The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 167: The Memorial Cup, Draft Lottery, and Prospects

Episode Date: May 16, 2017

Jeff Marek joins the show to help preview the upcoming Memorial Cup, highlight which prospects to keep an eye out for, and sort through this year’s draft class. The topics covered include: 7:35 The Definitive Memorial Cup Preview 16:10 The Saint John Sea Dogs 19:10 Ottawa’s incoming rookie crop 22:20 Cody Ceci’s cautionary tale 28:00 The best place to develop young players 31:00 Which prospects should NHL fans be watching? 39:00 Hischier vs. Patrick 43:45 The draft lottery 46:15 Coaching a losing team 52:45 Sleepers vs. Red Flag players 58:20 Evaluating young defensemen Sponsoring today’s show is SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell sports and concert tickets. They’re giving our listeners a $20 rebate off of their first purchase. All you have to do is download the free SeatGeek app and enter the promo code PDO to get started. Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, and Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews are also greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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My name is Dimitri Filipovich. joining me is my good buddy Uncle Jeff Merrick. Jeff, what's growing up? Where did the uncle part come from? Because when I used to host Leaves Lunch on EM640 in another lifetime, my co-host was Bill Waters. And at the end of the show, we'd always throw Bill out a random hockey player. And then we played this like oldie style music.

And we called it Storytime with Uncle Willie. How did Uncle Jeffie come about or Uncle Jeff come about? Is that just because I'm old now? No, it's not an age thing at all. I think you were on the show once, and I'm not sure if it was my producer, if I was a listener, but someone was just like, yeah, it was just story time with cool Uncle Jeff Merrick. He just kind of took you under his wing and started dropping knowledge and cool anecdotes and stories.

So I think that's the origin of it. Oh, okay. Well, I can live with that. As long as not an age thing, because I'm at the age now where I'm supposed to start to get sensitive about my age. These things happen when you're in your 40s, Dimitri. You'll get there one day. One day.

You know what? People have been, people are in climbing to get. you back on the shore or I guess I should say for you to have me on the PDO cast. No, I told you. I swore off hosting. I did it the first couple of times. It's just a sort of like, I think it's just a default mechanism in me. And I find myself, because I'm always like asking questions about everything, because

really when it comes down to it, I don't know, shit, Dimitri. I think that when I start to answer questions in my own mind, I start to ask myself questions as the answer is going on. And so I say to myself, well, I can either be that guy that. Potenti's on a podcast by himself and asks himself questions, or I can just say, hey, Dimitri, what do you think about that? And I kind of choose to go that route. Well, I imagine it's also, I mean, you're hosting like a million different shows. It's kind of, it's in your, it's in your blood. It's in your DNA at this point. It is. Although, you know what?

You know what's a lot of fun is doing, I do Fridays on Hockey Central with Darren Malart and Gorge Stelach. Now, those are three hosts. Yeah. And so it's a very, I believe, the nerdist podcast would refer to it as a hostful show. And that's some of the most. fun and we never book guests and just three guys and it's roundtable and it's just riff riff it's the closest thing i think that that show does to what i think a podcast is supposed to do just free exchange of ideas back and forth not a real structure to it other than you know we have to be out at the bottom of the hour for a stop set but other than that it's the sort of closest thing i think that that program does to a podcast and that's some of the most fun that i have that's just three hosts fired it

around. That's why exactly why I have the most fun with you on the show as well, because with both guests, you have to like have at least some sort of a preparation in place or like notes just in case. The conversation lags a little bit so that as a host, I can pick it back up and keep it, keep it moving smoothly. Whereas with you, I know that we're definitely not going to run short on topics or we're not going to be like at the 35 minute mark being like, uh, what should we be talking about now? Yeah. If anything, we need more time. So it's, uh, it's always fun when you're on. I'm not going to ask you to name any names. That would be unprofessional of me. But I'm sure you've had those experiences where you know, you're a quarter way through your program and you start to look at your watch and you

say yourself, well, I'm just about out of ideas here. I'm just about out of because there's not a real conversation happening. It's just sort of you're asking a question or trying to get a conversation started and someone says an unqualified declarative statements and then that'll just end the conversation. You've had those before, right? Well, the problem is especially if you don't have like a working relationship with someone and then you get them on Skype or on the phone and you can't like it's much easier if I'm sitting across from from you and I can sort of pick up off your body language and your vibe and I can tell when you're about to stop talking so I can jump back in or I can tell that you know if you're intrigued by a certain topic I can keep pressing and pushing at it and trying to dig up more

good information whereas sometimes you can kind of tell that you know a guest might be getting irritated with a certain direction you're taking a conversation in so you can want to try and steer away from it It's just kind of tough to get a vibe from doing it like on the phone like this. But obviously with you and I, like we've done this so many times already that we can just talk freely on the phone as if we're sitting across from each other in the same living room. It's weird, eh? The way that your neighbor is so many, you know, hundreds slash thousands of miles away at times.

I mean, I've done the podcast with Greg now for six years, I think it is, six years going on seven, I think. And I think we've been in the same room, maybe a handful of times, like maybe five or six times that we've been in the exact same room. I don't, it's not preferable. I mean, I'm like you. I'd rather be seeing a cross from the person. I'd rather be able to see them and pick up on, on visual cues more than anything else.

Or, you know, when they give you the wide eyeballs, like, get off this topic now. I'm about to step in something. And you keep on pressing. But it's the reality of media like right now. And like, how else would, I mean, right now you're in New York, but mainly you're in Vancouver. When else would, I mean, just think back like 15 years ago. Would you and I have ever been able to do a program together? Not a chance.

Now we don't even think about it for a second. Geography just doesn't matter at all when it comes to broadcasting anymore. It never really did in TV. It's one of the things that I always loved about satellite hot stove on hockey night was, you know, oh wow, look, John Davidson's just popped up in the corner. You know, like it out of that sort of cool element. But as far as podcasts go and even, you know, radio shows, I guess Bob McCowan used to do his radio show on the fans so many years ago from Las Vegas.

You just don't need to be geographically in the same spot, although I still do think that it makes for the best shows. Yes, no, absolutely. You mentioned that I'm in New York. I did want to give a quick heads up to the listeners in case there are sirens or weird, inexplicable noises in the background. I'm recording in New York City, so it's pretty noisy out here. And I think that, you know, we've got certain listeners that have been following the show since the very early days, back when there used to be sirens in the background at all times. times and maybe it'll make them feel a little nostalgic. So I'm sure for those guys, they won't complain.

But for the others, we'll get back to the regularly scheduled programming with minimal background noise soon enough. But for this occasion, apologies if the audio quality isn't up to snuff. Okay, if I may have one digression, let me host for one second then. So, Dimitri, what are you doing in New York City? And when is the announcement about you joining the Rangers coming up? Well, you know, it could also be the islanders or the New Jersey Devils. There's enough teams around here where the mystery remains in contact.

No, that's very good. And a lot of teams will do all of their interviews offsite anyway. I mean, if you're the Philadelphia Flyers, why would you want to do it in Philadelphia? If you're the Montreal Canadiens, why would you do it in Montreal? It would be the Dallas Stars, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, again, geography is to the previous point, meaningless in these conversations. Don't worry. The PDOCAS isn't going anywhere.

