The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 296: A treat for the other 29 fanbases

Episode Date: May 27, 2019

Ryan Biech joins the show to get into all of this year's draft day debates. We discuss the prospects with the biggest potential impact, the teams that face the toughest decisions, and the most interesting questions that need to be answered.3:00 Jack Hughes vs. Kaapo Kakko21:00 Blackhawks, Byram, and draft starting at number 331:00 The next tier of top forwards42:30 The risk vs. reward of Vasili Podkolzin53:15 Translating Cole Caufield’s scoring to next level1:00:00 How high will the first goalie go off the board?1:04:00 Prospects with red flags to stay away from1:07:00 Prospects we’re higher on than most1:10:00 Changing draft philosophies over the yearsSee 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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Cross for me is my good buddy Ryan Beach. Ryan, what's going on? Loving this beautiful day here in Vancouver. I don't think it gets much better than this. Yeah, the listeners need to know the sacrifices would make for them to create quality content. We had to close all the windows and the balcony in this apartment. Yeah, and I was sitting on a bench at the park across the street. I had to get up from that bench. Yeah. I was getting some nice sun. There's a lot of glass here. Yeah. And it's really just keeping all of the heat in. So we're toasted in here. We're talking about hockey. Yeah. It feels weird. It does. Yeah. I mean, we haven't even started this down like a final yet and it's already late May and they're going to be stretching it out. I don't know if you saw

this but it's like I think there's like three days between games four or five, six and seven and we'll be going deep into June. So it always feels weird when people are at the beach and it's like, I got to go home and watch a Stanley Go final game. But I guess the league likes it that way. They're trying to turn it into a, say, 11 month a year sport. I feel like in August, everyone's away at their cottages and cabins and decides not to do anything. But pretty much like up until July, after free agency, we're even doing stuff then, and then as soon as late August, early September starts, we're back at it. Yeah, like basically everyone busts out of town July 5th, but even then the prospect stuff

is stuck kicking up more with usually the summer showcase and then Ivan Holinka and then those are always awful to kind of have to watch when it's like 30 degree weather in August and you're watching hockey across on the other side of the world at eat in the morning. So yeah, it's these are good problems to have for us. Yeah, I'm not complaining. I think these are what they call champagne problems in the long run, right? are champagne problems for us. So that's a good segue, though, because today we're going to be doing some prospect stuff and might seem a bit random just because, you know, we're still going through the postseason and there's going to be a plan, a couple weeks there where we can talk more about

prospects and prepare for the draft. But I figured with this little break here we have between the conference final and the Stanley Cup final, it'll be a good opportunity to get you in this makeshift studio and for us to talk about it because we did a similar show last year and I had a blast doing and we're kind of just going to do a bit of a mock draft. We're going to talk about some philosophical draft stuff, some highlight some of the key players. And I know a big crowd pleaser is always Ryan's under the radar slash red flag prospects that you give at the end of the show. Yeah, where I really put myself on the line and look bad, right?

Yeah, well, that's the beauty of media, the good and bad. Okay, we're going to talk more about your newest venture and what you've got going on in terms of your own content at the end of the show. Sure. We'll get more into that, I promise. But let's stop beating around the bush. Let's just start talking about what everyone wants to hear about, which is Jack Hughes versus Capo caco. Yeah, it's a big point of discussion.

Obviously with, you know, New Jersey and New York bumping up there, they kind of hit the lottery, you know, won the lottery, literally won the lottery and are going to, you know, reap the rewards from this kind of one-two punch of the draft class. I think it seems to be that every year it's now becoming a kind of one-two thing, and this year is even more so with Caco, you know, getting stronger as the year went on. And then, you know, Hughes being so good for so long

that those inevitable questions about his game kind of creep into. And then because of what Kako's doing, you know, it creates a lot of discourse and a lot of discussion on philosophical, how are you going to do this, and then also specifically about those players. I think because I know there's going to be someone who takes this conversation in the complete wrong way and misses the point of what we're talking about,

that you really, it feels like you can't go wrong with either of these two guys. Like sometimes it's like, oh, you know, I guess we'll still see the book still out on Nolan Patrick. I don't want to completely write him off. But I remember like at least that year, his year versus Patrick. Like it didn't, it felt like there was much more uncertainty. And clearly his year was the right way to go based on what we've seen from them in the first couple years of their careers. This case, like I feel like both guys are going to be awesome players in different ways. And it comes down more so to maybe what you covered or how you want to build your team and you can't really go wrong.

But I don't know. I've also seen people go like, oh, the big winners. here are the Rangers because they really can't mess this up, whoever the devils wind up taking it first, they just take the other guy second. There's something to that for sure. It feels like no one's going to really critique the pick because it's so obvious.

But at the same time, you always want to have the first overall pick. You always want to have the choice, right? Yeah, I think that New Jersey, or sorry, New York would want to control who they're selecting, but ultimately they're going to get whoever's left over. And I think, you know, it's definitely going to be hard to say, but I think the New Jersey is going to go the Hughes route.

And, you know, that's just solely because, of the impact that a center can have. And there are some people who think Kako can play center. And I could see that as well. But I think that, you know, Hughes being a natural center, and that's probably where he's going to end up in the long term. That'll be more attractive. And also his ability to kind of make everyone else around him better.

And I think that's the biggest difference for me between the two is that Hugh just has the ability to make all other skaters on the ice on his team significantly better. And they play with such high pace where Kako can be more of a one-man play-driving machine. and that isn't to take away from his playmaking abilities, but it is more like he'll just deak and dangle and drive the net and do his thing. And I think that if you're trying to build a team, you know, like New Jersey is, they're still trying to add all these pieces.

That might be more attractive once sets it apart. So here's the thing. I think you hit the nail in the head there, though. Like I agree. I think generally we place a larger premium on centers, just because, you know, we feel like they can dictate the terms of the game a bit more down the middle and have their kind of hands in all the different pots. and they're generally considered a more premium position.

