The Athletic Hockey Show - NHL Draft: Pronman’s top 151 prospects, Owen Power headed back to Michigan?, listener questions, and more

Episode Date: June 18, 2021

First, Max and Corey discuss presumptive first overall pick Owen Power’s potential return to Michigan for his sophomore season, instead of starting his pro career, if any other draft eligible players could make the leap into the NHL next season, Fabian Lysell being left off Team Sweden’s U20 roster, and more.Then, the guys take a look at Corey’s top 151 2021 NHL Draft prospects and talk about Mason McTavish, Matthew Coronato, and Simon Edvinsson as risers in the latest rankings, Sebastian Cossa and Jesper Wallstedt, unheralded KHL defenseman Kirill Kirsanov, and more.Plus, to close things out, the guys answer listener questions about Aleksandr Kisakov’s perception among scouts, if the Buffalo Sabres can actually win a Jack Eichel trade, possible 5th round or later steals, and many more.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. Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Athletic Hockey Show, another Friday edition of our prospect series. I am Max Boldman, and with me, as always, is Corey Pranman. We've got a fun show for you guys today. Corey's prospect rankings are out. We're going to go through those in depth. We've got some news on the draft front. We've got some World Junior Camp showcase news to talk about. And as always, we've got reader questions, some really good reader questions this week that I'm really excited to get to. So just to kick it all off, Corey, I want to start with. was something that we just missed getting into last week's episode, and that is Owen Power, the presumptive first overall pick in next month's draft, saying he is leaning toward returning to school. That is not always the standard, not usually the standard that you hear from the first overall pick. I mean, not just not always. It's become extremely rare, you know, for first, even second overall picks to not play in the NHL following their draft. You know, We were talking about with Owen Power. You have to go back to Eric Johnson, another college defenseman who was the last one to do with.

You know, you're talking 15 years ago since this last happened. And I say that with the caveat that we don't really know exactly what's going to happen with Power. He said in an interview that's where he's leaning, but lean doesn't mean that's for sure going to happen. We'll see what happens after the draft, what the team that drafts thinks, what he thinks. That said, his comments seem to indicate. that is he had a, you know, a pretty reasonable thought process behind it and, you know, wanting to go back, get the college experience, really have a great year back in college. And that being said, the University of Michigan hasn't exactly shied away from promoting that either.

So it led me to believe it's he's got a decent chance to be back in Michigan next season, which I think is perfectly fine. You know, after kind of like watching him at the Worlds, I thought he had a chance to play in the NHL and not just be like, you know, to treading water. I thought he could be a, you know, a useful player right away. I wasn't really 100% sure on that after watching him in Michigan this season. I thought he was a great player, but I wasn't, I thought you could argue he needed to go back and dominate.

But, like, you know, he can have the year now that, you know, guys like McCar or Quinn or McAvoy or Rowensky had to go back, have a great sophomore season, that Michigan team's going to be absolutely stacked because now you have power and Benares and Johnson likely going back. You're going to be adding in Luke Hughes, adding in Mackie Samiskevich, adding in Dillian and Duke, Fresson's still there, Bordolo still there, John Beecher's still there. I mean, that team's going to be like watching like a World Junior game every weekend. Well, so if you're, just to take this to the NHL place for a minute, if you're Buffalo and you

have the first overall pick and you, you know, we expect that or we think that that's where this may go is them taking on power. You expect the team to have a say in a decision like this, but if you're the team, do you try to talk him out of this if this is where his preferences? Like, how do you approach us as a team? I thought it was really interesting. that he said this now, not after the draft, that I thought was interesting to me, not like to plain in the narrative of, oh, he doesn't want to go to Buffalo. I don't think that's it, but I guess he just really strongly believes he wants to go out to school for another season.

And I don't think it's unreasonable. But yeah, whatever team drafts him will have a say, which is why I said the beginning. I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that he is definitely going back to Michigan next season, if Buffalo or whoever else drafts him and they say, hey, we think it's, We think you're ready. You showed, for example, at the World Championships, you're clearly ready to play versus men. We think you just would be too good for college if you went back. It's in your best interest to sign, get into the NHL, then it's possible.

That's what he does. But I would say the evidence is leaving the other way right now. You mentioned a couple of defensemen who, especially in Cal McCar and Quinn Hughes in the last few years, who did two years of college, coming to the NHL and hit the ground running. Kind of conversely, we've seen some of the first overall picks of the last couple years take their lumps a little bit in the NHL in their first season. Is there any chance this starts a trend of players being more willing to take that one extra buffer year before debuting? I think you want to be careful not to buy too much in a recency bias. I've heard this argument from NHL people too about Jack Hughes and Ella Frenier not really doing all that amazing in their first years. But it's easy to forget that, you know, Rasmus Dalien had a very good first.

year in the NHL, you know, guys like Matthews had a great first year. Deco Heeshire was a very useful player in his first NHL season. And obviously, you keep going back into, you know, to Matthews and McDavid and so on and so forth. Aaron Eckblad was really good. His first year in the NHL. So I don't think you want to read too much into the last two, how the last couple of years have gone, even though it's, I see the rationale. Every case is a little bit different.

and if the team and the player both think they would benefit an extra year, as we've talked about before, I think Powers is the best prospect. I think he's a true elite prospect, but I don't think there is no evidence that he can't go back for another season. I've analogized him to the same level as Tim Stutzler and Quinden-Buyfield. Beihil played a whole full season in the American League this season. So I think it's perfectly reasonable to think that power could benefit. benefit from an extra year of college. My last question on this subject is that if the number one overall pick we don't expect

to start next season in the NHL, is anybody going to start next season in the HAL? Is there anyone else besides Owen Power that there's a good chance is in the opening night lineup? I don't know about a good chance, but I would say it's an open question as to whether Genther, Dylan Genther, the winger from Emmetton or William Ecclind, the four from your garden. either of them, I think, will be interesting to watch at their NHL camps. Eklin, which is just so good versus men this season, mostly at the SHL level, but occasionally

at the national team level, too. So I thought, you know, that he showed that I don't know if he will do it, but he's close, and I think it would be an interesting camp for him. And Genther, while he didn't have the best U18 worlds, and guys who are two-pointed game guys in the WHL's first-year eligibles, and tend to have good skating, size, compete. I would imagine that, I don't know if he'll make his team, but I think that's another one where I would imagine he will have a long camp process,

and he could make it interesting. All right. Speaking of William Eklund, a little bit of news happening the last couple of days, the rosters from the U20 World Junior Summer Showcase in Plymouth starting to come out. Any news, anything really catch your eye out of these rosters that we've started to see. The obvious interesting one would be Sweden in that they brought up more of an older roster. There weren't a lot of the O3s on there. Simon Edvinson and Anton Olson were there on defense.

