The Athletic Hockey Show - World juniors roster predictions, NHL Trade Value Player Rankings, and more

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

On this week’s Prospect Series episode of The Athletic Hockey Show, Max, Corey, and The Athletic’s own Scott Wheeler break down their 2024 world juniors roster predictions for Team Canada and Team USA and discuss some of the big questions facing each team heading into the tournament, and then Max and Corey discuss their NHL Trade Value Player Rankings, assessing the top 100 assets in the league today.Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGet a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for $1 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show Prospect Series. Hey, everybody. Max Boltman here, alongside Corey Prondman and Scott Wheeler for another episode of the Athletic Hockey Show's prospect series. It's a fun show we've got on Tap today. We're going to talk about the World Juniors. We're going to talk about trade value rankings. I'm very excited for all of it. We can't begin, though, until I beg you, once again, if you're enjoying the show, to do us a favor and leave us a five-star rating and a review. We really appreciate it. They actually won't let Scott and Corey onto this episode today until we get a five-star review.

So I'm just going to pause here. Oh, okay, there we go. All right, we're all good. Whoever did that, thank you very much. We're good to start today. But guys, leave us the five-star ratings and reviews or else who knows how long they're going to make us wait for these guys next time. We can dive right in now today, though, Scott and Corey.

Thanks for joining us. I loved your guys' article today projecting your kind of dueling World Junior rosters. And I'd love to get to all four. I think we've at least got time to hit USA and Canada. And I want to start, Scott, with your team Canada. Obviously, always one of the most intriguing rosters. And yours, I think, especially right off the top, the first thing that stood out to me is you get to reunite Zach Benson and Matt Savoy

on this top line for Team Canada around Macklett Celebrini. Yeah, I think the expectation is that those two will play opposite each other. If you talk to James Patrick in Winnipeg last year or the new coaching staff that's now sort of getting settled in Wenatchi this year. The first thing they always say is how well those two guys in particular play off of each other. I've actually had conversations with members of that staff who've said that Connor Geeky has never actually been a particularly great fit with Zach Benson. They've always actually sort of like to have them separated.

There's been times where all three of those guys who all three are on my roster and on Corey's roster and projected to make the team, there's been times where all three of those guys have actually been aligned together. But Savoy is normally a center at that level. obviously with Team Canada, you're always going to have centers who have to sort of make that move over to the wing. And Savoy is a player who's played right wing both in the NHL, in the AHL, a little bit in the USHL when he was there. And then certainly on and off in the WHL just makes sense as one of the centers to slide over. But the work ethic, that piece of the puzzle with him and Ben said, they're two of the most talented players that are going to be on this sort of Canadian team up front.

But they're also two guys who just really get after it. And the idea of Macklin Celebrini and everything that he brings to the table and that's sort of well-rounded, both offensive and sort of competitive style that he plays, it just seems to me like a bit of a match made in heaven in terms of what those three players could look like and how dynamic that trio could be both on the cycle, off the rush, potentially paired together on the same power play unit. All of that could be a factor for those three. And I think it just makes a lot of sense. And I think Celebrini, as a draft eligible, is ready for it.

I think he's shown us in college hockey that he's capable of being one of the very best players in this tournament. I think he's going to rise to the occasion and continue to sort of set a bar in terms of where he's at in this draft class relative to everybody else. Certainly he's going to be one of the stories of the tournament. Corey, you've got him deployed a little bit differently in your projection. You've got him as a winger on the second line, still in the top six. That's still a real role. But I'm curious to hear kind of your two dueling perspectives on here. How do you deploy someone like Celebrini who is going to be one of the young.

players at this event. And is he ready for that top line role or does Canada even need to force him into it if he's not? Yeah, I think when you have 17-year-olds, particularly on Teeth Canada, who will have access to really good 18-year-olds and especially really good 19-year-olds, it is unusual for a 17-year-old to step in and be a top two-line center on Team Canada. Connor Bedard had shown he could do that, but obviously I think that's a little bit, a little different level of player, also someone who had a lot of world junior experience before he had to play that role.

So Brini is different in that he is bigger and has this really good two-way game. But a lot of being a center, especially when it comes to face-offs, is physical strength. And when you have access to guys like Brayne Yeager and Connor Geeky and Nate Danielson, maybe even it is Matt Savoy who ends up in the middle, I just think that when Team Canada looks at those options, they will prefer to put self-exam. Celebrity on the wing. You saw that with, say, a comparable talent last year, and Adam Fantilli, who is a fantastic centerman,

but Team Canada, due to how many options they had, put him on the wing. What I find interesting, though, and maybe this kind of speaks to Scott's projection, Celebrity will be the one who's the most used to playing against players. I mean, obviously, they're all playing against junior-age players of this tournament, but he's the one who's been playing against, you know, 21, 22-year-olds, night in and night out in college hockey. And I wonder, Scott, how much that, kind of eased your mind in projecting him in the center role there.

