The Athletic Hockey Show - Owen Power solidifies No. 1 ranking at Worlds, 2021 NHL Draft centers deep dive, thoughts on the Erie OHL Showcase, listener questions, and more

Episode Date: June 11, 2021

First, Max and Corey recap the 2021 IIHF World Championship where consensus number one pick Owen Power solidified his ranking playing big minutes for Team Canada en route to a gold medal, give their thoughts on the play of other tournament prospects Danila Klimovich, Alexei Kolosov, and Matthew Beniers, and discuss the potential draft status of players participating in the Erie OHL Showcase over the last couple of weeks.Then, the guys break down the pool of center prospects set to be selected in this year’s NHL Draft including Matthew Beniers, Mason McTavish, Kent Johnson, Chaz Lucius, Aatu Räty, Francesco Pinelli, and more.Plus, to close things out, the guys answer listener questions about how the mid-to-late 2021 first-rounders compare to previous years, what makes Fabian Lysell such a polarizing prospect, how much Corey’s day-to-day work would change if he went to work for an NHL team, 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 Boltman, and with me as always is the great Corey Bronman. We have a great show for you guys today. We're going to dive into the centers who could be picked in the first round of this year's NHL draft class. We're going to talk about two of the last actual hockey events of the 2021 draft cycle, the World Championships in Latvia, and the flow hockey PBHH invitational, which is an OHL showcase in Erie, Pennsylvania. And as always, we will wrap up with your questions. Should be a fun one. Corey, how's it going? It's going well. I mean, this is kind of an exciting time of year.

You know, it's draft ranking season. It's mock draft season. I think it can be a lot of really interesting discussions and debates here in the coming month. And I want to be 100% sure when this draft was going to happen, but we are going to have an NHL draft here in a couple of weeks. And safe to say, I'm rather excited for that. and probably not sleeping a whole lot right now, I would gather. No, the heavy lifting is done. Like now it's just like different kinds of stressors in terms of making sure you have all your information right and trying to pick up any league that might be leaking out.

And the mock draft seasons, a lot of speculation of who might go where kind of thing. But the real heavy lifting of watching and analyzing the players and understanding the draft class. as that was a lengthy and complicated and messy process due to the COVID season, but that part is now behind us. Well, I'm just trying to set the odds now. I'm trying to be play bookie and try to figure out which fan base, which I guess it's really the prospect fan base, is not the team fan bases yet,

are going to be the most upset with you when your list does come out. I have some guesses. We'll save that for a discussion for another day. All right, we can do that. Well, instead, let's talk about some of the actual hockey being played. Just wrapped up since our most recent episode is the World Championships taking place in Latvia. Not a huge crop of draft eligibles at the event, but a couple of really high-profile names, including Owen Power, who ended up playing the pretty meaningful role for Team Canada at that event.

Yeah, and I mean, he was, for me, he was the story of the World Championships. Not in that he was one of the best players. He wasn't, he didn't have the tournament that say, you know, Alston Matthews, Patrick Linae had during their world championships where they were just lighting it up and Linae was the MVP of the tournament or didn't have even the tournament that Capo-Cocco had where he was one of the leading scorers on the team that won it all and it was really noticeable. You know, he didn't have that kind of offense, but just to his minutes kept going up and part of that was because Colin Miller got injured and part of that was just because after

not playing pretty much during the first game, they saw just how valuable. a guy like that is the 6-6 defenseman who's an excellent skater and has excellent hockey sense and could make a lot of good things happen at both ends of the rink he showed he could play at a really high level versus professionals and some of which were NHL players as as you well know this tournament didn't really have the same amount of NHL talent as it usually has so for me when I was watching this world championship it almost felt like I was watching another part the European Hockey Tour, which is like the senior level tournaments that happen in November and February, for example. This was a little higher than that because there were some NHL players, including on Team Canada, the United States, Russia, Sweden, etc.

But it wasn't the world championships as we usually know it. So there is some calibration, but regardless whether it was the world championships as we usually know it, or whether it was even just a regular European hockey tour level caliber of competition, what Owen Power did was incredibly impressive. to play that kind of role. Clear top four minutes. Sometimes you can even argue who's one of their very best defensemen on a team that managed to win gold.

To me, I just talking to people around the league, if there was a debate as to whether he was going to go first overall, I think that debate's been kind of simmered. I think if Buffalo keeps the first pick, I think they got to pick this guy. He kind of looked, I think it's hard to find another guy in this class

who has done the things he's done and has the toolkit that he has. And the things he's done is important because while you always scout the tools, you also have to evaluate the performance of a player. And that's part of been the issue with this season is you didn't get evaluation on some people and things they usually would get. There was no world junior for Owen Power because of the weird quarantine rules that he would have had to go to. And there was no guarantee he was going to even make the team. or play a meaningful role on that team.

Those were all calculations. And maybe he would have gone and got cut. Maybe he wouldn't have got cut. Maybe he would have made the team. Maybe he beat out Caden Gouldy for that third lefty spot. And then he plays in the tournament, and he plays amazing. And there's not even a minor question coming out of that tournament that he's the best prospect in the draft. But Matthew Baneers did get to go, and he played well.

And it really helped his draft stock because he got to show at that level and be a part of a gold medal winning U20 team. We got national TV and all that stuff, yeah. It's not just the national TV. The national TV definitely helps from a PR perspective, but just to check that box, the world junior level is a higher level, is a different, maybe not a higher, it's a different kind of competition than college hockey.

And the world championships is definitely a higher level than college hockey. So being able to go to that level and excel, it's new information that you won't get by just watching and play at Michigan over and over again. So the level of, thing is the thing I want to key in on here because I agree. I watched as much of Canada, especially as I could. I thought he did not look remotely out of place. He looked good. But the one question I kept coming back to is, okay, this is not, you know, like you said, this is not

Capo-Cacco two years ago where he's doing this against, you know, teams of really good NHL regulars. A lot of ton of really good players here, a lot of NHL regulars are there. But it's not the exclusive thing. When they play Finland in the final, right, you're not seeing it against, you know, all of the Finns that are in the NHL. you're seeing, like you said, kind of Finland's national team. And it's a good team. They've done extraordinarily well, the international level in recent years. But how do you wait what you saw from all-power? You said that he's kind of solidified himself now as in one pick. What did he actually show that that proves that? Or is it just, is it the tools or did you see something specific there?

It's the tools. But for me, when I'm watching amateur players, teenage players, specifically, the biggest test is always, does it translate versus pros? You can watch people in Major Junior in the USHL and college hockey, all you want. But you get these kind of answers a little bit sooner with the Europeans, particularly the high-end Europeans who advance to the pro leagues really quickly. But with those Canadians and Americans, you don't always get the answer to how well does he play versus men. Does the way he play translate versus men?