Carl Denbomb in net, Isaac Rosen, and Simon Robertson at Forward. But one of the O3-4s they didn't bring was Fabian Leesel. Leesel was one of the top. top ranked players in this year's draft coming into the draft season. And while he had a good draft season, I wouldn't say he had an amazing draft season either. He had a good UA team world, didn't have an amazing tournament. And so that one was interesting. Just given that, I think Rosen definitely had a better tournament than him.

I'm not saying that he had a dramatically better tournament than him, but he definitely played better. and I think, you know, this kind of plays in some of the buzz on Lee Sell of, you know, what is this guy, can't, is he, you know, are the shortcomings in terms of his size on and off compete enough to make up for the dynamic skill and speed he brings, I think this kind of just more plays into the discussion that we've already been having about him on previous podcasts, you know, in other places in the media and NHL circles that are having about him. And I think that will be interesting. And the other interesting one was from Finland's U-20 roster.

Most of the names you expected were there. Had some NHL scouts joke. They wondered about two route. He was going to make it this time, and he did. Sadmuthu Amala, potential first-rounder was there. Samu Salman and maybe first-rounders on there. The one that I thought was interesting is Alexei Ham O'Salmi, who had a great U-18 Worlds for Finland,

was named the defenseman of the tournament, was not on that U-20 roster. He's going to the U-19 camp, which typically indicates he's not in the mix to go to the World Shooter's Summer Socase, you know, unless he has an incredible U-19 camp, which I don't think is unreasonable. He wasn't really considered a top-top prospect for most of the season. He had a great tournament, though, loved the skating, the skill he showed there. He's definitely a good prospect.

I don't think it's an unreasonable decision. That said, I can say I looked at that U-20 Camp Rost for Finland had and thought this is just, There's just too many good players here. There's, you know, some good players, very old roster. There aren't really, I don't think there's only 102. On there, I believe, unless, sorry, 103, unless I'm mistaken. But yeah, those are I think the two main highlights took away from that. One question on the Sweden roster.

So no Holtz, no Raymond on the Swedish roster, but both of those guys have played in the last couple of World Juniors for Sweden. Is that more of a, they don't have to prove anything at this showcase, or is that an indication that maybe they're not going to be available to? the team suite. It could be a little bit of both. I think we'll see what happens when they go through the NHL camp process and where they stand. I don't think it's unrealistic to expect both of them to be at the World Junior this winter. It's possible one. I would guess Raymond would be maybe one of the odd man out would could be on, could be on Detroit. But if I had to just,

you know, try and project the future here, which is uncertain, I could, I could see both of them being at the tournament when it's all said and done. But just because they're not just been on the U-20 team, but the World Junior team for two straight seasons, they're in the, I'm trying to make the NHL mode right now. So it's not typical for them to come to something like this. All right. Let's get into the meat of the show today. You published on Tuesday, one of your, maybe your biggest project of the year,

at least one of them, your final draft board is a top 151. Tell us, first of all, before we start to get into some of the highlights of this, Give us a little peek into kind of how the sausage is made on something like this. I mean, obviously, it's a long process. Just from, I think any reader can kind of just read both just how long it is in terms of the amount of words and the amount of information in there. And reasonably surmise that it's a lot of watching players, it's a lot of phone calls, it's a lot of deliberation, a lot of writing, a lot of editing. the workload is rather significant to put this kind of project together. And it is really a year-plus-long project.

You're watching a lot of these players, particularly the top players for two years and really just watching them over and over again at various levels to understand them. Once you start kind of putting the book together on them, you can now I probably started a working list like a real like I always I put out a list every you know every couple of months but you know right around let's say November December January where you're really starting to make a real real list and starting moving guys up and down every day typically I will start doing that for like the top 30 top 50 around that time and and to the point where you haven't memorized almost and I've talked to some scouts who do this process

some who do it a little different where they're tweaking their list every day throughout the season. You know, I have the tool grades I have for players that they will see published in the article. I have that in a spreadsheet, and you're always kind of moving those around every day. You bump this guy up, skating, bump this guy down on the hockey center, something like that. And it's just a really intense process. And you really need to do it that way so that it almost becomes memorized. You know, this guy slots here for X and Y reason based on this kind of research I've done on him. And by getting at that every single day over a very long period of time, you feel really

comfortable with the draft class and ready to write about them in a comprehensive manner. Well, there's a ton of great information, and I highly recommend anybody listening, take the time, go through and read it, absorb the information. Obviously, take a look at who's ranked where. But one of the things that I'm always fascinated in as someone who certainly spends a whole lot of time on your draft boards at both midseason and final season for my job is the movement when something like this comes out. And I wanted to ask you today about a few of the guys who moved some significantly, some not so significantly, but a few guys moving up in this one, Mason McTavish, who we've talked a lot about Matt Coronado and Simon Edvenson. But you are still a little lower on Edvenson than I guess maybe where we think he'll be picked. What did he do to move up and why is he still not in that kind of upper echelon for you?