Yeah, it's a big part of it. He's also one of those kids where you run into him around the rink and quickly realize sort of holy shit, this kid's strong, especially in the lower half. He's kind of got that scouts talk about it all the time with him, but he's kind of got a little bit of that year, Miriogger, sort of Sidney Crosby, Martine Stain-Wee, lower half where he's got these tree trunks of legs and he just stays over pucks and he's, he's pretty physically mature for his age. But no, yeah, yeah, certainly that's a part.

of it. I think in sort of making that jump to college hockey look as seamless as he has on a good team and a good conference, it's got to at least set them at ease a little bit. That isn't to say he can't play or won't play the wing for them, but I do think he checks pretty much every box you'd hope for in a center. Yeah. Running through your lineup really quick, the second line you got Connor Geeky with Nate Danielson and Jordan Dume. Obviously, Geeky or Danielson can play center anywhere in this lineup. Third line, Frazier Mitten with Braden Yeager and Jagger Fur. Fourth line, Easton Cowan, Owen Beck and Denver Barky.

Corey isn't honestly so different from that. He's got Carson Raycoff in there alongside Nate Danielson and Furkus on the second line. Yeagers with Celebrini and Dumay on the second. And then Mint and Cowan flanking Owen Beck. It's mostly the same group here for you guys, little different combinations here. The one difference has stood out, though, is Corey, what have you seen from Carson Rakoff really in this season to add him into your roster? I think Raycoff has a really good chance to make this.

roster, even as an 18-year-old for a couple of reasons. One is just his play this season. In my opinion, he's been the best player in the Ontario Hockey League. He's basically scoring a goal per game rate. He's driving the offense. He's 6-1. He skates really well. Showing a lot of offensive creativity and, of course, the great goal-scoring touch in his

game, really taking away any of the consistency and the compete issues that I saw when he was a little bit younger. I'm not saying that his compete is his best asset by any means, but I'm not seeing that as a major flag right now in his game. That's the one reason why I think he can make this team. Another reason I think is just what the wingers look like in general. When you look at really a lot of the wingers who I think are very strong candidates or almost locks to make this team,

depending whether Zach Benson is made available by Buffalo, but let's say he is. You have Benson, who's small, you have Matt Savoy, who's small, you have Jagger Furcus and you have Jordan Dumay, all extremely talented forwards, but they're all very small winger, whereas Rakoff could add more of a size and speed element to go with the scoring in his game. And I think that would be really attractive to Team Canada. It's a good forward group always is for Team Canada. What I'm curious about, and I guess this sometimes can also be an annual question for Team Canada, is in goal.

And you guys aren't really in alignment there either. I think that lack of alignment is for a very good reason and that I really think if you hold a bunch of people who have watched the CHL regularly and talk to scouts around the league, you ask them, tell me who you think Canada's top three goalies are, you will not get any consensus on that answer.

And it could be even, the answer may even be, I don't know, be quite honest. It's a very strange situation for team can. The Canadian goaltending pipeline has definitely not been a strong point in the last decade. But you're looking at a lot of candidates right now, you know, even among the drafted players like Devincentis, like Scott Ratzlaff, like Carson B. Arneson, they're not having great seasons right now. So now you're looking to some undrafted players like with these Russo, like Harrison Menegan.

And somebody in that group will emerge. this may come down to how some of these guys play in the pre-tournament U-sports games at Canada Selection Camp because I don't really know how you can look at any of these names. You know, Russo has giant numbers, but he's 5'10. I don't see, unless Scott disagrees, I don't see a name among these candidates who is the obvious name. Some of these guys have good track records,

but they haven't exactly played well in the last two months. Yeah, and I think that's that it's the last. two months that has maybe set people like Corey and myself a little cautious about the way that it's trending. I think if Corey had asked me that question, do we know who the guy is six months ago? Almost everybody probably would have said Dom Devin Gensis after the season that he had in North Bay. But that hasn't been the case this year. Him and both Scott Ratzlaff out in Seattle just haven't played particularly well with their junior clubs. And then suddenly, as Corey mentioned, you've got a guy like Matthews Rousseau who's playing on a loaded Halifax Mooseheads team

in one of the more watered down versions of the QMJL that we've seen in recent years. And you wonder, okay, how much is his sort of gaudy 930, 940, save percentage numbers, a product of how strong that Halifax team is? How much is it a product of how weak the queue is this year? And can you trust a player who hasn't typically been involved all that much with hockey Canada to sort of carry the load? So it's a huge question mark for this team, I think, entering camp.

And I'll be interested just to see who the players are, who the four or five goleys are that are invited to camp because Harrison Menigan, who Corey mentioned, wasn't part of their summer sort of meetings. Matthews Rousseau, Dom, Scott, they were, but they haven't all played all that well. So it'll be interesting to see who sort of emerges in this group. And it may be a tandem right into the group play. It's not too dissimilar from the COVID year where, like, basically, and that was one of the weird years where the CHL didn't really play.

