The Athletic Hockey Show - Hlinka Gretzky Cup: Corey’s dispatch from Slovakia

Episode Date: August 6, 2021

First, on the season finale of the Prospect Series, Corey joins the show from the Hlinka Gretzky Cup in Slovakia and talks to Max about the large scouting presence at the showcase and how the tournament sets the prospect watchlist for the early part of next season, as well as thoughts on some of Team USA’s top players, Team Slovakia becoming the story of the tournament so far, featuring guys like Juraj Slafkovsky, Simon Nemec, Dalibor Dvorsky, and Ondrej Molnar.Plus, the guys discuss Team Russia and their impressive 2023 draft eligible winger Matvei Michkov, Ivan Miroshnichenko, and Mikhail Gulyayev, Team Finland’s Joakim Kemell, and Team Sweden’s lackluster performance so far.And, don’t forget, you can sign up for an annual subscription to The Athletic for just $3.99 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey everybody, Max Boltman here again alongside Corey Pranman for another Friday Prospect edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Actually going to be our last one here for a while. We're not going away forever, but we are going to take a little hiatus as the calendar shifts out of high gear for the prospect scene. We will be back. But before we go, we wanted to talk about the tournament that Corey has been at this week.

He is abroad. He is in Slovakia, I believe, for the Halinka Gretzky tournament. Always a really big tournament on the prospect calendar. Corey, did I get the country right? Yeah, I'm in Slovakia, staying in Bratislava, although the tournament is between Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Piestani, Slovakia, and Brecklav and the Czech Republic. So we've been bouncing in between those countries for the last week. So obviously, you were at the World Junior Summer Showcase in Plymouth. There was a pretty good scouting presence there.

How is the presence at the Halenka compared to what we saw? in Plymouth a week ago. Larger. I mean, all the decision makers are here in terms of the amateur staffs. I would say, hard to say off top of my head. I would say at least 100 NHL scouts, probably more. You know, probably at least three or four per team are here right now, just because this is a huge showcase event to see the top 2022 and some

in 2020, but mostly the top 22 draft eligibles. And given that there were no U-17 international events last season, this is really the first, you know, big look at some of the age groups for Russia, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, and frankly, Slovakia, who have proven to be better than some of those countries that has mentioned. it is a really important event, even though it is a only summer hockey, because you're starting to get an idea of what the next draft class is going to look like. So if I'm a scout, if I'm a scouting director or really even just a scout who's, you know,

an amateur scout, a regional scout, I guess he would call me area scout. Yeah, and a lot of the European scouts who live close by will come here for those teams. Would it be fair to say that this tournament is going to kind of help set my watch list for the early part of the season here? Yeah, I mean, not everybody will be here. Some guys are injured. Some guys are late birthdays. Team USA is here, but it's not the NTDP. It's a select group of individuals from that would go play USAHL or high school.

Those lists will change over the course of the year. Some guys will fall. Some guys will rise. but this event helps paint a picture, or at least a preliminary picture, of who are the best players in the 2004 age group, particularly for the major countries. Where are the high-end guys?

Where are the guys we're going to need to focus on? Who are some guys that we can kind of circle as, you know, second-third round targets, mid-round targets, late-round guys? And nothing is for sure. It's only a week. You don't want to start, like, etching these things in stone. but you can start getting an idea.

You look at guys. You see their skill sets. You see they're skating, their puck game, their size, their competitiveness. You can start getting a reasonable idea where these guys will probably fall with the caveat that a lot will change over the course of a full season, presuming we have something close to a normal season in 2021-22. All right. So let's get into the players then.

I mean, obviously no Canada here. You'd love to see the. Canadians, especially the Ontario kids who didn't get to start the OHL yet. USA did not send the NTP team. Who is there for the U.S.? Yeah, I mean, the NTP doesn't usually come to this. There was one NTP kid here, Hunter Prashevitz, who missed most of the last season to an injury when an NTDP kid misses the year due injury.

They sometimes get sent to this event. But the big players are usually high school guys, like Zam Plant, who will play likely Minnesota high school this season, is one of their most skilled players. Cam Lund, duploid mass prep, and we'll probably might play USHL this season for Green Bay. Ryan Healy, who will play USHL at Sioux Falls. Ryan Abraham, who I think is a junior, I believe plays junior hockey for Windsor. Those are among the top candidates that were here. And they didn't really have a great tournament.