In this case, though, I'm taking the argument of, like, I think I'm throwing that out the window because from what I've seen from Kako, he's going to be one of those rare wingers, similar to Taylor Hall, funny enough, that the game is just going to run through him and through his stick, it feels like. So when he's out there,

he might not be playing the prototypical center position, but he's going to be kind of dictating what's going on. Like, the puck's going to be on his stick. He's going to be controlling the possession. he's going to be controlling the pace. And so just because of that designation of wing versus center, like I'm not as worried about that as I would be in some cases where we're talking more like the Patrick Lion A peer goal score type

where it's like, okay, like he's kind of a one-trick pony. In this case, it feels like Kako is going to have much more of that play driving ability that we generally covet with centers. Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. And that's what also makes it so much a harder of a decision. And the discussion that's had by obviously New Jersey mostly is how much of an impact can cacko make on the wing and is that you know is that going to be enough to you know cover the difference in position and that is really tough i i think that this discussion has kind

of reached ahead just because of how strong he's played at the world championships and how you know unfortunately jack hughes went there and he's playing in a depth role but he's still you know making you know good plays he just hasn't been able to dominate the way that caco has so it'll be really you know i'm interested to see i if there's one you know one discussion i'd want to hear about is that one is being the new jersey devil's room and try to figure out the two because it'd be splitting hairs and honestly i i have hughes one and i have caco too but if you know if someone felt very strongly that as you said and i think you bring up a good point is that you know caco can dominate the play and drive the play as well as uh you know at taylor

haul and i that's fine taking my first overall right yeah no there is but i think there's like also some sort of psychological human element bias stuff going on here as well where it's like hughes has been the de facto number one prospect of this class for i don't even know how long long and out dating well back beyond the start of this year. And so I think there's like a human element of like, it gets a little boring to just have one guy there and just everyone else. And as media and as fans, we want to generate some sort of like buzz or conversation or dialogue

where it's like, I don't know, maybe it's not as obvious. So I think we need to do fight against that as well. That's not necessarily purely why Kako's entering this discussion. I think his play has been the biggest reason why. But I think there is a little bit of that where it's like, kind of this like shiny new toy where he's really just jumping up now and everyone's like, oh, have you seen Kako's latest game? I don't know.

Should he be number one? So I think there is a bit of that as well. Yeah, I think that it's the combination of things. It's the recency bias of Kako playing better in the second half. He was playing well all year long, but he's taking a step forward in the second half for sure. And then as you kind of said there is that, you know, Hughes has been the de facto number one. And now you're starting to try to punch holes in his game and say these different things. And I think one of the criticism I've seen of his game is that he's a little bit smaller.

which is true, but how much is he going to have to adjust to play in the NHL every single night? And I think we've seen some of that in the world championships where, you know, he can struggle when there's the strength of men against him compared to the players he's been playing against. But I wouldn't be too concerned in the long run. But those conversations kind of, you know, it's a snowball effect. We talk about how well Kakko's playing, how those concerns come. You know, there's been points to people making statistical, you know, analysis points of saying, well, you know, Jack Hughes, you only did this.

And it's like, well, he can only do so much because he's not playing against men. in the USA Jali's playing against college players so the you know the advanced analytics and and you know the comparison tools that are available to us can only put them up so high like you can't go any higher just because of the level so it's just a matter of trying to you know sort through the the mess and figure out which is one and two and i like i said the saying caco's number one is it's fine um i think a lot of people are jumping on it because of that it's like a sexy new stance exactly yeah exactly if they're wanting to be different but then everyone's being different so that it's kind of looping back.

And it is funny to see that it's this big storm happening and it happens every year. But this year seems to be a lot more fun. Well, yeah. I mean, listen, whenever you have a player of Hughes's physical stature, there's going to be those questions. I think just with what I've seen from his like absolutely elite skating and just his creativity, like I think it's going to be similar to a Patrick Kane thing where it's like, all right, like I guess he's small, but how many times are defenders actually going to be

able to get a good shot at him because he's generally going to be making them look silly and dancing around them. And so I'm not necessarily worried about that. And Kako is very clearly the more NHL-ready prospect, I'd say, I'd say, I'd be surprised. He's probably going to win rookie of the year next year, and he's probably going to have an immediate impact right away. But this is a player where you're thinking, you know, at least a handful of years down the road, and hopefully, like, this guy is going to be a cornerstone of your organization

for 12 to 15 years. You're not, I don't think you should be super kind of focused in on which guy is going to have the bigger impact next season. And although from New Jersey's perspective, not saying this is the right way to go about it, but considering Taylor Hall is an impending UFA and you're probably trying to entice him to stay here and spend the rest of his prime in New Jersey. And I imagine after the success they had last year and then this year kind of falling back, they probably want to get back there.

And so I'm sure there's some of that element as well where if you're Ray Shiro, you're probably looking around and going like, I don't know, it's pretty enticing that we could get a guy like Alco who could come in pretty much be like a first line winger for us right out of the gate. Yeah, exactly. And I think that both players are going to be in the NHL next season. I think that's without question. And I think that Hughes is probably going to struggle a little bit more.

And as you said, Kako's going to come in and make an impact right away. And yeah, that can be a layer to that because if you look at New Jersey, what are they, you know, they kind of need everything. So maybe a more NHL ready player is a little bit more attractive. But you do have to think about that three, four, five years down the line. And that's where I put Hughes slightly ahead. Because I think once he figures it out, once he, you know, puts on all of his strength and he, you know, has, uses his hockey IQ as what he already has to be the best player he can be.

I think he'll make more of an impact. And that's just the sense we're talking three, four years down the line. So it'll be really interesting to see. And I think that the funny thing is this is also the, this debate comes from who landed in first and second. Yeah. If the Canucks landed in first, it would be like, well, they're taking the IQs. So this conversation's over, right? So it is interesting. And, you know, for New York specifically, they probably are okay with either sense because

the Kako will come in there and they have a whole wave of players coming. they could be a playoff team as early as next year with that. Or Hughes might be that, you know, another centerpiece that they could use to go with the wingers that they have coming. So it's really really interesting to see how this plays out. And it's actually really cool from our standpoint on the outside to have it happening two teams in New York, right? Yeah.