but then where Devin Levi wasn't on the initial camp roster and then that all of a sudden he appeared on the second roster, then all of a sudden he's the starting goaltender for them a couple of weeks into the camp. Similar to Adam Guyon last year with the Slovaks too, right? It was really a coming out party for Guyon who was supposed to be the third stringer entering that tournament for Slovakia and then suddenly was arguably the best goalie in the tournament. So we'll see. But Canada's defense, which we haven't really touched on, and yet it's going to have to carry the load and sort of be strong in front of that,

that goal-tending group no matter who it is. It does look like they have the potential to do that. I mean, the guys that you're in agreement, you expect to be on this roster, Denton Mateechuk, Owen Pickering, Tristan, Luno, Maverick, Lamarou, there is the bones there of a defense core that can do a lot of the heavy lifting. Yeah, in particular, I think Luno, Lamarou, and Metechuk are going to be leaned on extremely heavily. Pickering has been a go-to guy for hockey Canada in the past internationally and played quite well at U-18 Worlds. It's been a little bit of a tougher go in terms of his development since

then. But all four of those guys are, I think, relative locks. And I don't think it's out of the question in metal games that you'll be seeing Denton Matechuk and Tristan Lunoe playing 25 plus minutes and being counted upon to sort of be the guys on this team. And I think both could wear letters for this team, the way that they've been talked about in the past by Hockey Canada, all of that. So Luno in particular is the only real question mark amongst that group. I guess there is a small, small chance that Anaheim decides to keep him. He has kind of bounced between the H.L and the NHL this year. But the expectation is that he's going to be made available.

And if he is, I would expect him to be the sort of tough minutes guy in particular. I do want to get a quick thought on the guys that you guys that you guys have rounding out that blue line. Scott, you've got Jory and Donovan and Michael Bouchinger. Corey, you've got Tanner Mollendike and Noah Warren. and different flavors a little bit there, but it does seem like kind of Taki Canada can do what they want to do here with the four that we expect to be in place. Yeah, and I would expect that they'll, both in Corey's case and in my case,

you're rounding out that group with two 19-year-olds. I think that should be a pretty reasonable expectation. Another defenseman who I even considered was Spencer Sova, who was invited to Maple Leafs camp this year and really impressed in his sort of first main pro camp with the Maple Leafs. I think there's the expectation that they're going to sign Spencer Sova at some point. I know that Hockey Canada has liked him in the past. He's the captain of an OHL team and playing 30 minutes a night in the OHL right now.

So he's another left-handed shot that could sort of fit into that Jorian Donovan mold. Jorian's another kid who had a strong camp, really impressed the senators. They've got a bit of a watered down pool at the moment after the way that they've spent to add to that team. But he went in and stuck around longer in camp than people expect. And I think Hockey Canada always pays attention to that in terms of the way that NHL clubs view them. Donovan, I just felt, was a natural sort of fit with the Tristan Uno. If they want to build a hard matchups kind of pairing, the sort of strength and the way that Donovan plays and sort of how reserved he is, could be a good sort of valve for them that way.

But it could go in either direction. Noah Warren's a kid who's been around Hockey Canada. Mollendike, as Corey can attest to with his skating, is extremely appealing. So it'll be interesting to see what happens there. Mollendike is obviously the only 18-year-old in that group, eligible to play again next year. But the rest of that group is going to be strong enough regardless that whether it's Donovan or Bucchner or Soba or Mollandike or Oliver Bonk out of London,

it's going to be a pretty strong group. All right. All right. We'll take a quick break right there. Come back to talk about Team USA. Okay, we are back and talking about the Americans. And guys, dating back to this summer. it's been pretty clear that the tough decisions on this American team,

we're going to come in two very different ways, a extremely crowded forward group, that you're almost fighting, like how can we get this guy onto this team and a defense score where you're looking like, can they find any answers here? And so it leads to two very different sets of tough choices. For your projections,

you know, Rucker McGroarkey obviously had a scary looking injury over the weekend right before this article came out. I don't believe there's been any public update on his injury. we've got him in both of your projections as of right now. But obviously that's a pretty big wild card here. And it does come in a position for Team USA that is a little deeper. But Rucker McGority, I think, would be a tough one to replace no matter what. Yeah, I mean, Rutger is one of the best players in college hockey or was prior to the injury,

playing some of the best hockey in college hockey. He has been a captain with Team USA prior. He's a returnee. I think there were probably very strong odds that if he is made available, he'd be the captain of this team again. He's a very vocal kid. Anybody who's met him sort of quickly realizes that this kid is sort of extremely well put together, extremely articulate, all of that.

He's kind of been the face of this age group in some ways, not maybe in talent, but certainly in terms of sort of the vision of, wow, they want that team to play in their identity. So it would be a big blow. By all accounts, It's not as serious as maybe they feared it was when he was stretched off the ice and sort of quickly brought to hospital.

But it sounds at least like this is probably unlikely in terms of participating in the world juniors, which would be, as you mentioned, a tough blow. But thankfully, on a USA roster this year in particular that looks as strong as it's been up front in a long time. So strong, in fact, Scott, that you did not have room on your roster for the, who we expect to be the number one pick. granted in 2025, but a player who I think, you know, certainly as the summer showcase went on, was playing in a huge role for Team USA, and that's James Hagan's.

Yeah, Hagan's is an interesting one because he's obviously an extremely talented player. On talent could play with any number of the players that are going to be inside this top six. He could be a dynamic threat on the power play. He skates as well as anybody can skate in this tournament in terms of how smoothie is out there, the playmaking, the feel on the puck, all of that is not just high end. It's above that. It's sort of that cliche of the lead, if you will. So he's special talent.