Can he be a power play guy versus men? Can he generate offense? Or is he just a, is Owen going to be this safe, mobile, breaks up play's first pass type of guy in again not versus the typical roster full of NHL players but against some NHL players and some really good European pros

he showed that he could be a really good two-way player as an 18 year old playing against men guy who can be he was on their second power play unit didn't look at a place created up you know showed offensive zone playmaking you know whether it was seen passes moving

Pucks from the blue line download to create chances you just checked a really important box that is part of the process when you're looking at some of those teenage players that I'm not going to say he elevated himself dramatically

he didn't if I don't this is not how a great players but he didn't go from like a six to a ten or something like that but if he came if there was a dub if he he was kind of in a little bit of a group for you which he was for me I know from some scouts, he's been number one all the way and it's never been a discussion for some. But if he was in a group for you coming in of like, okay, these are the three or four guys

that could be in the discussion, for me, he separated a little bit from that group based on the tournament. And now, not everybody gets to have this tournament. And not everybody gets to would go to this, like, you know, but for example, you know, Baneers got to go, got hurt, but even when he did play, it wasn't really all that amazing. You know, a guy like say, Luke Hughes didn't get to go to U-18. World because of injury. William Eklund. I don't know if he actually would have made Team Sweden, but he got injured during their camp so he didn't have a great chance to actually

even, you know, to make that argument. But he played. He played extremely well, and you got to use that information. And I think it showed that he's, he distinguished himself. So the biggest thing is it just kind of resolves a little bit of doubt. You saw, I mean, when you watch Power of Michigan, you saw offensive playmaking, but now you've seen it at one level higher. That's the key. Yeah, and you can argue at several levels higher. Sure, right. The world championships in a normal year, which this wasn't, but a normal year, it's the closest you're going to get to the NHL. Yeah. That's not the NHL. So it's a really important thing. It's, it was the big reason why, say, a Moritz cider went sixth overall in his draft season based on how he looked there. It's an

important event, and there weren't that many draft eligible as there was him, there was Benyers and there was a couple of the Belarusians. But for what he did, I mean, he did all he could. Let's touch on Benares and the Belarusians really quick here before we move on to the next segment. I mean, the Belarusians kind of both jumped onto the scene at the World U-18s, like two weeks ago, and they come right back. What did you see differences there? Like, I mean, they, on a lot of people's minds out of Texas. Yeah, well, there was two. One, the goaltender wasn't at the 18th. We'll talk on Danila Klimavich, the 03.3. forward who is kind of one of the big mysteries of the draft as a guy who scored six goals

and five games of the U18 worlds. And it wasn't just that he scored goals. I've seen bad players on really bad team score of those events and you never hear from them again and you just kind of chalk it up to somebody's got to play in the power play. But Belarus was competitive. They made some good team sweat in the pre-tournament game versus Russia. They tied them essentially.

So, I mean, this was not a push-over team that was. It was due to how well Klimovic played. It was due to their top defenseman, Dimitri Kuzman, and a couple other guys that were interesting. Their goaltending was really strong of that tournament. But Klimovic was the most interesting pro prospect. Six-two, great hands, great shot. Some limitations with his skating,

some other, some other awards in his game, too. But the size, skill shot combination was really interesting. His big tournament led to him making the World Championship team. We only really got real minutes in two games, and I can't really say he really did anything outstanding in that tournament to make you say, oh yeah, like this guy is, this guy's an NHL player, no question. I still think there's questions. And for a guy who pretty much played Belarus junior all season, which I've watched a little bit of that hockey.

It wasn't the most promising hockey. You're talking, you know, junior B at best quality. It's not the most inspiring level of competition, but that's kind of, if he would have played in the QMJHL, which is where he was drafted in the import draft, maybe the discussion is a little bit different. But we have the information we have, and I would suspect he will go in the second or the third round,

because somebody is going to see the athletic, not the athletic tools, but just the overall tool kit in the 6-2 and the skill and the goal-scoring ability and say it's worth the shot. But I can say his world's really changed it. The one world that is interesting was the goalie, Alexei Kolosov, who is the second-year eligible goalie,

played really well in the KHL Limited Games. Didn't play exceptionally well here, but for a teenage goalie, he didn't look like he was getting his head kicked in every night, which is something you don't really see happen a lot of this level. So Colosov, I would say, along with Ben Gujarro and Sarnia and Tristan Lennox and Saganaut would be in the mix to be the third goalie off the board, I think. Okay. And then Baneers, you mentioned, you know,

he was injured at the end. He actually, I think he was scratched a couple times in his tournament. did it change anything for you or was it just didn't give him the chance to elevate? Yeah, he didn't get the chance to elevate. I can't say I'm knocking Matt. He been ears down much from this tournament, but I can't say he came in and showed you, the question on him is going to be the offense. He didn't come in and show you a level of puck game and playmaking and skill

while you're like, oh, no, this guy has really high-end offense. He's going to be a big-time score versus pros. I'm not saying he won't be, but I can't say he has. answer that question. Okay. All right. Well, then the other tournament that's going on right now, I just got back from, and that is the PBH-H-H-FLOChy, Invitational, that's an Erie. That's a group of OHL players. And this is an interesting event because it was put together entirely by players, by teenagers. The guy who I spoke with, Andrew Parrott, he's not a first-year draft eligible, but he really put the event together with three other players, Ryan Humphrey, Ryan Beck, and Brendan

Hoffman, really impressive event. What I want to know, I'll talk to you a little more about what I saw when I was there in a second, but for people out there who are just hearing once for the first time, how many kind of draft eligible, or how many likely draft picks do you see coming out of this event for the 2021 draft? There are some underage guys there too, but 2021. Yeah, the underage guys were more interesting, at least from an NHL perspective. I think there's going to be, I don't know, a dozen or so picks out of this event, maybe more, maybe a little bit more. In terms of guys who are highly rated, there weren't really like the big names there, like Brian Clark wasn't there, Mason McTavish, wasn't there. Other of the top Oytle draft levels who played at the U18

worlds were not at the event. These are a lot of like the mid to late round guys. And if you look at Pradon, all of these guys, they all kind of fit into the same mold of they didn't get ice time in their 16 year old season. They didn't get power play time. you don't really know these players at a high level. Not like you know a lot of the OHL players at a high level, you don't, but you really don't know these guys. And so I think this tournament helps to provide a stronger argument for why should you use a mid-to-late round pick

on the dozen or so guys who we know about. It doesn't mean that they are all going to go, but it gives them a chance to at least make a strong case to all the NHL scouts who were at the event. Yeah, to me, there were different groups of players who were at this event. You had some who played a lot of this year elsewhere. Like, that's a couple of kids. They're Matt Maggio, Avery Hayes.

These are kids who, I believe, played in Europe for the early part of this year. And they were late-02s as well, so they had a little bit more O-HL action. Right. And then there was another kid I talked to who I believe you mentioned on the show last time. His name's Ben Roger. He's a defenseman. He didn't play anywhere. This is the only competitive hockey that NHL teams are going to see him play.

This is a big defenseman, mobile, rangery guy. You know, I liked what I saw from him in the one game that I was able to see him the other day. But it's the only that scouts are going to see on him. And these are kind of the cases that I am most interested by is how much can a player like Ben Roger? How much can this tournament affect his career trajectory? It's a good question. Because the guy like Hayes, who you mentioned before, he was on the power play in the Ontario Hockey League last season. He was at the Flinkogretzky last season.

So, well, we don't know him that well. We know him better than a guy like Roger who pretty much play like seven minutes a night with London last season. No power play, no penalty kill. There's no real book on this guy. And I think this event, I think he'll get drafted. I'm not saying it's because of this event, but I think he will get drafted. This event, I think, will help try and answer some questions with scouts that, yeah, we see the skating. What's the puck game like?

how good a defender is he I don't know if you're going to leave the event knowing those answers with certainty because the event is only so long and it's not OHL hockey there are OHL players here but it's not the Ontario Hockey League in terms of the quality you usually expect

from OHL hockey but it's something in the right direction you know if a guy was a sixth seventh rounder maybe he elevates to a fifth if he was a sixth fifth maybe elevates to a fourth I can see that if a guy is not on your list maybe he comes in at the end. I can see that happening.

