a guy in his draft year in college putting up huge numbers, they're like older players. But he's like not even old enough to be in college yet.

Like he's like high school age, it seems like. So it's a year early to go. Yeah, like he's a year early. So he's born in the summer. So he like that's even like next level stuff. So, I mean, yeah, you look at him like, you know, translating from the USHL where he was great, right into college. Like, again, just like Bedard last year, I talked about him a lot on, on, you know, the podcast last year. But he has the same profile where it seems like it's more common than it is, but it's pretty rare actually.

But when you look like this, there's never been a player in the model in, you know, basically 40 years of history that hasn't turned into at least a point per game superstar. And that's exactly what Celebrini looks like. So, I mean, might not lead the league in points, but he'd probably be damn close, I would guess. And he's, I think he's going to be a heck of a player for sure. Interestingly, we have Ivan Demadov at two on our three boards that we're looking at. We've got our daily face-off top list as well as the two, I guess, services that you guys have, Byron, your model hockey prospecting, and then, of course, Derek Hugh at McKean.

Demidov's two on all your list, but there's a lot of places where he's not. And I don't know if that's a knock on him so much as maybe where he is and where he played. Would you have liked to see him play in the K or at least the V instead of the MHL over there? Yeah, that would have been really nice. And there has been some talk about that, about that possibly causing him to slide a little bit. I mean, not too much. Maybe to pick five or six, just because we haven't really seen him play at a really high level yet. And then Russia's out of international stuff as well, right?

That's a huge piece. A lot of these guys, we've seen them at the World Juniors, the Halinka, the U-18s. We haven't seen them with Demadov. We also haven't seen them playing against pro competition like we have with a lot of other top prospects out of Europe. So there's a little bit of uncertainty there. Now, what Demadov did in the MHL this year was incredible, you know, just absolutely torched the league, crazy production.

And when you watched him, it was just, he was just, he. He was such a dominant force, game over game. Like other teams just could not contain him at all. And then he had a really good playoffs as well. So we did see him elevate his game at the most important time possible for his league. You know, he led his team to a championship. So that's pretty impressive. But yeah, there's just a little bit of that uncertainty because you just haven't seen him compete against the best that his age group has to offer or against, you know, international NHL competition.

at something like the world. We just haven't seen a lot of high-end hockey from, or at least a high-level hockey from him. And so it wouldn't be crazy, Byron, to say that if this guy a different passport, he might be showing up two on every list rather than most lists. Oh, yeah, I'd say for sure. I mean, he's had a little bit of injury history. He's kind of like a small dainty guy, which maybe that throws you off a little bit.

But yeah, I think if he was probably Canadian, he'd probably be second on a lot of lists. you know like he he again looks very similar to celebrini in the model like an almost like guaranteed superstar type profile wow i would have loved to see him in the khl just as sort of like a confirmation because the mshl's such a funny league so it's really testing the boundaries of the model saying he's going to be a superstar coming from here but you know he has that look to him so if he was putting up sort of normalized standard numbers in the khl that looked very similar then you could say with kind of like a greater degree of confidence that yeah like this guy's going to be a stub but i'm I'm pretty sure he's going to come here and be a stud anyways.

Yeah. Yeah. And very different circumstances, Ryan, but similar to Mishkov last year where it's like, it's a Russia problem. And it's like why we know so much more about these other guys, whether it's contractual or international play, it just feels like a riskier pick even if it's a better player.

And some of that's just Russia being Russia. I mean, you know, the guys will attest to every international group sort of has their own weird geopolitics that they operate within in Sweden or Finland or even checkia. If you're a high-end player, you're going to be playing high. You're going to be getting pro reps from like when you're 16, 17, just because they have an incentive to grow you. But in some systems, you know, they don't push their guys up.

And in some systems, like, I know there's always in some organizations, there's always some skepticism of just offensive numbers because in the MHL, some teams are just built terrifyingly big. Some teams are like the Leafs where they have so many. resources and they can recruit and they can just load up their teams. And so some of these MHL teams barely look like a high school team. Some of these high school teams look like the damn Harlem blow trotters. And the the golf between the halves and the have-nots in the MHL and say even the KHL is massive. And he played on a half team. Okay. Interesting. I love that

what happens next because I'm looking at the faceoffs list. I'm looking at hockey prospecting and McKean's and you each have a defenseman going here. None of you have the same defenseman, which underlines exactly what we're talking about with this draft class. Let's start with you, Derek, at McKeans. You've got the towering six foot seven defenseman from the KHL is your top demon off board. I don't think that's accurate. Okay, well, so I'm sorry. I might have written that down. Who have you got is coming off the board next? I'm pretty sure it's Sam Dickinson. Okay, so Dickinson is next I'll check that. But I'm like 90% sure.

I got Dickinson on Miami-McKean's list. Yeah. I must be reading off the wrong list or we got the, I got the wrong one up there. My apology. So tell us about Sam Dickinson out of the Ontario. Yeah, absolutely. He's just a defenseman who does a little bit of everything and he does a lot of it really

well, six-foot three defensemen and arguably the best skater forward or defenseman in this draft class. Yep, maybe Salive. I would say the Dickinson would push him really, really well. he's just a very explosive powerful skater and he can also handle the puck really really well at speed it's not unusual to see him go end to end as the trailer or the carrier and to finish off a play

he's strong he's super athletic he had some of the best results at the combine recently and he's playing for the london nights and that's something that really does give him a boost this is an organization that has the best track record when it comes to developing prospects including defense prospects. Like Evan Bouchard, Logan Mayhew, despite all the, you know, off-by stuff with him, he's turned into a very, very good defenseman. He had a great year in the HL this year. And, you know, there are some issues with Dickinson with his play reading sometimes.

His decision-making can be a little suspect. But you kind of have to trust the London model and what they're able to do with players. Now, this year, London won the OHL title. Dickinson got the benefit of going through a deep playoff run. that's very valuable experience for a player and he's probably going to do the same next year london's bringing back like everybody like all their top players so they're already looking like a team that's probably going to win the memorial cup next year with like easton cowen oliver bunk denver barkey like they're going to have a star team once again he's probably going to be playing for canada

at the world juniors if not this year next year for sure so he's just in a really really good spot to keep growing his game. As of right now, he's maybe not the third best player in the draft. I would say as of right now, Artiehlm Lvshunab is certainly a step above. But when you look at long-term trajectory, that's where we are with Dickinson. We think that over time, just through the situation he's in and the tools that he has, we think his game is going to grow really, really nicely on a nice steep upward trajectory. And when it's all setting down in 10 to 15 years from now, we think he's going to be the

or third best player to come out of this drop class. A couple words on Dickinson, Byron. Yeah, I love him too. Big, super young, you know, really good numbers this year. Like, kind of looks like Owen Zellwigger, you know. He's a good skater like him too, and he's big. So, yeah, I love him. Like, I have him a little bit deeper, but it's just basically because there's some guys

really going nuts this year. But, yeah, I really like him. It's a particularly strong defensive class, we believe, right? So someone might like dickets in the most, but that doesn't mean that someone doesn't have my, he isn't going to be a great player, right? Yeah. I mean, I would compare, if you compare him to say 100 Bustevich, and granted, we've seen a lot less of Brestevich in sort of high octane situations.

But I mean, like, like Derek said, I would not bet much like there's a handful of organizations I look at and go that team knows how to develop high in prospects. London's been up there for years. It's basically like London, the Chicago steel and a couple others. And, you know, especially I don't think you can discount the Mark Hunter factor because Mark Hunter knows what NHL players look like at every gate and he can help maneuver you. And I think just having access to that kind of infrastructure in London on and off the ice is huge.

And, you know, he's someone, I think, you know, I'd say Bristevich, except much more well-rounded. Sorry, go ahead. Sorry, I just wanted to say with Dickinson, like there's, you know, a lot of appeal long term. but even this year, like he was playing a top four role on a team that won the O HL title and came within a couple goals of winning the Memorial Cup. You know, playing 25 minutes a night, a lot of situations wasn't on their top power play most of the time, but still put up a lot of points. Like, even though we're looking long term with him, he still had a very, very solid year

in his draft year. That's fair. To be the impactful Memorial Cup guy, there's a few and a lot of them are really good. Math Kachuk did it and Red D. and we saw, was it Halifax hosting that one year? There was a bunch of top end picks, but there's not often top four minutes for 17-year-olds on those contending teams. Let's get to another defenseman.