He's going to be probably the first line center on the team next year in his draft year as a draft eligible. And he might even be a first or second line center in his draft minus two this season. So that was a tough one for me. I just felt like the nine forwards I had with Magrardian, I think he would have on my roster otherwise. But the nine forwards that I had in that top nine just felt like the guys who are going to be huge, huge players for this team. I think Isaac Howard may be being a little bit of a wild card as USA hockey's been a little hot and cold on him over the years.

But Howard's Ikes had a great start to this season at Michigan, has really bought in there, is playing it above a point per game as a teenager, has built in chemistry with Frank Nazar. They've played them, including at the World Junior Summer Showcase this summer, they played them together as if they were a unit. So that piece is interesting to me, but Corey's lineup in terms of having Hagen's was not a surprise either. Higgins is probably more likely to be on this team than not. I just couldn't figure out a way with the way that I felt the lines should be built to

sort of find a spot for him that did justice to the kind of role that he should play if he's participating. And Corey, I think we even talked about it. I don't know if it was on this show or on the phone of just Hagan's kind of in this somewhere on this continuum from Logan Cooley to Jack Hughes or somewhere, you know, somewhere between Clayton Keller and Jack Hughes, I guess, is where it lands. But in this, he's kind of in the Cooley spot on your projection right in between Cutter-Gotee and Jimmy Snuggar route on the first line.

Yeah, and I think he will make the teams. I think he's one of the nine best fours they have available. I have him as the quote-unquote one C in the projection we did at the athletic. I'm not convinced he's ready to be like that kind of. player like an 18, 19, 20 minutes a night kind of guy for this team of USA. I think given all the options they have

up front, they're going to have to mix and match, be really creative with how they deploy even strength, how they use their powerplay. I put it in there just really because I want to preserve Will Smith in between Gate Perot and Ryan Leonard, and I wanted to have a Michigan trio with Gavin Brindley, Frank Nazar,

and McGority. If McRourty's not available, then that kind of changes how maybe you use Hagen's and maybe Cutter Gocee is in the middle now. Maybe he isn't. But I do think Hagen's is one of the nine best players they have available for this tournament. But if McGrady isn't available, then I think you start going into all those other options they have at Ford. I cut Isaac Howard

when I was doing it, but he couldn't be a very reasonable candidate if you feel you need extra scoring and someone to help your power play there. You have Cam Lund, who was invited to the camp last year and was a late cut. You have 17-year-old Cold Eisenman, who was successful. extremely talented. I don't know if he can make this team, but he's got at least being in the conversation. There's plenty of other candidates for this.

You know, first round picks like Quentin Mustie in Sudbury. And then the guy who didn't really make my top 12 and who I really don't know what Team USA is going to do with this player, is Charlie Schrammel, who is pointless at Wisconsin as we record this right now, returning member, a not just a returning member, a double returning member to this team.

This is supposed to be his third official world juniors. So I think he's still on the roster, but I think he's just squeaking into this roster with the way he's been playing this year and given how good their options are at forward. So it'll be a really interesting forward group to see what they do with this. Well, that Howard one's interesting

because Scott, you and I were there in Plymouth in the summer, and Howard and Nazer certainly looked like they have some chemistry together and you guys obviously both kind of took pains to group these guys with guys they're familiar with. I, you know, honestly, for all the lines, I don't know that I could say certainly that the Smith, Perot and Leonard line had that much more chemistry than Howard and Naser together. And that those were the, those were the duos at the national program when they were there, right? Like it was Logan Cooley, Cutter Gote, and Jimmy Snuggrood, and it was Isaac Howard and Frank

Nazar with a rotating cast of people, which even includes. for a time and into the U-18 worlds in Germany that year included Gavin Brinley, which is sort of the line that I had drawn up for them. So, yeah, I mean, there's no question that Howard and Nazar have chemistry. Howard was the leading score at the program in both of his two years there. Nazar finished second and third in his two years there. They've done it before together, not just at the World Junior Summer Showcase, but dating back two years ago and three years ago when they were even in their U-17-year

playing together. So they did in some big moments need to be sheltered a little bit back then. They weren't a sort of go-to-line defensively, certainly. But with a player like Gavin Brinley, who's also a returnee and the work ethic that he provides, I think there are other ways that you can sort of complement that line and make sure that you're comfortable sort of rolling them out there every night. And both of those players have also developed in some pretty important ways since then as well. So it'll be interesting. As Corey mentioned, the nine guys that he talked about in the nine guys that I have there, that's too much for two power play units. Like there's a chance that you could bring an Isaac coward or a Frank Nazar and that

they're not even on your power play unit. So you need to be able to trust them at even strength if that's the case, right? So that's where that fourth line comes in. I think we both tried to build our fourth lines to have a little bit more size and sort of provide something a little bit different just because there is going to be so much talent at the very top of that lineup. We talked about the defense here and how to solve this problem where the USA just feels a little thin there. I remember in the summer when I was going through the roster, Zeev Bouillon did have one of the better camps at Plymouth. And I just couldn't find a spot for him knowing that Lane Hudson and James Casey are already there and you expect them to have