Yeah, I mean, I've watched Edvenson a lot the last two years. I would say he, among the top prospects, other than the Michigan kids, he's probably the one I've done the most work on. I obviously haven't been able to see him alive until the U-18 Worlds. The last time I saw him alive was at the U-17 Challenge two Novembers ago. And that'll obviously just do travel restrictions and whatnot. but done a lot of work on him over the last two years. And when you watch him, the tool kit is evident. He's a top five player in this draft in terms of just the pure tools.

He's big, pretty good skater for the size. I don't think it's the elite feat. I think that's the one area where I disagree on with some NHL scout. He's an truly elite skater for that size. I think it's just good skater for that size. And he's got great hands. he's got some power playability, he's a good defender. I've asked this question to some people around the league

because that's obviously been a debate point where I am on Evanston compared to some others. And I ask, you know, well, what did he do this season to be deserving of a top five pick? And I think most of the scouts, whether they're kind of closer to where I am or whether they're really, really bullish on the guy, will admit he didn't really have a top five pick caliber season. I thought he had a good season. He was good at the J20 level.

He held his own in the SHL. It wasn't great, but didn't get a run over. And he was good in the Al Spenskin. It wasn't kind of like how hampas. Lynn Holm or Oliver Ekman-Larsson were at that level. But he was pretty good. But the argument is he didn't have a top five-pig caliber season at the U18 worlds either, but it's all about projecting the attributes.

And projection is a big part of what, you know, scouts do is not about now, it's about the future. And with Evanston, you can definitely see 6-4 skating, skill, projection looks really, really good. But for me, just from watching him the entire season, I would have some hesitancy on a guy who didn't really have any incredible season, not a bad season. We didn't have an incredible season. And I think with some of the guys I have ranked ahead of him, a little bit more of a track record of they can actually do it that made me less hesitant. But after seeing it at the U18 Worlds, I liked, you know, you saw, you know, the skill. I thought he was a hard physical defender.

He was really good in transition. I definitely saw like, okay, if I'm being a little harsh on this guy, he's a really good player and has a lot of upside. But I'd like to see it be a little bit more consistent. You've got average grades on him across the board, average skating, average puck skills, average hockey since average compete. But this is always a note that I think people gloss over when they read your board is that that is NHL average. That's a good thing to be average across the board. Yeah, I mean, that got lost in translation with me using descriptive words this year, and I might have to make it clear in future articles, but like, just do that logically.

All right, he's NHL average skating, NHL average skill, NHL average hockey sense, and above, you know, and well above average size, you know, that would be a top four defensemen, might even be a two or three level defensemen. That's what that player looks like in the NHL. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people, when you talk about a big guy who can move, who has a little bit of a puck skill to him, I think people wonder offensive defenseman with Simon Evanston. You see him a little differently than that. Yeah, I mean, well, he just has no track record for being an offensive player. He has offense. He has skill. But there is not really, and I don't really talk to many people around the league, even the ones who are really, really big on him, who think he's going to be like a PP1 type. That's not. the expectation. The expectation is going to be a good two-way top four defense men, second PP with some hard minutes. All right. One of the other guys who moved up from from 30 on your

midseason list to 15 right now is Matthew Coronado, Chicago Steel, a lot of above-average grades on him, above-average skating, above-average competing, above-average shot. What changed from mid-season with Matthew Coronado? And where do you think he actually goes in this draft? Yeah. I actually went out to go watch them right towards the end of the season. I was at the I was at the Clark Cup finals there between Chicago and Fargo. And I don't think he was great, but kind of seeing his skating up close, I think maybe a little bit more confident in giving him the above average grade. I mean, the guy just had an amazing season, though, overall. And I think we didn't expect him to be, you know, this highly rank coming into the season.

So I always, you know, with those guys, you kind of are always like really slowly creeping them up. And I don't know, like, I think just everything about him is really impressive. He just seems to impact the game in so many ways. He plays hard. He plays with skill. He can make plays. He can score. The skating isn't like incredible for a guy that's size, but it's good.

It's definitely an HL quality. And I don't know what more he could have done this season to be, you know, a high draft pick. I get he's not that big. And he's talented, but it's not incredible talent. But he just checks off so many boxes. And the production was just insane. Now, the U.S.HL is a little weird this season because of the COVID season and that there was no cross-conference play. So they played a lot of the same opponents.

Some might recently argue that Youngstown was easy to beat up on a little bit. I can see the argument either way. But I just think in general, he decided he was one of the best players in the league and I think showed all the indications he's a strong NHL prospect. One of the things I was fascinated to see, Yesper Wollstead has been the consensus kind of top goalie in the draft. at least in the public sphere for most of this run. You have them ranked very high. You haven't ranked number 11, but you have the other first round goalie, Sebastian Kosa, one spot above at number 10.

How did you arrive at that conclusion? And how, I guess, how set are you in that distinction? Well, given that they're one spot apart, I don't want to say on that set. If someone took Walsit or Kosa, I'm not going to say that's unreasonable. I think this is those two compared against each other is really interesting. I don't want to say this is my original thought. him stealing this from a scout I knew in that, you know, Walsett had a really good first half, put up big numbers in the SHL, went to the world juniors, didn't play that much,

but he was good when he played, looked like, you know, a no-doubt-top goalie prospect. Then the second half of the season came. Didn't play, didn't play poorly, but didn't play as well. They went out, Alulia went out and got another goalie. His star started to go down. and he wasn't really getting regular playing time as much the last few months. Then you contrast that with Sebastian Kosa, who didn't play at all in the first half, because the WHL had the delayed start.