I don't know if anybody, at least from what I've seen so far in this tournament, I don't think anybody's moving the needle dramatically, which I think is reasonable. But are there anyone who was like bubble, like are they like a kind of priority camp invite to seventh round pick? Like I think that's totally plausible here. Yeah, it is. And I think this tournament is definitely for the bubble guys. Yeah. You know, Brian Clark is getting drafted.

Francesco Pinelli is getting drafted. those guys, I understand why they're not here. For these guys, they're trying to salvage something that they didn't get this season, which was the chance to show that they're players. And some of them are not going to be players. But these guys are getting a chance to at least make the argument for themselves. Yeah. And so to me, like I look at, when I saw yesterday, you're right.

It's not O.HL hockey. You're not going to confuse it for that. And a big reason why is because there's not Brent Clark, Cole Perfetti, you know, Brennan Offman. The imports, like the high end, doesn't know what I am. imports there. Right. The imports, the guys who have already been drafted that are setting the tone. Like, like, at the end of the day, these are guys who were working their way up the OHL still.

Like, you're seeing a really young group of guys and kind of without the high-end stars. But I will say, it was still competitive hockey. And it was fun to watch. It was good to see, you know, there's a lot of, I think, ended up empty net situations at the end of all three games. And you like seeing guys in those situations. You like seeing who's going to compete really hard and how they're going to, you know, I was amazed at how much talk there was that you were hearing guys, you know, helping each other out. It was not summer hockey either.

No, no. I've watched a little bit. You know, it's definitely been competitive, physical. These guys are trying. These guys are playing for a career. So I have no issue with the effort and the compete level. And I think the quality is, is solid to evaluate players and just making a say, I just meant that it's not. Yeah. You know, if OH, if it's like, OHL is what you expect, maybe is as closer to like a junior A game or, or maybe like a USHL. game, then it would be, may not even USHL, but something along those lines it's a little bit lower, but it's not

dramatically lower. There's still a lot of talented players in these games. I didn't sit there with a clipboard counting, but just ballparking, and I think there were probably 15 to 20 scouts there yesterday. I think that number has been even higher at some points, right? Yeah, I would say every scout, every

team has made an effort to watch this event. Some have sent one, some of them send multiple scouts, and it's a two-week event. So that's going to fluctuate throughout the process. Yeah. But at the start, I know definitely a lot of people were there. And it was good that they were at the beginning because some of the top names got injured.

Yeah. So, you know, we talk about some of the guys who are going to really elevate there, or not really elevate, but who have a chance to, you know, move up a little bit or get themselves off the bubble one way or the other. The one thing I did want to talk about, we don't have spent a ton of time on it, but just the inventing it to me in it, in and of itself is an unbelievably impressive part of it, to turn this event from just a time. an idea into an event and you have scouts from, you know, all or nearly all NHL teams there.

You know, so to put that on from that was really driven by these kids really impressed me. And that, I think, is something that, you know, Andrew Parrott, Ryan Beck, Brendan Hoffman, Ryan Humphrey, the other thing I'm curious about is, like, I don't know what the careers will hold for all these guys hockey-wise, but at minimum, like, this is a real cool thing for them to have done. And I wonder if we don't see these names down the line in a hockey operations department, in part because they pulled something like this off. Yeah, that's something I've had some discussions with some hockey folks. I'm not sure if any of those four guys are actually NHL prospects. I think Perrault was once considered one a long time ago

when he was a younger player. Hey, I didn't mind it when I saw him at 16. But I think the character, the intelligence, the work ethic they showed to put this all. altogether, I think speaks volumes about them as people. And maybe they're any, maybe they get American League contracts. Maybe they find another way into hockey. But I think just what they did with this event is truly remarkable and full credit to those four. Yeah, I know Brian Burke, I think went out of his way to talk to Andrew Parrott, who we just talked about. That's pretty cool.

But, you know, that's something he's interested in, Dunl. He goes to Western University. I think he's in business school and then also doing a minor in sports management. So that's fun to watch wherever hockey takes him. And he told me that the four of those kids had a conversation recently. And they said to each other, like if it changes one guy's career path, we succeeded, I think there's a pretty good chance of that. And I would argue they've already succeeded.

Yeah, no, for sure. All right. We're going to move on to the centers of the 2021 draft today. And that is a class that kind of comes with a couple of questions. question marks, even as we're just figuring out who it is we're exactly talking about here. So you've given me a list of players. I think it's 11 players long. But I first wanted to ask you, how did you sort through some of the guys, especially toward the top of this draft, where we're not sure if we're calling them a center or not? Kent Johnson's on this list. William Eckland is not, for example.

Chas Luscious is on this list. Mason McTavish is on this list. These are all guys who there's at least some question of if they're actually center. How did you make that call? I made the call based on whether I've actually seen them play center in the last two years in some sort of reasonable time period. So Kent Johnson did not play center this season, but he did play it two seasons ago in junior. Chas Lusha's played center this season. But there's some other guys I know who are considered centers who didn't play center at all. Like William Eklund has not played center in the last two years. He played it when he was younger, but he had not played center in the last two years.

So I didn't feel comfortable discussing him in a center group. When we talk about wingers, we'll talk about Eklund. And it doesn't mean that I think Kent Johnson is going to be an NHL center. But I think if you've got to give a guy a position, I think at least the fact that he's been a full-time center at some point recently helped that argument along. And the reason I chose these 11 names was not based on my list of how they're ranked, but these are guys who, if I was designing a mock draft,

these are the centers I think NHL fans need to know about in terms of these, I think, are going to be among the first names that are going to go. So the position I've seen you take in a general sense on this publicly is it's always in the eye of the beholder. It doesn't matter what the majority of NHL teams think is their position. It matters what the one team that picks them thinks is their position. Yes. My counter to that also is, I wonder if the team that drafts them is probably at least a good chance is one of the teams that likes them the most.

Do you think there's any correlation with that? Does the team that likes Ken Johnson the most, is there a pretty good chance that team sees him as a center? It is possible, or at least it's possible that they're open to the idea. They may not actually envision him being a center when it's all said and done when their depth chart really fills out. Depends who picks him obviously. you know, if let's say Vancouver takes him where they got Pedersen and Horvatt down the middle, they probably don't want him at center.

But there could be other organizations, or at least they might like him at center, but they say we'll have better options, you'll be better served at the wing in our top six. But there could be other organizations where he'd be more of a fit, or at least they get more of opportunity to experiment with the idea,

whether in the American League or the NHL. But yeah, like for all these guys, some of these top centers, Mason McTavish, Kent Johnson, Chas Lucius, Cole Cylinger, Zach Bullduke, I have talked to some NHL teams who like all of these guys a lot, but some say they're wingers, and some say they're centers in the NHL.

And it kind of really depends whether you want your center to be fast, whether you want to be physical, whether you want to have really high-end hockey sense. Those are all kind of part of the calculation. But all of those guys I just mentioned, I've talked to teams that will say, they're for sure going to be a winger, not for sure, but that's their projection. And some who say we project them as centers. Is Matthew Baneers by virtue, I mean, not just by virtue of being the clear-cut center, but is he in a tier of himself right now at the top of this center list, or is there anyone else that you would put in his grouping as of right now?