I see him at three on daily face-off. Lev Shunov, who is at Michigan State, a Bel Russian defenseman. If Craig Conroy could only be a little higher, he could keep his Bel-Russian Russian defenseman fetish alive. But who knows? Maybe this is another option by the time he picks at nine. I don't know that he's going to get to nine. And there's a lot of speculation he might be.

on at two, although, again, place to place, a lot of variance. What does the model think about Lev Shuno? Yeah, it looks great. You know, kind of profiles similar to Victor Headman and Rasmus Dalene, you know, obviously coming from different leagues, but. So offensive profiles is the first thing I think of. Yeah, and I mean, when you read, you know, the scouting reports and stuff, like he sounds like very well-rounded.

Like, he's not just all offense. He's big. He's strong. Like he's, so there's not that kind of concern where, oh, he looks great in the model. but it's all offense. Like, you know, reading the other stuff, it sounds like he's very well-rounded. And, yeah, he looks really solid.

Yeah, like Celebrini, just a really well-rounded player. He's the type of guy who can play, you know, right now about 27, 28 minutes per game without breaking much of a sweat. At the NHL level, he's probably going to be 20 to 25 in all situations. You know, big guy, right shot, which I always add so much value to NHL teams, skates really well, plays on his toes.

Like, he really loves. loves to play at a high pace. He loves to rush the puck. He'll chase a big hit every now and again. He's got this persona on the ice that's really exciting because there's always this opportunity or this chance or this feeling that something big and exciting is going to happen whenever he's out there, which is, you know, that's fun to watch as a fan. But the appeal for NHL scouts is obvious.

I mean, this is a guy that can do everything, log a lot of minutes. He's super strong and athletic. Like, he's going to be a guy who can grind and eat heavy minutes and, you know, withstand heavy forecheck. and still go out there two shifts later and not be worn down, not be tired. But just skill, like this is a guy who can work a power play. This is a guy who skates really well. He can move the puck in transition. He's good on the rush.

Like he's got kind of everything he won out of a defenseman. Maybe nothing super, super high end. I do worry a little bit about what the offensive ceiling is going to look like. He's not going to be probably a 70 or 80 point guy, I would say. But I could see him being, you know, a 50, 60 point defenseman who also, you know, know is playing 25 minutes a night on the top there scouts i've talked to basically say he plays like he's 30 as a compliment he's he's composed he's mature you often see guys succeed in college because they're big and he's not big but he plays bigger than he is and i think the fact that he's he's got

that maturity and it's he's he's still so young and he's playing a lot in a pretty good program you know there's a lot of there's a lot of things to like about him okay so we've we've We've talked about four guys, two forwards, two defensemen. I want to get to the monster, Selyev, because I just find him so intriguing. And it also is like the type of guy that I just think a large room of general manager, certain guys aren't just going to, they're not letting this guy past him, whether, you know, their model may not. It's just like he does things that are very rare and that people, whether it's based in fact or not,

believe come with winning because he's six, seven, he skates incredibly well and he's immensely physical. Where does the model have him by him? So I would say he looks okay model wise. You know, he's kind of young. He's born in April, massive guys playing, you know, like you mentioned, he played in the KHL basically the whole year. He didn't really get like a sample anywhere else.

And he put up some numbers, nothing really remarkable. And then, you know, he doesn't have, it's not like he has, you know, a previous year from the MHL backed by huge numbers where you can say, oh, well, if he went to the MHL, he would have, I probably would have done about the same in the MHL again on. a sort of standardized scale. I am a bit fearful of him getting drafted too early. I mean, I'm not a scout, but I watched the videos and stuff. And like, he is a unicorn. Like, the way he skates and the way he can like cut off people so fast that somebody just so gigantic is crazy. But when you look at these, again, he's more of a unicorn. But when you look at like these big, huge

guys that are drafted like really early. early in the draft, like, when do you sort of like, yeah, that was worth taking that top 10 pick or that top 15 pick? Like, it rarely happens. Like, even like a guy like Tyler Myers, I can't remember where he was taken 13th or something. But even him like, was, something like that? Yeah. Like, what is he, was he worth 13th? Maybe. I mean, he won, I think he won the, the rookie of the year when he came in. He was kind of okay. But then he's kind of this okay career. Like he's like, I think it could Branson too. Like, yeah, like he's like a huge and you draft him. Yeah. Yeah. He went third overall. I'm like, is Grafanson worth that? Like, I don't think so. So, you know, and then you kind of read

the reports and it's like, oh, like he could be Zadora. And it's like, well, Zadorov is not worth the top 10 picks. He kind of went there and he's over 15. Yeah. Like so I'm, I like him as like more of like something maybe in like the very late teens or like the 20s, but he's not going to go there. Like just so many teams that are in love with him. But I just think there's a risk of like you're not going to get enough of him at such an early pick, you know? I think, uh, one of the best ways to describe it with the people I've chatted with in the Sky community is like there's a huge difference between you know like Jamie Alexiak and Victor Headman and no one really is sure where to place them on that spectrums probably not either

but there's a you could land a 747 in that you know spread between those two guys right yeah that's that's pretty much the case of sly have right there's just not a lot of prospects who look like him a guy that size who skates that well and a guy who's playing you know in the HL all season. Super rare hasn't really been seen before. So there's a hard, it's hard for scouts to kind of get an idea of what to make of them. Sometimes you see a prospect and it just reminds you so much of guys you've seen before, similar statistical output, similar tools, similar, you know, organization and career path.

Salaiav is that kind of unicorn where no one really knows what to make of him. The tools are great. I mean, the size is obviously a huge advantage. It's never going to go away. But so is the skating. like this guy has potential to be an incredible play killer you look at like defending the rush against the likes of Nathan McKinnon or you know Connor McDavid you need guys who can skate and having a guy his size with that reach that's such a huge advantage because you can control

that space so well with him in it early on in the season there were flashes of offensive upside he was jumping up in the play more often he was carrying the puck and that's what got's got guy was really really excited like oh my god this guy could be the next victor headman but then that part of his game really dialed back. But it's tricky because it's hard to know if that was just him just not being good enough to keep doing it or if maybe that was the coaching staff being like, okay, you're 17. We don't want you trying to beat Kail McCar out here because we're a KHL team.

We're still trying to win. Yeah. And that's been something I've been trying to figure out a little bit more of. That's been something I've been talking to scouts about. No one seems to really know whether his offense was intentionally rained back to make him a little bit safer. So there's just so much uncertainty about this guy. But the appeal of scouts is what they think that they can get out of him once their development staff has had a chance to work with him.

So Char is the first name that comes to mind when you say that because he was not a very good pro early in the sense that he had a lot of learning to do. He wasn't a great junior player. But the one thing you can't teach is the size and the frame. And if we can work on the other stuff, he ends up being arguably the greatest free agent signing in actual history, one of the greatest captains of our adult lives and a cup winner. This guy is fascinating to me. I'll say this. The Sillia feels like the model versus I test battle manifest in the human being. I think I think some GMs and head scouts are going to go to Dan Milstein's KHL camp in Florida.

And somebody's going to be like, okay, blow up the list. We're putting this guy up top because you can, he's the kind of human body that you project hopes and hockey dreams onto because he's so damn big. and he was able to play a regular shift in a very good league. He did not move the needle offensively consistently, as Derek mentioned. But you look at him and you go, oh, damn. Imagine if he played in the Western League. He would have had insane numbers based on his skill set. Probably.

And that's the big challenge. And then you take away the international play because of the Russia factor. And it's like, here we are again. Like this, you can see why these guys might slide. Yeah. There's definitely some risk to Celaya because there's so much like wishcasting. You know, it's like we hope that he can do this. And like he could become this.

He could be this defenseman who does all these things. It's just it hasn't fully been seen yet. So I mean, I'm sure that there is going to be a team probably in the top five that's like, you know what, screw it. Like we think we can work with him. We know it's a risky pick. But like we need a star. Or maybe you're a team like the ducks at three who. That's the GM's profile.

Yeah. Got a lot of D already. He doesn't have to be the top pair guy for it to work. Like, yep, I keep thinking of the ducks and what Pat Verbeek likes and what he doesn't. Yep. Yeah. And he's like before he got there, they were kind of drafting a very hockey prospecting friendly draft. You know, they had like two or three drafts in a row where it was like, yeah, like nice, nice pick there.

You know, the Zellweger and all these picks. And then when he came, they really, they changed it. And they started drafting a little bit different and drafting bigger and drafting safer, you know, that type of thing. I could see them interested in him. And yeah, I think maybe it's an organization that's a little more insulated with a lot of prospects or doesn't have to have a star in the sense that you might have them on the way already. You're just looking for another piece to that championship club. But careful, don't miss a real good star by taking this guy.