And now the second half comes around, and he's playing almost every game for Edmonton, just crushing it when he is playing, just huge numbers. I think they only lost one of the games he started in all season. You know, Scouts are obviously going to this game for him and Dylan Genther. in. They're just, you know, just absolute raves coming from Scouts 6-6, you know, just, you know, so talented. And, you know, he's an interesting goalie prospect. Now, the sample size is an issue and like with the USHL with Coronado. He only played a couple of the same teams over and over again. But, you know, if you had hypothetically asked me, you know, not in this draft, but in

any given draft, you know, Corey, what would it take for a goalie to be considered a really, really high pick. I would be like, well, you know, hypothetically, they'd have to be big, they'd have to be really athletic, they'd have to be technically skilled, they'd have to be really intelligent and competitive and put up, you know, be really consistent with their puck stopping and put up huge numbers. And, you know, COSA kind of checks all those boxes. You know, he has all the attributes, yeah, you know, the aesthetics ones, the hockey sense, his production in the last two seasons and the WHL have been great. So I don't know how you can't be really high. on this guy. And, you know, talking to most teams around the league, don't think everybody has

them like top 12, top 13, but the more teams I talk to, I would say a decent chunk of them view them in that way. So I think just one of those guys who really benefited from actually having a season when it wasn't really sure the WHL was going to have a season. And there was probably maybe not a goalie, but in the OHL, there probably would have been a guy or two like that, too, if they would have had a season. The place you have them ranked at 10-11 is right around where we've seen the first goal we go off the board in the last couple of drafts, and Spencer Knight and Yaroslav Ascarov. Are these two goaltenders, at least in the same tier as those two?

Are they, is either of them ahead? Where do you, how do you see them in comparison? I think all four of them are rather close. I think ranking all four of them, which I'll probably have to do sometime of summer, would be a very challenging exercise. All right. Another name that jumped out to me at number 16 is a guy that we don't talk about a lot, but you have him ranked in an area that maybe, I wonder if we should.

And that is Kiril Khril Krasanov. he's a defenseman out of SKA in Russia. You described him as well-rounded but boring. Why do you see him as a top half of the first round player in this draft? And do you think that's where he actually goes? I don't know if he's going to go the top half of the first round, but I talked to enough people in the NHL that really like this guy. I was expect he goes 20 to 40 range.

And he played for Scott St. Petersburg this season, which is one of the top teams in the KHL. Didn't get a ton of minutes when he did play, which isn't that untypical for a guy on that team in that role. But, you know, if I didn't even mention a player to you, before we get into Kersanoff, if I would have said, hey, I know this player, he made Russia's World Junior team, ended the World Junior team playing on their first defense pair and their top power play, end up playing with their senior national team by February, play really well, played power. played penalty kill, played on one of the top KHL teams and played for them in the playoffs,

you'd probably be like, well, who is this guy? Let me know, tell me more. And I kind of find it weird that he did all those things. And it's all just track records. It's not scanning report yet. And we don't really, you know, I don't think there's been enough discussion about that. That's a pretty unusual thing for our first year draft eligible to do. Mind you, it was a weird COVID year.

And I think when you look at the player, he has, you know, he's a good skater. He's really intelligent. The skill won't just like jump out at you. And he didn't put up giant numbers in the MHL, the Junior League. So I think that's a call it for concern. But I've seen him have for the last two years, I've seen him play the power play at a high level. I've seen there are some offense in there.

His conditioning is a minor issue. I know that's probably the biggest issue with teams, is he's definitely a little bit chubby. But he still seems to skate around the ice rather well. He plays confidently and effectively versus men. So I don't really think it's that big an issue. I'll be curious to see where he goes. I've had this argument with some people in the league that, you know, you compare him to, say, Shakir McCommodoulin last season.

Different caliber athletes, 164 versus 161, but this guy had a way better season than McCamaduland did. Doesn't mean he's a way better prospect because of some distinct differences in their size profiles. But, you know, he definitely, you know, compared this season to what McCamaduland had, and this guy's season was way better. So I'll be really curious to see where he goes when it's all said and done because he is playing with Scott and he just recently signed a two-year extension as well. How much does that impact things? I mean, I know this is kind of the eternal question. A guy commits to an extra deal in Russia and it goes, is that going to force him to drop? You have to wait two years for him.

Is that still going to be a big issue for him? I think it depends on the player. If you're looking for a guy who might be a late first or at least second, I think you usually expect those guys to take three, four years anyway. So that's not really a big concern. Spetchkov, for example, Fetor Spetschkopf might be a first rounder just transferred to Skah as well. So I don't know if that impacts him being a first rounder, but maybe you don't take him top 15, maybe,

if you're worried about how long he might stick around there, for example. But the one that will really impact would be like a really high pick, like Mofé Michkoff, for example, who signed several years past. Passage draft, too, your talk, people are talking about as a really, really high draft pick. And if I was a general manager, I would have grave concerns of using a first, second, or third overall pick on a KHL player signed multiple years past its draft. Well, I'll be very interested to see where Khrsanov goes. I mean, especially in these playoffs, it seems like the value has been reinforced of what a steady, intelligent defense score that can make stops, like there's real value in that, even if it's not the flashy, you know, half a point per game or better defense guy that I think,

gets everybody's attention at this time of year. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think, I don't know what more he could have done this season to help his draft stock other than maybe score a few more points when he at the junior level. But, you know, like I said, there aren't that many first-year draft eligibles who come a cut or two away from making Russia's World Championship team. So I just think that that one is really interesting to me. I could be wrong. I could be way off, but that one is definitely really interesting to me.

All right, and if there's guys moving up, that means there are guys moving down. So let's start with a couple of the Swedes that I noticed, Oscar Ollison, William Stromgren. They are down from your last board to varying degrees. Something changed there. Is that just as more players got their seasons going, they were able to move up? And so these guys just kind of moved down by Stan what they were doing. What's the story there? Yeah, two different stories with them.

We'll start with Oscar Olson, who played with HV.71. It starts a season at the J20, then went to the S.HL, then went to the Ausfenskin right after. I thought he started off his season really, really well in the HV 71 junior team, put up huge numbers. Then he goes to the SHL and the L. Spenskin and the World Juniors, where his play was more up and down. Scouts got a little bit more concerned by his work level. When he went to those, when he went to the pro game,

it looked like he'd get physically outmatched a lot, and the effort wasn't always there to go with. But the tool kit's really excited. being big, good skater, really skilled. I think he can make some plays. Not a tremendous playmaker, but I think it's something in there. You can shoot the puck really well. I can't say there's really anybody on HV-71 who had a great season.