We have too much fun doing this thing for it to go by the wayside. So I imagine this is probably your favorite time of the year. I mean, it feels like it's the sweet spot where all of your hockey interests are coming together because obviously we've got the NHL playoffs in full effect. We've got the draft order to determine now. And we've got the participants of this year's Memorial Cup all sorted out after the individual playoffs just concluded. And I guess that's a good segue for us to get into some Memorial Cup discussion here because that feels like that's like right up.

rally. It's a lot of fun. If it weren't already co-opted by the Disney Corporation, I'd say it's the most wonderful time of the year. Stanley Cup playoffs, that's always a lot of fun as always. But, since I started at Sportsnet, and to be honest with you, one of the reasons I came over when I left CBC for Sportsnet was, you know, the chance to do junior hockey. As much as, you know, the NHL is the big time and the NHL pays everybody's bills, and I get all that. My first love is still a junior Hockey. You can still remember vividly going to Toronto Marlborough's games as a kid. You know,

you can get two-for-one deals. You go see the Marlboros at the Maple Leaf Gardens in the afternoon, then stick around to watch the Maple Leafs at night. They used to offer those packages. So I sort of grew up with, you know, seeing junior hockey on par with the NHL, also the WHA on par with the NHL watching the Toronto Toros, but always in the back of my mind, I always said to myself,

if I ever get a chance to do anything with junior hockey, I'm going to jump at it. I know the huge eyeballs aren't there. It isn't perhaps to some people as sexy as the National Hockey League, but I just love the game. Remember talking to one OHL coach about it. I said, you know, I really enjoy the NHL we all do as professionals and it's perfect and it's wonderful. It's the zenith of hockey.

And I said, I still can't figure out to myself why I love junior hockey so much. This is years ago. And he said, I'll tell you exactly why. he said in the NHL there's about five big mistakes that lead to scoring chances like everything is really perfect and the coaches have it pinned down like there's about five big mistakes that lead to scoring chances and that type of over-the-top excitement that comes along with it in junior hockey you get about 30 of those and and that's really true and I think it underscores one of the things that we don't really talk about too much when it comes to to hockey

and really all of our sports isn't part of the beauty of it isn't part of the greatness. It isn't part of one of the things we love about it, how sloppy it can be. Now, it has to hit a certain level of, you know, it has to look like a game. It has to look like a game played by people that are qualified to play it that have a certain proficiency. But isn't the excitement, the mistakes? I don't think we celebrate, I mean, look down our nose at the mistakes. I know we certainly do when we do intermission panels, oh, you can't have this. This guy needs to get his ass nailed to the bench. And that may be true from a coach's perspective.

We talk so much from the coach's perspective. From fans' perspective, that's glorious. What a turnover. That was awesome. Oh, my God. You see Brandon Montaer, how do you let Ryan Johans and get behind him like that? Oh, my God, what a rookie mistake. What a glorious moment in the game.

Instead of looking down our nose at it, I don't think we celebrate the badness of hockey in a lot of ways. Well, and that ties into the discussion we were having a lot at certain points last year, you know, when we were trying to figure out ways to increase scoring. and I was always making the point that it's not necessarily the actual goals themselves that we need to worry about. It's what they sort of represent or what they lead to. And just in the sense that if you open the game up a bit more and maybe one way to do that is removing the offside rule, as we've discussed many times, all of a sudden you kind of open yourself up to a more free-flowing game and potentially more back-and-forth chances,

which leads to more goals, which leads to more lead changes and makes you feel like teams can come back, even if they're down 2-0 or 3-1 early on. And that's kind of the epitome of junior hockey, I feel like, where you just have to keep watching it all times because it could just change on a dime in a hurry. Yeah, it's great. You know, one of the things that I've always felt about sports, I was talking a friend of mine about this last week.

You know, a sport is great when you get a lot of chaos in it. And, you know, for a lot of sports, you know, one of the objectives as a team, like as far as coaching philosophy goes, when the opposition has, you know, in this case, the puck, you need to create chaos, you need to create confusion, you know, that's when that's best, because out of that comes opportunity. And this is one of things that I like about the Pittsburgh Penguins. And I think I talked about this on, I think I may have talked to you about it as well,

about the idea of, you know, the strong side defenseman holding the line and just getting a stick in there to create a little bit of chaos, which ultimately, you know, led to the two goals that won in game seven for the Pittsburgh Penguins, but also, you know, allows a back-churched. checking forward to reload into the neutral zone and allows, you know, increased offensive opportunities as opposed to just, which is what a lot of people or a lot of players are conditioned to now, and this is this rests solely on the coaches here because they instruct this. When you see a 50-50 play, the instinct now isn't to go for it. The instinct is to back off.

I don't know that that create by do. I know it doesn't create chaos. It creates safety. and when sports is safe, it can get really boring, really fast. So I have a question for you as someone who follows Major Junior in all the leagues very closely. Like, do you think that just generalizing, do you think the most coaches in those leagues are focused more on sort of winning games and being a successful team or developing the players? Or do you think that those two things go hand in hand? Yeah, the safe thing.

answer and every coach will tell you well we're really here to do both you know these are young men we're shepherding through the make no mistake about it you know these coaches aren't doing this out of the you know the kindness of their hearts you know no one this isn't a charity situation for any coach in the CHL find me you know any one of the 60 teams where a coach isn't taking a paycheck and doesn't have aspirations to coach at a higher level now some may just be you know settled where they are but they are defining themselves by their wins and not how many players they graduate to the next level or how many young men, you know, they are going to send to various universities across Canada and the United States. So I think the real answer is they're coaching to win.

That's primary. But the way the programs are structured and the way that junior hockey is sort of structured, you know, you build up, you take a shot at it, you dip down again, and then you come back. Now there are some teams that perennially, we look at the London Knights, for example, maybe the best example, you know, stay at a certain level, and there's a number of reasons why they do that

and how they're able to do that. Recruiting is not an issue for the London Knights, I assure you. But generally the way that it's done is, you know, you have your big moment, you go for it, you're either successful or you fail, and then you start rebuilding again. Like one of the four teams that's in the Memorial Cup this year, the St. John Seedogues.

Now, in 2011, they won the Memorial Cup of the Hershey Center in Mississauga. and they went almost immediately back to rebuilding this thing, right? And now they find themselves back in the Memorial Cup. But if you go and, you know, if you have a look at some of those drafts, like you look at specifically 2012 and 2013, I mean, they're hitting at every single level, right? Like it's Thomas Shabbat, boom, Matthew Heimor, boom, Matthew Joseph, boom, Nathan Newell, boom. You know, Spencer Smallman, boom, Samuel Doug McFa Falls, boom, they're just nailing it.

and that formed the basis of their team. And then you realize, hey, you know, we have a legit shot of this thing. That's where you say to itself, okay, now we make our last minute touches. Now we make our trades. And all of a sudden, you know, Bacongji Amama comes in, the Tampa Prospect, probably the toughest kid in the entire CHL. Julian Goce, the Carolina Hurricanes traffic, I want to say 21st overall comes in from Valdoor. You know, Callumbooth comes in as a starting netminder.