It'll be interesting to see where he goes. It's fascinating to me. We're on the D run. So let's keep it going. Zeeb Boyum of Denver University. Freshman wins the national championship and put up some. some pretty impressive numbers in this first year. College, if I'm correct.

Yeah, and won the world juniors, gold medal with the United States. I mean, just incredible, incredible season. And, you know, a huge step forward for him. I watched him last year with the National Team Development Program. I thought he was okay, didn't really see him as a first rounder. And even coming into the season, I kind of had a lot of reservations about him. But all he's done all season to just get better and better and better and keep proving himself. You know, really, really smart player, great work ethic.

you know he's got a great personality to him like he's very competitive he's very driven um you know he kind of leads by example on the ice you know he's always working he's always moving his feet a lot of skill there uh you grew a little bit this year to overcoming some of the the size concerns that were there um i wonder a little bit about the pure skill level um you know he he's blown up some pretty uh he's blown some pretty uh good n-hlers out of the water in terms of draft your production for defensemen. He outscored Quinn Hughes, outscored Luke Hughes, outscored Adam Fox. So there's a lot there that's really appealing. But he also played on a really good team that had a lot of depth. And we're seeing

a little bit more than lately just the really good programs in the NCAA stacking up. You know, there's no draft. There's, you know, very loose rules about recruitment. So now the portal window you add to that, right? Yeah, exactly. So a lot of the, The strong teams get stronger every year and the weak teams stay weak. So there were times where I watched Booiam and it's like, yeah, you put up a goal and two assist this game, but his team won like 6-0 and, you know, you didn't have to work all that hard to put up those points.

So I wonder a little bit about that. When I watch him, I see really good puck skills and really good skating, but maybe not the same offensive chops as an Adam Fox, not the same skating ability as a Quinn Hughes. I'm a little bit cooler on Booium. I have him closer to maybe about 12 or 13 on my personal list. He's a little bit higher on McKeon's because some of our scouts like him more.

But I certainly see the appeal. And, you know, if a team picked him top four, top five, like, I wouldn't be surprised because there is that chance that he becomes, you know, a top pair offensive defenseman and a power play quarterback quarterback. Hockey prospecting loves William. Loves him. Yeah, he, I mean, it looks very, very similar to Perak and Lvshunov. but what he has to him is that that offensive production we talk about in his draft year

in college is not just high he has the highest equivalency of anybody in the model not Bobby Orr so I mean when I see that I'm like well I'm going to jump him up the list a little bit because I mean you just like it's just so off the charts outlier high that yeah I love him and and I have him I think at fourth but I mean if he went third or whatever like yeah I think he's going to be in a 5. You had left Schoenow 5. He had the monster points. Yeah, yeah. Like, I just like view him a little bit better because he has sort of this very outlier number. I mean, I'm all about the equivalencies. And when I see something like that, it's like, oh, okay, like I take note. Like anybody in the realm of that has turned into a star and he's flirting with,

you know, Bobby R. So at that point, you got to. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, you got to take note of that. So yeah, and I'm, yeah, just watching him stuff again, not a scalp, but like I've watched him like the way i describe it is just like fun as hell like he comes up the ice and he's always like on the offensive side especially he's always scouring like who's coming where he's kind of thinking a couple moves ahead and then like when he gets in the offensive zone he's you know he passes here and he kind of goes behind the net and he comes back on d and he's just like all over the place like in a very unique way to create offense that yeah i think he's going to be like a ton of fun in the nchl and he's going to be a big star too so what do you know about the d u pioneer right oh lord he's

I think Derek nailed it. Like, he's on a good, he's in a good program and he's been put in situations where he can excel. But he's excelled. You know, he's, he was one of the best players for a team that won gold of the world juniors. He was one of the best players, perhaps the best player for a team that won the NCAA championship. And, you know, he was consistently, like, whether they were playing against, you know, some random team or one of the big guns in his conference, he was consistently the man on his team. as a very young teenager, a true freshman. So, I mean, you know, he's, I don't know what more could have been asked of him,

but he, you know, he was, he was thrown a lot of fastballs and he hit a lot of home runs. Fair. I want to finish the D class off because, well, and there's more to come, but I feel like there's, we've heard, is there six, is there five? Carter Yakumchuk feels like its own animal. And these, these five guys I see in more similar spots than Yakim Chuck, who's low a lot of less but high on a few, which I want to talk to both you about in a bit. We'll call it the big five and we may be proven wrong, but Zane Perrick would be the other

one. And you've got them awfully high at hockey prospects, if I'm correct. Yeah, yeah, like just slightly higher than the other two. I mean, basically because he's got the same numbers in his drafter, which are again, that like outlier 99.5 percentile type thing. But in his pre-draft year, he had like really, really, really. really good numbers, like Quinn Hughes type numbers as well. So, you know, when you see that in the model, I mean, there's only, there's only a couple that kind of look like that, but like, it's kind of like a three out of four or four out of five that look like that, like turn into like a star or superstar. So I'd have him a little bit higher up there. But yeah, I mean, there's those three

defensemen all look insanely high up there. And I just have him a little bit higher because he profiled a little bit better in his pre-draft year, which kind of works in the model. Yeah. And it's probably more comfortable for scouts too. And you can see a guy repeat success rather than something being like, hmm, where was this last year? Yeah, Parac is a very, very special talent. He obviously put up incredible numbers this year and he did it as the main driver on that team. I mean, Saginao was good overall. They had some good pieces, but they didn't really have anyone at his level.

There were a lot of times where he was the guy driving the bus for that team offensively as a defenseman at 17 years old. I have a team host of the Memorial Cup. Yeah, that would have loaded up. And he had a big game and a big tournament, really. He was great at the Memorial Cup, and I think that really bolstered his draft stock. He's, you know, not the biggest guy, but he moves really, really well and just thinks the offensive zone incredibly well. Just his vision and his creativity in the offensive zone are incredible.

Excellent puck skill, dangerous shot from the point for a guy who's not overly strong. You know, really sublime playmaker and passer. There's not really a lot of players like him in the NHL. You know, I've seen Eric Carlson as kind of a comparable, and there are some similarities there. in terms of at least what you can kind of expect from him in the NHL level, probably a guy who quarterbacks your first power play, probably plays on your first pair. As long as he has a defensive partner on his left side,

you can help cover up some of his mistakes. He's going to be a guy who scores a lot of points. Maybe not your number one defenseman, maybe not a guy who can play in all situations, but you want him out there a lot because he's going to generate a lot of offense. And, you know, those are important players to have on an NHL team. A big year. He had four more points than 100 Bristevich did.

The only O HL defenseman to score more points than 100 Bustavich in the entire league, and he's 13 and a half, 14 months younger than him. So he's very similar, you know, I think if you have, I agree with Derek. I have similar sort of like well-roundedness qualms about his game, but holy moly can this guy create offense. And, you know, if you're the flames, as much of they love Bustavis, I actually think two of them. Well, and to be fair, in 13, 14 months,

he's not going to be doing what Bristavich did. He's probably been playing in the NFL. Imagine, imagine him with an extra, like, you feel his 19, 18 year old year with, you know, strength and conditioning and beef him up a bit. Coach up the D.E side a little more, although the Carlson comp is an interesting one. I mean, that's an incredibly lofty ceiling to chase offensively.

But when you say that name, everyone understands. He's not going to be great defensively. So we'll just have to settle with him maybe being the highest scoring defenseman the league. Yeah. But it's the thing too with Perak is he is a really, really smart player. And you watched him this year. And there were times where he would make the wrong play defensively.

But it never gave scouts, you know, a red flag level of concern. Because he's so smart offensively, you know, there's capacity there to learn the defensive game more. He hasn't needed to focus on learning it much lately. And he probably should. shouldn't have been because, you know, that's the type of guy you want focusing on offense, you know, doing his magic up there. But there's a lot to work with.

He's not a dumb player by any means. He works hard offensively. You can probably teach him to dig in a little bit more defensively as well. He's never going to be a Tanev or anything like that. He's never going to be a shutdown guy. But I think you could at least work with him to get his defending at, you know, an NHL average or NHL passable level. Sure.

Or the offensive and passable. Yes. Let's go to a guy that has a lot of intrigue for a lot of different reasons than the guy we've mentioned so far, because A, he's a forward and B, his season was riddled with injuries, and that's Caden Lindstrom, who is huge and has lots of tools and has a lot of the markings of an elite player, but missed a ton of time. How do we make sense of all of it? I mean, you look at what he did in those games, and in the games that he played this year, he was simply incredible. like he was so good in the games that he played that you couldn't take your eyes off of them

and it was just in so many different ways you know he'd have one shift where he would make something magical happen he'd dangle a guy and spin off a check and take the puck to the net and score and then the very next shift he just completely obliterates a guy along the boards you know someone comes to baseman to scrum and you know linchram pushes him around like he's he's he's tough he's skilled he's fast he's got an infectious personality i was lucky enough to interview him him this year when the Tigers came through town. Really good young kid. I really like talking to him. People rave about chatting with him.