That team was relegated this season. So it may not have been that easy to stand out on a bad SHL team. But yeah, definitely his second half he didn't impress as much. Stromgren has been a really tough one for me to follow. of this season. Because the first half, I didn't really know much about him. I watched him a little bit of last season. Didn't really watch him that much.

And he kind of popped at the start of the season. You're like, started getting text about this, you know, 6-2, 634. You could skate and he has great hands. And you're like, oh, wow, that's really intriguing. NHL Central Scouting put an A grade on him to start the season. They since come off that. But I also had him as a first rounder. And then second half, he didn't play quite as well.

some flashes in the Alsfensky, but not really as consistently. And then he goes to Sweden's under 18 camp, barely makes the team. He was kind of on the bubble there with two other guys for the last couple of spots. And then he goes to the U18 World where didn't really play that much. His play was really up and down when he was there. The last two games, he was better. And you kind of saw the aesthetic things that are interesting, big, speed, good skill. Didn't really love the decision making there.

and it's kind of seeing him, you know, at the U-18 junior level, he kind of got a better sense of what he is and there's a lot of work there. Kind of reminds me of Yanni Yermo a little bit from last year's draft who Vancouver took in the third round, who, you know, this big mobile skill defenseman, but there's a lot of things to work on there with his off-the-puck game, his decision-making. So I kind of expect Stromkin won't go in the first round.

Oscar Olson, I think, could still slide in there. Stronggren, I would say, it's probably a second round or maybe even a third. All right. And then one guy who, this isn't really a fall, you didn't have him ranked in your midseason because it was only, I think it was 34 or so players in the midseason. But Scott Morrow checking in at number 93. That's a guy who on the Bob McKenzie kind of scout driven midseason list was checking in 36. That's an early second rounder. You've got him kind of toward the end of the third ranked. What do you see in in Scott Morrow? You know, sounds like you're worried about maybe decision making and defenses or anything else. Yeah, I mean, he was a really tough evaluation because he went back to Shadok again this season for most of the season for a third season with their U18 team. And that's, you know, we're respect to the players in that level. It's not a great level to evaluate for NHL purposes. You kind of watch him. It looks like he can do anything he wants really at that level because he's big, he's got great hands.

The feet are good enough, not amazing, but good enough. and you kind of watch and you surmise on what this could look like at higher levels, but it would be nice to see him there. And then he goes to the USHL towards the end of the season. His rights was traded numerous times. But the last team that got his rights was Fargo. He joins Fargo for the last round of the playoffs when they're playing Chicago. I watched two of his games live, and I watched the others on video.

And he looked good, like he looked talented, you know, definitely can stand. you see a defenseman with his size and his skill and it stands out to you. But I also really thought like his, he thought he overcomplicated the game at times when I was watching him. I didn't really see him make a ton of plays. His defense looked like it needed a lot of work. I think in that last game, he actually got moved up from defense to forward in that last game.

So I see the toolkit. I see why he excites people, but I also see a pretty long road to becoming an NHL player. Kind of reminds me a lot. little bit of kind of Bodie Wild at the same age. And I think Bodie's a good prospect. I think Morrill is a good prospect. But I think there's going to be quite a little bit of work there for him to round out into an NHL player. So spends three years with the Shattuck St. Mary's 18 U team. And in some ways, I mean, in many ways, it's very impressive. It means he was playing on that team for three

years. I also wonder though, toward the end, like, does it make it harder to judge something like production? Because you know they're so adjusted to the level. They kind of should be able to do whatever they want. Yeah, but his production wasn't even that good this season, to be quite honest, it was down from last season. And they didn't really have the forwards they had last season, but I just can't say he had a great season. And I think his toolkit is great, but I can't, like, I can't say he had a season that was justifying a top two round pick. He didn't have the year that, say, Jackson Lacombe had at the same school during his draft season. All right, so those are my questions for you about your draft ranking. Obviously, our readers have

plenty of their own and some that are not necessarily about the rankings. But I want to start with one from Joseph that I thought was really interesting. He's talking about the scales you use for grading prospects. You change that up a little bit. You used to do with 2080 scale, which I kind of associate typically with baseball, the scouting scale, that relies on kind of standard deviations. He says, I appreciate your grading scales for prospect skills, but how much do you use stats in making your projections,

especially when the numbers can be pretty thin at the lower levels? How does stats come into this versus just kind of your standard scouting tool grades. That's a great question from Joseph. Going back into the beginning of the last segment and how you kind of make out your list, I typically have a working spreadsheet where I have all the players and their tools graded out, and I publish those for people. I also will typically do a grade on their production at the club level and international level. So I will say, This guy performed at the Yee level at their league and at Yee level at this major tournament.

And I kind of will use that as a collaborative effort to trying to get a more holistic evaluation, you know, balancing the tools and the production. The lower levels is a great argument because some levels you just don't know how to judge. Like I'll use like Danila Klimovich, who could be a second or a third round pick. He played Belarus Junior League. You know, like I looked through that league. there's almost no recent examples of guys playing in the NHL after being drafted out of that league or being draft eligible in their first year in that league. So you don't use that variable as much.