So that's kind of the way that it's. that it's done in junior hockey. So a lot of coaches will tell you, you know, they're developing in those years in order to crescendo at a certain season. Like every team sort of in the back of their mind, when they're looking at the program, has in their back of their mind, okay, this is the year we're going to peak.

You know, you looked at the Brandon Weekings last year. Last year was a year, they were poised to peak, whether it was Quinville or whether it was Harrowock. Like they hadn't even Nolan Patrick. They had those players ready to peak for last season. You know, this year, St. John Seedoggs. This year, Seattle Thunderbirds. It's like next year, the Regina Pats, and they're hosting it in the 100-eum anniversary.

So the answer for junior, I'm paying long-winded year, oh, my God. It's why I'm not an analyst because nobody else gets a breath of air. The answer is twofold. One, they're there to win, but the way to win, too, in junior hockey is you need to be developing in the years where you're having a downturn in your winning cycle. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, so I know that we were trading some messages back and forth, I think, last week of the air,

and you kind of hinted at the fact that you thought that the sea dogs might be. be the best team of the bunch. Do you still feel that way? I do. I do. Of all them that have seen, and I think, you know,

Seattle's going to give them a good run for their money. Seattle is a dynamic team and a highly skilled team that can, and they're getting really good goal attending

from Stinkowski. They are a team that can score in bunches that have, as we see with, you know, Alexander True, Nikolai Eiler's cousin

yesterday, clutch goal scoring. You have a great penalty killer and Donovan Newells. You have a top six group of Matthew Barzell and Kagan Colissar and Ryan Grop and Nolan Vulcan and Scott Eezner.

You've got top six that can score. You've got good penalty killers. You have Ethan Bear on the back end, the Oilers draft pick. They're going to be a really tough out here as well. As Regina found out, as Colonna found out and anyone else, Everett found out.

This is a tough team. But for my money, when you look at the St. John Seedoggs, you know, they have you know, does it, I don't have to top my head, 10 players that have been drafted in the NHL, another who just signed with an NHL team and Matthew Highmore.

So you have a real solid, pro-looking team that can play a lot of different ways. And the nice thing about St. John is, you know, a lot of junior teams sort of load up on the one line. You know, this is our scoring line. These guys are going to score, you know,

60% of our goals. You know, if you have a game where Matthew Joseph, you know, isn't scoring, and he isn't getting it done. Hey, there's, you know, Joe Valeno is going to score. Nathan Ol is going to score. Spencer Smallman's going to score. Like, Julian Gochie is going to get a pair of goals.

Like, they're insulated enough that they can still, you know, score their way back into a game. Plus, they have, you know, probably, I shouldn't say probably, they have the best defenseman in junior hockey in Thomas Chabot, you know, who logs, you know, minimum 25 minutes. I think was game three against Blaineville. I think I had a peek at it. He was at 36. minutes. I mean, just, they just, like, leave him on the ice, him and Chase Stewart, just like,

leave the pair on the ice. And Shabbat is, you know, you can just tell, Demet, because, I mean, you watch junior hockey. You can just tell that some guys have outlived junior. Yeah. That, okay, yeah, you know what? I'm here six months too long. Yeah, that's Thomas Shabbat. He's, he's outlived junior hockey. He's ready for the pro challenge, and he can really tell. Well, so the interesting thing I was looking at this a few weeks ago, and the senators were last in the league this season in terms of production they were getting from a player's on their rookie deals. I believe they got only the one point,

and it was an assist from Curtis Lazar, who they wound up trading at the deadline. And, you know, that's obviously not great. You'd much rather be on the higher end of things because it shows that you've been drafting well and you have young guys in the way that'll be able to contribute for cheap in the years to come. But at the same time, you look,

and they have this crop of Logan Brown and Colin White and Thomas Shabbat coming, which is exciting for them. I think the question that I have, obviously, spinning it forward is, do you think that, you know, you say that Shabbat has sort of outlived his, what he can really kind of stand to gain playing at this level?

Do you think he's ready to take that next step and step into the Ottawa Senator's Blue Line as soon as the start of next season? Because, you know, we saw that just how good he looked at the World Juniors, for example, around Christmas time, where he kind of took the hockey world by storm and it seemed like he might even get a look with the senators this season. Yeah.

Like, do you think he's ready to start right from the get-go next year? Yeah, there's two that really sort of catch my eye. And the other, you know, people have sort of noted on him a little bit, but probably not enough because, you know, he's not a first round draft. And that's Ben Harper. I think if I'm the Ottawa Center, you know, the two young defensemen that I'm pretty excited about, and Thomas Shabbat's a pretty easy story. But Ben Harper, I think is someone that can challenge for a position next season as I think Thomas Shabbat can. Like at the end of it, the guy can get you out of trouble a lot of. ways, Thomas Shabbat. He can skate the puck out of trouble. He can pass the puck out of trouble. He can

create offensively. He does all those things that we keep talking about what a defenseman needs to do in 2017. That's Thomas Shabbat. And I don't know many players. I know it sucked for the kid. You know, you get your first taste of the NHL and you want to stay up. And here I am back in junior hockey. Some guys go back with a good attitude. Some guys go back with boo-boo-bo-face and end up going through like three or four billet families because they have their thumb in their mouth the entire season. I don't know many players, though, that were harmed by going back for that what some would consider extra junior years. Not as if he's going back for his OA year. He's not, you know, for getting a little taste of the NHL and then going back. I don't know many, if any

players that were hurt by that. Like, look what Thomas Shabbat's going to have under his belt now. You know, a great world junior championship, which in a lot of ways to your your point, Demichu, was his coming out party. You know, after that, I mean, I mean, he was just outstanding on that Canadian blue line. I mean, Charlie McAvoy was same for, for USA and already he's in the NHL legit with the Boston Bruins. So he's got that under his belt. He's got the big coming out party. Everybody knows him.

President Cup trophy, you know, QMJL champions with the St. John Seedogs, and a chance to win the one trophy that many hockey players will tell you is the hardest to win because the window to do so is just so. small and so short to win the Memorial Cup. That's a pretty good resume to come into next season with, let alone the confidence this kid is going to have, you know, should St. John do, like, if I'm the Ottawa Senators, I'm saying to myself, yeah, we hope the kid goes back with a good attitude. Look what he's coming into training camp next year with, right? The world junior experience is silver medal. Everybody knows them across Canada. Skills are well told. 30 minutes plus a night for St. John, win the Q championship, and may win the Memorial Cup. It's exactly if I'm, if I'm an Ottawa Senators fan, that's exactly what I want to happen

to Shabbat. Yeah, well, evaluating defensemen at this level is always so tricky in trying to project how they're going to do at the next level. I mean, you know, a guy on, he could be teammates with as soon as next season in Cody Cici. Like, do you remember what your thoughts on him were when he was playing on the 67s and I think, and wherever he played after that? Like, were you a fan of his game at the time when he was coming up to the league, or were you a bit skeptical of him?