They really like the human, yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's just a lot. He's got every kind of tool you'd want. Like, there's really nothing about his game that's not appealing. He scored more this year than he got assist, but I think he's actually a very, very good playmaker, probably a better playmaker than he is a pure finisher. But he's a guy you can do everything.

You're talking about a center who's six foot three, who can skate, who brings a physical element. You don't see that every day. And the appeal of that is obvious because, you know, that's the type of guy you can use a lot in the playoffs. This type of guy you can use a lot in all situations. You know, there is still some risk there because not only did he miss a lot of time due to injury, he kind of came out of nowhere this year. Like, he had a really good year as a 16 year old in the dub. But he was the third round bantam draft pick, right? This isn't a guy like a celebrating who's been a star, you know, since he was like 12 or 13 and everyone's kind of,

you know, treated him like a star and he's used to the spotlight. You know, he's not. He's a guy who came from small town BC, you know, played for a good program in Bantam. And, you know, he's starting to get there now. He's doing a lot of media interviews and stuff. But there's just a lot of unknown about him. But you look at the upside, you look at the trajectory he's on, the progress he made this year. It's all very appealing.

It was really, really crappy for scouts when he got hurt. because everyone was watching this guy all the time. Like when he would come through town, like the place would be full of scouts because they all wanted to see him. What is, what do you think, Byron? Like,

yeah, I mean, you'd already alluded to the fact that if you, if you're not repeating something, it's, there should be more skepticism. Yeah, I mean,

I think there's kind of a lot of what Derek said, like kind of coming through in the model in a way. Like he had an okay year, model-wise, pre-draft year, but nothing that really jumps off the page. So that's sort of like one. flag. And then his equivalence here where he sort of shows up in the model is like it's pretty good,

but you look at the guy. Like he actually looks very similar to Hansik is what he looks like in the model. Like they almost look identical in terms of their production and what they look like in this type of model. So then it's like, okay, then you're down to again like one out of five, one out of six of these guys turned into stars. So are you getting, you know, Jason Arnett, who looked very similar and was a huge center and worked out great or are you getting more something like Logan Brown like there's a little little concern there and then now you have you know the injury stuff and and maybe he was going to creep up to a whole other level but then he gets injured so then that doesn't show up in the model because he never gets there but like how serious are these injuries

is that going to hamper him now so now his D plus one year is going to be kind of stagnated because he's dealing with the heartinated disc sneaks in there or if it's fully recovered you know so then is it going to last and last and last and then you never get that full potential that you're seeing from what Derek's saying about him like this reputation and all this stuff he can do can he put it all together and become that player in the nchel or is there some things kind of stacking up there that bit of a concern he would have been a guy that teams would have been all over at the combine 100% did you catch any buzz about that or can you dig on or is it you know people telling you stories to try to get you off the scent time of season

I didn't hear a lot about him at the combine. As far as I recall, he was there and doing interviews, but wasn't doing the testing due to injury. So that doesn't help. But this is a guy that scouts were keeping very close tabs on throughout the season. Yeah. Like, they were trying to make a lot of calls to coaches, former coaches, to get to know more about this guy. They, you know, it's like sharks smelling blood in the water. Like, scouts were all over this guy all season.

So I don't think they really needed to do much with him at the conference. line to get an idea about him. I guess if he's healthy, you can see or you can learn more with the injuries. But yeah, to your point earlier, all this goats wanted to see more of this guy. Yeah. And one other thing that I think is worth mentioning about him, it kind of ties back to Dickinson playing in London. It's not the same thing with the Tigers, but he's going to be playing with Gavin McKenna

the next couple seasons. Yeah. Who is the next big superstar prospect coming up? That's a good guy to have on your line. That's a good guy to be sitting next to on the bench and picking up. pointers from like it's you obviously you don't want to you know put too much talking to that but it's something you have to consider like he's going to be training and playing with mckenna picking his brain about things there's a chance that his development could get a nice little boost from having

that kind of influence around him all the time yeah that's fair it looks like they'll be playing deep into seasons for the next to a while there i think i think uh especially i saw i got a couple of early views of him early in the season. I say this. I think a lot of the things that teams that have players like him, I'd say, compared to Matthew Kachuk, in the sense that Matthew Kachuk can just drive you mad

in so many different ways in the ice, because he can outskill you, he can go you and taking penalties, he can engage physically. This is a guy who's got a bit more physicality in his game, I think, in a bit more of a pest in him. Bigger for him, too. also got like that the skill to back it up the i think the injuries are always going to be a concern

until they're not but you know i think if you're an hl team if you saw him early in the season when he was just driving teams mad in games and helping his team in so many different ways i think depending on what you have in your prospect pool you look at this kid and go okay i can bet on this kid because i have this that the other thing in my in my prospect pool so you got you think it's led to nine to the flames i mean i guess anyone at this point you could but yeah i can see that is the injury stuff enough or there's certain teams you're like you can't get past them i would be shocked if he went past montreal yeah and so maybe now you need a demadov to be there for him to get past montreal and

here we are again with the crazy two to 13 permutations right yeah okay uh let's go to the daily face off list because i i don't want to just pick one of your list to look at not the other and stephen allis does a great job for uh our group of the nations for day the face off so we'll see who he's at the top that we haven't mentioned yet. So I see we've done Celebrini, Demadov, Levshunov, Dickinson, Perrick, boy, and boy, he's got a lot of the D up there at the top, doesn't he? And then Katten comes in at seven.

Does it matter if Berkeley Katten's a center or not, guys? Because I feel like that's a question out there. I mean, I think you can stay at center. It'd be rare. You don't see a lot of guys his size who stay center at the NHL level, but Katten's an exceptional player. exceptional hockey sense, exceptional skill. This is a guy who put up ridiculous amount of points on a terrible team with no help.

This is a guy who was playing upwards of 28 or 29 minutes a game as the number one guy. And probably more or less the only guy the teams would circle on their board before the game is, we got to shut this guy down. And he would still beat them. But he rounded out his game really well this year too. He led the WHL in shorthanded points, which is ridiculous for his seven, year old who's 5'10 and maybe 170 pounds soaking wet. He's got a lot of Matt Barzal to his game.

It's not an apples to apples comparison, but you've got a center who's not that big, but just has a great motor and really drives play with the puck on a stick. You always know he's going to be able to do something. He's always going to have the right idea in his mind. He's not going to turn the puck over very easily, but he's going to be able to transition it. He's going to be able to gain zone entries. He's going to be able to, you know, quarterback to power play. there are some concerns about the physical play.

Like when he gets hit, he gets really hit. He gets knocked off his feet a lot. When he gets pinned to the boards by a bigger defenseman, he's stuck there. You can't really fight through checks the way that some others can. But he's so smart and he's so mobile with his skating that it is really hard to pin him down. So I think with a guy like this with that level of skill, that level of smarts, I think he's going to be able to stay at the NHL level

because he's going to figure out a way to overcome the physical limitations. and I think it'd be really interesting if he's still there for the flames at nine because they have some smaller forwards or average size forwards in the system already. But if he's still there at nine, there's a very big argument to be made that he's the best player available. And he could be that star center, that really high end center that the flames don't have in their system. Yeah.

The center thing, one Scott was telling me, well, maybe he's just like Giroux, and it's just creating offense no matter where he is center or wing. It's a bit of both and depends what else you have. And you just love that you got a guy that can create as well as you can. What thoughts do you have on this season he put together? Yeah, no, he looks really good. Like I have him ranked, I think 10th.

But I mean, that's basically because of the pieces that are in front of him. I mean, typically a guy like that, like I would have him rank, certainly in the top five. You know, he looks like Elias Lindome, Cole Coughfield, Cole Perfetti, you know. Andres Svetnikov going back, like Owen, Nolan, Damon Lankow. Like these are the kind of guys that he profiles with. Yeah. And just to be clear, really quickly, those are not stylistic comparisons. These are trajectories.

Yeah. Like they look the same in the model. And, you know, there's probably about 50% of these guys turn into stars. Almost all of them make the NHL. So, I mean, at the very least, you have an NHL are there. You know, whether he plays center or wing, you know, it's tough to get, you know, a top line center probably around kind of the 10th pick is probably where he's going to. to go. So if he moves to the wing, you know, he's a smaller guy that probably makes sense.