No, I mean, there's certainly going to be a lot of attention on them. And with Hughes and the devils, if they do wind up going that route, like, I don't fault them at all. That is a very intriguing prospect of having his year and Hughes in some order, one, two. down the middle for however many years to come, especially since both guys are the types of players, as you mentioned with Hughes, that they're going to make the guys they play with better.

We've already seen that from his year, and I have no doubt Hughes is going to be similar, probably to an even greater degree offensively. And so that's one of those luxuries where it's like, yeah, you know, even if Taylor Hall leaves or Taylor Hall stops being a superstar as he ages out of his prime, you can put pretty much whoever with those two guys, and they're probably going to score 30 goals

and have an awesome career season. So from like a GM's perspective and a coach's perspective, that's probably like the best thing you could have where it's like, okay, we're just going to have these two guys. And then it doesn't really matter what else is around them because they're going to thrive regardless. Sounds like a nice problem to have. It's pretty good. And I think also like, you know, obviously all these teams are wanting to take that step forward and make the playoffs. And I think that, you know, going to Jack Hughes route that solidifies your center position at one and two. And then maybe you go buy a winger in UFA to then supplement that course.

So then that way you have a more of a well-rounded top six where maybe Kako size. and then it's going to be hard to kind of replace that hole in the middle. You know, we always talk about best player available, don't draft for need. But when we're talking about these elite players, they're getting inserted into your lineup tomorrow, basically. So you do have to have some consideration into that and how you can make that, you know,

take advantage of the fact that the lottery balls went your way. How do we take a next step forward and be a playoff contender next season? And maybe that's the way you take Jack Hughes, you go buy a UFA or two on the wing, and that's who you're pitched to Taylor Hall. Be like, look, we're spending our money. We have this guy who's going to be part of the future for a long time.

So, yeah. Especially from, like, devil's perspective, like team building perspective, you don't want to get ahead of yourself too much, but let's just say heading into next year, you know, you've got his year as your number one center. You can use Hughes in a bit more of a sort of sheltered role against maybe softer competition, pick your battles with him. And then that bumps a guy like Travis Ajax down to what he's better suited for

regardless of how much he's being paid, which is kind of that prototypical, like, shutdown defensive center. And then all of a sudden, like, your team really starts taking shape and making sense. And I wouldn't be surprised at all the Metro is. pretty tricky and there's a handful of teams there that are good but I wouldn't be surprised at all that if the devils are much more competitive next year right out of the gate just because adding a guy like Hughes allows everything else to sort of fall back into a more logical place. Yeah, exactly. And I just pulled up their assets and stuff on cap friendly and they do have

multiple second round picks and multiple third round picks and then there's currency to go buy other pieces. I think they have a bunch of cap space too. Exactly. So they have these abilities to take that step forward and you know it is all part of that conversation and how do we make that team better with this draft pick. So it'll be interesting to see. And like I said, I give the slight edge to Hughes based on solely on his ability to make everyone better and three, four, five years down the line. And New Jersey obviously has that extra aspect to it. Well, so here's a question for you. Just sort of as like a philosophical question, obviously it applies to this debate, but also just other draft prospects. You know, this whole idea of competition and leagues guys are playing

in. Obviously, you need to weigh that in as well when a guy has huge offensive numbers, especially generally if he's playing in the queue I'm like, what's going on here? Like does everyone have these numbers, right? And sometimes you see these kind of just lofty, ridiculous offensive totals. And I think people are very intrigued by the fact that Kako, I mean,

this speaks to his NHL readiness, but, you know, he, I mean, he had amazing draft numbers for a U-18 player in a men's pro league, right? Like I think he was just behind the good Granland and Sasha Barkov in terms of like modern, like from this generation, guys at that, producing at that level, right?

And so that's obviously great company for him. And then you watch and how he uses that frame of his. He had that notable play in this World Championships where he basically looked like an older brother playing against Ryan Suter, who was his younger brother, and just keeping the puck away from him and cycling around the offensive zone. And you can sort of just like envision what that type of player is going to look like tomorrow in the NHL. With Hughes, I mean, the numbers speak for themselves, 112 points in 50 games for the

U.S. developmental team. he had 20 and seven games at the U-18s. We've already seen him make guys like Caulfield and we'll talk more about him, but Oliver Wallis from the year before, like he's already making guys look amazing that get the good fortune of playing with him. But I do think part of the reason why this is becoming

a bit of a debate is because people are like, I just want to, like, there is that quality of competition perspective where you're wondering how you translate this stuff to the next level, whereas Kako's is much more translatable. Now obviously with Hughes, just the fact that the totals he has put up are what they are, it makes me much more comfortable translating them, as opposed to if he was closer to a point in a game,

I'd be like, I don't know how much upside he has. Clearly, when you're putting up these historic generational numbers, it makes you feel much more comfortable being like, I think you'll be pretty good regardless of where he plays. I think it'll be okay, yeah. Yeah, no, and that kind of loops back to what I mentioned earlier,

but, like, I don't know what else Jack Hughes could have done in terms of production because what you would be asking from him is to go score three points a game. Yeah. That's just not going to happen. Right. So, yeah, for me personally, and a lot of people who kind of, you know, follow this from the number standpoint is that, you know, anytime there's a draft eligible player who's playing in those men's Lee, whether that's Sweden or Finland as being the leaders or Czech Republic or Germany or whatever. The KHL is like a super rare example. Exactly, yeah.

Even if they're even just playing games, that's an encouraging sign. If they score some points, you're like, okay, this is someone you need to watch. And if you do what Kako does, you're like, okay, like, this guy's going to be really good. So it'll be, you know, he did things that just weren't done by anyone else, and you can't dismiss that fact. And if there wasn't a player like Jack Hughes in this draft class, he'd be the first overall pick. But you kind of have to figure out, you know, figure out where you're going to go with this and things like that. And I think that you kind of mentioned a good point there with Wallstrom is that, you know, you look at Jack Hughes and he's been part of that program for two years and look at the players that he's made better. He made Wallstrom better.

He made Farabie better. and both of those players had good NCAA seasons, but not great NCAA seasons. They weren't having as great of a time as they were while they were playing with. Exactly. I feel like we're going to see the same thing again with the boldies and the Coffield and the Zegris and all these kind of players who played in and around Hughes quite.