In terms of my personal preference, I'm still kind of working that out. I would say it's been Baneer for most of the way for me. But in terms of the perception in the industry, I would say most people I talk to have Baneers as the first center, but Mason McTavish's U18 Worlds definitely has impacted that discussion. Obviously, NHL Central Scouting just released a list. He was the number one ranked center for them ahead of Beneers, ahead of Johnson. I would say those two are the ones that get most commonly discussed.

There is a really small minority of scouts that will have Johnson as the number one. and whether or not, again, he's the one of those because of the way he plays, I think he has more questions on if he's an NHL center versus Benares and McTavish. But those are the, I would say, it's definitely between Baneers and McTavish right now in the NHL industry as to who is the top ranked center in this draft class. I want to know about the ceilings for both of them. You mentioned the question on the offense with Baneers. I think it's a fair question to have, having watched him play.

He's a great player. No one could question his motor. to me, I don't think, I think he'd have a really hard time questioning his position at all, but I do wonder, is this a guy who's going to be a 45 point center or a 60 point center? And I think that's a big distinction at top of the draft. It is. And, you know, it really will impact in terms of what you predict him as. You know, is he going to be that next, you know, number one center who isn't what you think of when you think of number one center?

I think when we read all the number one centers, we think of guys like, Crosby, McKinnon, McDavid, you know, the guys who score a million points and are the stars in the league. But then there's like this other crop of guys who are in like the 20 to 30 something, you know, range centers in the league who, you know, maybe not aren't as flashy. They don't have the 70, 80 point seasons. But they're a really good two-way guys. You think, you know, the names, I'm not comparing him to to these guys, but the names people will rattle off all the times are, you know, O'Reilly and Bergeron and Taze and

the centers who play that certain way where the points aren't always amazing but they're still rather good and they provide really good two-way value. I mean, that's, if you're taking Baneers in the top five, you're hoping he's that player. Doesn't mean he's going to be that player and I think there's

reasonable disagreements you can go either way. I also don't think he's given me, I don't know what more he could really have, he can really do with what he's been given in terms of his natural skill set. It feels like every time I've watched him the last couple of years, he's always excelled, other than maybe that most recent World Championships where he was just okay. But watching the Michigan, watching with the world juniors, watching with the program,

the program being the USNTDP, it just seems like this is a guy who just impacts the game in a really significant manner almost every day he plays. Just because of his great motor, he's a good skater, he's really intelligent. The skill will worry you. I don't really see a reality where Matthew Baneers becomes the star scoring forward in the NHL, but I definitely can see a realistic reality where he becomes a really, really good two-way player, whether it's a second line, whether it's a first line, and whether it's a first line on merit or whether he's kind of up there because you don't really have any good options.

We'll see, but I definitely think he's in that discussion. and I think he's a completely a reasonable pick, whether you're picking, after one's power goes out one, two, three, four, five, he's in that discussion for me. So the dream is he turns into that, O'Reilly,

Taves, Bergeron, that's the dream. Yes. But, you know, decent chance at least, like, like, decent chance that he's a,

you know, Pierre Luke Dubois, Beauorvette, Dylan Larkin-type, you know, like, decent chance of that? Yeah,

and I guess how you would sort those six names you just said. Some people might have O'Reilly below some of those other names you just rattled off there. But I think for me, I see him as a guy who is going to be one of the better centers in the league. That's just my projection. I'm not going to stay here and tell you he's going to be a top center. Or a guy who, I guess, the term I always get here used is he's a number two on a contender, a number one on a poor team, I guess.

And I'm not sure if reality always looks like that. I mean, you look at Vegas right now, can you really say that their top two centers are both, like, top 30 centers in the league? No. Yeah, you know, every team looks a little bit different. But I really do like Baneers and exactly where he will slot, exactly what his game exactly will be, will be to be determined. But I think he has just shown time and time again and through his play and his attributes that he is a true top prospect. And McTavish, I think he is a top two-line center in the National Hockey League. I think he has a lot of really positive things about him.

Other than his skating, I think the skill, the hockey sense, the goal scoring, the compete level. It's all NHL quality. He has good size. He has excellent production in the Ontario League and the U18 Worlds. The only thing that would kind of scare me from stamping like the 1C on him is I think he's a below-average skater. and I'm not convinced the rest of the skill set is so elite that he'll overcome that. But I think if he's your 1C, I think you're in trouble. Not that he, I don't think he can do it, but I think you'd be in trouble in terms of trying to call yourself a good NHL team.

Because the end of the day, I can call this guy a one or two, whatever. At the end of the day, the whole point you're trying to build a Stanley Cup contender. So I think you always, whenever I talk to teams, they always discuss where guys fit in a Stanley Cup contender. watched this, it's a coincidence in some regard that the draft happens right around when the playoffs are, but those are those are those questions that happen. People are watching those games. They're watching the Islanders. They're watching Boston.

They're watching Colorado and Tampa and saying, well, where would this guy fit on that team? Yeah. And I think with McTavish, you probably would say he would probably be a second line center on a lot of these teams. Do you think he's going to score more than Benares? I would say that would be, I'm not going to. going to say for sure, but I think he definitely has more skill. I think he has better skill. I think he has a better shot. I think his hockey sense is just as good. So that would be my guess is he ends up, you know, a little bit more of a presence on the power play. Maybe he could be a first power play guy.

I'm not sure Benir's going to be a first power play guy. But I'm not convinced, and I'm not saying that they're miles apart either. But I think there, I think that would be a reasonable thing to say that he could score more. Okay. In this next tier of guys, how would you tier this next group. Is Johnson Lucius in a tier? Is Johnson in a tier of his own? Is he like how in Cillinger's in this mix too, I would imagine? Yeah, I would say talking to teams

throughout the season. I don't think Lucius did enough or played long enough to elevate himself into that top tier. I think most teams I talk to think Johnson is if Johnson, well, let me clarify this.

Some teams see Johnson in the top tier with those other guys with McTavish and Baneers. and some see him in the next tier. I would say Lucius has a very small minority who see him in that top tier. Most think he's in the next tier. And Sillinger in the second tier, or would he be one tier back yet of the other two? I think with Sillinger, you've kind of seen him as a guy who I expect will go in the teens.

He is definitely a guy. I hear the most among the top prospects. A little bit on Lucius. a little bit on Johnson, but definitely with Cellinger, I think there are people who question if he's going to be an NHL center just because he's a below-average skater. I'm not sure I 100% agree with this, but there are concerns on whether his playmaking is cerebral ability,

hockey sense, whatever you want to call it, is not really that great. And given he's a 6-0 guy with below-average feet, I think people see that and say that's a wing in the NHL. He's played center whenever I've watched him. And I think that's kind of the hard part when you're projecting these guys is you kind of see with in baseball

is you know, will the shortstop be a second basement? Will the center field or be a corner outfielder? There's a little bit of guesswork in that regard. But I would say Sillinger goes in the teens and whatever, I presume kind of what you said in the beginning, I presume the team that drafts him in the teens

probably likes him in the middle or at least thinks he could be a really high in a lineup winger. But I think you're looking at a guy who's physical, his skill, you can score. And I think there's enough other elements there to potentially stick down the middle, but that's definitely not a consensus. We spent some time last week talking about Kent Johnson and the skill, maybe the most skilled player in the draft, skating a question, how he holds up physically a question. I'm not going to put you on the spot too much here

with it because I do want to wait for your ranking to come out. But when you watched Kent Johnson, and how much room for improvement is there in what we've seen? Because to me, it seems like he is one of the higher upside plays on the board. I think there's a lot of room for improvement. And the reason why I say that is I've watched Kent Johnson a lot the last couple of years. And the player I saw in Junior A is not even close to the player I saw in college hockey. And the college hockey is way higher than the BCHL with all respect to the BCHL as a level. And he was still a point per game in college.