But I mean, if you can get a star there, whether it's on the wing or center, I mean, center would be better. But yeah, if you can get a star there, I think that would be huge. Western League kid, Pike. I mean, we're on a bit of a Western League run. But I mean, he's, he's someone that the flames have seen a lot of over the last couple seasons. I would, again, the only knock I would have on him, like the production's nuts. The only knock I'd have on him. And we've been singing this song for years, the flames have a lot of prospects. Their big prospects aren't particularly skilled. Their skill prospects aren't particularly big. And the Venn diagram, the overlap there isn't huge. It might just be Sam Hansick at this

point. So I don't think they would intentionally shy away from anyone because of a lack of size. But I don't think you ignore the lack of size in their prospect pool. Yeah. And geez, like that can be a scary predicament to be in because you might be saying goodbye to the star to pick the bigger, safer one. And just because you had some picks or small guys that didn't go the way you wanted, doesn't mean you want to miss the next Braden point or whatever, right? Yeah, it's tough.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, next on the board, let's go, Cole Eisenman, an interesting player that fills the net. More like goal Eisenman, am I right? You might be right. Certainly this season, 31 and, sorry, 58 and 57 games. That's incredible.

and Derek, the best peer shooter in the class, or is there any competition? Is there any competition? Is it close? No, not really. I mean, Izerman is the de facto guy. He's the number one best shooter. And that's a role that he embraces. Like when you talked, I haven't talked to him, but in interviews, you know, he talks about he wants to be that kind of guy. He wants to focus on a shot.

He wants to be an elite goal score. And there's no denying that. I mean, he's certainly proved it this year against NCAA competition, against the USHL competition at the U18. at various other international tournaments, all the guys does is score goals. Where it becomes tricky with him and why he's not ranked higher on a lot of boards

is that there's not a lot else to his game right now. And that was a concern coming into the season. There was talk about him being the second or third best player at the start of the scouting season. And all he did all year was kind of drop and drop. Despite scoring a ton of goals. Yeah, despite scoring a ton of goals. Because he doesn't really bring a lot else.

If you were to give his shot like a skill rate, it be a 10 out of 10 everything else about his game is maybe a six or a seven at best and that creates some concerns right he's a guy that yeah on the power play if you can feed him the puck he's going to bury one-timers all day that's great but he's not going to be a guy who drives a lot of play offensively at even strength he's not going to be a guy who probably drives a lion by himself which is concerning you know if you're a team that already has a star center prospect in your system sure yeah draft iserman you've got a guy who can run ride shotgun to your star center, perfect.

But if your team maybe like the flames where you don't necessarily have a guy that he could play with, that he would need to play with, then it becomes a little bit harder to say. Like, is he going to be good enough as the guy to make it worth drafting him that high? You know, he did make progress throughout the season. Got a little bit more well-rounded, got better at hanging on the pox, got better defensively. But nothing about his game really reached that upper echelon, which is kind of concerning. And with the U.S. national team development program,

we've seen guys come through that system who looked kind of similar that didn't pan out. So you got keeper bellows and all over Wallstrom. Two guys who, you know, big shooting wingers got drafted in the middle of the first round. Neither of them have really worked out the way that, you know, there was a hope that they would. So you don't want to compare him too strongly to those guys,

but you worry, you know, is there a trend there? Is that something we need to worry about here with Eisenman? I don't think you'll slide for too long because teams always need goal scoring. It's such a premium in the NHL. Yeah. So I think somewhere in the 8 to 15 range he's going to go. But I think there's some variability as to how much teams like him and how much risks they're willing to accept. Do you see some Phil Kessel vibes here, Byron?

Like finisher, but he's your best player, you're probably not winning. Yeah, just kind of sitting on the side waiting to get that shot off. But I mean, yeah, like him in the model, like he profiles like, very, very well. Like, you know, he looks like Matthew Kachuk, Stephen Stamkos, who is a pure shooter, Vinie La Cablee, Clayton Keller, like. That's great company. Lots of great hits, you know, Pierre Mark Bouchard is probably like the worst out of the batch.

So it's like, okay, what are you getting here? And then the other thing with him that isn't often mentioned is how young he is. Like he's like, I don't know, 18 days away from being in the next year's draft. So, I mean, most of the guys that he's being compared to are like, born in like January, February, like November, October the previous year. Like he is so much younger than them that, you know, maybe, hopefully there's like a late-blooming aspect there that he can kind of figure out, you know, two or three more of these different parts of the game while still having that shot.

And, you know, as somebody falls to like something in like the, you know, 10 to 15 range, like that could be massive value for a team. Like, just curious for like a player like Cole Cofio, like was he similar at his draft or could he do more of that outside of the shooting stuff in his draft year? He had a skating advantage for sure. The shot was obviously the big draw with Cofield, but he was also a pretty good playmaker. He didn't have to do it very often,

but he could do it at a high level when he needed to. And he was pretty mobile, and he liked to play with a lot of pace. You know, he wasn't the fastest skater out there, but he always kept up a high pace and he could play with the play like that. With Eisenman, it's not quite always there. He's not always moving his feet as much. So, you know, sometimes he's a guy who's like you were saying, maybe waiting on the outside for the puck to come to him.

So it's a little bit of a concern there. But yeah, there's certainly some similarities to Caulfield. That would be for anything that's drafting, Eisenman, you're hoping you can get someone like Coffield. Gamebreaker that can score. Yeah.

Find room for him. Costa Heleneas. Tell us about the Finnish centerman because I feel like it's not going to be the same conversation we just had. Yeah, no, it's almost like exact opposite. You know, great motor,

great work ethic. Maybe not the most skilled guy, but he puts up a lot of points because he's really, really smart. He's around the puck a lot. I don't think you can find a single scout who's seen him who doesn't like him. It's just kind of this universal like for what he's able to do. I mean, he was playing in the Liga for the last two years, as a 16-year-old, then as a 17-year-old.

And he was really good this year as a 17-year-old. Those points totals don't jump off the screen at most of our viewers, but the context of them happening in Liga is important. Yeah. Byron, your mom. model especially. Yeah, because I mean, yeah, each league has its own translation of how that relates to a point in the NHL. So obviously, you know, the CHL is different from college, and these are different from all these different Euroleagues in Europe. So I mean, you know,

the KHL is probably the second best league in the world. It's not the HL, you know, and then the SHL is probably the third best. And then behind that is basically, you know, the HL and the league are pretty tied. So, yeah, I mean, those points don't. jump off the page, but then when you break it into a model, like, he looks really good. Yeah, he's 17. He's playing against grown men putting dinner on the table. He's young, too. I think he's born in May. He's got this profile where I really like him in the model, too. And it's one of these things where, you know, you talk to scouts, you hear what they say. And it's not a whole lot of negative. Like, maybe he doesn't have this, like, huge dynamic part to his game.

But, like, everything is, like, very safe. And they like everything about him. And then you look at him in the model. And, like, very few people look like that, like coming from a Euro league like this and being this young and producing like this and having you know the pre-draft year that's really good that you know backs it up and you know he looks like william nielander and lecannon are basically the only two examples so if he fits as something in the middle of that like that's a win of a first round pick for sure so i really like him and i yeah like it's you can't see a lot of negative about him so it's almost like weird that he's ranked solo i don't know if it's because he's a five-ten center that they're a little weary of that but like he looks really good and so

in your list, I've got you having them six, which is really high. But also, you guys at McKean are high on them as well, if I'm correct. I think he finished around 11 or 12. Okay. So almost top 10. Yeah. And he's the guy that was a lot higher throughout the season. We started him, I think around top five.

When we updated our list in October or November, I think he was still in the top 10. It's not so much that he did anything wrong. it's that other guys kind of came out of nowhere and passed him. So, Salive, we'll talk about, I think, the next big name in a little bit here. I'm not going to say it, yeah. But there were a few guys that just came and, you know, showed a little bit more long-term upside. Maybe guys who project a little bit better as first-line forwards or top four defensemen. I mean, look at the guys we're talking about so far.

Like, Perak is really interesting. Bouyam. Caden Lindstrom is, you know, kind of a physical unicorn for a forward. So there's nothing really that Heleneas did wrong. It's just there aren't a lot of elements to his game that really grayed out as high-end. Good skater, good playmaker, good offensive sense, but nothing that's maybe elite, you would say. So he's a guy who projects really, really well as an NHL. I will be shocked if he doesn't play, you know, 500 plus games in the NHL.