And that's something that you kind of have to take into consideration. And it's not something that you can probably quantify, but it does kind of go in towards the, you know, he makes everyone better. It's about, you know, get the best out of every single player around him. He may not be, you know, stand out every single time, but it's going to make something happen.

Right. Yeah, no, I think that's fair. You know, we're recording this on a Thursday afternoon. Finland just beat Sweden in overtime. So, you know, I think we're going to be posting this on Monday. So hopefully when people are listening, something either just ridiculously amazing or horribly catastrophic as it happened to Goghoku. I was going to say, no in my luck, he'll score like four goals in the semifinals. People will be like, why aren't these guys referencing the insane game he just had

where he's single-handedly won the tournament? All right. Are there any other points on Hughes-Bers-Cocker? I feel like, you know, we did 20 minutes on them, I feel like, we probably do another 40, either they could be a full show, just those two guys, because they are that special of talents. But, um,

interesting in terms of like, new, unique points for us to bring to that table, I feel like that's kind of, it. Like we've been, everyone's been talking about these two guys for so long that we do get into the risk of just like overly nitpicking,

getting overly critical just because there's nothing else to do. Whereas like, with all the, a lot of these guys who are laid risers and guys who are entering this discussion for third overall and fourth overall, which we'll discuss in a bit here, all of a sudden everyone is just like focusing on all these great things they do and they're like oh this guy's actually amazing and we haven't they just haven't been on like the forefront of our radar for long enough for us to really kind of feel the need to nitpick them and and bring their games down a peg. Yeah absolutely. I think that's part of the thing that does get overlooked a lot of times with these top players is that you always see the positives on it.

But there are always negatives to their games like there are flaws like you know you talk about caco doing what he's doing and I don't think there's much more we can kind of nitpick about both of these players are both going to be really good and it's going to be. be really interesting to see how they, you know, how they play in the first year. And then, you know, Caco just continued to rise throughout the season. And then there's these other players that have been kind of left behind the group because, you know, starting the year, it was kind of Jack Hughes by himself. And then it was a tier of four players and then a bunch of other ones. And then Kako kind of put himself as the separator. And then he started to push up from there. So it'll be, you know, that's kind of how the year went for them overall. Okay. Well, so the draft, it really does feel like it's going to start a third overall, right? Because we just,

know that in some order these two guys are going to go and there's not too much intrigue there although I guess maybe if caco goes first everyone's going to think oh my god but you know with the black hawks picking a third they're an interesting spot here because depending on where you look and obviously opinions vary around the industry but I've seen in certain outlets in certain cases where people have been talking about bow and byram as being the third overall guy or the next guy up and I think part of that and we can get into this is just that it does feel like there's a very clear separation between himself and all of the other defensive prospects that are available, not to necessarily put down guys like Sordorstrom and Broberg and, you know,

Cam, York and whoever else you want to have on that list. But it does feel like those guys and most of these mock drafts are kind of in the mid, like early to mid-teens. And Bowen Byram is anywhere from like third to like sixth or seven sometimes. How are you feeling about that purely? Let's talk about it purely from the perspective of Byram and the other defensive prospects before we get into the fit with the Blackhawks and what they should be doing. Yeah, so Byron was entering into this year was the kind of a clear number one defenseman of the draft class,

and I think he's done everything possible to separate himself quite a bit from the rest of that group. I think he had an absolutely fantastic season, showed everything that why people were so excited of entering into the season, and he took even a bigger step forward than that. And there is just a gap, and for me, you know, I get asked a lot about it a lot because obviously we're here in Vancouver, and I saw quite a few Giants games, and the main difference for him compared to, to the other one is he's the only one that I could confidently say is probably going to be a top pairing defenseman. The other ones, I could see them being a complementary top pairing guy. You know, maybe Soderstrom plays with a high-end offensive guy and that's how he gets into that role and the other ones so far. But,

you know, Byram, I could see, okay, this guy could be the one driver. You drive his own pairing. Exactly, yeah. So that's why he's separated himself. And, you know, there's, his flaws are, you know, perfectly fixable problems. And I think that if he goes to somewhere like Chicago, I think that that's a great situation for him because I think that he won't have to go in there and be the number one guy right away. He can kind of work on it with the other good defensemen that they have there with Yuccahajou and the other guys I'm drawing blanks now unfortunately. But that's that's kind of why I think that he has separated himself immensely from the rest of that group. Well, I mean, that's kind of why I brought up the Blackhawksman's perspective because so in the past two years, they took Boquist last year,

that's the name I was again. Nicholas Bowden, 27th with their other first round pick. They took Joki Harju with their first run pick in 2017, and they also took Ian Mitchell in the second round, who kind of popped this year in playing for Denver, I believe, and playing for Canada and the world juniors. And so it's this really fascinating mix of, like, they have arguably one of, if not the worst defensive corps in the NHL right now. Like they have a bunch of big names with Keith and Seabrook, but their actual abilities in 2019 lag well behind their kind of their salaries and their name brand value. So they're certainly opening on that roster. And I think from the Blackhawks perspective,

especially if they're looking at a team like, let's say the Bruins, who they played in the 2013 Cup final, and then kind of took a couple steps back. And Boston's now made their way back, replenished with some young guys, like the Brusk and McAvoy and so on and so forth, but they still have a lot of those main names

that were playing for them in 2013. With the Blackhawks, I think, if you're Stan Bowman, you probably don't have a huge appetite to see this thing through with a massive five-year plan, just considering you probably with Kane and Taves and some of these guys who are making big money, You want to make at least one more run with these guys at some point,

and it's clear that they're not going to be able to do that with the current defensemen they have. So, like, I think there's this impetus where they really want to turn that over and get some of these guys they've been drafting up into the lineup. And I don't know, it's always really difficult to project with young defensemen. It feels like NHL teams are generally pretty conservative with it. And whether they're physically capable or whether just the teams are unwilling to do so, we rarely see defensemen step right into the lineup and make an impact. So you need to kind of temper your expectations there.