Or you could take the opposite approach. You can do it both ways. You can either just knock it out. Or you could say there's no precedent to this so this gets the lowest grade. I can see arguments for both ways. but that's, you know, I try to be as holistic as possible. And I tend to found, and I've actually done research on this topic, that if you balance a scouting scale and a statistical scale,

you hopefully get the best result at the end of the day. All right. Next one is from Duncan Field. What do scouts think of Alexander Kissacov? He was one of the most prolific goal scorers in this draft class, but seems to be flying under the radar. You've got Kisikov at number 46. I would say there are some NHL scouts who are really passionate about this player,

who think that he could be a late first, early mid-second, and there are some who are not as enthusiastic about him. The ones who wouldn't be as enthusiastic as they see a small Ford who's not that great as skater, and they wonder if it translates. The ones who are really high on him see a lot of skill, a lot of offensive creativity, a guy who competes really hard,

and he can score goals and think, you know, that's a really appealing player. his team, Dynamo Moscow in the Russian Junior League, was the best team in the league this season. He was one of their best players. I expect he will be on the world junior team next season and playing a significant role for Russia's U-20 team. So I think he's definitely going in the top two rounds.

I wouldn't, I don't know if he's actually going the first round or not. I wouldn't be surprised, but I wouldn't put that at a mock draft right now. Russia has had a U-20 camp. A couple of weeks ago, he wasn't that good there. There was a lot of scouts there, so I'm guessing he dropped a little bit off that, but I still think he's going to be a top two-rounder. Next one is from Matthew S, and he wants to know about Brandt Clark. Brand Clark, one of the top 10 players in this draft.

I think you have him ranked number eight, right-handed defenseman out of Barry. But the big question on Brand-Clark is his skating, and you gave it a below-average grade. And he wants to know is the skating issue with Brant Clark overblown. Or is it really going to have a big impact on his play in the NHL? It's kind of a million-dollar question from Matthew. Yeah, I mean, that's a thing that always comes up with Brent the last, you know, 16 months I've been discussing him with an NHL scouts. It's every discussion is, well, what about the skating?

And with that being said, I personally don't think it's that bad. You know, there are below-average NHL skaters who play high in an NHL lineup. I mean, the comparison that I think his biggest advocates will use will be Adam Fox. Like, Adam Fox is not a great NHL skater, but he just has so much skill and so much offensive creativity in such great hockey sense that he's just an outstanding player. I would push back on that and say, well, yes, I agree. Adam Fox is a star. I'm not sold this guy's skill sense combination as that, that elite, but it's really good. Like, he is the most skilled defenseman in the draft and a guy with PP1 potential in the NHL.

But yeah, when you watch the skating, it looks awkward. It looks little knock-kneed. But I also don't think it's terrible. I saw him live, obviously, at the U-18 Worlds. And, you know, there were times he walked the line. He escaped some pressure. He was able to spin off guys. I'm not going to say this guy's a blazer, though.

It's just not what he is. His brother isn't the best skater either. The New Jersey draft pick, Graham. him, and that's not why you're drafting him. You're drafted him for his skill in his offensive hockey sense, and you kind of hope the rest could put together. And that's partially why I wouldn't say he's going to go in the top five. I think you can get almost as much skill with much less risk and some of the options there.

And I would probably say he's probably going to go more in the sixth of ten range. All right. This might be reach from me, but can he make it work for him at all, like to have kind of an awkward looking strike? Can he make that part of his way that he'd be? beats people by having that skill and having that sense and maybe being a little deceptive because of that? Yeah, I think it's a really good art because I remember watching him, you know, when I was watching

with the U18 World and he made some plays where he kind of got himself out of some trouble that I didn't think he had in him. And I don't know if you like scout guys that specifically. I don't think when you're playing a game that you're looking at the other side, you're looking at your guys and you're dissecting their skating strides. but I you know he definitely surprised me with some of the things you can do out there even though I still think he's not that explosive by any means. All right.

This one's not about your list, but I do think it's a really good question. And it's from Mike C. He says if Eichols trade and you're the Sabres, is there a way to win that trade? Who are you getting back and what's the dream scenario for Kevin Adams? This is a really good question. Yeah. And it's obviously, you know, it's not going to be easy, obviously. I think the two trades that comes of mind right away would be the Tyler Sagan trade and the Joe Thorne trade, which I think, you know, I think you could reasonably argue that Boston didn't do great in either of those exchanges. But there was also the other one where Eric Carlson went to San Jose, and you can argue Ottawa, you know, won that trade. We'll see at the end of the day how all those players in those trades pan out. But it's probably going to be hard. When you trade the best player, you're working from a disadvantage. And usually these trades are not

One for one, you're not going to get, you know, Kirby Doc coming back from Chicago or something like that. You're probably going to get a bunch of pieces. You're probably going to get four to six important pieces, you know, a combination of young players, first round picks, so on and so forth. And you hope one or two or three of them become important parts of your organization. But, you know, there's an aspect of luck in all this. When San Jose made that Erick Carlson trade, I don't think they thought they would be as bad as they would right away. and thus that first round pick they traded became an extremely valuable asset. It's possible you trade a guy who was a first round pick and all of a sudden becomes a really high-end, an HL player.

Not the likely outcome, but it's always possible. But yeah, the savers are working at disadvantage and also the disadvantage that teams know that he wants out. And they'll have leverage because many teams are going to be interested, but not as much leverage as they would have if this wasn't under the radar kind of negotiation. So obviously one big difference in the Carlson trade is Carlson's older. He doesn't have, I don't think he had quite as, he had to get one year left on his deal at that time. He did. Yeah. Ikel has five. He's 24. But that said, to get Josh Norris and the pick that became Tim Stutzla, I mean, that's not a bad starting point here in what an Icle trade would look like. And at the end of the day, it's possible that Ottawa has two first line players there. Yeah. And I said, yes, right, it's a very different trade. And I, there isn't really a lot of precedent for this. I mean, the say again trade, you know, maybe you can look at that one. You know, there weren't really that many important pieces that went back to Boston in that deal. But, I mean, obviously, if you're a Buffalo, you're hoping not to just get a couple of good pieces,

you're hoping there's a couple of premium assets in there, whether it's really high-end prospects, a high draft pick this year, whether it's top 10 or top five, you know, guys who are important young players in the NHL already. this can't be getting a 28-year-old for with two years of free agency a couple of nice prospects on a first round pick. There needs to be really premium assets to make it really makes sense for you. If Buffalo is able to get a, you know, a top pick, whether it's in this year's draft or a future, you know, 2022 pick that is able to be, I mean, the value in a Jack Eichael kind of player, who I think it's not unreasonable to say he's the number one overall caliber player, Is that fair?