the top power play responsibilities. A few months later, you guys both have Zeev Booiam pencil down there. And it didn't necessarily feel, it doesn't feel like a surprise based on the way he started in college hockey. Is he at this point for you guys, is that a strong, bet here is this a hunch where is z william's chances so i was like you where in the summer i was like this blue lines is trouble this is going to be a really difficult uh group for them going to the tournament and i kind of don't feel that way anymore i definitely don't think it's a strength it it's not sweden's blue line it's not canada's blue line you know but i think there's six legit legit legit legit player that i have projected into this line these are six legit

world junior caliber defensemen that I have projected for team USA. And I think that's partly because of the progress of two players in particular. One is Zeve Boyam, who hasn't just been good. He's been really good in college. He's one of the most important players on one of the best teams in the country in Denver right now. He's a really good skater. He moves the puck at a high level, super intelligent. I think he can help this team.

He's not just a guy who's on there because they need to put six names on there. And in the same way, you have Hunter Brashevitz, who's been fantastic in the OHL, probably been the best defenseman in the OHL this season. And also, you know, he's not that big, but he's not small either, around 6-0, same size as Boeum, both good skaters, both move the puck well. And I think you look at the Ross of them playing together with Boyam, with Brechievich, with Hudson, with Sam Renzel. You might say, well, this is a lot of, like, offensive, tilted guys. Like, where's the hard guy to play against? Where's the big rugged guy who's going to hit somebody?

I'm like, and I just think, well, that player isn't here this year. There is no Tyler Cleven available from this year's group. Brady Cleveland cannot play at this level. Or Will Skahan and E.J. Emory are not ready to play at this level right now. So this is the group you have. You have to pick the six best players. And I don't see that defensive oriented player that is ready or is even close to those level of players. So I actually do like this team, you know, Seamus Casey's been fantastic in Michigan.

I went out to go watch Michigan play Minnesota the other week, and both Casey and Renzel really stood out in that game. So I think they will have not a great defense unit, but I think this defense unit can be at least passable for them at the world junior level. And at the end of the day, even if that doesn't play out, I think you can rely on Lane Hudson and Ryan Chesley, a pairing that also has predated chemistry to play huge minutes. Like if those guys and Seamus Kachie,

if each of those three players have to play, 24, 25, 26, 27 minutes in a metal game, then I think that they're just going to have to be comfortable rolling those guys out again and again and again and again and hoping that one of Bristavich or Renzel or William sort of really steps up and fills in that top four. Goalie situation here, a little bit different situation than Team Canada in that I think everyone knows this is a question of Trey Augustine or Jacob Fowler here. But you two are split on which way Team USA will ultimately go. Obviously, it's possible this is a decided at the tournament kind of.

of question when it comes to who's going to play the games that really matter. But how'd you each arrive at the goal you chose? Scott, you with Augustine and Corey, you went with Fowler. I tend to agree with you. I think it is a side at the tournament. I have Jacob Fowler, Pencil as number one goalie, and that's just based on what I've seen from the two of them this season. From what the games I've seen, including when they, I was at the game when they

played off against each other, Michigan State and Boston College played two games against each other a few weeks ago. I thought just Fowler has looked better this season. But Augustine is a returning member from this team, but I fully expect he starts game one of the tournament. But if I had to bet on which one of the two I want in the medal round game, my lean and I might slightly lean. I don't want to make this seem like it's an easy decision.

I think it will be Fowler. Yeah, for me, it just came down to sort of the track record with USA hockey. Trey has been the guy for this age group sort of all throughout. They haven't wavered from that. even played in his U-17 year, played up an age group and played at U-18 worlds. He's played in gold medal games and that kind of a thing. And I think that the talent is close enough between the two of them. Both of them have started every single game this season, all 11 or 12 games that

they've played that their college teams have played this year. They've started every game. They've started on all of the back-to-backs. They're both talented freshman starters, which is extremely, extremely hard to be in college hockey. I was just at MSU this weekend and Trey backstopped MSU to a sweep against the number one team in the country in Wisconsin. They've both got, they both got some legitimate, legitimate talent in pedigree. And I agree with Corey. It's probably just going to come down to who plays better in the group play. And they've got favorably at least until the quarterfinals

potentially, they've got at least on paper a softer group than Canada does. Yeah. Awesome. Good stuff, guys. It should be a great tournament here. I mean, I think this looks, not to say wide open, but I think there's at least three teams here when you look at the U.S. Canada and Sweden, who you guys didn't disagree about at all, which wouldn't have made for a very good podcast. But I think three legit gold medal candidates in those three teams. This is also not to get carried away here, but this is a very, very strong Slovak group. We included Finland just because they're the natural sort of superpower. We included that. them in our roster projections. But I think had we done a sort of team for Slovakia, that they would have been comparable in terms of talent. So if they get some key guys back, they're going to be,

especially on the power play, really, really dangerous. They're going to have great goaltending, Adam Guyon's returning. It's going to be a really, really fun Slovak team. So there's going to be layers to this tournament,

I think that are going to make it compelling. I hate to poke this, but do you want to go to a tangent and try to think about what team Russia would look like if they could play at this tournament? Yeah. Mitch Kov would be available. Mirathchenko is still available. Then you would have the locomotive kids,

Udn Senev. You'd have Ivan Demadov. You'd have Anton Zelaya. I've been an Erigort Churnasov, probably at this tournament. It would be an interesting group, to say the least. It's been so long since we've seen a Russia team in an international tournament. You know, you haven't gotten to see these entire groups of guys play together.