Yes. When you watched him in the BCHL, it was like watching a human highlight reel every night. He just did whatever he wanted on any given shift. Some of the most creative plays I've seen in the last few years. And he did them routinely. And you saw like flashes at in college, but you saw his physical limitations, both with his frame and his skating. And you can get pushed around a little bit, push to the perimeter. I'm not saying he's going to pop off like that.

next season, but it wouldn't surprise me because I know there's, I know there's more in that player. You know, you have to balance that against what you've seen this season. The most recent data is the most relevant data. But we, but I think there is more to give there. So I'm going to pull this up from our mailbag now. We had a question from Grimlock who said, how would you compare Kent Johnson and draft year Trevor Ziegress? What would be the similarities and differences there? There are some similarities and there are some important differences. I think what makes Kent Johnson go is his skill level is really special. You know, if you had to, I've stopped using the 280 grading skill in my articles,

but if you had to put it on the 2080, you're debating giving his hands an 80. It's that kind of level of skill and ability to make plays with the puck. But on the other hand, I don't think the playmaking, I think the playmaking is really good. I don't think it's exceptional. Whereas on the other end of the spectrum, I think was, Zegris, it's the other way around. I think the hands are really good, but his hockey sense, his vision, his offensive creativity is just unbelievable.

The things he thinks about and he sees on the ice are things he don't really see other players do. So his is one where you're going to be giving his hockey sense the highest grade. But both of them I see similar frames, similar skating. I think Zegra's got a little bit more pushback FU in his game than Johnson does. he's not a physical PK type guy, but you've seen over the years where a guy gets under his skin and he kind of gives it right back to him.

I don't see Kent Johnson doing that. So I would rate Zegra's over Kent Johnson, both at the time of the draft and now. But I get where that's coming from. It's a question I've had with several NHL scouts because there are definitely some notable similarities between the two of them. Really quick on Lucius.

Are we concerned about the injuries with him or are we just, you know, it costs him some time, and that's the big issue? I'm not concerned because the injury that could have them after during the season was like a regular, you know, medical thing and lower body injury. And the one that kept him out of the U-18 world is he got sick. So just completely unrelated, just unfortunate. Obviously, you want to make sure the body is healed in both instances and you want to do your usual medical homework. but I don't get the sense of this is a recurring problem in any in any manner.

And the book on him is high level goal score, good skill, those are the selling point traits for him. Yeah, just elite, elite player around the net. I mean, he's not a guy who scores like Cole Coughfield does

or Oliver Walshram did with long range shots. He is just an elite net front goal scoring type with tremendous hands. I think some of the best hands in the draft once you get past the Kent Johnson of the world. All right. The back half of the center cup,

are we sure that any of the other guys that I'm about to list are first rounders or all these all bubble guys? That'd be Fader Svechkov of Russia, Atu Routu, of Finland, Wyatt Johnson of Canada, Zach Bullduke of Canada, Francesco Pinelli of Canada, and Colton Dock of Canada. I think Svetchkov is definitely going in the first round.

The only reason why he might not go in the first round, and I think at the end of the day, he's definitely going to, I would say he goes in the teens, possibly 20s at the absolute latest, is he did just get acquired by Scott St. Petersburg, which is a very rich team that could, that will probably, they don't always succeed, but they might make an effort to extend him. So that will be a variable there for teams looking at him, but I do think he's going to go in the first round. I still think out

Ratu is going to go in the first round. It's probably going to be a lot later, a lot later than we thought when the season started, but I think he'll go in the 20s at the latest. The other ones are a little bit more speculative. I really like Wyatt Johnston, and I've just

kept liking him more when I watched him at the U18 world. I'm not saying he's him, Bull Duke, Pinelli, or Doc. I think when I talk to teams, it's very 50-50, whether teams have him in that range. A lot of them see them as second rounders. Some seem as first rounders. I think those seven centers we named in Baneers, McAvich, Johnson, Lucius, Scylinders, Svetchkhov and Ratt, too. Those are the guys, I think, for sure, go in the first round. And then there's four bubble guys there. With Doc, Dauke being the

most bubble of the bubble guys, because even though I think Central gave him the first round grade and he had a good year, I think his rise was merited. I'm not talking to many NHL teams. I see him as a first rounder. Not to say there aren't a teams that liked them, but, and think that he's made a really strong case for himself to be a second or a third round pick, but I, I don't know if he's actually going to go on the first, just due to his skating. So, yeah, in Ratu, you have a guy who at one point was considered a first overall favorite, a far out first overall favorite, albeit, and then you've got a few guys who have kind of come on lately. What I want to know is, who's the upside guy in this range of the draft. I think that's what a lot of people listening, a lot of teams

that are going to be picking in the back half of the draft. Everyone dreams that you end up with that top six center in the back half of the draft. It doesn't happen that often. Where's the upside among this group? Yeah, I think for me, it would be Rock 2 or Johnston. I think both of them actually play the game rather similarly. They're both centers with pretty good hands, pretty good hockey sense, compete well, decent size.

Both aren't great skaters, but I think options like that after they're gone. You're not going to find centers with size and hockey. sense and scoring ability. Once those guys are gone, you're going to you know, Penel, he's got 6-0 subpar skater, docks are pretty poor skater. Bull Duke was really inconsistent with his effort

this season. So I think those two, while they have questions, Ratu didn't have a good season. Johnson didn't play at all this season other than the U18 world. And his body's changed a lot from when he was in the OHL. He's growing like two or three inches. You don't know how that would have played out over the course of a full OHL season.

But those two are the ones stand out to me for potential late first round bets on talent. All right, let's transition now over to the mailbag. Another really good list. And guys cannot encourage you enough to send these into us. Corey will usually call for them on the day we're going to record. So make sure you're following him on Twitter at Corey Prondman. But you can also email them to either me or Corey at the bottom.

You'll find our emails at the bottom of any of our stories. We want to hear from you guys. I want to know what you want to hear about. So please do make sure you're sending these in. The first one we got today is from Corey E. suspicious, Corey, I don't know if you're filing these under an alias, but the question is, what has more value going into the upcoming draft, draft picks, salary cap flexibility, or roster flexibility for the expansion draft?

I would hope if I had an alias, you would have given me some points for trying to at least be more creative than that. I feel like I wouldn't be that obvious, but obviously this is going to be just like the last off season, this next offseason is going to be a challenging for a lot of teams due to the flat cap. and I think any salary cap flexibility. Obviously, there's one team, Seattle, that has a lot of flexibility right now. And I think that's definitely been the subject I've heard a lot going into the draft is, you know,

how do we manage our cap in this environment? Seattle can only take so much bad money. They can't take all 31 teams problems. So I think anybody who has some reasonable cap flexibility, I think has a chance to get really creative this summer because there's a lot of teams that have problems who I thought when they signed long-term contracts reasonably expected there to be growth

and there won't be growth now. So there's definitely quite a few teams who are either average or good teams who are going to struggle to stay as competitive in the 2022 season due to the flat cap. Last year we saw it a little bit. bit. I mean, the Red Wings took on Mark Stahl in a second round pick. We saw some stuff at this year's trade deadline. Do you think we see more kind of salary cap related trades where there's

an asset attached this year or less? I mean, it's hard for me to say, I'm not a trade rumor guy, but just from... Not yet. You're not. Both from just looking at the landscape and the discussion of having with teams, there's something's got a gift. There's just too many teams that just don't have a reasonable avenue out of what they're doing other than just getting substantial the worst in losing talent that I think you're going to see people try to get creative. Okay, fair enough. This one's from Ryan. How would you compare the talent in the mid to late first round to previous draft buses?