My thoughts were the same. He's good. He's not great. He's not a top-paring defenseman. He's just, and there's nothing wrong with it, unless he's, you know, he's misplotted. He's just a good defenseman. He's in NHL defenseman. He's not a top- pairing NHL defenseman.

He's not anyone that's going to move the needle for you, but he's a body on your blue line. And in junior hockey, you know, that skill set, you know, tended to stand. out the skills that he had tended to stand out a little bit more. But at the next level, I watched Cody Cici's games and I say to myself, he's okay. You know, he's just an okay defenseman. Yeah, it's bizarre with him, though, because I feel like he was billed as being a bit more capable offensively. But now when you watch him with a puck, I don't know if it's just a confidence thing

where he's just not playing his game or what he's capable of. But like, as soon as he gets it, it's basically a hot potato situation where he just tries to get it off the glass and out. it's like he's been like kind of rewired to just play the most conservative way possible. And it's just, it's disappointing because obviously he's still a young guy and this isn't necessarily who he's going to be for the rest of his career. But just like based on where he was drafted and the way he was talked about and all those Jonathan Drewan rumors, like they're just tough to reconcile all those things.

Here, see, the thing about that is, it's an interesting point because there were a couple of seasons there that I want to say he was up around between 55 and 65 points. But let's not forget. I mean, he's a defenseman that's getting the puck up to players like, Sean Monaghan, Taylor Toffoli, Shane Prince. Like, he's getting the puck up to players that are going to bear it. Like, he's getting the puck to 100-point guys, you know, and 50 goal scores. So you may look at that and you say, yeah, maybe the numbers are a little bit inflated

considering the players that he's getting the puck to. But then, don't forget, too. I mean, that was the, you know, the ultimate Ottawa Senators pick. He's an Ottawa guy playing for the Ottawa 67, is drafted by the Ottawa Senators. Kind of the feel good showtime, you know, made for TV draft back. Yeah, well, I think that, you know, this is true for all players in Major Junior because you really have to, you got to look at the context of how they're getting their

points and how they're being used and all that. But like with defensemen in particular, like, we know that, you know, guys that don't produce offensively in Major Junior probably won't just magically start to do so at the NHL level. Like you need to have, you need to show at least a certain baseline level of production for us to feel confident that you're going to be able to do it at the highest level. But at the same time, I do wonder if there's something to the idea that a guy, especially playing on the blue line, might just be like so much more, I don't know, talented or advanced in the way he's processing the game or what he, like sort of the plays he's seeing two or three steps in advance from his teammates. And maybe the guys he's playing with just can't sort of read and react to that.

So it's like it's like he can kind of spread his wings playing at that lower level. And then all of a sudden you go up to the NHL, you start playing with talented guys who can see. skate faster and read the play and all of a sudden you see all these breakout passes and maybe the point total start to come. So evaluating defensemen just like that is like it's one of those things where you might just need to actually watch them very closely on an individual case-by-case basis to know what they're actually capable of moving forward. I have such a hard time evaluating defensemen, not just at the junior level or the NHL level as well. But hearing you talk about that and make that point, you know, who comes to mind right away is Connor McDavid. I can't tell you

how many times I saw Connor McDavid throw the puck to a player like, Nick. Betz or Nick Baptiste. And they didn't know what to do with it because, whoa, I don't get the fuck here. Whoa, you know, you just can't think at that level. You just can't think at the McDavid level. And that's where you say to yourself, okay, I need to, I need to watch, I just can't game sheet this guy. I need to watch this guy to see what's actually happening.

And you say to yourself, okay, well, you know what, if that's not a pass to Nick Betz, but that's a pass to Alex to Brinkett, is it in? You know, if that's a pass to, you know, I don't know, if that's not a pass to Nick Baptiste, but it's a pass to Dylan's, but it's a pass to. is that thing in the nets. And, you know, chances are, yeah. So I think that's why you need to sort of have a look to it. And that's that marriage of, you know, watching the player.

And I think, you know, reading the statistics on him. And McDavid is the one guy that I look at and I say, man, I would shudder to think, you know, what would have happened, you know, had, it's funny because I mentioned this to him last year when I talked to him, if Dylan Larkin wouldn't have went to university. of Michigan. And instead, because the Erie Otters held his rights, you know, went to the erie otters. You know, could you imagine Dylan Larkin and Connor McDavid playing together? I mean, they just would have torched the OHL. It would have been ridiculous, right? But the minute that is funny, because there were two teams that were never going to pressure him to go to the

CHL. In fact, they would do the opposite considering he was going to Michigan. One was Detroit, and that's who grabbed him. And the other was Minnesota. And I remember that draft, and I remember saying to myself, oh man, you know what? We could have something special in the OHL as long as neither Minnesota or Detroit draft Dylan Larkin. And sure enough, there's the Detroit Red Wings taken Del Larkin and Runeo could have been some real special with the eriottors. Where do you stand on, I'm sure, I don't know if we've had this discussion on past podcast, but if you were running a team and obviously it sort of is on a case-by-case basis, which is generally speaking, where would you want your young prospects to develop the most?

Like, do you, are you an AHA guy? Or would you rather them just dominate at the lower major junior levels? Or, like, what would you prefer seeing from your, from young prospects that you're drafting? I don't want, I don't want to put any of my prospects in a situation where they will get hurt. And so that's where you have to, I think. So you're not playing at the HL level then? What's, no, I mean, not play. What do you mean?

I mean, if there's, if you're strong enough and mentally smart enough to play in the American Hockey League, then yeah, absolutely. But I still don't think that there's one cookie cutter. I think everyone's a little bit different. You know, there's some guys that can walk in from the Swedish League and dominate. There's some guys that need some time in the American Hockey League because, you know, more than anything else, that's the defense finishing school, right? Like, that's in a lot of ways what the American Hockey League does for a lot of players is it teaches you to play at the other side of the puck. You know, that's what the American League does. Oh, by the way, just as an aside, at what point, speaking of the H.L, at what point will people finally, or do they have too much of a bias from Edmondson Media and what they did to them?

while he was there. At what point are people going to start talking about the great work that Dallas Aitkins has done with the San Diego Gulls and those players that are now up with the Anaheim Ducks, whether it's Brandon Montour, whether it's Shea Theodore, whether it's Nick Ritchie, whether it's Andre Casha. The defense I know is sort of handled by Marty Wilford in a lot of ways, but at a certain point, because if it's any other team, you're starting to make NHL noise about the guy. How could everyone's silent about Dallas Aikins?

Well, he didn't let the media eat unhealthy in the press box, so you probably won't see too many reports from those guys then. Put some broccoli next to a cookie. He had the nerve to do that. Yeah, I'm a big dog. Listen, man, I'm telling you. I mean, if there's a vacancy in Buffalo

is a vacancy in Florida, I would have to think. And now that San Diego's out, they got beaten by the barracudas, I would have to think that Dallas Aiken's phone would be and probably should be ringing. Yeah. Don't you think?