I'll be shocked if he doesn't become a second line forward. But I might be a little surprised if he becomes a first line forward. and a guy who really can carry a line himself. If you've tuned in waiting to chat about a certain player, we're only going to tease you for one more name, fellas. So before we get to a particular forward, let's talk about that wild card six defenseman and Carter Yakumchuk. I don't know that he belongs in the top five

in terms of when you're consolidated rankings, but he certainly is a guy that could be one of the top five defensemen taken as weird as that sounds. Derek, can you walk us through the nuance of what Carter Yakumchukes is and has been for the Calgary Hitman? He is the epitome of cowboy hockey. He's so entertaining to watch because you've got this six-foot-three,

strong physical defenseman who can also handle the puck like a first line forward. He's got so much puck skill, he's got a booming shot from the point, and he's just got this ridiculous persona to him. The Calgary Hitman weren't particularly great the last couple years, especially this year.

And there were so many times where it seemed like their whole strategy would boil down to give yak and check the puck and let him do something magical with it. And he would. He would dangle through two guys and, you know, bury a shot top corner. And this is something that happened over and over and over again throughout the year. He played ridiculous minutes for that team. And he was always making something happen, you know, always dragging them into the fight,

always creating offensive chances. But he's a guy that also projects really well as a defensive defenseman at the NHL level because he's got the size and the reach. He's got some real nasty to him. He likes to drop the gloves. He likes to land the big hits. He's not scared of getting his hands dirty. So when you look at all these different elements,

it's understandable why teams are very interested in him and why he's showing up on some draft boards really, really high because you've got a right shot defenseman with size who can play both ends of the ice. And with the hitman, he's the number one defenseman. So is he going to be a number one defenseman in the NHL level? I don't necessarily think so. I have concerns about his skill and his skating that make me think he might not get to that level.

But he's been able to do that kind of work so far. And that's something that teams like, you know, we've seen him be able to do that job at the WHL level. Maybe he becomes our number one defenseman at the AHL level for a year. And then we kind of groom him to that point in the future. So there's a lot of good tools there. He's also just a big wild card because the way he played this year was really green light. He'd always have the green light to dry play and take chances and try to make something happen. But that's not really how NHL hockey is played.

It's a lot more structured, a lot more systems based. And we haven't really seen Yak and Chuck play that kind of way. So his game is going to need a lot of adaptation to work well at the professional level. And it's hard to say exactly how that's going to look. But man, if there's a team that really wants to take a big swing in the top 10 and they think that, you know, they can work with him. to maximize his strengths and kind of clean up some of his weaknesses, there could be a number one or a number two defenseman there at the NHL level just with the right amount of development and time and patience.

Yeah, like model-wise, like older guy, you know, a lot of what Derek's saying kind of comes through. Like last year he doesn't have really the numbers to back up, you know, top 10 selection. But then the numbers this year, very good. But maybe that's because of this cowboy hockey is talking. boat. So, you know, guys in the model that kind of look like him, Morgan Riley, even Ivan Provarov, Cam York. So mixed bag there. Yeah, mixed bag. You know, you probably certainly

getting an NHL defenseman, you know, probably like a one in three, one and four chance. You're kind of getting that offensive star. So yeah, I haven't ranked, you know, kind of just like 11th or 12th type thing. Yeah, but in most drafts, like I would probably have them, you know, around five or six, but like again, this draft is just so deep and there's so many D options up there that look a little bit better. But yeah, it looks pretty decent and not too bad.

You would have seen him a bunch, Ryan? I like him. I don't love him. I like him because he's big. He can do a lot of things. I think Derek alluded to this. I think the challenge with him is he's been playing in such a talent, shallow environment with the hitman

that at his worst, he tries to do too much. He tries to be missed to everything and he tries to grab hold of the game in times where maybe you should let it come to him. And I think if you're a team, that's both a risk and an opportunity because if he goes into an NHL environment or pro environment, he might just be able to calm it down a little bit. And he won't need to be missed through everything. Because if when he's, he lets the game come to him, there's a reason why he score 30 goals.

There's a reason when he has the numbers he is because he has the talent to back it up. It's just a matter of figuring out the best way you utilize it. It's interesting, interesting player. And that ends the, just kidding. All right. The name you've all arrived here for, T. Gingal had an absolutely monster year, friends. And if he started out with a guy that maybe he had a chance to go in the first round

and then became a, I think he might be in the top half of the first round. It's kind of starting to feel like he might not get to the flames at nine in the first round. Not to suggest that he won't, but that there are enough people. high on this incredible trajectory that what might have been like don't reach for the kid's son you might not have the chance to do the Calgary funds what do you make of teaching a endless season buyer yeah i'd really like him um he's super super young just like his dad like he's born august first jerome's obviously born one of the youngest july first so one of the youngest players in the draft which i always love he's got the size um he's got the production in his draft year that

you know, these younger guys that pop in their draft year. I mean, is his D minus one year. I mean, he improved by about 300% from that. And when you see players do that, like, it's kind of a different story, you know, you know, comparing him to a guy like Lindstrom, who is like six months younger. Like that's a whole different ball game. Like, he's popping in his draft year after not doing too much in his pre-draft year. But he's so young that those players tend to hit as stars much more.

you know, they're hitting as stars about 40% of the time versus, you know, a guy like Lindstrom who would hit like one in five, one and six type thing. So he's on this massive trajectory. If he goes back to the WHL, like he probably will next year and goes up a whole other level, you know, that sets them on a whole other stage. You know, that's kind of, you know, that's what Jonathan Hoover did when he went back. That's what, you know, Mustie is doing this year. So that's what's sort of the expectation of him.

And that's where you think he's going to get next year. So, yeah, I mean, he looks kind of okay. I mean, well above average in the model right now, but it's projecting where he's going to go with that runway he has in front of him because he's so young. And I really like him. And I think he's going to evolve into something really special. You guys are McKin's, where does he finish off?

How do you like him? I think he finished sixth on our final list, six or seven. That's quite high. So you can speak to the meteoric rise. Yeah, it was incredible what he was able to accomplish this season. And there was a lot of mystery about him coming to the year. So last year he played for the Seattle Thunderbirds who won the WHL title. Deep team at forward and defense,

Ginglow didn't play a lot. So, you know, you recognize the pedigree, but you didn't really know too much about what you were going to get. He didn't play a ton of games. And when he did play, didn't get a ton of minutes. Yeah.

Get traded to Colonna this year, starts the season on an okay team on the second line, and he just takes off pretty much right away and just starts becoming a dominant force of the W. level. And all throughout the year, he just got better and better and better, even though he never really had much of a supporting cast. He became such a central figure on Colonna, where it seems like every shift he'd get out there, he would make something really incredible happen. And even come playoff time, he was even better. Like, he was the best player in the first round

of the WHL playoffs. He was fantastic. There's just this, there's a certain, like, aura about him that I wish I had better, you know, more tangible way to describe, but just the way he carries himself, the confidence. He's got that dog in him, as people like to say now. But there's something to that, right? Like the brighter the spotlight gets on him, the better he plays. He doesn't. In goals in the first round, right? Yeah. He doesn't, you know, shy away from pressure. At the, at the U-18 tournament in the gold medal game, he was phenomenal. He was a huge reason why Canada came back and won that game. It's just the way he carries himself, shift over shift. He's dangerous. he thinks the game really, really well.

The shot is really impressive, very good hands. I think he's a better playmaker than a lot of people realize because he didn't have a lot of players to finish the plays he was making this year. There's just a lot to like there. He could be a center next year. There's talk about that.

He started this year playing a bit of center, then got shifted to the wing, but Cologne is going to be really thin down the middle next year. If I was their coach, I would want him playing down the middle because I think that's where he'd leave the most impact. at its start. He's been listed as a center almost everywhere and he took very few faceoffs for anyone to be considered a center. He's also 17 and you're starting to speak to why that might be the

case. So you're trying to figure, okay, where do these faceups come from? Is he on the penalty kill with another winger? Did his centerman get tossed out? Because the totals are very small for someone that's listed as a center everywhere. But you think that it's definitely not too late for him to become a center. No, I don't think so. Earlier in his career, he played more center. And at the start of this year, I think it was his first three games. He was playing actually center, taking lots of race off. And just when I watched those games, he didn't look out of place. And just the way he plays the tools he has, I think he could make it work. Maybe he's not as natural as a center as someone like Berkeley Caton, who we talked about earlier. But I think he could make it work down the middle. And I think

Colonna would be wise to try him down there. But even if he's a winger at the NHL level, I mean, you've got a guy who could be a 40, 50 goal score, a guy who probably wears a letter on his jersey. Like, there's a lot of leadership there. And obviously, you know, he's the son of Jerome. He's not, he's not exactly like his dad, but there are a lot of

similarities, right? Just the way he kind of carries himself. There's, you know, Jerome had this presence too, right? You know, born leader, you know, everyone kind of gravitated towards him. And you can tell that Teach has, you know, absorbed a lot of that from his dad. Where's a letter?