And obviously we all understand the reason why, but it would certainly be a compelling team on paper. Yeah. Ferry. Goliaya, forgot him. First round pick, yeah. All right. That is going to do it for this segment. We'll take another quick break.

And be right back, Corey and I are going to talk about some trade value rankings that we had come on on Friday. All right. We are back. Scott has departed us. He's been taken from us again until we get more five-star reviews. But, Corey, we'll just have to go on with the show. And we're going to go on with an article that we had come out on Friday that I know we both have had plenty of time to sit with.

And I'm very curious to see what the reaction to it is. It's a top 100 trade value ranking. It's not a top 100 players ranking in the NHL. It's strictly the concept basically is if the NHL, if every player in the NHL was on the open market, which I guess technically they kind of are, what would their trade value be? And like as you put in the article, you know, it's best to think of it as would team A, trade player X to Team B for player Y. And that was kind of what we set out to answer.

So everyone's on here, right? McDavid's on here. McCar's on here. McKinnon's on here. In fact, they are one, two, three on that list. But it gets pretty interesting,

pretty fast, and especially how you rate some of these younger guys, these less proven guys, against the true established superstars in the league. And the way we did it is we each kind of came up with our own ratings on players and we averaged the lists. And then we debated this list a lot, among each other and obviously asked for some outside opinions as well.

And this is where we landed on. So let's start here with Connor Bedard because I think he's naturally going to be one of the most interesting that people key in on. We have him already, I believe he's at number five. And so having played only 20 NHL games, he's already in that kind of territory. He's above Austin Matthews. And I think that is reflective of the overall value he brings, even when you consider how much less proven he is. I agree. I mean, you look at what he's doing in the NHL right now, and he's not Austin Matthews right now. He's not Nathan McKinnon right now, but you're looking at what he's doing so early in his NHL career for Chicago and just the degree of skill he has, the goal scoring ability he has, the creativity he has. And you can envision a path for him that not many players have this path, but you can envision a realistic path for him where he can become one of the true elite players in the NHL and doing so before you have. have to pay him the massive money.

And that is just so incredibly valuable for an organization. I deal with this type of evaluation often when I do the under 23 players list that I do both in the summer and at the midway point where I have to compare either prospects or young, unproven NHL players to more established NHL players that happen to be maybe one or two years older. You know, I dealt with this when, you know, you have high, high picks. that I rate very highly, like, say, Alexei Lafranier, who's become a very good player, but probably I shouldn't have rated him ahead of some NHL stars.

And then you have guys like I had like Jack Hughes super high on those type of list ahead of the NHL stars. And five years later, that ended up being a good assessment. There's a degree of risk and uncertainty because you have to project how these players will look into the future. But all the evidence that we've seen with Connor Bardard from his play the last few years suggest to us that if he was on the open market, I think some managers might trade their firstborn child for him. Yes. And obviously, part of this list is not just who's the best player,

who's going to be the best player. It's the contract, right? So when we talk about Austin Matthews here, we're not just talking about where does Austin Matthews rank as a player. We're asking about what else you could do with the $13.25 million that Austin Matthews is going to make next year and deserve. This is not a criticism of that valuation. but when I can have Connor Bedard at $1 million for the next couple years,

and then obviously he's going to get a big raise after that, but still may not be at $13 million. If you're a GM, you have to weigh that. And I think that's why we ended up giving the lien to Connor Bedard. Correct. And it's not just the $1 million is that you know you have him for seven years. Likely going to be a lot longer, but you know you have him for seven years. The likely being a lot longer, I think, was a very interesting part about how he

put this ranking together was debating the contract versus the player ability. You know, my perspective going into this was that at least with the true stars, which is what this list primarily consist of, it's mostly stars, different degrees of stars, but mostly stars, is that teams tend to re-sign these players. They may not always sign them at the number you want them to sign at. And sometimes, like say in the case of the Winnipeg Jets with Mark Schaferly and Connor Hullabuck, They may have to overpay a little bit to keep them. But those players, get, not always.

There's always an interesting player or two in free agency. But most of the true premium players in the league tend to resign with the team. So when I was approaching this, the contract and the age definitely matters a lot. But I think the talent was the clear number one priority still that drove how I thought the list should shape out. And to me, I took the opposite. I valued age and contract a significant amount. And so when I saw, you know, a young center defenseman who was under control for seven or eight years at a number that I really liked or even not that many years at a number I really liked, that tended to push things forward for me. And, you know, it played out in a number of different spots.