But it's weird because you don't hear him being floated around in too many of those rumors. I wonder if it's just like people have a tough time distancing themselves from the stink that was that entire. situation, which is obviously unfair to him because we've seen many different, you know, coaches and GMs and you go on down the line that have had shaky starts to their pro careers or what

have you. And all of a sudden, you know, they put it all together and find up being great coaches or GMs at a different stop. So, like, I would definitely be in favor of giving him another chance. But it's bizarre to me that he hasn't gotten any of that love, really. You know, and the funny thing, and this just comes back to it, when you see someone right about this, just call them out on their BS because they're being lazy. And the one criticism you always see of Dallas taking is, oh, we can't go through another

season of swarm defense. We can't go through another season of swarm. You know any games Edmonton played using that? I can tell you. Seven. Seven games. But it became the easy story and the easy way to slag the guy that put an orange next to a donut.

Yeah, let's put a bowl on this Memorial Cup discussion because I... Okay. I haven't talked about that. I was marking about Dallas-Aagan. It's just kind of looking at the teams that are involved here. I do think that it's a nice combination of household prospect names that, you know, people that might not necessarily be big junior fans or haven't been following throughout the regular season or the playoffs might tune in just because, you know,

their team has drafted a couple of these guys. I mean, you look at, you know, the Uriotters, for example, like Tampa Bay Lightning fans should be tuning in because there's a handful of guys that could be playing for their team in a few years that are, going to be on, they're going to be playing for them, and you go on down the line. So it seems like each of these teams do have at least a handful of guys that are worth tuning in for it, just even if you're an NHL or a hockey fan, just to see what they're capable of and kind of get excited about the future.

Yeah, there's a couple of traveling all-star teams here, right? We mentioned the St. John Seedogs, and they'll have someone probably in the top five next year's draft with Joe Valeno, who is the first player to ever be granted exceptional status in the queue after it's happened a number of times in the OHL. But you mentioned the Erie Otters and the DeBrancate story as well, told the first team in CHL history to win four straight, you know, four straight 50 games seasons. I mean, they've won 50 games in four. That just doesn't happen in the CHL, right?

Like, this is a team that has continued, you know, show up in the Western Conference final without Connor McDavid. And you mentioned Tampa. Taylor Radish just signed. Was it today? Demetra, yesterday that Radish signed his entry-level deal. So there's another Tampa Bay prospect that signed. You know, his brother is one of the best O-A defenseman in Darren Radish, the Alex DeBring. Rankin's story. Here he is, again, 65 goals for Chicago's second rounder.

Ivan Ladnia, whose name, you may hear, heard called, you may hear, how do I say this grammatically? You may hear his name called in the first round, but probably in the second round, the draft in Ivan Ladnia. Warren Fogel, who came over from the Kingston Frotnachs. It was a point of game player in the postseason, picked up the Wayne Groskey Trophy's play. MVP, it's a Carolina prospect. You mentioned Tampa. How about Anthony Sorrelli, who scores the big goals? The OHL championship goal before that two years ago with Oshawa,

and the grand closing of the Colisei scores a goal in overtime to beat the Colonna Rockets, the Ashwa Generals win the Memorial Cup. There's a lot of really interesting stories with the Otters, with the St. John Seedogs. I mentioned what's happening with the Seattle Thunderbirds. and for the first time since 2007, you know, we're going to have two American teams in the CHL final. I mean, that was Plymouth, that would have been the Vancouver one,

which was won by the Giants, but, you know, Plymouth and Lewiston did it in 2007. And now we have the Seattle Thunderbirds and we have the Erie Otters. And here's the interesting thing as well. A lot of people have sort of written them off because they lost in the first round seven games against the London Knights.

The West and the OHL was stacked. Somebody was going to play London. Somebody was going to play Owen Sound. and two legit heavyweight teams were going to fall. Unfortunately, for the Windsor Spitfires, they drew the London card. And even though they're up three to one, they lost in the seven-game series. But as the Winnipeg Jets organization has now cleared Logan Stanley to play, for the first time all season long,

Rocky Thompson, the head coach of the Windsor Spitfires, is going to have his full team together and all healthy. You know, whether it's Logan Brown, whether it's Gabe Filarty, who went through a couple of horrible injuries this year, and an appendicitis, you'll hear his name called, probably top five for the draft, to a blue line that has, you know, Mikhail Sergachev, Jalen Chatfield, one of the best shutdown defensemen in the entire CHL, Sean Days. I mean, it's a really nice looking blue line there too.

And then Michael DiPietro, who, if you've ever met the kid or listened to the kid or talked to the kid, you'll realize instantly he's one of the most charismatic players in the entire CHL and a really good goaltender who will be drafted in the first couple of rounds this season as well. So the interesting thing about this year is there's no Cinderella's, right? There's no like, oh, our goalie got hot and Anthony Mantha scored a ton of goals, and here you go, here's Valdor representing the Q. Like, it's not like that. Like every single team is a powerhouse.

You know, every single team is either a top 10 team or just outside of the top 10 in the year-end ranking. So all four teams are legit heavyweights in the CHL this year, all going head-to-head starting Friday as Windsor opens up against St. John. Yeah, I mean, even with like the Thunderbirds, for example, I think that if you stack them up against the other three teams, they might have like the lowest quantity of household name prospects. But then I think, like, would you, do you think it's fair to say that they might have that like the absolute best one in Matthew Barzell?

Like, I think he, he, is there a case to be made that he's the best player heading into this tournament? Yeah, you might get some, you might get some disagreement with the Thomas Shabbat crowd. I know it's chalk and cheese because they're different positions. You know, some will tell you Alex the Brinket. but yeah if you want to just you wouldn't put this way you would not go wrong if you said you know come Friday that the best player in the CHI the best player in this tournament the best player in the CHL is Matthew Barzal I mean he is so creative so gifted like amazing vision great production

plays on you know one of if not the hottest line in the CHL with Colossar and Grah this is that's a dynamic and the thing is too is we still don't know a whole ton of it's like I've only watched Seattle too, maybe three times this year. Like, I don't know a ton about Seattle. And no one really does outside of, you know, scouts and the hardest of hardcore CHL fans because it's not a market where you're going to watch a whole ton of games. Like, you look at that final series, you know, the majority of games weren't even on TV in Seattle. Yeah.

Okay? So, I mean, people in Seattle, I didn't pack the house by the end to send them off. So it's a wonderful team. They're there for the first time. in the franchise's history. They lost, I think it was like almost 300 man games this year as well. So they've overcome injuries to get there. And, you know, and they were a force.

And they were, they're owned and run by a guy of the name of Russ Farwell, who NHL fans will know is, you know, the ex-Filadelphia Flyers General Manager who did the Eric Lindross trade. And it made a lot of nice deals, whether it's, you know, Austin Strand or Aaron Hyman, bringing these players in for a run. it's a good team and I'm looking forward to because I've never met outside of Matthew Barzal and Ryan Gropp I haven't met any of these kids

so really really curious to meet Ethan Bear who I've never talked to before who was a fascinating player and an interesting guy born and raised on a Cree reserve just a couple of hours outside of Regina really good defenseman Edmonton and all there's traffic

so we're looking forward to that and looking forward to see some fantastic and hopefully some sloppy hockey Yes. The sloppy or the better. So let's pivot here a little bit. And as we start to talk about this upcoming draft class and the draft lottery, is it fair to say that Gabriel Valardi of the Windsor Spitfires is the best guy from this year's draft class that will be playing in this tournament?