That's a good question because I think there is a narrative around this draft that it's a weak draft. And it might be, it might not be. We'll see, you know, time will tell in terms of how well this draft plays out. But for me, the draft is just, I guess, weak, I guess. It's always been for me, I define weak or strong drafts based on how the top of the draft looks like. That's always kind of been how I've approached this. So when I look at this draft, when I look at the middle of the first round, the later part of the first rounds, it looks pretty standard to me compared to other years.

I don't really see that big a difference between this draft's middle. late first round and other first rounds. And we'll see how these middle and late first rounds play over the next couple of years. You know, one draft, I remember covering the 2011 NHL draft, and it was considered a weak draft. And Ryan Nugent Hopkins, while a very nice player, is by no means, you know, a great first overall pick. Yeah. That being said, if you could kind of, if I can, you know, give you a top five of a draft. And I said, in some order, it's Nikita Kuturov, Jonathan Huberto, Mark Shafley,

Dougie Hamilton and I think I said and Gujarro you would think that would be a really strong top five Yeah that sounds like a really good draft Those guys didn't go in the top five Other than Huberto in 2011 So you know

I am hesitant to call a draft Really strong or really weak Based on just what we see at the very top You know at this draft while I love Owen Power, I think he's a stud. I'm not convinced that he is of like the, you know, McDavid, Matthews, McKinnon, or even close to where Dalina Lefrenier were as prospects.

But he's not that far off. And, you know, there are guys in this draft that you can foresee becoming stars. And there's probably some guys like a guy like Goodrow. There's probably one or two guys that you can't foresee becoming stars, but that will. But from what I've seen of the rest of the first, round, I don't see it being much different than other drafts I've covered in the last couple of years.

I guess here's a rudimentary way of illustrating it. So last year, 15, 20, and 25 in the draft is Rodian Amirov, Shakir Mukumadoulin, Justin Barron. Comparable caliber players you see being available at 15, 20, 25 this year? Yes and no. I think the thing that's going to be different this year will be depending on where the top goalie prospects end up. That could, I think, impact that a little bit. Yep. But I definitely think, yeah, I think once you get past that top, top skater group, I think it's going to look a lot similar to last year's draft class.

All right. We'll move on to the next one. Then that is a question from Joe who wants to know what makes Fabian Lusel such a polarizing prospect. Some have them in their top five. Some have them in the 20s. And he wants to know, is it because of the trade request? So the trade request for context is Fabian Leesel came up with Furlanda's program in

Sweden. He was playing with a junior team last season and the start of this season. And in the middle of the season, he requested to go to a different organization so that he can get time in the Swedish hockey league. Lulea, for London is one of the top programs. Lulaia is also a strong program, took him on, and he got a limited-minute role with Lulae in the Swedish hockey league in the second half of the season. And yes, that does not, that usually doesn't go well with NHL teams. It's not a deal breaker. I've seen guys do that in Europe and they go in the first round.

I think a guy like Faisaline did that. William Neelander bounced around a lot and obviously he's kind of cute to become a great player. So it's not a death knell, but it's something to note and it makes you do a little bit more digging. But it wasn't just that. If it was just that and he goes to Lulaia and he rips it up. And you're like, okay, he was right. He should have been in the SHL. But he really didn't.

He didn't really have a great season. He was good for about 10, 11 games in the junior 20 level. He had some really good moments in some games where he wasn't quite as effective. And then he goes to the SHL and he was pretty just okay. Like he had some good moments, like some flashes. But he didn't do what, like, Alexander Holtz did the last season. He didn't do even what Lucas Raymond did the last season. He definitely didn't do what William Ekl did this season in the SHL.

So it's the combination of that. the trade request, when he goes to the U18 Worlds, I thought he had a pretty good tournament. I don't think he had an amazing tournament. But the things he does really well is, you know, he has a skill speed combination that's really distinct. There aren't going to be, there aren't a lot of guys who can have the shifts he can't. There aren't many guys who can create the highlight real goals that he can't. So in that way, he distinguishes himself. And when I watched him as an underage at the U-17 challenge, I thought he was the best forward there.

There was Dylan, Dylan Genther was there, Mason McTavish, Chas, Lucius, all the top of 03s were there, and I thought he was the best forward there. So I've seen the good with this guy. He could be a really exciting player, and he was as an underage, but he wasn't this season. So I think, and I see this divide in, Monscalk, I talk to something, he's a top 10 guy, and some think he's not even a first rounder. Like, there's definitely a divide on him right now. Is the bigger issue, I'm sure it's a combination of both, but is it that he has the moments, they don't happen often enough? Or is it that as he climbed to the SHL level, he couldn't pull off the same stuff he used to be able to? I think both are definitely relevant.

Yeah. You know, I, if he just played junior all year, it's hard to know how things would have played out. It's a hypothetical scenario. But he didn't. He went to the SHL, and he really didn't do that much. And at the end of the day, you know, this is not a PK compete type. You know, you're drafted him for his skill and his scoring, and he didn't score that much. He didn't, you know, have the year that say Kevin Fiala had or even like or Jacob Verona. So I really like the player. I think he's definitely a first rounder on talent,

but I definitely can understand where some of the reservations come in. Okay. J.P. Claremont, if you're hired by an NHL team, and by the way, that would really mess up this podcast, how much would it change your day-to-day versus what you're doing for the athletic now? Would you have to change how you gather your data? Do you have to completely reformat your standards? How would that change your day-to-day?

That's a great question from JP. So I was talking with an executive a couple of weeks ago, and I thought he said something that was not relevant to this question, but it answers this question. Because as our readers know, I do my best to know as many players as possible. But the way I know these players is really high level. I'm not watching a guy like, say, Mason McTavish, for example. I'm not watching every game he plays.

I'm not talking to everyone. not doing everything, all the background homework on him. I try to know everybody at a really high level, so I can give you the base, skating skill, production. This is what you need to know. This is who this player is, kind of think. And I had an NHL executive say to me, you know, Corey, the teams can't know everything about everyone.

It's just not feasible. But we have to know everything about the seven guys we draft every year. And I think that's the big difference between how teams operate and how media would operate in this field, other than the fact that they're competing for a Stanley Cup, is that when they make these picks, there is an excruciating amount of homework done into the guys that actually get selected.

Not into every guy, but teams usually by the middle of the season have started to whittle down exactly who exactly their targets are. And once they get there, it's a lot of research, both in the scouting, the analytics, the background research, interviewing the player, the coach,

anybody who knows them, who's played against them. You're just looking for all the information so that when you make the pick, there are no surprises. There may not be everything perfect about that player. They might have some issues, both on or off the ice, but you go into that pick with eyes wide open that you know what's going on there, so they doesn't show up a training camp, and your coaches have some tough discussions with you. That, what I would say is the biggest thing that is different. on top of the fact that teams are teams, there are teams of scouts, there are group

discussion, there are group debates, there is a more thorough process than just me who, well, I talk to a lot of scouts, they're not on my team. I consider some of them friends, but they're not on my team. We don't have mutually aligned interests. So here would be kind of Mike, so in the media game, we got the classic mid-season, the early season rankings, mid-season rankings, final rankings. NHL teams, you know, for their purpose, I guess the value of kind of like a mid-season ranking, if such a thing exists or a mid-year draft meeting kind of thing, the value of that is then they can zero in on the guys they need to know everything about?