They were eliminated by the second day of the tournament, losing to Slovakia and then losing to Sweden in regulation, which ends their, the tournament is rather quick, but that ended their tournament. Not to say that they don't have some good players, like the ones I just mentioned, and several others, I think Mikey DeAngelo,

who was a late birthday, looks like a top prospect for the 2020 draft, and we'll see how Lund, Healy, plant, Abraham, and some others' seasons go over the course of the 2022 season. But none of them really had a huge,

tournament. I think you can still look at some of those guys. Healy's a really dynamic skater. Plant, I think, is one of the smartest players here at the tournament. DeAngel's a really well-rounded player, and you can kind of see where these guys could potentially fit into a draft class. I thought the big defenseman from Minnesota, Sam Renzel, looked, you know, pretty mobile and made some plays. He was intriguing. But I wouldn't say you were coming out of this tournament, putting any of these guys. guys in the first round for a 2022 ranking. I thought when I watched Camp 1 at their select camp, he could be a guy who could really

pop. And he had a four-goal game versus Germany. But they were already eliminated by that stage. And I don't get the sense that he'll be still a highly rated prospect, but I don't get the sense he's a first-round prospect coming out of this tournament. You mentioned Team Slovakia a minute ago. And they seem to be kind of the story of this tournament so far. We knew a couple of the big names coming up for this coming draft.

that being Uri Slavkovsky and Simon Nemich. But some other names popping, including from the class below. Tell us a little bit about the tournament Slovakia's had and what they've done to put themselves on the radar here. It's actually been, you know, a quite unique tournament for them. And you kind of saw this like with Germany over the last couple of years where they're, you know, they weren't really, you know, producing that many top talents. And then they come in and more siders come. And then Tim Stutzelah and Lucas Reichel come.

and John Jason Peturka, and you have like this really great wave. Now you see like this next age group for Germany, which was, you know, really unimpressive here at this tournament. Their U-18 worlds, they were fine, but they weren't really a competitive team in that environment. You know, then those, the nations that aren't the high, high-end nations

will go through those cycles where some years they'll produce some really good players and there will be a stretch where they really don't produce much at all. So, Lackie had one draft pick, I believe, in the last draft. I think it was a fourth round pick to New Jersey, if I recall. So that's not typically what you would think of of a high-end nation, but they beat Sweden. They beat the United States. I think they look like a team that I don't know if they're going to win the whole thing.

We're recording this on Thursday. The middle round starts on Friday. So we'll see how they actually do when the harder games start. But they definitely look like one of the top teams in the tournament. And yes, Levkovsky and Nemich, are the talking points, but I think Philip Messar has a chance to be a top two or top three-round pick in this year's draft. And there were some guys for future drafts. Dahlibor Dvorzky, Alex Chiernick, Andre Molnar, they look like really intriguing prospect

for the 2023 draft. I'm watching this team, Slovakia, and while I think Slavkowski and Nemitz will be really high picks, there's a lot of guys on this team I'm watching. I'm thinking that could be an NHL draft pick, which is, not something I usually think of when I've watched Slovakian junior teams at the U-18 or the U-20 level, frankly, for the last five years. It's been usually really underwhelming performances from them at various levels. So, you know, it was obviously very, you know, different for them to see. And focusing on the two top guys, you know, Slavkovsky is, looks really impressive.

Like, he's a guy who seems to have every attribute. He's six-four. He's a good skater for a big guy. got great hands. He can make plays. He could shoot it really well. He's physical. You know, I don't know, you know, I already put out a really, really preliminary way too early draft ranking. I'm not going to update it just quite yet, but he's a guy who's in that non-Shane Wright tier mix. You know, we don't know how that's going to play out over the course of the season. Some people might prefer him. Some people might prefer a guy like Ivan Maris Nashanko.

some might prefer Brad Lambert or Matthew Savoy or Logan Cooley, but he's in that mix because he has every NHL asset you want. And I have talked to some scouts who think that he could be in the mix to be a second or a third overall pick, just due to how many positives he has about his game. And Simon Nemich, the captain of Team Slovakia, not as many pro assets, but still because he's like one of five, 1160, but he's still a good skater, not only elite skater, but a good skater,

he's competitive, and he has fantastic hockey sense, like really high-end hockey sense, and he's played really well versus pros already. You know, it's interesting when you kind of hear, you know, about how, you know, skilled and intelligent, you know, Brian Clark was in last year's draft. And I agree those, that's in the correct assessment to Brian Clark's game. But Simon Nemidge, I think, scored at a higher point per game rate in the same league while being a year younger than Brand Clark. And I actually probably wouldn't give him the exact high skill ratings,

but he's close. And I think there's, you know, he's a strong defender. And I think there's a lot there to like about him. And so I think both of those Slovakians will be really high picks in next year's draft. I believe Nemich is ticketed for the Slovakian pro league this coming season. Slavkovsky, I want to say plays in Finland. Is he going to be in the senior or back in the last? the U-20 this year. Do you know?