Yeah, in his best years. His play has fluctuated at times, but I think in his best years, you know, he's a pretty special player. Can Buffalo win the trade if the best thing they get back is like a top 10 pick that's not a number one overall pick? It seems unlikely. Not impossible, but it seems unlikely because you probably much need that top 10 pick to become a really important player in the at H.O., which isn't impossible, but

it's against the odds. So, you know, if it is the best piece, you need significant supplementary, basically, to Yeah, there needs to be some sort of significant, you know, young asset, whether it's a, you know, an elite prospector or a guy who's in the NHL already and is really talented with a strong projection. There needs to be something really, I don't know if a top 10 pick checks any of those boxes. Okay. This one's from Pat. He says, what are the biggest non-sized differences between Dylan Gentler and William McCliff, both the guys who are good at a lot? he says elite at nothing that seems to just make things happen.

What do you see as a significant, significant differences between Genther and Eklund, two of the top wings in this trial? I think you have number two and three. Yeah, and I wouldn't say Eklon is elite at nothing. I think he's one of the best skaters in the draft, and I think his puck game is one of the best in the draft. But I think the differences between the two of them would be, I think Gether has a better shot.

And he said non-sized difference, but I would say he's a little bit more physically imposing, I think. He forces more turnovers. can create a little bit more havoc in that way, even though he's not that physical way. There's a little bit more of an impact in terms of how he plays off the puck. Eklund is, I think, again, there's a strong skater. I think Eklund is a tremendous skater.

The speed is probably similar, but his edge work is just fantastic. It reminds me a lot of how Stozel uses his edges from last year's draft. and his skill, I think, I get there's really skilled, but Eklund just has fantastic skill. So I think those would be the main differences. All right. Kevin B is thinking one step ahead as he reads your chart. And he says, on your grading scale, what can a prospect improve? So that would be your skill, skill, sense, shot, skating, and compete.

What's the most improvable thing and what's not improvable at all for a prospect there? That's a great question by Kevin, because I'm glad he asked this. and I think when a lot of people read my work, this is a comment I get a lot, is that, Corey, you're a really harsh skating greater, and you can always just improve skating. I don't know why you talk about skating so much, and I think the reality is a lot different

than I think some people expect, and that there is true that some people improve skating. But in my experience, watching many players from 17 till they become adults, and watching that aspect, I would say 99% of them don't improve their skating, at least to a substantial effect when it comes to the NHL. You hear about the ones that do. You hear about guys like Braden Point, for example,

who really turn around their skating and become strong skaters. But those guys are the exception more than a rule. I would find that most guys who are not strong skaters, when they're 17 or 18, are also not strong skaters. when they're 23, not just most. I say almost all of them. That's almost always the case. That happens.

And I think you see that a lot when I have conversations with NHL scouts about players is the first thing that almost comes up is a skating. You know, you talk about a player and they'll say, well, what about his skating? And he's a good skater. He's not a good skater. Like that's that dominates a lot of the conversations that NHL scouts have. and it should be and just guys who are not

who are like bigger than 5, 9, 510 and can skate and have a little bit of offense those guys are all gone by pick 60 it's just how the draft works in terms of the other aspects, skills, sense, compete that stuff is harder to improve

not impossible but that's that seems a little bit more innate and stuff that's developed when they're teenage years particularly the skill aspect it's much hard harder to improve when you're 18, 19, 20. I do see a lot of people who work with guys on their shots and think that that's something you can improve. I don't know as much about that technical area, but I know talking to a lot of coaches and scouts, they think that's an aspect that can be

worked on. All right. Trevor Vee wants to know your thoughts on kind of the size versus skill conversation in regards to defense. And we talked about this a little bit earlier in terms of the defense success of teams in this playoffs that maybe don't always have kind of the typical skill defensemen. There's a lot of bigger, smart, steady, really mobile defensemen. Trevor wants to know, would you be more inclined to rank an above average skating, but smaller D that pushes play higher than a bigger, more solid in his own zone defenseman? Or is it kind of the combo of all traits that pushes player higher?

Or is it to skating kind of better make up for the more traditional traits? It's a good question by Trevor. I think at the end of the day, you just want the best player. I know it's a generic, boring answer, but I can kind of delve into that a little bit more, and that typically you just want everything. You want the big, mobile, skilled players who are competitive. You want all those things. And typically, when you're building out a roster, you just want the most talent.

And I would say most scouts agree, not everybody, but most agree that skating and skill, are more important than size and physicality. Generally, that is true. However, when you're building out a roster, most teams would also say there is only so many spots on your D-Core. You can put the small mobile skill defensemen before you start asking,

well, who's going to take the tough defensive minutes? Who's going to kill penalties? Those are questions that I think you find a lot of resistance for them. You can't have a... I had an argument once with somebody. You can have a decor full of Quinn Hughes and Kail McCars, which was obviously an exaggeration.

Obviously, if you had six of those guys, it would be a really fun team to watch. But I think teams have not a tough time, but they definitely have to balance the fact that talent is really hard to find, really premium defense talent, and they would always take guys like McCar and Fox and Hughes and Gerard any day of the week. and would be really excited by that. The end of the day, they realize they need some more big, mobile, physical guys

to play a certain role that those other guys can't play and be put in situations that the bigger physical guy might be more effective in. All right. Ernie Morris. Actually, we got two here. Ernie Morris and Chris Bocone are both asking if there's a chance either of the top two goalies fall kind of into the 20s, one on behalf of one is a Red Wings fan, one's a Blue Jackets fan.