Let me just grab my list here. But, yeah, Valardi is going to be your top guy. you know the Halifax you know didn't make it through so no his sure the weakings neither so no Nolan Patrick and well I mean if Mississauga would have made it through there would have been some talk about how Owen Tippett I mean it all depends on on what your cup of tea is Owen Tippett is probably the best pure shooter

in the entire draft but yeah Gabe Volardi is Gabe Volardi is your guy when you're looking at draft prospects this year there's not a ton like last year right I mean, every year, it's funny because, you know, one of the guys we'll focus on, too, is Joe Valeno, who's not even available for this year's draft, but is it next year's top five. So, but yeah, there's not a ton this time around. So I haven't really had a chance to talk about the draft lottery on the show since it happened, but where do you stand on the Nolan Patrick versus Nolan Hishier debate? Because I believe you've stuck your guns and had Patrick atop your draft board all year.

But how close has it been for you? Has there been certain points where you've been, like, tempted to kind of swap them? When I get my hipster moments, I am. You know, when I get my hockey hipster hat on and I let my stubble grow a little bit, I said it was like, yeah, I'm going to put the Swiss kid number one, man. Yeah, no, I've seen, you know, no reason to bump Nolan Patrick off the top spot. He's a coach's dream. He's safe in every single situation.

Like the thing about Patrick, you know have discussed this before, he doesn't do one thing that's spectacular, he just does everything so well. You know, he's like the ultimate, you know, utility knife. He's like your Swiss Army knife. Yo, kill a penalty, no problem. Got a power play, yeah, I got that. Five on three, yeah, I got this too. Five on five,

yep, got it. He's that guy. Last minute of play, protecting a lead, yep, you got it. Like, that's who he is. Now, the interesting thing about Nico Hissure, I mean, much like a player like Cody Glass with the Portland Winterhawks, I mean, what a rise from the beginning of the season.

You know, I mean, he's come from, you know, I remember after the Ivan Hulenka talking to a couple of scouts who both said the exact same thing. Yeah, we like him. He's low to his skill, but he's very selective when he chooses to compete and when he chooses to play. And don't know if it's an injury thing. Don't know if it's a fear thing. When I said to myself, well, he's going to a situation that in Halifax, it's not

going to be great because the moose heads of the youngest team and the CHL is a lot of kids there, and they're going to be tested by a lot of big teams in the QMJHL. And this kid got cross-checked and high-sticked and slashed and punched and all of it. And through the entire season, he got better and better. So where we didn't see Nolan Patrick, you know, improve month to month, we did see that from Nico Hischer. So the temptation is when you start to see that type of movement, you know, to move the positions. Now, would it surprise me if New Jersey, you know, ended up taking Nico Hischer? Not at all.

You know, I was told early on, I texted a couple of people from other teams and said, you know, where do you hear New Jersey's at? And the message I kept coming back is they're leaning Heeshire, but there's a couple of key scouts that really like Nolan Patrick. It may come down to what Ray Shiro really thinks. And I was on Hockey Central about three weeks ago, and we had Shiro on. And I said, you know, every time, because I generally talk to a couple of scouts, usually every day, usually by the end of the night. I always ask is who was there today. Just like, I'm curious like which general managers go, you know, especially when the season is over for them.

And, you know, at least a few times a week, oh, Shiro was here. Oh, Shiro was here. Oh, yeah, Shiro was here. Shiro was here. And I said, no, I said, you know, how many, when did you start to hit the road? Because by the time the season was over, like, Ray Shiro was hitting the road hard. So he wanted to go and have a look at everybody. And he said, yeah, you know, I think he said, like early January. he really started to get out on the road and sort of see what was out there

suspecting strong that his team was going to be involved in the lottery and he better get a good eyeball on all these guys. So it's close. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Nico Heischer ends up getting selected first overall. Norbert surprised me if Nolan Patrick gets selected first overall. To me, the draft gets interesting at number three. And that's why I think in a lot of ways, the Dallas start. I mean, sure, like New Jersey wins it because they got the first pick.

Philadelphia wins because they're going to get the consolation prize, which may end up being like the legit number one when everything's all said and done. But you look at how the Dallas stars move and what they can do with that pick as well. Like they can just sit there and execute the pick. That's fine. Or they can trade down. Maybe if I'm Dallas, I'm looking at the Buffalo Sabres. Now they have a GM and Jason Botrell and say to myself, you guys need a defenseman. We know that Miro Heiskenen is there at number three.

And that's probably the guy you would covet. we can still get the player that we want at was Buffalo 8 and pick up an asset along the way, or we can even trade down, or we can even move that pick as part of a package for more picks for next year's draft when we all strongly suspect it'll be even deeper. To me, Dallas is interesting because they have so many options. I don't think for a second New Jersey is not going to make the pick. I don't think for a second that the Flyers won't make the pick. but I can't tell you the same thing about the Dallas stars because Dallas to me is the most interesting team initially in the draft this year.

Yeah, it's kind of a bummer for a team like the Colorado avalanche though because, you know, they lose what, 60 or 32 games. They give up like over 100 more goals than they score and now all they really have to show for it is the fourth pick and like a two player draft. Are you with me on, I know you're with me on the off side on the, I'm getting rid of the lines. Are you with me on this one? For the lottery, everybody gets the same percentages. that way you don't get that nonsense of what Vancouver did at the end of the year. That way you don't get what Buffalo did a couple of years ago

trying to get Connor McDavid. Yeah. Everybody gets the exact same amount, the exact same percentages. So whether you're tanking or not, you barely miss it, you miss the playoffs by a point, you missed it by 20,

doesn't matter. You have the same shot at getting the first overall pick. I'm with you 100% of it. I have been the entire time, you know, I get asked a lot about how I feel about tanking and, you know, people show how, like a team like the Connects, for example,

it's like, oh, look, we're actively trying to lose games and then, you know, because of karma, they wind up getting the fifth pick and it's like, listen, as long as you're incentivized to lose as many games as you can and potentially increase your odds of getting a higher pick, you should be trying to do so. Now, if the league steps in and prevents, takes that decision out of the team's hands, then all of a sudden, obviously it'll stop making sense to lose games intentionally and that then we'll see teams maybe play more competitively throughout the end of the season. So it's, As long as you're incentivized to do so, you'd be stupid not to, but I don't obviously like it as a fan of the product.

No, and it's one of the weirdest conversations I've ever had. Like, in my capacity, I've been really lucky to work with a lot of general managers that have come through, specifically when I was doing that old strategy room show before the, before we got the NHL deal. I love doing that because they just float GMs through. And, you know, off the air, I'm not going to reveal any names here, but, I mean, I'd always ask, you know, most of the general manager, you know, what's it like when you're out of it? What's it like watching your team when you're already out of the playoffs, like when you have no shot of making it? And they all tell you the same thing.