You know, I like Adam Fox a lot. I ranked him even higher than he ended up at our final list, partly because I just think a Norris trophy winning defenseman at nine and a half million dollars is already outdated pricing, right? We just saw Rasmus Dahlin signed for $11 million long term. He has not yet won a Norris. He might well win one soon. But when I can get Adam Fox a sure thing having done it at that price, that would be more valuable to me. And we talked about Fox and assessing the toolkit and the player type and the value of that in the article. But just like how with Carter Bardard, we had these debates over, well, how would you compare Badard to the great superstars in the game?

how would you compare, you know, a great young player like Leo Carlson and Ann Infantilly, who are rookies to some of the great stars that are already in the game, which one would you take on your team tomorrow and why for the long haul? We also had these debates about the opposite end of the spectrum, which was the old players who are very good players still, but you know just from history that there is a clock that is ticking on these old superstars. Yeah, Sidney Crosby is probably the highest rated player who kind of had that consideration. He's only got another year and a half left on his contract at $8.7 million.

That's not ideal. He's 36. So if you're trading for him, you're not necessarily, you're not trading for him, first of all. But Pittsburgh's not trading him. So much this is hypothetical. But even if you are, you're a little worried about what is this next one going to come in at. And yet he's still Sidney Crosby. When I watch him play, he still looks like one of the very best players in the world.

And how do you compare that to someone like Adam Fantilli who's on the rise? Would Pittsburgh trade Sidney Crosby for Adam Fintilly right now? I'm not that sure that they would. I mean, there's these fine margins where maybe you're someone who knows or feels that they know that Pittsburgh isn't going to win the cup here these next couple years and they should start to turn the corner. But they clearly are trying. They traded for Eric Carlson, who by the way did not make our list, partly because of that age and contract factor. And Sidney Crosby right now has 12 goals and 17. games as we're recording this, 22 points in those 17 games, we felt it was just enough to

keep someone like Crosby ahead of someone like Fintilly. And there's, you know, there's like there's differences. There are some old players like say John Tavares, for example, who is having, you know, you know, a nice year. He's an excellent player and he doesn't, he doesn't make the list, but Crosby does, but Victor Hedman does. It was hard to draw these lines. It was a fun exercise, but for that reason.

But yeah, I mean, it would be, I get the age and I get the contract. But if by some weird miracle and ultimate universe, if Crosby was on the open market, I would imagine just for the odd and the off-ice reasons, I would imagine his value would still be extremely high. There was a huge gap, I will say, in how we ranked Crosby, which was still in the top 25, and where we put Alex Ovechkin, who is in the very last few players on this list, we left him on there. I would say the biggest difference is there's been a little more of a dip. So far, I think, for Ovechkin. And it's $9.5 million for two and a half more years on that contract, which was,

that does feel like a little bit bigger bet by a team that would hypothetically be trading for Alex Ovechkin. But what I love the point that you made was not just about Ovechkin and the production per dollar. You had a really good point that you made. And I think ultimately made us feel a little more comfortable about leaving Ovechkin on here. Yeah, just like with Crosby, that I think, you know, I just think, again, hypothetical, you know, Washington, I think they actually, unlike Pittsburgh, I think there's actually a reasonable argument to trading Ovechkin, but that's a whole other issue in terms of how they need to rebuild their franchise. They aren't because he is chasing the all-time goals record and he is Alex Ovechkin.

And having him in your organization is a very unique and special thing. He's a great leader and elite competitor. And I just love to have Alex Ovechkin on my team for a bunch of reasons. So I do think even though with his age and declining play, I do think he is still one of the most valuable assets in the NHL. Yeah, a lot of tough calls. I mean, headman, you mentioned another one just like that. And, you know, how do you rank a headman compared to someone like a more excited or compared to there's this whole big group of players right at the end of the top 50? You go right in the row.

Maddie Baneers. One thing we talked about in the intro was that we're trying to talk about this value in like a quote unquote objective way. just, you know, and if you had to really think, step back, I think who are really objectively the top 100 assets, this is the order. But the value of these players to different organizations can differ dramatically. You know, you look at the, especially when you're looking at contending cycles. Let's compare, never mind Sider. Let's compare Victor Hedman to say Jake Sanderson. Yeah.

If you had to ask Chicago right now, who would they take? Jake Sanderson or Victor Hedman is not even close who they're picking. They're taking Sanders. All day. But if you went to Vegas or Colorado and you asked them which of them they would want, I would imagine it's Headman all day. Yeah. And it's, it's,

Sanderson actually is locked up long term, which maybe even strangely kind of makes it a tougher conversation. Headman's on a shorter deal, but it's a little bit lower number. And you know he's ready right now to give you 25 minutes and a Stanley Cup playoff push. And Colorado's run might only be the next two or three years where they can really.

seriously contend for that. And that does change things. And it was one of the toughest things to grapple with the whole way through. And like you said, we sometimes had to step out and not just make it, okay, would, you know, Ottawa make this trade and would Tampa make this trade? It was would Team X who's bidding for these players make this trade. And so you could make huge critiques of our list, probably if you came at it from just one perspective, right? If you're a Sharks fan, you're reading our list and you're saying, no, I wouldn't take any of these old guys over any of these young guys. but we tried to think of it in as nuanced a way as possible. I did want to get you on some of these younger players against established players

who maybe don't quite project, I guess, let me give you the players first here. Baneers Hughes, Powers, Sanderson, Cooley-McTavish are all one-run of players from 44 to 49. They are just ahead of a run of much more established guys, Keandre Miller, Mikhail Sergachev, Aaron Eckblad, Zach Werenski. This is a good litmus test, I think, those guys are all in the early 50s. of what we're talking about, where I think most of those guys that I read off of the young players

project to be a little higher impact, but not in all cases. Aaron Eckblatt has had a tremendous career and injuries have hampered him somewhat. All those guys I just mentioned are top pair guys, and those DIA mentioned aren't yet. And that was the toughest thing for me to weigh of one in the hand versus what could be, you know,

more than that in the future. In the case of guys like Surgichov and Ekblad, you have playoff success too. And that makes it really difficult. But I think, again, part of my job is projecting talent. And sometimes you project it right. Sometimes you don't. But I think you look at Owen Powell.