I'm just going to combine them into one. What are the chance either of Sebastian Kosso or Yesper Walsh that makes it into the 20s? I would say less than 10% and probably less than 5%. I would just say too many teams are too high on both of those guys. I think they can both, I think it's definitely possible. One is available in the mid-teens, maybe even late teens, but I think if you're hoping to get either than in the 20s, I think that's just unrealistic at this. this stage.

Or you're trading up. Yeah, and it's interesting in that regard. It's almost kind of like the, I'm not a big NFL guy, but from the little I've watched of it, it's kind of like when you have like the true great quarterback prospects and there's like the next ones are dramatically lower. The third best goalie in this draft is probably going mid late second, maybe even the third. So, you know, kind of like how you got to step up for a quarterback if you really want one or need one. If you really want a goalie in this year's draft, a really premium goalie,

you're going to have to maybe get a little bit more aggressive for it. All right. T-MuV says, can you give your own opinion about the numbers versus keywords in your draft ranking? So this is going back to what I was talking about earlier. You used to do the 20 to 80 scale. You switch this year to just literal descriptors, average, below average, above average, high-end, elites, poor. You use those now. Why did you do that? And what do you prefer? I think you did it because it was more clear to readers. What would you prefer if you had your jurors? I thought it would be more clear a reader.

Some readers said it wasn't as clear. I did a lot of testing on this before it published. I said to a lot of people, both laymen and people in the scouting community, to kind of get a test on how they perceived it. And it was the first time we did it, so you learned on what worked and what didn't. I think it was a little jarring to a lot of people to see so many. players being described as below average in so many categories. But I think that's just the reality of that, you know,

there's, the NHL is a really good league. And being average, if not above average, in the NHL in some categories, is extraordinary praise. You know, that's, you know, to be an NHL average skater or skill guy is, is not easy. So I think that I could have community. that part a little bit better and I might in future iterations that it means NHL average that I'm projecting this got to be NHL average in in these categories.

I thought when I wrote it, it would be easier to understand and to picture. If I said, you know, we'll use one example from my list and just to look at right now. I'll use Daniel Cheka as an example. If I told you there's this defenseman who was an average NHL skater with below average skill, average NHL hockey sense and competitiveness, and it's six foot three, you could kind of go through in your head. Okay, he's below average in all about one category and he's above averaging in another in size. So he's probably, you know, maybe a number four. Like that's just, you can kind of just kind of like intrinsically, that's not how I would do it, but I would hope that would have been obvious. I didn't communicate as clearly I thought, and that's a lesson I can take for the future.

Well, average and all but one, below in one, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, to me, that makes sense. I think if you said, if people read it as, he's an NHL caliber in these three things, then that comes off more like a compliment, but you have to delineate. Because there's below average guys, guys with below average skills in the NHL by definition. It's an average.

There has to be at least a solid chunk of guys in the NHL who have below NHL average. skill, right? Yeah. I think it was a lot of the guys people thought that. I said, oh, these are below average skaters. And I would say just historically, that just tends to be the case that the guys who have size and skill and skating, they are all gone by the 10th, 12th pick of the draft. That's just typically how it works.

Yeah. All right. And then last one for today, Isaac L. if you were working for a team, who would you be pounding the table for in the fifth round or later? This is kind of the part of the draft where amateur scouts, maybe get to kind of say, I really want this guy if we can get him. Yeah, there's a couple of guys that come to mind, and these won't be, like, you know, news to

the readers, because I think they would have read my list already by this point, or maybe scanned it more likely. A couple ones, one finished winger, E2 Loikas comes to mind who plays with TPS. Didn't really play that much this season. TPS was a really strong. league of team. I think they were third in the standings. He was up with the big club most of of the season didn't get a lot of ice time. When I saw him with the junior level last season, I was really excited by this player. I saw a big winger with really good hands, had some

physicality, really good shot. I wouldn't surprise me. It may not, because he's a below average skater, but it wouldn't surprise me if next season he's pretty good at the legal level, makes the world junior team useful at the U20 level you're looking at a guy who could be a mid or late round pick that you can get excited by the skating will be why he goes later but I think he's an intriguing guy

Daniel Luzuchin's a guy I've always been quite a big fan of had a terrible season that's why he's probably going to be a mid to late round pick just didn't produce that much in the MHL Russia's Junior League had several injuries but this is a guy also as an underage

He's one of the youngest players in the drafts of the underage, the 17-year-old season. A 16-year-old season, Luke Loikis was a 17-year-old season. I saw this big guy with great hands, not a burner, a good enough skater, and didn't really show that consistently this season. But as in his last season where he was one of the best players in his age group internationally.

But at the U18 Worlds, he didn't play as much at the start of the tournament, but by the end, he was playing a bigger role, and he was part of, you know, trading offense and I can see there being some real upside given his size and his skill. And the last one I want to call out is also another Russian guy, Daniel Polinkov, late 2000. The two, he's only eligible as a 2000 because he's playing in Europe, 20-year-olds can be drafted out of Europe. Had a really big season over there.

I think he had nearly 20 points as a defenseman in the KHL, got some time of Russia's national team and I thought held his own at that level, which isn't, which isn't easy. I saw, you know, a decent size defenseman with pretty good hockey sense, some flashes of skill. Skating's not great, but good enough. He's a guy that I was definitely intrigued by, and Scott St. Petersburg just picked him up yesterday. All right. All right, that's going to do it for us on today's episode. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Athletic Hockey Show Prospect Series.

Please follow us on your favorite podcast platform. so inclined, leave a rating and review, especially if you're enjoying the show. That really helps us out. And if you want to read more Corey's work, which would highly recommend you do, annual subscriptions to The Athletic are just $3.99 a month when you visit theathletic.com slash hockey show. There's a ton of good stuff coming, especially in the next six weeks as we lead up to the draft and get through it. So make sure you get on on that now and read all of Corey's coverage. And if you're a Red Wings fan, you can read some of mine too. But that'll do it for us. We will be right back here with you next week.

Another really fun show. Until then, take care.