So that's why I'm kind of curious to see. how they go about this because that third overall pick there's going to be it there is no consensus and that's what makes it exciting where how they go it feels like it's going to really open the doors one way or another for the teams that follow and that's why i think people are looking at them very closely yeah it'll be really interesting to see which way they go because there's there's the obvious defensive aspect to it um i think that four that you mentioned and i don't know why i was forgetting boy quest but um those four are you can comfortably say that's a pretty good nucleus to build around but adding a player like Byram could really, you know,

allow that group to take a big step forward and, you know, basically just take over from Keith and Seabrook. Well, I guess Keith, not really Seabrook. Seabrook is there, but kind of take over that whole defensive core. But then you kind of point in the other direction and say, well, if they have that kind of depth on the defensive ranks, how about, you know, fixing the forward group? Because they do have some intriguing players in there and Debrincette's obviously pretty young,

but they could use some more help in there to kind of support that group. So do they go the American way with Alex Turcott? And I think that for a lot of people, he's the, you know, the next. It does feel like he's jumped into that, like, most commonly you see him as the third guy off the board, right? Yeah, and he's a player that, like, he had a fantastic 17-year-old year. And then this season, he just couldn't get fully healthy. And then it was in the shadow of Jack Hughes. He was never going to be the first line center for that team because there's no way that was going to happen.

So when he played, he's a dynamic player. And I think that people, you know, have kind of woken up to what he can do. and the play that he can create. So maybe that's the way you go. And then you kind of have a year or two, then you're hoping for a Taves and Tercot kind of way to go. And then lastly, if they really want to swing for the fences and hope.

Spencer Knight. Yeah, go go, Go, Goalton. Yeah, third overall, Spencer night, I know. But Colson might be the option in that wing way, right? Or Calfield. But these are all now,

we're getting players with question marks. Yeah. And a little bit more noticeable flaws to their games. So, you know, I think out of those two that, sorry, out of that group, Byram and Turcotte would be the most logical options. And then, as you mentioned, there's going to be a cascade effect no matter what, because I think that if Byram there is four, then I don't think he's going to last longer. And I know L.A. is probably hoping that he's going to make it all the way to five as well, too.

Well, and, you know, you do, there is, I guess, at some point, a point of diminishing returns because you do need to fill out a full lineup and a full roster and a full death chart. And so you can reach a certain point with a logjam where maybe, you know, especially with younger rebuilding teams, you go like, you should just let this player play throughout their mistakes and let them grow and learn and develop. And then if you have too many of those guys, as soon as the guy makes a mistake, maybe he gets bumped down to line up a little bit to give open the door for some others. And so it can impinge on each other a little bit. But at the same time, we just see there's just such like a still lack of enough good defensemen to go around the league.

Like most teams have a couple guys, even the great teams. And then they're like scraping the bottom of the barrel and trying to patch work and make it work with the HL guys in their fifth and sixth. defense slots and so I normally just obviously I generally preach take best player available but in this case I know people will be like oh they've been taking so many defensemen should they focus on the forwards I think in this case like you really can never have too many good young defensemen and you just have to acknowledge that as much as I like boquist and as much as I like joki harjoo like you never know like these guys not not all these prospects are going to reach their absolute ceiling and develop into their dream scenario and so acknowledging that that's why you want as many lottery tickets as possible hoping that

at least a couple of pan out and become top four defensemen. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think that if you're going to focus on one specific position, it's going to be drafting defensemen because where else are you going to get a player of his, a Byram's capabilities? Yeah. Unless you get really lucky in the second or third round. Well, and sorry to get you all, but like, you're never going to generally trading and signing

UFA defensemen of the caliber that we think he could be if he reaches his ceiling. Yeah. Like you're generally either overpaying badly. free agency or you're just paying an absolute ransom to get them in trade. And so I think that's why teams are so intrigued by these two-way number one potential centers and top pairing defensemen because they're just so hard to get your hands on in any other possible avenue. Absolutely. And then, you know, let's say three years down the line, all three of Yuccahazoo, Boy Quist, and Byram are reaching their potential. That's a great core. And maybe if you need to, you know, get more offense, you trade one of those guys.

Because if there's any going to be one type of player that's going to continue to hold value, it's going to be that high-end offensive two-way defensemen. So if you have three of them, you're not taking a ton away from your lineup. Obviously, you're going to feel it, but it's not, you're dealing from a position of strength to fix a weakness, and you're using the asset value of that defenseman to fix multiple other holes. So that's where, you know, it'll be interesting to see what Chicago does because Yuccaharser is already there. BoyQuist is probably your two-way. And Byron, we're pretty quick with BoyQuist as well. Right. So if you're wanting to do a rapid rebuild, there's your defense right there and then keep Keith

and then kind of fix in the rest with your UFA if you go more of the center or the forward route then maybe you're not going to kind of get that such a rapid increase but maybe you're okay in the long run because you're building the team differently so well and I get it from their perspective of like I'm not sure Byram is the third best prospect in this class but yeah in terms of like

certainty and this is a very risky thing to say about young defensemen, but it feels like he's probably not going to be a washout who's playing in Europe when he's 26. And not to say that Turcote or any of these other forwards will, but it does feel like there's this kind of like glut of guys and none of them are necessarily completely sticking out as the obvious third overall pick. So regardless of the way you go, it probably will feel like a little bit of a reach. And it just in NHL, we're never going to see a team like in the NFL draft, for example,

like trade the third overall pick for like eighth and, a second and a third or something like you just don't typically see trades like that. But in theory, like this would be the draft to probably do so just because the guy you want at third overall might be the guy you can get at eighth overall. If like who knows, right? Yeah, exactly. And there are some other interesting players in that group like Dylan Cousins is probably someone who I view as being just basically a sure NHLer.

He does everything right. But then after those kind of group, there's a lot of question marks about these players. And, you know, I kind of alluded to it before about, you know, Byron Flaws. And really the only things that I've seen from him and is that he can be a little bit passive in the defensive zone. And sometimes he puts himself into situations in the offensive zone where he just runs out of space. And it's like, okay, that's fine.