Is that a fair interpretation of kind of what you just said? So not every team does it this way, but most teams will have two meetings during the course, further amateur staff during the course of the season, a mid-year meeting and an end-of-year meeting. The mid-year meeting is definitely more to, you know, in the beginning half of the year, you're getting an idea of the landscape, you're seeing all the junior teams in your area, you're doing your best to kind of identify who's interesting and who's not. And by the mid-year meetings, you kind of have an idea of where your team is in terms of the standings, you have a reasonable idea of where you're probably going to pick, how the landscape is kind of shifting out,

who's possibly going to go where and you start having more serious discussions of the work that needs to be done in the second half towards who they're going to pick. And so for you, the difference there is you're just updating, here's who I like, here's who I think the best, you know, 74, 84, 100 players are. But for them, it's like they got a zero in at that meeting in a different way. Yeah. And then teams have teams, individual scouts have working lists that from the very first day of the season through the end of the season, they have a working list kind of like how I do. that the list moves up and down and all around kind of thing.

But yes, at some point when there is a discussion at some point that, you know, my list will be 150 players long, but for teams' lists, they're really focused on their top 30, their top 50, their top 70, make sure those guys are in the right order. And then once they have a guy that I think is a candidate for their top 50, that they make sure they have done exhaustive research and analysis on those guys. That's good. That's interesting. I feel like we can do a whole episode on that question.

And maybe sometime we will. Who knows? Next one is from Hextalt, and we were trying to debate if this is a Philly fan or a Pittsburgh fan. At this point, it's hard to say. But he wants to know how does Simon Edvenson compare to Philip Broberg, a Swedish defenseman drafted two years ago now in the 2019 draft, and he wants to know if it's fair to say that Simon Edvinson has far more offensive tools than Philip Brober. I wouldn't say far more, but they are different players.

I think Broberg was this really dynamic. speed type where he had this 6-3 defenseman who just an explosive skater for that guy that size. His ability to just take the puck, wind it up in his own zone and create a control entry is something you don't usually see a lot from big men. And he has offense. I think he's got good hands. You can make a decent first pass.

But he's not what do you think of with an NHL power play type. He's not a really, you know, dynamic player with the puck by any means. Whereas Edwinson, I think he's definitely a strong skater for a guy that size. I don't think he has that explosive, and he has really good edge work, but he doesn't have that explosive speed that Broberg does. But what Edvinson does have, I think he has more of a natural puck game. I also don't think he's like an elite offensive type, but you see him more seamlessly, you know, put puck through legs, through sticks,

be able to make guys miss one-on-one, and we'll also be able to make a strong first pass, some power play ability, blue line poise and creativity. Don't think it's like elite in that regard, but that part is definitely a little bit more refined than Broberg. He's a little bit more of a refined defender too, I think. The Broberg description kind of sounded a little bit like Luke Hughes.

I mean, Luke Hughes, I think has more offense, but... Yeah, I think Broberg's a little bit bigger, and I don't think he has quite as natural puck game as Luke Hughes. But Luke Hughes, I think... I think Luke's edges are definitely better than Brobeck's. I think his Brobeck's speeds a little bit more explosive, but Luke's edges and his overall staining ability for a guy, his size is pretty unique. And I also think he has more offense.

I also don't think his defending is probably even more question than Broberg is too. And Luke, you're more confident is running a power play, obviously, than Broberg. Yeah, I mean, he is a natural power play offensive type. I don't know if he's a PP1 in the NHL, but he's definitely a power play. guy in the NHL. So really not all that similar, just both good skaters. Yeah. All right, fair enough. This next one is from Charger J. He says, hi, Corey. Can you give us your thoughts on Braden Schneider this year? And if your grade has changed it all with him regarding his future, former New York Rangers pick. I haven't regraded Schneider specifically yet. The, you know, just got done with

the draft rankings, the org rankings are next. It's, you know, one step at a time there. But from what I've seen this season from his world juniors, there was WHL. He's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's didn't really play much of the world championships, but definitely his WHL games. I've been really impressed by him. I've always thought he was a strong skater, but when I watch him in the dub, his skating looks explosive. And we have a 6-2 physical, some offense. I would expect when it's all said and done, he will be graded higher than I gave him a year ago. I don't know exactly where he's going to fit relative to the rest of his draft class

or relative to the rest of the U-23 pool. but I've been really impressed by him this season and he's definitely elevated at least in some regard from where I gave him a year ago. Rangers' defense corps is filled with really exciting young players. And right-handed players. That's true. With Truva and Fox and Lunkfist and now this guy.

Not a bad place to be in. Next one is from NatureBats last. He says, give us the good, the bad, and the ugly regarding the impact of hockey analytics on prospect or scouting assessment. That's a great question. So the good, I can give you a concrete example. I think you can use it for good to further a discussion, further debate, and answer questions about a player.

I was having a debate with somebody about Sasha Passage Off, a really high scoring player with the NTDP program, but he's kind of a projected bubble first rounder. Why is he a projected bubble first rounder? It's because while he has great skill and a great shot, there are questions on the skating and the compete level. So I have a scout arguing to me I think he's going to have trouble Being an even strength guy He's probably just a power play guy And I've been inclined to believe that

That's kind of what I've written before too But I have curiosity I went to go look it up And I saw, you know Actually he A decent chunk of his points Are coming at even strength It's not really that slanted

Now mind you it's junior not the pro But that was an interesting argument Maybe there's something here Even Strength when you know Watch more of his even strength shifts To get a better understanding I think analytics does a great job that I think some of the have done some really good advancement for the prospect community in

both quantifying the quality of leagues to 12 to each other. Age adjusted numbers have been a huge benefit. Understanding the effect of the late birth date has been a very important part of hockey analytics and understanding prospects. And there are stuff that teams do behind the scenes in terms of using their tool grades to kind of to do different kinds of research. you see a lot of, you know, when management teams come in, they have access to their prior management team scanner reports so they can find ways to do research to find out what things work, what things didn't. Those are, there's definitely a lot of good stuff that's being done in the scanning community when it comes to analytics.

The bad stuff to answer his question can be, and I'm not going to pick on analytics. I think this happens on both sides of the debate. I think the bad is when you see somebody kind of, post a chart or post the numbers and make a very dramatic conclusion based on just the chart or the numbers. It's the same analogy you sometimes see on Twitter when someone says Seth Jones is bad, here's a chart and now the discussion is over. Whereas I think there's probably a more nuanced discussion. And that discussion goes both ways, you know, to where, you know, if a scout would, you know, praise a player who doesn't score at all and say, you know, I'm right, you're wrong, not even giving merit to the fact that the guy doesn't score at all.

That would not be a productive discussion as well. And that kind of ties into the ugly and that even though we've lived in an analytics world in sports for decades now in the post-Moneyball era, you still see quite a lot of conflict. And I think post-pandemic that was even elevated more so. you know, scouts I talked to at hockey and also in other sports can read the tea leaves and they saw an environment where video and analytics become more relevant in environments where you can travel much and go to many games. And I think there's a lot of people worry for their jobs. And I think you see a lot of that in some of the discussions you have with both analysts and scouts about the value that they personally bring relative to the other field. And I think a lot of teams find a way to coexist and to make productive discussions.