I think you look at Logan Kulul. You look at Mason McTavish. You look at Luke Hughes. And you see the different ways they impact the game. And some of the unique trait they have, Power is a 6-6 mobile puck mover. he was with the elite feet. Mason McTavish is just one of the best young players in the NHL right now,

an all-around player. Logan Cooley's a dynamic offensive player. I think you can envision a path where they become among the best players in the NHL. But I'm going to guess of those four players I round it off, one of them will. Two of them will become really, really good NHL players. And one of them is going to be significant disappointment. And I can't tell you which.

And that's just the odds. It's just a pure numbers game. One guy who, you know, the fascinating thing about this was so many, as we alluded to, are never going to be traded. So many of these guys are going to either stay with the team they're on or they'll hit free agency or whatever. But depending UFAs were really tough for me. And the most tough of all was William Nielander, who's having just an unbelievable season in a platform year. He just had the big star turn at the global series.

He's one of the leading scores in the NHL. And Pierre LeBrun just did a story talking about what his next contract might look like. And when he starts seeing some of the comparables that were being thrown around in that contract, your David Poster Knox of the world, I got a little queasy seeing that we had him all the way down here at number 65 in tier four. But it is a pending UFA. We see what that does to a player's trade value as a peer rental, especially knowing what you're going to have to pay him. Correct.

And I think it's worth asking the question. Again, he's always been a great player and he's having a fantastic year. it's worth asking a question, do you think he is David Pastor Neck? You think he has now risen to that level of player? Or is he just having an incredible first two months of the season? And then his play might level off a little bit. I think that's part of the debate. Part of it is depending free agents. Part of it is, frankly, the lack of playoff success, despite multiple opportunities. Marner and Matthews are still rated highly, but their production historically has been at a different level and with a little bit, you know, a little bit more two-way value.

So those are part of the debates there in Nealander. But I can see, listen, he's been one of the best players in the NHL this year. I don't, I wouldn't refute an argument to get him a lot higher. But I think there were, he's a really tough case when trying to assess what his value would be in the league if he was on the open market tomorrow. It was the track record to me, though. You talk about, you know, do you think he is a Pastor Nack? And I look at Pastor Nack and I can go years back and I can.

and see it just every year this guy's money. And Nealander, he's been really good for a long time now, but this level hasn't been something we've seen consistently. It would make me worried if I was the GM that was going to give him his next contract. And I think you have to take that into account when you're talking about trade value, which is a GM planning on giving him his next contract and giving up something for the right to do that. We dealt with a similar issue with J.T. Miller, who I think is roughly around the same region as Neelander, on the list.

I think they're back to back. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and that he's a kind of guy who the scoring took off later into his career, always a very good player. But all of a sudden now he's an excellent player and you're asking how much of that is real, how much of that is the power play, you know, what would he look like away from Pedersen and Quinn Hughes?

Those are all questions we ask. You know, what would Neeland it look like away from Austin Matthews and Mitch Marner? What, you know, without that power play around him? Again, all reasonable questions to ask that we don't know the answers to. but when a guy all of a sudden becomes a superstar later into his career, you at least have to ask those questions. Yeah, I kind of saw Miller as the forward version of Hampus Lindholm, who's on the other side of that William Nealander sandwich we have on the list there in the mid-60s,

as a guy who got a big contract right around 30, he still got a lot of years left to it. I have no idea how it's going to age. But Lindholm was, for me, one of the 10 best defensemen in the NHL last season, especially as a Boston team that's where they are. in their competitive cycle. I'm all in on that. And I'll pay the price later.

Vancouver is a little bit of a different question, but we're talking about trade value. Vancouver's off to a great start. He's playing at a level that I think anyone would love to have a forward who could potentially give you 100 points while bringing the heaviness that he has. He was a guy that was frankly not on our list in the first draft. And we had to move him up considerably on it after the way he started the season because it gave you just enough hope that he's going to be able to deliver on this

for at least the first few years of this deal. But it was a good exercise overall. I really enjoyed doing it. I have no idea what the reception is going to be. So by the time you hear this, I guess you'll probably know better than I will. So looking forward to hear it from everybody on how we did on that. That is going to do it for us on this episode of the athletic hockey show's prospect series. Thank you for listening.

You can follow us on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at the athletic hockey show. And right now you can get a one year subscription to the athletic for $1 a month when you visit the athletic.com slash hockey show. You should do that. It's our best deal that you're going to get. We'll talk to you soon.