Like it's good. Those are totally fixable issues. And in the summit, it's like, okay. This guy's really eager to do a lot and help his team. Yeah, he has the puck on a stick too much. It's like, okay, cool. So, yeah, no, I agree with your point is that, like, if you're ever going to get a defenseman who's going to be an angel player,

that Byram is pretty much it. And he's done great things in the W. H.L. You know, Turcock comes with, you know, some injury question marks. Pekolsin is, you know, he's a player who does a lot of great things, but the results aren't there. Calfield is very small, 5-7, basically. And then you kind of have those WHL forwards where you have cousins, who is, you know, a sure back doc. There's concerns about his overall hockey IQ because sometimes he just kind of waits for the play to develop around him when he doesn't have the puck. When he has the puck, he's great. But then he also isn't, you know, driving the play or trying to get the puck when

He doesn't have it. Krebs played on an awful team. So how much is, how much, you know, how much can you take away from his performance because of him being literally the only guy? And then,

you know, kind of keep going down the list. I can keep, you know, pointing to the issues with it. So it kind of, it goes back to your point about the draft classes. Is there a sure number three?

A lot of people have Turkot at number three. A lot of people have Byron at number three. And then after those two, those two are usually in the top six. It's a matter of preference. And it can, the draft four could kind of shake out anyway. Yeah.

I always mix up whether it go Doc, whether it go Dak, whether it's, you know, Kirby, if you're listening. I don't know, with cousins and him, there's this, like, and it's probably unfair, but just I obviously, like, haven't been watching all their tape and watching every single their one of their games throughout the year. I'm mostly looking at their numbers and looking at some of these write-ups. And there's this, like, kind of natural pushback for me when I see a guy talked about super highly. And then I look and it's like, oh, he's a six-four center. I wonder if he's actually good or if people are just sad. Allivating at this idea of a big physical center. Yeah.

You know, they certainly have like a high enough baseline of offensive production where I'm not worried that it's purely just that. But when we're talking about this like highest tier of guys, there is a bit of that worry in the back of my mind that they're not necessarily, they're upside or their ceiling. Like when you say with cousins, you feel like he's going to be an NHL center. Like that's great.

But if I'm picking third, fourth, fifth overall, I'd ideally like to aim a little bit higher. if I'm viewing this guy as a potential cornerstone to my team in the years to come, as opposed to like, oh, this guy's going to be in my lineup. He's going to be a player. I don't know what he's going to be doing, but he will be wearing the jersey and not being on eyes for years to come. Yeah, I was probably just being a little bit unfair to cousin.

No, but I think I think you hear that in draft analysis sometimes where it's like, and I know I just said it with Byron, like, I feel like he's not going to be a bust. I mean, like, I think he's going to be a contributor. Yeah. With some of these guys and maybe it's a tier below them, but sometimes you hear like, oh, this guy's going to be an NHL player. I feel pretty comfortable about that. it's like, well, let's aim a little bit higher.

That's just like showing up kind of thing, right? Yeah, I think you're right is that, you know, Cousins is just a player who is really smart. He skates really well. He has good puck skills. He, you know, he has good puck distribution. He's got the size working from for him. He just kind of does everything well.

But is he going to be a dynamic top line winger or sorry, top line center and you're like, maybe. Yeah, it doesn't feel like he has like that type of dynamic skills. Exactly. But then you're like, okay, well, I can feel confident him being a second line center. Right. And then if he doesn't get there, then the third line center, right? Like, he has all the attributes to his game to be there. But I'm not so sure if he has everything to be a top line center. And that's where, you know, maybe he kind of, you know, where does he settle because of that?

And this draft class is really, it's really odd. There's a lot of NHL players in it. And it goes pretty deep. Like there's a lot of players that I like in the 50 to 60 range where I'm like, yeah, this guy's going to be a player. And I feel comfortable saying that about 50 or 60. Which at that point of the draft, it's like a massive home run. Let's be clear. Like if you're getting an NHL player in the second round, you've won.

Exactly, yeah. So I don't know what's going to happen. I think that's going to be the one too. And then after that, Chicago is going to dictate from there. And then there's going to be, you know, eight players from there that I could be like, yeah, he's fine at fifth. Or like he falls to 12th or whatever, right? So it'll be interesting to see how it shakes out. And it's mostly dictated by these players that are there.

There's a bunch of the American-born players, which come with the question marks of how much were they doing it themselves or how much was it the team and then you have the CHL players that we kind of talked about that each have their certain flaws to their games and then we have the defensemen that are good but I don't know if we can say that they're great kind of thing right so it's a really weird class in that sense yeah well and evaluating a lot of these defensemen like at least with with Byram like it felt like so much of the giant's offense this year was running through him and he was such a massive sort of building block for them in that regard we rarely see young defensemen relied upon that much.

So it's always tough to, when you look at, especially just kind of their superficial offensive point totals in their production, it's like, what's going to happen when they start playing with better players when some of these outlet passes start leading to two-on-one, odd man rushes and breakaways that can actually generate goals? So with a guy like Byron, I'm very, because I don't, you know, obviously he led the Giants far in the W, all the way to the WHL vinyl,

but I'm curious to see what it looks like he starts playing with better players who can capitalize on some of that beautiful passing and transition ability of his and maybe he can take an even higher kind of had me might even have an higher offensive ceiling than we've thought so far just purely based on his uh w hl numbers yeah that's absolutely correct i think the giant were they ran through him 100 and there was a lot of times where he's making these plays and you know the i don't want to you know take things away from these kids but there's a lot of the times where he would make a pass or a play and they just wouldn't get there yeah there's one playoff game or one game near the end of the year where it was like a two-on-one

and the winger had to make a play where he literally just had to chip it and he couldn't do it. And like, you could tell Byron was pissed afterwards because it was like just a small, simple play and he was wide open. And so it'll be interesting to see. I think that he has, I do think he has more to give offensively if he has more, you know, horses around him to do so. One big benefit that he had is that to start the year, they were playing him a ton.

They really didn't have anything. Then they acquired a couple of defensemen near the deadline and around then. And then he was kind of allowed to be, you know, not have to do absolutely everything for them. and then they put them with the capitals prospect conic libert and those two kind of form their top pairing and then that allowed byram to have a lot more energy in later parts of the game which then he allowed to put up more points and why he saw so many game winners in overtime because he was able to exploit right um you know tired teams basically so i do honestly think he has another step to give and i i do i'm encouraged to see what he can do in a professional structure because you know a lot of his offense was generated from joining the rush but i think that he can has the ability to also create offense in different ways.