And I think when both data in terms of quantitative and qualitative in terms of scouting blend, it makes for the best decision-making processes. But while you would like to think that people on the same team will want to walk towards a better result for their team, I think everyone knows that teams have finite budgets. They can't afford to have a ton of scouts and a ton of analysts. So I think there is that tension in terms of job security. All right. Next one is from ZM.

How much does team building philosophy generally affect the team's draft choices? You always hear GM say, we take the best player possible, but there are teams that believe like a tandem veterans in goal are better than playing a star goalie or something like that. So they wouldn't draft the Yesper Walsdette for the example he's giving. So I guess to go back to the question, how much does team building philosophy in general affect the team's individual draft choices? it's a good question because I think you always hear every manager or director of amateur scouting say they take the best player available but I know when these teams go through their process not for every team but I definitely know for some teams how they define best player available can vary

because you know some teams want to be built through speed some want to be built through skill some want to be big bruising teams and that question can define how you build your list and what you think of when you think of what makes a good player. I think almost every scout has a general idea of what makes a good player. You're not going to answer that first question of your team building philosophy and guy goes from like 30 to 8 on your list or something like that. But it could matter on the margins. you know if if it comes down to kent johnson versus mason mctavish for example if you prioritize skill you're going to take johnson and if you prioritize a guy with a little bit more grit you're you're going to take mctavish those definitely come into effect and the while the amateur

scouting staff will deliver usually will deliver a list to their management their management the end of the day has to make a decision on on what they think is valuable on a hockey player and how they want to build their team. So the GMs may not make the picks or make the lists per se, but they definitely have a very large role in how the lists are made. Well, and they just shape what their guys are looking for, right? Like if they say, go out and find me, you know, the most competitive players you can or the fastest players you can,

that's what you're going to get. Yep, exactly. Yes. They don't do the scouting themselves, but there are definitely. And I think, I think for most teams, for the most part, they're all kind of looking for the same thing. You definitely hear stories of saying, we got a directive, we need to get this kind of player. And they do. Yeah.

All right. Avo Cup says, are there any players skipped over in the last draft to pay attention to reentry candidates, basically? Yeah. I mentioned one before. Alexei Kolesov, the goaltender who plays in Dynamo Minsk and the KHL. I think Josh Donnell from Chicago will get draft. Second-year eligible, one of the top scores in the USHL. Just scanning really quickly here.

I think a couple of the Russians, that'll be interesting. I think Sifonov, who played at the World Juniors for Russia, has a chance to get drafted. Janice R. Moser, who played at the World Championships for Switzerland, has a chance to get drafted. Just really scrolling really quickly through my list. I think those are the main ones that come to mind. I'm sure there's going to be plenty of other re-entry guys that go

that I haven't named right now. But those are the main ones I would stand down in charge of the ones I could calmly discuss the amount of people I talk to. And I always like to end on a short, quick one, so I'll give you one that you should be able to do in 10 words or less. Jamie H., what drives you to do what you do?

That's a good question from Jamie, because I think sometimes what people see what I do, they think I'm a little insane for how many players I try to watch or keep tabs on. I've reached your 10-word limit. We've got to cut you off there. I'll say it succinctly in that I think I sometimes get this criticism that if you're not building towards a team, what's the point exactly? And I get where that comes from.

And I've had some people argue to me, well, the value of what you do is you entertain people and you inform and you provide value to the hockey readership. And I think there is some argument to that. I mean, at the end of the day, we are in the entertainment business. for me personally, I just I just love the field. I think it's there aren't probably a lot of industries out there

and not hockey scouting isn't the only one that I think that applies to just scouting it all in the all of sports. I've tried to my best to learn about how other sports do their business too in that you are projecting years into the future. You don't get your results right away.

So there's definitely a delay and the error rate so inherently high that nobody's ever going to be perfect. You're all going to screw up quite a lot, and there's always rooms to get better. I think that combination makes for a really exciting career where you just get challenged every single year.

You find a way to get better every single year, and I think this is the kind of thing where balancing lots of information, making projections, incorporating feedback every single day, almost as you see players develop across the world. They can improve your decision making in all aspects of life because you really have to learn how to balance so much information and learn about people a lot. So I find that a really incredibly rewarding feel to be a part of. I'm going to ask my own follow-up to this in further break our short question to end

rule and ask like what's the advantage of doing it in the public sphere that you don't that you couldn't get in a team because you mentioned that like a lot of people would view this as like an avidate to a team but you've stayed at this in the public sphere i mean what's the advantage of doing that i think one big difference between me and what maybe like an area scout does may not like the director of amateur scouting i think that would be that would be more that would be different um the difference between me and they like an area scout is like an area scout can kind of be a little bit anonymous at times i think everybody on a give for a fan base knows who their GM is the fans who are really deep into a nose who the director of amateur scouting is, but they probably don't know the preferences of their area scouts. They don't know where the debates happen. They don't know who likes guys,

who didn't like guys. For me, whenever time I publish a list, it's instant feedback. Not always positive feedback, but instant feedback. And that feedback, I think, helps you grow a lot in that, you know, some people tell you to ignore the critics,

and there's definitely some who are not being productive that you definitely ignore. But there's a lot of criticism that's very relevant, reasonable. And the second you publish a list, people have thoughts. And sometimes it makes you think. And not just people in terms of our readers, but people I talk to in the game also will comment and say, hey, you're undervaluing this, overvaluing that,

this guy's better, that guy's better. And I think it's just great to be a part of that discussion. And you wouldn't get that kind of feedback if I was just submitting my own list to a boss and then just going off to make a, and trying to help my team make a good pick and then off to make a new list the next season. That's a good point. If you're working for the LA Kings, you can't run into a Shark Scout at a game and be like, you think I'm wrong about this guy? Because they'll be happy to let you make that mistake, you know, two picks in front of them or whatever, right? Like, they don't want to help you at that point, but now they will. Right. I think people are more collegial than that. I don't, I think a lot of these, when you go to enough of these games, you see enough people. I don't think they talk about players, but like you go to enough of these games. It's the same hundred people in every single game. So I think there's a lot of value to making sure, both from my perspective and from their perspective in between each other and making sure that you're a collegial and a good person and somebody that you want to be around. But there also is no, yes, they don't share information. They don't share their preferences. And but, but, but, and not everyone does with me.

but the ones they do, I always value that experience and I value those relationships. Yeah, for sure. All right, that is going to do it for us today on the Athletic Hockey Show. Thank you for listening. And please subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and leave a rating and a review. If you are so inclined, especially if you are enjoying the show, that kind of stuff always really helps us out. We really appreciate it. And if you like what you heard today, you are definitely going to want to get a subscription to the athletic.

So you can read all of Corey's draft coverage. There's going to be a ton of it coming in the next six weeks. Annual subscriptions to the Athletic, just $3.99 a month when you visit theathletic.com slash hockey show. That's going to do it for us. Make sure you tune in again next week. More great stuff from Ian Mendez, Haley, Haley, and Craig Cussons, Sean Gentilly. Sounds like there might be a little bit of a rivalry brewing between those two days,

the Monday and Tuesday day of the show. And I just want to put it out there that my allegiance can be bought. I'll talk to later.