It's bizarre, but it's true. You get mad when they win. Like you're just like you're active like cheering against your team. It's like, no, don't do this to our draft position. Because at that point, it's just eyes on the future and all these guys are screwing it up. What's this little three game winning streak? What are we doing here? This is not the way you're supposed to do it.

But to your point, as long as there's an incentive to do it, you know, as like, long as there's cheese in the trap, you can't blame anyone for trying to stick their hand out to grab it. I'm with you. As long as you incentivize that, people and teams will do it. The only way to get around it is everybody gets the same odds, period. I kind of feel, and that's why I kind of feel for a guy like Willie Dijerdin, who I think got a raw deal, because, you know, I don't necessarily think that he did a great job or anything in Vancouver, but like you saw early in the year where they were exceeding expectations and winning more games than people thought they would. And obviously some of that was just kind of purely luck in winning a lot of close one-goal games

and overtimes and shootouts and Ryan Miller was playing really well. But some of it was clearly a concerted effort on the coaching staff's part to just kind of play slower and minimize what was going on and try to squeeze out as many games they could. And it makes sense. We had this discussion earlier in the show about major junior coaches, whether they're trying to develop guys or whether they're trying to win games to keep their coach.

status alive and willi Desridan was incentivized to try and win as many games as he could and then in the second half of the year they bottom out they lose more than anyone pretty much and he all he gets for it is basically the pink slip and I just say it just everything that happened

with that team towards the end of the season is just so bizarre to me. Coaching sucks you know it really does and so much because I think you and I have talked about this before there's like a handful of great coaches and then there's sort of everybody else and these guys all find themselves, you know, in situations that are way beyond their control, and they're the ones that get tarnished for it.

You know, like, why do you think it took Bruce Cassidy so long to get, we just had the conversation about Dallas Aiken's, right? Like, that's the thing about, I mean, if you're going to be in a bad situation, I mean, do it in a really small market where no one pays attention. Okay, like don't, don't do it with a Canadian team. Don't do it with the New York Rangers. Don't do it with the Philadelphia Flyers. Like, don't do it, you know, with a big market team.

Because you go along for the ride, too. And you get painted wrongly so. You get painted with that brush when things that are out of your control get sort of thrust upon you. Like, it's, man, it's so tough. We talk about hockey players needing breaks. Coaches need breaks too. Yeah.

You know, like they, it's, I don't know why they do it. To be honest with you, I don't understand. Like, I love hockey. You love hockey. I get it. But these guys must go through hell. There's no summers off. You know, there's no real time off.

Every day you're at the rink earlier porn through tape. You know, you feel like crap. Your whole life is consumed with this three-game losing streak that you're on right now. You're not sleeping. You know, you're probably moody and cranky. And you can't get these guys to do what you want. Why would you, you must really love the game to put yourself. through that. I feel for coach. I feel for scouts because I think they're the ones that form the

sort of basis that everything sits on in this entire hockey industry. And they're the ones that get dumped on and are poorly compensated and have like, you know, broken marriages and drive all over, you know, frozen highways in the middle of January to go look at a prospect for a period and a half. But man, coaching sucks too. Coaching's like, I don't think we appreciate how hard it is. And I think that we don't appreciate how lonely it can be as well. Like, how do you think really felt this year? Yeah, well, that's the thing where, like, I, it's my job to be critical of coaches where it's where I feel like it's justified and, you know, I call them out if I think they're doing a poor job.

But then I'm also very readily aware of the fact that I myself could not do that job and would not want to do it. So it's like you're trying to strike this balance between being critical, but also trying to maintain perspective and be fair as well. No, I'm not saying don't take that into mind. They say, oh, you know what? You know, look at Willie's power play. I don't like what he's doing. But he's a nice guy so I can't write it. No, no, that would be fraud.

Like, that's awful. Like that you can't do that. Because I don't think, you know, outside of, you know, some that just write with malice, I don't think anyone's writing, you know, your power play sucks. Therefore, you're a bad person, right? And I don't think that mature coaches receive it that way. I think there are moments where you might, and that's just venting because you're pissed off of things you can't control.

But not for a second. Am I suggesting that, you know what? Man, coaching sucks. You should cut these guys more slack. No? When you mess up, just like when I mess up, I hear about it on Twitter, and rightfully so. There's no reason.

Like, when you're anybody in this industry, anyone like who sticks your head up above a crowd, someone's going to throw a rock, and that's cool. And you know that going in. And you can't feign surprise when it happened. So I'm not saying that the coaches deserve, you know, a look the other way. I'm just saying I just don't know that because we very so seldom have the conversation about how lonely and frustrating, especially when you have a hostile media that doesn't like covering a bad team can be. Right. No, well, I think that is a very fair point about sort of the human element of it though.

And I think that's why like I generally prefer not to go to the locker rooms and hang out and personally chat with people because I'd like to kind of keep, you know, keep, you know, keep, keep. But distance emotionally and not let that influence my work because I can imagine that it would be very tough. And that's why I have the ultimate respect for the beat writers who are actually able to provide fair analysis while also maintaining those relationships because it's just so tough to strike that balance. It's hard. No, nobody's pure. Nobody's pure. It doesn't matter who you are. I mean, when you get in the industry for however many years, you know, there are, there are some stories you look back at and you say, you know what, I could have.

done this story, but it would have cost me, you know, X, Y, Z. And is it worth it? Is that short-term, you know, eruption, you know, worth, you know, three or four years of not getting, like, that's always sort of what you measure out? Like, is this story big enough that I'm willing to burn someone and end that relationship, which has produced other bits of information and led to other stories? Like, it's hard. Like, essentially what I'm saying is everyone's got a hard life since the street. Oh, cry for us. We get to watch hockey games and write about them and talk about them. Oh, listeners feel bad for us. No, no, no, no.

It's not too bad. I'm just saying that I do respect, whether it's, you know, the hockey writer or the hockey coach. I mean, there are certain balances you have to strike. And hockey media people have their own, you know, challenges, specifically when you get deep into a career and you have friends and allegiances and sources that you become loyal to. Absolutely. Okay, two quick things, and then I'll let you go because I've taken up and up for your time.

So I have the answer. of both these questions, but I'm curious for your take since you follow this stuff more closely and have been doing your monthly prospect rankings this season. Give me one guy that you think is going to go lower than he should in the first round and give me one guy who

for whatever reason has red flags that would scare you off, but you think some team is going to take him higher than you probably would advise them to. I think the guy that would scare me is Michael O.Rasmuson. That was Michael as well. Of Tri-City.

he's big and he looks like a pro hockey player and listen he had a really good prospect scheme and he impressed me but I look at I look at a lot of power play production for him I would like to see more five on five he's seducing because he looks like a pro player right now but I have the feeling that he may end up getting chosen higher than maybe he should

but again then it's taking me a long time to come to that realization about players like him. But I feel like you had him around like the 10 spot earlier in the season, right? And you've kind of progressively knocked him down a little bit. Injuries have hurt there. And then when you look at the power play versus 5 on 5 production, you start to knock down. But there is still something to be said about a big hockey player who can play, who can compete. I know, you know, it's pretty hip to like the 5 foot 10 guys, the water bugs out there.