And when he has the more horses around him, then he'll be able to translate that differently. I think that's an important thing to consider just generally. And, you know, this leads back to, like, our analysis of NHL players and also with prospect stuff where we always talk about quality of competition and who you're playing against and with prospects, what league you're playing it. But also, like, who you're playing with generally, especially for a lot of these major junior teams if you're not playing for a complete

powerhouse, they're generally, like, the best player on your team. Yeah. And I imagine there's also, like, there's actual, like, physical proof of, like, that example you laid out where a play just dies that if he plays with NHL players, that's probably going to lead to a goal in an NHL game. But there's also, like, the human element of, like, man, like, when you mention the critique of, like, sometimes he tries to do a bit too much in the offensive zone, and I'm sure there's an element of he knows that if he doesn't, no one else in the team will be capable of doing it. So once he starts playing with better players and coaching staff will, I'm sure, be able to work that out of his game. that's one of the biggest concerns of him. I'll take that any day of the week. Yeah, absolutely.

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Now let's get back to the show. All right. Let's talk about what my favorite. prospect. I don't think he should go first overall. I don't think he should go second overall. Probably shouldn't even go third. But Vassili Polkosen, okay, sex god pod. Yeah. Man. It's been fascinating to watch this because it felt like for a long time there, he was the clear de facto third overall guy. And as we've gone along here with the process, he's getting bumped down a lot of these lists. And I think it's going to keep happening. And by the

time we reached the draft, which is June 20 something, it's like a month away. I think people are, I'm very curious to see how far he falls and how much people talk themselves out of him as being a top upper echelon prospect here because just because this group is so muddled with all the names we've listed so far, it's conceivable that he falls quite a bit like towards even the teens, which as recently as a couple months ago would have sounded crazy but yet here we are yeah um yeah he wasn't even a name i kind of mentioned in those groups but he's he's you know i think every one of those players that i've kind of mentioned has a you can argue them to be a selected ahead of him um and the main reason why because of this is that

um he just hasn't been able to produce um there's you love the process you love the game you watch him you're like man this kid's an electric fine player like i don't like i kind of get desensitititized I'm sure you get this too is you get kind of desensitized to hockey sometimes but watching a player like poke holes and you're like

holy crap this guy's fun to walk reminds you why you love the game exactly yeah so you walk away from those viewings and you're like oh man this kid's good and then you're like but he didn't put up any points

like why didn't he put up any points and suddenly you kind of have to dig deeper in the leagues he played in over in the so many leagues in Russia yeah the VHL and the MHL is like they're not very good leagues like it's pretty clushy and graby and grindy hockey

and then at the U18's like he played well but he didn't you know electrify the same way that Jack Hughes did. And same with Hulinka. He played extremely well there and the points were there. I think he led the tournament score. Yeah, I think he had 11 points in the five games that he played.

And that's great. That's exactly what we see in the process. But the rest of the time, the sum of the parts are like, well, why isn't he producing enough? Because the process seems right, but it's just not happening. So is it because of who he's playing with? Is it just bad luck? Is it all these things? I think it's kind of a bunch of everything.

But the problem is that these teams will be able to kind of poke those. holes and then say well Dylan Cousers in six four and well you know Cofield scored a bunch of goals and like the results are there there's there's always seems to be something else that you can point with these players to take him ahead of Pug Coulson well and yeah that's the thing especially high up in the draft you're picking third overall after the Blackhawks and you're like it seems like a needless risk for us to take when we can take a guy who we feel very comfortable will be contributing for us at some level or some degree in in the next couple years with Percolzin it does feel like it's much more of a sort of lottery ticket but

you're right i think from what i've seen the sort of like just that it's so tantalizing like his power forward capabilities and just how he plays i love our our buddy and your colleague cam robinson and his write-up of him referred to him he was playing you know he's talking about his lightning quick hands and all this offensive creativity and then he described his uh his playing style as confrontational yeah that's probably exactly yeah and i love that like when he's going and when he's on his game like he's just an absolute bulldog around the net and and it's it's tough like i still don't know where stand, I do feel like the hate or the nitpicking has gone a bit too far. And I think by the time we reach the draft, I think it will have gone too far for sure. Yeah. Especially if he starts falling

into the teens. But I don't know. I was just talking about how, you know, if you're picking third overall, you obviously don't want to take the needless risk. But at the same time, you are trying to swing for the fences and hit a home run. And it feels like beyond the top two guys, he probably has like the biggest home run potential in terms of if he puts his game together, like, man, this guy could be something special. Yeah, that's absolutely right. I think that if he can take those steps and the result follows the process that he could be, you know, really, really, really good.

It's just a matter of, is he going to put that together and do you want to have that risk? And, you know, if you talk about Chicago Blackhawks and Stan Bowman is that, you know, they probably can't afford that risk. And then can Colorado, Colorado is. Well, Colorado probably can. That may be the only team that I could see doing so. But would they, could they also be a team that's like, okay, well, we're about to take a step forward.

How do we continue to support this? group let's go for a safer pick so that way we make sure we get someone else to join this group rather than swinging for the fences not saying that's what it is but I'm saying like this is how you justify then you get to LA and they could use anything so like and then you start going down further down the board and that's where you could see a player like him falling downwards and there is still that Russian bias to some degree which I don't necessarily agree with but you know there are the rescue that him just never coming over let's talk about that I get I get the concerns I think in this case, there's a couple things going on, right?

So we're talking about a teenager who, it's 2019 right now. And so this guy grew up probably watching a lot of Alex Obatchkin, a lot of Evgeny Malkin, a lot of these guys that have come before him and have found great success in the NHL. And he's growing up and everyone's watching all these highlights. They're all consuming North American pop culture and watching the TV shows and listening to the music. it just and with how many NHLers right now are Russian I imagine there's also like a comfort element as well that you know you're kind of not going to just be isolated and be alone that generally most teams at least have one or two guys that you can can kind of take you under your wing and sort of culturally fit in as well

so I just think some of those concerns especially with the top prospects like if we're talking about a depth lottery ticket like a fourth rounder it makes sense that guy would probably just at least for the next handful of years stay home and try and make some money and and build up his stock and maybe come to the NHL when he's 25, 26 years old with a lot of these top prospects. Like, I think the end goal is to come play in the NHL. And so I'm not, I wouldn't be concerned at all. Obviously, you need to actually speak to him and the people around him to make sure. But just from the outside, I think a lot of those concerns this late in the game are pretty overblown.