Yeah, he will be playing up with TPS in league in all likelihood. Nemich was drafted rather high in the CHL import draft, fourth overall to Cape Breton. I do think he will end up at least starting the season back in Slovakia, given how well he's already played versus men. And that's just what I've heard when I've talked to people around the league. but I can't say for certain what's going to happen to both of those guys all the season, but I think that's where we think they'll both start is playing at their respective professional levels. How do the two kind of leagues there impact, like what the next steps look like for them?

I mean, I think Slovakia is, you know, that's like a proven men's league, obviously, but like the league I think is a league that is very heavily scouted. You see a lot of people come out of there every single year to the NHL. How does that impact things for these two guys? Well, yeah, I mean, TPS, particularly the program he plays for, was a really good team in the league last season. I think it's expected they will have a competitive team again this season and seeing where he would slot among such a program. It would be interesting. I expect him to be a top 9th board, maybe even a top 6th forward at times this season.

I think, you know, presuming seeing how much success he has there will determine a lot of things. But, yeah, I mean, that's more of a traditional NHL prospect league for people to come out of. and you have a lot more comparable as Patrick Linae, Jesse Polly, Harvey, Kisbury, Kappen, and there's a lot of guys who've been drafted out of that league in the first round. In terms of Nemich, I didn't mean to exclude the Miko Rent and play about the guys. Yeah, all those guys.

Yeah, you know, Nemich in Slovakia is a little bit different because while we had some players this season who got drafted out of there, particularly brand Clark that is typically not a league you go to to watch top prospects the last one I can recall before the pandemic was Eric Cherneck being drafted in the second round I believe by the Los Angeles Kings

I wasn't sure if it was the Kings or the Hurricanes who picked in my it's evading me off the top of my head I believe it was the Kings 43rd overall yeah and And that's what, you know, he was a, you know, he didn't even have a huge offensive season that year. But he played well.

He played well with the junior team. But yeah, typically that that's not a league with a lot of historical comparables, which is a problem we faced in this past season too. Which, while I think his pro games will be very important, and playing versus men is always an obstacle. If he does play the entire season in Slovakia, I think events like this one, the U-18 world champion, and the world juniors and possibly the world championships will have a more outsized role in his evaluation than it would for other prospects.

With keeping in mind that Slovakia will not play at the top level of the U18 World Championships this April because two years ago they were relegated and due to the COVID season, the HF did not run the lower levels of the U18 and U20s and they did not have a chance to be, promoted. So even though this age group is clearly one of the best teams at the U18 level, you won't get the chance to see Slavkovsky and Nemitz play for U18 World Championship in April. Last thing on the Slovakian team before we move on, you know, I'm obviously not there, so I'm following this a little bit more by the box score. But when I see not only Dahlborg Dvorsovsky leading the tournament in total points, which, you know, you never want to react too hard

to a three-game sample at anything, especially a preseason tournament. But when I see that, and then I look and I see he's also really young for that 20-23 draft class. I think he's a June or July birthday. What kind of prospect are we talking about here as we look a little bit farther out into the distance? He's a really good prospect. I'm not ready to say like he's a super elite prospect by any means yet. I haven't seen that person when I've watched him here. I still think, yes, you have to respect the production.

I respect the scoring ability. He's clearly a really good player. I wouldn't say he's popped out to me, like say, a Matveh Michikov or Connor Bedard or Adam Fantilli type prospect would jump out and grab you and, you know, just make any, you know, casual observer can watch and be like, oh, yeah, that guy's going to have a long NHL career. I wouldn't say he's a that caliber, but given his performance here, he's clearly, you have to respect him as a player.

And he'll, him along with Molnar, They didn't have the production, but it has looked really impressive, really impressive speed and skill. Both are guys to know for sure for the 23 draft. All right, Corey, a minute ago you mentioned Madvi-Mitchkov, and I think by now most people are familiar with that name, really high-level prospect for the 2023 draft. He has continued to be a really dangerous score at this tournament. What are you seeing on the ice from Mitchcove and from Team Rush overall? Yeah, I mean, Mitchcov was named the MVP of the U-18 World.

championship for the 03 age group in Dallas. So it's no surprising he comes to play against the 04 age group and is still a dominant player. I mean, he's hard not to notice him when he's on the ice. He has, you know, some deficiencies. He's not the biggest guy. He's not the fastest guy. But his skill level, you got to give the highest grades to.