There is still, you know, plenty of room for a guy that can move with 6'4. six for five. The guy who I think may end up going lower, and every year we're looking for that Cam Fowler, Jacob Chikrin, you know, the one guy, and usually it's a defenseman that falls and falls and he can't figure out why, considering at some point,

you know, who's considered the number two prospect, which, you know, a couple of years ago, Jacob Chichron was right behind Austin Matthews. And for me, that guy this year is Timothy Lilligren. Yep, my guy as well. You want to pick Lilligren? Yeah, he made me, yeah, okay,

I can see. say I can say Keller Yamamoto then if you want. I mean, he may be a faller. But I think that Lilja Grin is probably, when you started the season off with Mono, so, you know,

your strength is compromised, didn't really get it back, and then bounced between various teams at various levels. And I guess at the last few eight, he played real well. But from everyone that I talked to in Sweden, hasn't been the best season for Lilja Grin, considering,

We were talking about Nolan Patrick being Jonathan Taves Light, and for a long time we're saying that Lillegren was Drew Doughty Light, that they have that sort of skill set overlap. And I can't help but wondering whether he's going to end up being that, oh my God, I can't believe he's still available at 12 guy. So Rasmussen would be the one and then Lillegren would be the second one for me. But we almost see this, I feel like, you know, some of it might be a little bit of a confirmation bias or anecdotal, but it does feel like every year. there's this one prospect who people are high on and then he has mono at some point during the season and his stock drops and then you know the next year he winds up performing very well and we're like oh well of course he shouldn't have fallen i mean you know whether it was a logan cature or a colin white like there's always these guys that maybe go a few spots lower than they would have otherwise if they'd been healthy all year and it's not like having mono is this sort of a debilitating thing that's going to uh impact your future performance so it does seem like teams would be be at this point capable of overlooking that and not dropping guys too much because of it. But then also we kind of see it every year. So maybe there is something to that theory.

Yeah, it's tough, man. I feel for these guys because you're not just looking at who the best 18-year-old is, but you're trying to figure out who's going to be the best 25-year-old. Like, that's the challenge. You may look at it right now and you say to yourself, like, oh, yeah, you know what? I'll take, right now I'll take Eli Tolvinen over Michael Rasmussen because he's more. productive five-on-five. Well, you know, you don't know what, you know, what's going to happen. You know, who's going to be better at the age of 25, Eli Tolvinen, at 5-11, 180 pounds, or is it

going to be the 6-foot-5 guy, you know, at 205 pounds, who has been demonstrated he can score and he can get around the ice, and, you know, now the challenge is 5-on-5 for him. I don't know, because, I mean, your prospect, I mean, this is, you know, this is, there's gold in them, their hills, right? We don't know where it is, but we're going to go and we're going to try to find it. And that's what the best scouts will always tell you. We're not drafting. We think we're drafting 18-year-olds. That's what we'll tell you on Sportsnet in the next month.

Hey, we're drafting 18. No, we're not. You know, because the best general managers and the best teams aren't drafting 18-year-olds. So drafting 25-year-olds. Because that's how they have to project out. Who's going to be the best 25-year-old here? Well, especially what we know based on, like, aging curves where we know that you want to be kind of peeking at that 22 to 24-ish range, which is a lot younger than we would have thought in the years past.

And just based on how contract statuses are working now, where you're generally getting a very good deal on the guy for the first handful of years. Like, you really want to try and optimize that performance in those early seasons. For the forwards, I've always led to believe that it's 25 where they peak. Is it different for defensemen? Do you research? I don't know. Honestly, it's tough because I think generally those, you know,

aging curves are done based on offensive production. And we know that judging a defenseman based on how many points he's contributing is a poor way of doing it. It's my Anton Straulman corollary where it's like, there's just so much that goes into being a quality defenseman that might not be captured by just purely a goals and assists. So it's kind of tough to evaluate from that perspective. Yeah, it's tough, man. And then you start dealing with, you know, these different leagues and how do you weigh, you know,

the OHL versus, you know, the all, but a junior loop versus, you know, the SHL versus the USHL. Man, it's hard. Like, you know, have you followed Kel McArre at all from Brooks plays the bandits in the AJHL? He may be the first defense been drafted. You know, I think, you know, I think Muriel Heiskenon will probably end up being the first, but Kel McCar may give him a run for his money.

Man, he looks good out there. What a great skater. Just explosive. Anchors of Power Play. plays in the AJHL. Yeah. Yeah, it's tough to weigh that and know what that actually means

the grand scheme of things. But then I look at the old Dante Fabro played in the BCJHL last year and man, I love Dante Fabro. He's awesome. I loved him then and loved him now. I think Nashville got a really good one there too. So, man, it's hard.

I love these guys. I have such a bias for scouts. I have such a soft spot in my heart, maybe because of the guys that I hang around with the most. I have such a soft spot. for these guys because what they do is fricking tough.

Yeah. It's hard, man. I mean, what people like you and I are ultimately doing here is just sort of trying to narrow our blind spots and try and increase the probability of getting the pick right, but ultimately it is still such a crapshoot. And that is part of what makes it fun.

Because if we just like, if we knew which 30 guys were going to have the best careers from 1 through 30 and then they were just picked accordingly, like that wouldn't be very fun, I don't feel like. it's a good way to put it too that's a good way to put it is that you're just all you're doing is trying to you know create this cluster of players is going to give you the best probability of success right because really i mean nailing it just like the hockey game itself so much of it is luck so much of it the right situation the right coach the right training the right breaks the right like all of it

god so much of it is luck yeah it definitely is because it's not like this idea oh this guy works harder than another guy. This guy wants it more than another guy. They all want it. They all work hard. Okay? Just stop with all that. They're all work really hard.

There's just so many other sort of factors. And I think luck is one of them that goes into this. Absolutely. And that's what keeps us coming back for more. All right, Jeff, plug some stuff. When is... What am I doing? What is the Memorial Cup?

Here we go. Moroc Cup. It begins Friday. We'll have a half an hour pregame show, which I believe is starting it. I should know this. which I believe is starting at 630 Eastern on Friday. You can watch Memorial Cup on Sportsnet. I believe the NHL network is picking it up.

They usually do, but I'm not 100% sure. Opening night Friday, St. John Seedoggs, the President of Cup champions, represent the QMJL against the host Windsor Spitfires, which should be a lot of fun. It'll be a very loud WFCU building in Windsor. It always is for the first night. Saturday afternoon is the second game.

3 o'clock, we'll see the two U.S. teams go ahead-to-head. That's Erie Otters and the Seattle Thunderbird. So hope you can tune in. I hope you can watch as much of it as possible. It's always a treat. It's a great tournament. I fell in love with junior hockey so many years ago, and I hope that this tournament,

if you've never seen it before, helps you fall in love with the junior game as much as I have. Well, I'm looking forward to it personally. Uncle Jeff, have some fun out there, take it one broadcast at a time and make us proud, and we'll get you back on the show, hopefully sometime soon down the road. Keep your mic on the ice.

That's right. All right. See you, bud. The Hockey P.DEOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at SoundCloud.com slash hockeypediocast.