Maybe he's a winger that scores 40 or 50. There's a lot to unpack here, Ryan. If this guy's last name was Smith, I think he's just like, that's a great prospect. He's one of the guys that's probably going to go on top 10. But there are so many layers here. And it's not all just, hey, if they draft them, you'll sell more jerseys.

There's also, like there's all different facets here. It's not just, oh, draft him because his dad played here. When when the season began, there was a lot of questions like, what the heck is this kid? Because, great, I mean, he was a depth player on a absolutely stacked Thunderbridge team a couple years ago. And he seems to have been a sponge because, you know, he, when he played, he wasn't really, like he was, if he was a center in Seattle, it was because all their centers were herdering or sick or somewhere else. And so by the time the season became high leverage, he was mostly a spare part of a special. He played three playoff games. But he seems like he's taken what he needed to from that situation.

And if he had come into this year based on his age and his lack of reps a year ago and just been good or been decent, people would go, yeah, he'll, you know, he'll figure it out. He figured it out. He figured it out extremely quickly to the point where I think the big challenge for a lot of scouts I talk to is they don't know what his ceiling is. They know he's going to be good. They just don't know how good because it's basically like his first. Western League season didn't happen because of how odd his usage was. But I don't know. I will say this. People in Western Canada have been conditioned not to bet against people with a Ginnle as their last name. I mean, his older sister has turned into a really good college

player. Joe projects really well for the 2026 draft and look pretty good dipping his toe in the Western League this year in limited usage. That's some multi-point games. And Tige has gotten better and better as the year went on, I wouldn't bet it. If you're quote unquote settling for Tija Gindler, if he's ninth on your list and the eight guys ahead of him are gone, you go, okay. And you don't really think twice about it. Well,

I think it's easy if he's the best player on your list. Because why wouldn't you take the guy that's best on your list? Unless you're really worried about some, like, all the reasons you wouldn't have hired Jerome McGinla. What's he? Yeah, for God. So, well, no, but just there is that thing where there aren't many rational parents about their children, even when you get into front offices of NHL organizations and people

that work closely around teams, it looks like a disease more than like isolated incidents that you can't find people that can survive it. Oddly, if Jerome's the AGM and his kids in the AA and he thinks he should be in the NHL, what happens? I mean, it's a situation where if the kid's last name is Smith, you go into the office, you talk about it and it's not a big deal, but it changes. And the fans expectations also change. And maybe contract negotiations become a little bit different. Now, all these things are not an issue if he's going to be a star. But it's just, I don't think people think of that.

Everyone thinks of the name bars, right? Which is great. And yeah, if he's a stud player and he's the best on your list, of course you have to take him. The question is, what if you have him a box with some other guys? Are you only thinking about the positives? I find it a fascinating decision to make by her. Yeah, I've kind of been on the fence with this one as well. Like, you know, there's all the nepotism there that could happen, which is a concern.

But then the big concern is like, you think he's going to be a star, but then you don't draft him because of all of that. And then he goes to the next team, you know, one of the next two teams after you. And then he becomes a gigantic superstar over there. And you didn't draft him. And you're just going to get eaten alive. And now you don't have that again on your team. you know so it's true yeah it goes in the in the right decision is like there's well and i so much to it you do have to approach just like his last name smith i think it's probably how you have to do it

but even if his last name was smith like this is a guy pushing top 10 for sure yeah no one's suggesting he's out of whack if he goes at nine like this is not i don't i'm not worried about the nepotism pick i just wonder how they weigh these variables that don't exist if it's not jerome's kid yeah i mean it's you're gonna have the same what it could have should a luck regardless of who they take. I mean, this is, this is the kind of first round, like the guys have been saying that probably have to like two or three, you could pick names out of a hat from the next 10 guys. And A, it wouldn't be shocking. And B, there wouldn't be a lot of argument over the quality of the players. And I think then we'll figure out, it'll all come out in

the watch. But I mean, this is the organization that infamously traded down to or traded up to not take Marty Broder. Yeah. So they can get you ever, they have some ghosts. And hopefully, hopefully they don't get chewing their own heads because I think, you know, I did, I did a video or my conclusion is basically just you got to trust your guys. If you're, if the scat, if the consensus in the room from your area scout, your cross-over scouts, everyone whose last name is not a Genla says, this is the guy. He's probably the guy. Yeah.

You hope if for fans, they want to see it happen. I get it. It's the greatest player in franchise history. Of course you want to see his kid become a star wore the same jersey. Would you like to see it happen anywhere else? No, God, no. that's the againless are ours you want to you know place a like we want the the the the copyright on all the againless we need them all um so what you hope is that he's there at nine

and that he's an absolute stud it'd be incredibly exciting and for a franchise that's had a dark 14 months maybe longer depending how you went you viewed the like it's it would be quite something 14 months is not nearly enough probably 20 since since that puck went in in game five Well, and you know what? That really wasn't even in the sense that you can lose a series and things are fine, but it's what happened after that when July 1 rolls around and the Mathiketchuk thing happens. And then you see a bet that could have worked, not work, but it was double down on. It hurt even more when you had the contract extension with Eurdo.

And it would be an incredibly amazing story if it goes well. Yes. I don't know that. Why I have to sell that. I think we all know that. Incredible. Okay. It's not a first overall pick either.

Like, it's, it's, it's ninth. So if it's, he's going to play in the NHL. I mean, I think that's pretty, like, he's going to get there. So even if he's like an okay middle six guy, it's like, ah, well, it's ninth. But then if he's a star, then it's like, yeah, we got the again. I'm going to, I'm going to double down on the Daryl Sutter principle of if you draft your kid, if something goes wrong, you're the one who has to trade him. Okay.

That's, yeah, didn't see you going there, but all right. Let's play one more little game before we wrap up the program. I do want to say thank you to our three sponsors, Village Honda, as well as McLeod Law, and Betway. We'll take a look at some fun little props before the end of the show. But first, and yeah, we've kept you a couple hours here. So we thank you for your patience, all of you, including the viewers. But give me a guy you'd love to see the Flames take at 28. Whether you think he'd be there, you hope he could slide there.

We're like, man, this kid's got such a crazy ceiling or something about him that fits the organization. you'd just love to see the fit with Calgary at 28, assuming that they're picking with Vancouver's pick there. I'll go first. Alphonse Frage. He's Swedish. He's offensive. There's a lot of dynamism to his game.

And, you know, he feels like a Calgary Flains pick. And they've had a lot of experience with Sweden, with players of that profile. They obviously need all around defensemen. And he seems like a guy that they could build that way. And, you know, he's some. someone who's probably available at 28. Derek, do you have a particular guy you'd love to see slide to 28? Yeah, I'm going to go with Harrison Brunick of the Camloops Blazers.

So you've got a defenseman who's about 6'3, right shot, and skates really well, who's on a really nice trajectory. He was a late riser for us all season. Last year, he played on the Blazers team that hosted the Memorial Cup and played with a lot of good players. Logan Stancovin was there, Olin Zellweger, like Fraser Minton. So he was absorbing a lot of good lessons. and a lot of good tips from all these guys.

And this year, on the rebuilding Blazers, you know, emerges their number one defenseman. And his game really started to take off in lots of different directions. He started rushing the puck more, started getting more time on the power play. His offense started to come along. Then he got hurt. Then he missed a lot of time. He came back to the U-18s, was using more of like a depth shutdown defenseman role,

killing a lot of penalties. And he looked pretty good there too. So there's a lot of material here to work with. The Blazers are probably going to be bad next year and the year after. But Brunick, he's going to be the number one defenseman. Going to be playing a lot of minutes, probably top power play, probably top penalty kill. His game's going to grow a lot through all those reps. Best case scenario with him, this is a guy who could eventually emerge as a number one or number

two defensemen at the NHL level. That's long term. That's a lot would have to go right from there. But that is what the ceiling we see with him. right now and i think if you're the flames and we talked about this earlier there's not a lot of high-end talent you know there's a lot of guys who are going to play in hl games but might not be true drivers of play they might not be real stars i think he's a guy who has the potential to get there it would take you know a little bit of luck a lot of development and there's a bit of risk to

that idea but i think that's the type of player that the flames should target because you're going to get someone really good at nine yeah as we talked about even if you don't get maybe your first guy. There's going to be, let's say, 10 options that are going to be really, really good for them. But with the other pick, I think you want to take a bit of a swing and hope you can land two star players in the same draft. I love the idea of chasing some ceiling here, especially just given everything we talked about, the lack of the stars in the system, the actual decent quantity of players in their system rather than quality and maybe some concerns over some guys in the system that maybe have lost a bit of that ceiling. Is there someone that the model loves at 28 or that

You'd love to see them personally go get fired? Yeah, there's a couple of guys, but I think I would go probably with Cole Hudson. And he's real high and brother. Yeah. Yeah. So I have him, I think about 11th. Yeah. And like, you know, he profiles like really good numbers in his pre-draft year and in his draft year coming from the U.S. development program.