His hockey sense, you have to give the highest grades to. His shot, you have to give the highest grades to. He is a really special player when he gets the puck on his stick. Just like the things he thinks about on the ice, I think I saw him intentionally, you know, bank a puck off a guy's off the goalie's pads to perfectly lands it on his teammate's stick. He banks it in. He's behind the net. He makes got, he makes, puts pucks through sticks and legs behind the net and maintains control.

like a few guys I've ever seen. His long-range shot thread is great, and he can make plays too. It's a really special player to watch. You know, he's not going to sit here and tell you he's going to be, you know, one of the best players in the NHL. That's a really high projection, and we still got two full years left until his drafts. We got a lot of time to digest who this player is.

But he looks really unique. out there and whether it'll be him or Connor Bader or Anthony Tilly or some player we haven't thought of yet, you know, he looks like right at the top of the 2003 NHL draft and will present an interesting conundrum for teams that are going to have to draft him, not have to, but want to draft him. Yeah. And that he has a contract with Scott St. Petersburg and the KHL through the 2026 season. and typically waiting for a Russian or any prospect really three years after they get drafted is not usually the end of the world.

It's a reasonable time frame to expect for a development from a prospect. But when you're talking about a guy who has the potential to be a first overall pick, that is a unique scenario. And it will be really interesting to see how that situation plays out leading into his draft. because even though, like I said, he's not a perfect player, the offensive abilities he has are game-breaking quality and project to be such at the NHL level. If you're a team who is just getting into your rebuild, you can probably live with that a little bit more than if you're a team. I'm thinking of some of the teams that have been rebuilding here lately, you know, Buffalo, Detroit, New Jersey probably is out of that range by 2023, Anaheim. those are teams where maybe that calculus does come into play a little bit more and you're like oh man if i if i

can get a similar caliber caliber player but i can get him here sooner than you know three years from draft day maybe that calculus does come more into play yeah and there's also no guarantee you get him there three years from draft year you presume you will but he still got to sign the dotted line yeah um i presume he will though just all the good ones always come um but yeah no that's a variable i'm not we got another two full years before we see which teams are going to be in line all the way now to take him. But I would tend to agree that I think there will be certain management groups and certain ownership groups that will look at where their team is. And if you are a new general manager or you're a manager who has just been given a long leash

to rebuild, you can make that argument a little bit more soundly than one who's at the, you know, year five or year seven. seven of their proposed rebuild and and now you've got to make a big ask of your ownership group. And it also really depends how the next two season goes, you know, is let's just say hypothetically, like Connor Bedard and Anan Fantility separate from Mitch Cove over the next couple of years. And maybe there's some other name that we don't know about yet. And he's like in the three to five range. Then you can tolerate that a little bit more, I would say.

if he's like tied with those guys you you can even tolerate that a little bit more too because like oh well that's a it's a clear tiebreaker but there might be a scenario where he separates from them and he looks like ovechkin or something yeah and now you've got a problem yeah not a problem but you've got a tough decision yes a real question you've got to answer and so we'll see how those next two seasons unfold then i would fully expect you'll see him at the world juniors Yeah. His teammate, who you've also mentioned already on the podcast, is Ivan Marish Nichenko. I think you had him ranked second on the kind of quote unquote too early ranking for the 2022 class. What's he been doing at the HLinka?

He's been really good. He's been one of the better players here. I wouldn't say, given what we saw at the U18 world, I wouldn't say he's elevated to such an elite level that he's left no question as to who, you know, that he is like a second or the third best prospect next year. draft. He hasn't, he hasn't played like that. But I would say he's played well. He has a, he has good speed. He has great skill. He can make plays. He's got an absolute rocket of a shot. He has competitor. He wins a ton of battles. When I watched him last season, I thought the skating was like a differentiator for him. Here I just thought it's been good. So that's kind of where I debate with him. I don't think there is, for me, yet a clear number two. And that doesn't I mean, there isn't always the guy.

Some years you go into it, you know, like going into the 19 draft, Kaka was clearly to Jack Hughes. And going into 2018, it was clearly like Dahlin Svetikov, and it was that way all the way through. This year, there is less clarity, I would say. You know, we just had the U20 showcase. Brad Lambert wasn't that good. Logan Culele played him.

Matthew Savoy just had just had a great U18 camp for Canada. Danila Yorov is at the, he's playing for Russia's U20 team right now. We'll probably play KHL. We'll see how a season went. He had a great U18 world. People say really good things about Conradiki. You know,

there's a lot of variables still to see how this season really plays out. And I think Miros Nachenko is right in that mix because he has an NHL skill, NHL scoring ability, he's a good skater, he's really physical and competitive. There's a lot to like there. but I haven't seen he didn't separate or himself in any way here any other of the Russian players who have really caught your eye here because I don't want to spend I don't want to you know

because there are kind of these two star prospects or really high level prospects at the top I don't want to lose sight of the whole picture if there's a couple other guys people should should pay attention to yeah I mean I don't think he's been a top player here but he's probably been the best goalie at least by statistics has been Sergei Ivanov and I think that's going to be a a tough one because I think on his by his most generous measurement, he's 6'0, some scouts would say closer to 5 foot 11

and he was the best goaltender at the U18 World Championships as an underage and you know, and I honestly don't even know he's going to get drafted. I think he will, but I can't sit here, but you know the history of 511, 6-0 goal he's getting drafted is

an extremely small number particularly Russian ones. So, you know, we'll see what how his season goes. I also wouldn't probably call his quickness, like elite, like a USA Soros type, so that's working against him. He's just an extremely intelligent, refined goaltender who just puts up big numbers, and, you know, he might be the outlier that works, but it wouldn't surprise me to see him go like

in the Dustin Wolf range, too, for that reason. The one guy would call out maybe people who don't know a lot about would be their underage defense in Mikhail Gulyayev. He's an 05 defenseman playing on this team, meaning he's a 16-year-old eligible for the 23 draft. And he's been rather impressive. I don't know if he's like the top, top-top prospect range, but really good hockey sense, good skater. A little bit on the undersized kind of player. You hope he grows over the next year because he is 16.

But he looks like a guy who will definitely be a top two or three-round pick in the 23 draft. All right. So we've covered the U.S. We've covered Slovakia. we've covered Russia, I think that leaves Finland and Sweden here. Finland, there's a prospect that you wanted to talk about, Joachim Kemmel. Yeah, I mean, Kemmel is clearly the best player on their team. He was actually rather good for the Finland U18 team last season as an underage when they play at the World Championships. And he kind of sticks out like a sore thumb

in this age group. He has great skill, playmaking ability, great shot. he can skate well, he's competitive, he can kill penalties. You just notice him every time he's out on the ice. Not to say that there aren't some good players on Finland, other than him, but there's not really anyone else who has his combination of attributes to where they make a difference almost any time they're on the ice. And I kind of had Kemmel in the teens when I did my last ranking. And I don't know how much higher he'll end up being on the next iteration,

because he's like maybe a little bit more an oversized kind of player, 5-11-ish, I would say. But I would, I've talked to some scouts who think he's, he's been one guy who's elevated his profile a little bit here. D.2 where you might be talking about him as like a top 12 guy, maybe even higher. If you were to do a prospect ranking for the 22 draft. He plays with, with Lambert, yeah, in Finland? Well, he played with the junior team last season. Lambert played with the pro team. But I think you will get a pretty good comparison between the two of them because they might both play on the same pro team and they might both play at the world juniors together this season.

So you will get a lot of opportunities to compare that. I'm not really to say Campbell's Leap. But I think it's fair to say, both my opinion and talking to scouts around the league, that the gap between the two of them has shrunk a little bit, at least in terms of the top tier finish prospects for next year's draft. All right. And how about Sweden? Is there any kind of Swedes who are going to work their way into this tier or at this time, not yet? I really liked Elias Salaminson when I watched him the last season, both with the U18 team, but particularly when he played his Sweden J20 games.

Just from what I watched and talking to a lot of scouts who would watch Simon Robertson last season, it was a third round pick by the Blues and was at times thought to be a higher pick. You know, you often hear they would go to one. watch Robertson and they come away talking about Salaminson, who was an underage defenseman. He looked that dynamic at times. And here he really just hasn't had a good tournament. Not to say he's been bad, but you notice him.

The six two, you can skate. He has offensive skill, but he's just not really accomplishing a whole lot. His decision making hasn't always been the best. And I still really like this player. I think he, I still think you have, I would rate him as a first round pick going from next year's draft. But he was the guy from this age group that you hoped would really stand out and carry this team.

And overall, I would say their performance has been more of a group effort. There's a lot of really nice players on this team, but there hasn't been a whole lot of high-end flashes from this team so far. All right. I think that will do it for us for today and for this kind of first pilot series of the F. Utakaki Show's prospect series. We will be back, like I said earlier. We really appreciate all the support you guys have given us through this,

through this first run. It's been great to get the feedback and hear what you guys think. If you have stuff you want us to touch on when we come back, we'd love to know that as well. So make sure you reach out to Corey or I. Probably me. Corey's pretty busy. I'm kind of, I have nothing to do.

So reach out to me and let me know if you have anything you want us to touch on when we come back. Thanks for listening. Take care.