Profiles like, you know, Ryan Ellis is a good comp, similar size too. He actually looks better than Lane did in his draft year. and Lane's, you know, kind of evolving into this, you know, great piece for Montreal. So can Cole be close to that, you know, possibly? And he's also younger relative to Cole. I think Cole's born in February. And then Lane is born on draft day. So that would be a big coup.

At 28, he's born on the 28th. And it's the 28th. So it just fits. There's a lot going on there. Is there any chance that this Eurocheck defense was going to slide to 28 or is that getting a little too greedy for me here? it's possible he's really the big mystery box because he missed a lot of time to injury yeah but coming into the season there was a lot of talk of him as a top five or top ten pick right that's kind of where he was on those early season boards and he wasn't great before he got hurt he was playing in the check pro league and he just wasn't he didn't look as good as he did previously especially at the helenka tournament so there was hope you know he's playing through some things he's going to turn his game around then he blows out his knee at the world juniors and then now he's now no one really knows.

So the best case scenario for him is still the guy that was, you know, considered very high coming into the season. Maybe that player is still there to a degree. So I think a team is going to see the possibility that he becomes a top four, right shot defenseman with size and picks him maybe late teens or early 20s. But also I wouldn't be surprised if he did slide because there are a lot of players who really emerged this year, guys like Teddy, Teddy, Teddy Stiga, Merrick Ben Acker,

like guys who've kind of played their way into the first round that maybe teams, you know, because they know these players more, because they've got more of a book on them, maybe they feel a little bit more comfortable drafting someone like that. And that forces a year to check down, maybe all the way to the 28 range. Interesting.

Where do you have on consolidated? I know you can do a great job of consolidator. Around 20. Derek, nice, I'll steal Derek's thunder a bit because like one, a guy right behind him on the consolidating. list that has a lot more momentum, Steen Solberg. And I think those are the two players that even though they're sort of in the same area, I could probably see Solberg going earlier because there's the perception that he's on

the rise. He has momentum. He's got some momentum behind him, whereas EurSek is sort of just doesn't really have the momentum. Interesting. Okay, we've got some betway to look at here. This is always fun, fellas. And I think, Byron, is it you?

other pal last year, Cam Robb's. I think you were like, there was some interesting little things there. Let's take a peek at where some guys are projected to go. First off, a betway, who is projected to go number two overall? Now, these odds do change as, you know, money comes in or people hear things as you get closer to the draft. They really think it's Lev Shunov, the Bell Russian defenseman from Michigan State going to not Demadov to Chicago and not any of the other guys we've talked about at length today. interesting. There are the Russian things about Demadov, right? If he played at Michigan State, maybe this isn't the case. There's so lots, lots of options there for a fun one at number two.

And then they've got a huge list of over unders with guys names and their draft position. For example, Caden Lindstrom, the medicine hat, Tiger's, uh, sentiment we talked about. Is it over or under four and a half? So do you think he's in the top four? Do you think he's five and beyond? Huh. All right. So if you're, if you're, you like any of those. You can head over to that way to check them out. And just talking about last year, they do rotate some of the names through.

Just because these are here now, they might not be later. And there might be some other stuff. Does anything jump off at you as, I don't know that I agree with that or like, yeah, that seems like a pretty good barometer. I mean,

the Seneca one is really, really interesting. He's probably the latest and last riser on draft boards, had a really good showing in the OHL playoffs. It was honestly one of the best players in the OHL playoffs as a 17-year-old draft eligible player. And there's a lot of projectability with him. You got a six-foot-three winger with really good puck skills, good skating ability. And you can tell he's still just growing into his bodies, maybe 180 pounds.

He's still pretty skinny. So when you kind of look at what would happen with him, once he physically develops, you could have a guy who can play that heavier game, but still has really, really good hands and playmaking, like among the best in the draft class. You know, there has been talk about him sneaking into the top 10. There's been a lot of talk about the Montreal Canadians possibly considering him at five. Who knows if that's just media spin. Who knows if there's something to that.

But that's the number that looked off to me. And off not like I don't believe it, but just like that's one where there's a lot of helium the second half of the year. It's like, wow, there's got to be some teams considering it for that number to be, you know, 11 and a half, not 13 and a half or 14 and a half. Interesting. Byron, anything there or just say more? The Lindstrom one, not that it was surprising, but like top five,

like after like the injury news came out and I'm curious if he sticks in there or if like that scares some teams off and then he drops out a little bit and then, you know, I guess. I'm thinking a team needs two. Because Montreal is at five. So I guess he's not going to make it past them. No, but it's four and a half C over under. So that would be.

Yeah. Because I agree. I see a tough time him getting past Montreal. all but yeah uh that still being in that like top four is like whoa that's you know and i'm at three they took leo carlson recently Columbus at four they took out in fantilly so team men not be teams that need centers i totally agree interesting kent johnson and columbus yeah fellas this has been a ton of fun i want to thank you uh all for being here and i want you to plug the great work that you do uh byron first over at hockey prospecting dot com what's going on yeah so yeah hockey prospecting dot com like

I said, it's all these models that I've been talking about on the show. So the model goes back all the way to 1990 and there's over 7,000 players in the model and you can go through and compare various players from different drafts or this draft and yeah, kind of compare them all the way through. And then there's also, you know, rankings of team prospect pools and also the hockey prospect in top 32, which is not at all how the top 32 is actually going to go. It's more based on the model. That's out there now. So yeah, you can sign up.

It's like annual subscription fee or you can just follow me on Twitter for any little tidbits about the model. And obviously be tweeting during the draft and being all over that. I can't wait for the draft. I always love looking at your stuff. It's pretty unique. And I think has significant value based on that it's using different stuff than maybe a lot of the other resources have. It's unique that way. Eric, what's going on at McKean's?

Yeah, I'm not going to plug myself. I'm going to plug my comrades at McKeens. You know, we do draft stuff all year round. You can subscribe to our website, but our big, you know, bread and butter is the draft guide every year, which is out now. We got profiles on 300 ranked prospects, plus a few other feature articles there. So, yeah, we went really deep this year. You can get the draft guide for 20 bucks, which is pretty sweet.

And it's based on the input. of our whole team of scouts we've got guys throughout north america we've got scouts in different parts of europe and we all worked really hard this year we had guys in rinks you know putting in the long hours and drinking the bad coffee to uh you know help get the analysis and the insight that we needed to put this whole guy together and i think we did a fantastic job i'm really proud of our final list i'm really proud of the the depth we went on a lot of our profiles so i think it's a great resource because you know your team's probably going to draft guys in the fifth six seventh round you've never heard of before. So our guide, we probably going to have profiles on them.

So you can get a early feel for what these players are and how they play. And, you know, that's value to a lot of fans. Ryan, what's going on on on Flames Nation? A lot of draft coverage coming up, I hope. After all this. Change for a radiator putting out draft content. And I think the plan is I'll be in Vegas. I don't know where I'm sitting yet, but in Vegas at whatever building they're doing this thing at like last year. I forgot what it's called, but it's shaped like a sphere. It's like the dome circle dome or something. I forget.

They come up with weird names and stuff. 3D circle. Yeah, it's the last traditional centralized draft before they go to the boring NFL model. So it's the last rod. It is kind of fun that they're doing the last traditional draft in Vegas. It'll boring unless you're the commissioner. You can do all those handshakes.

Yeah, you're right. It's going to be a little less fun after this year. We're glad you're there covering it for us on Flames Nation. It's going to be a fun weekend. and we'll find a way to get them on some broadcast. We'll be down there as well. It looks like we will be broadcasting poolside, Wednesday through Friday. And we may have a little wrinkle up our sleeve for draft night as well at the sphere in Vegas.

Fellas, thanks so much for doing this. Appreciate it. Also, big shout out to RJ putting together the incredible graphics package and Jack for helping us put this together as well. Do check out the content and the incredible work over at Hockeyprospecting.com as well as McKean's hockey, Flames Nation, and of course, our pals of daily face-off as well. We showed a bunch of the Stephen Ellis draft rankings as well. Have fun on the 28th. To a gindler or not to a ginnla?

That is the question.