Yeah, absolutely. I think it was more of a general sense of the, yeah. It's that like it just seems to be another layer that you can put onto it. There's a bit of like an era of uncertainty still. Exactly, yeah. And, you know, it will be hard for them to ever, you know, you feel that it's going to be harder than it is. But we've seen with all these players come over, the goaltenders, Sorokin and Cros and Cros and Sampsonoff. And, yeah, and then we see even now we're starting to see more and more.

Exactly, yeah. We're starting to see it more and more. So I think that that concern is probably not valid anymore. I think that, you know, it's being overstated, but it does kind of just, it's just another reason to not go so. And I think that, I think ultimately he's going to go in the top 10. I think that, you know, I would not be surprised, as you said, Colorado. That seems like a reasonable bet at that point because they can swing for the fence with basically found money. And if it doesn't work out, then it's not the end of the world for them.

So maybe that's ultimately where he goes. But it'll be interesting to see. Colorado, man. I mean, obviously they were one of the big winners of this postseason. They got limited round two, but they were just so fun to watch. And they have all these future assets and all this cast space to spend. And how they go about that's going to be really. fascinating to me because there is a bit of that like playing with house money element but I think it still

is important for them to maximize this pick because hopefully just on their trajectory they're not going to have too many of these high picks in the years to come and this is their chance to add an impact player like that and on the one hand like there's there's a certain element of like you know we just saw what kale macarra did and they took him a high a couple years ago and sam gerard and Tyson berry for as long as he's there and it's the idea of like oh we add bull and byron to that list like that would be fascinating as well but then you know they don't really they still have a bit of an opening down the middle the jose hasn't necessarily developed the way they wanted to yet still could come but pretty much like your baseline for what you need for your guy behind nathan mckinan on the depth

chart is pretty minimal and if you can add another impact player down the middle there to give you a bit of that one-two punch all of a sudden you could easily be the cream of the crop in the west and so maybe we'll see if turcod goes third it's a bit of a mood point but i've feel like he could also be an interesting fit there as well. So you're right. Colorado, I mean, they're in a great spot where they're going to wait to see what happens at three and then they're going to take one of these guys. Yeah, it's a pretty good situation. Obviously, they probably wanted to stand first, but I think it would have been okay with Jack Hughes or Capulacca. Yeah, in the long run, they're going to do quite well with that. And I think that their defense is

looking pretty good with, you know, Gerard and McCar and Barry kind of forming that nucleus. And then it's a matter of giving that offensive depth because I think that's ultimately what, you know got them is that they weren't able to have a second line and and who will that be and joe says and taking a step there and you know they have bowers there's an interesting players but it's just not that next next group to add to it right so i always struggle to figure out who's going to go where with this one because i like i have my own personal preferences like i think paulcozen is a fantastic probably top five talent for me but you know just the way that the board shakes it might go differently but it's also easier for us to be like he's a top five talent but

if that doesn't work out for whatever multitude of reasons you're not bearing any of the blame for messing up that pick. That's why I like this. It's perfect. It's great. It's great. All the reward with very minimal risk for sure. That's the way we want to position ourselves. You know, we were talking about I don't want to get back to Hughes and Caco because there's so much else for us to discuss. But one thing that I have seen a lot and it's such like a lazy angle to take is like

comparing Hughes and Caco to Matthews and Line 8 just purely because of that like one, two, one guy is a finished winger, the other guys in American Center. Yeah. But beyond that, like, I really don't see any equivalent here. Like, all four of those guys are such different players that if I see any journalist that has actually put any period of time into thinking about this stuff, cite that as, like, an example of what's happening here. Yeah, I think the comparison stops where they were born.

Stylistically, they're four completely different players. And, you know, the only comparison is that, you know, the Finnish guy is pushing the American guy. the American guy was the consensus number one forever. So, yeah, I don't see the comparison there. I think that... Yeah, I mean, Kako's like much more, if you want to go with a finish comparison,

he's much more Miko-Ranton than... Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. I think that's more apt comparison of what the type of player is, and I think that that would be better. Plus, both guys are finished. Perfect.

Okay, let's talk about Cole Cofield because he's obviously been a hot-button topic just purely because, you know, the goal totals are just insane. what he had 72 goals and 64 games playing for the developmental team he had 14 and in seven games playing in the u-18s now playing with jack hughes certainly needs to be factored into that and unless new jersey is planning on acquiring another high first round pick and pairing them um i imagine eventually when he makes it at an hl he won't be not be playing with a player as dynamic as hues is

I'm not necessarily as worried about anything else except for that. A lot has been made of his stature, I believe last time he was measured he was below 5-7, which isn't ideal. But as we've seen with the direction the league's headed in and how many smaller players have been perfectly successful regardless of any height restrictions they may have, I'm not worried about that at all. I do with some of these numbers, they're just so ridiculously joddy. droppingly video game-ish that I just there's a bit of like a kind of a caution just like

okay like how much should we really buy into this because either this guy's the greatest goal score we've ever seen or this is a bit of a mirage all of the above yeah uh yeah anytime I kind of you know watch call field you think that you're like oh he's going to stop scoring eventually like it's got to stop running out but then he just kept scoring and scoring and scoring and scoring and I think you bring up a good point is that jack used who just had the ability to create space for him and he had the ability to just be goalies. And I think that that's probably not fair to what Caulfield is because Caulfield is really, really, really good at finding open space and shooting really

quickly and accurately. And that's a skill that it should be coveted because there's not a lot of players that have that ability. The problem is that he's 5-7. Generously. Yeah. He is not a fast skater. He's not the most, you know, usually with players of his size, you want a quick,

agile skater. For sure. He's not really super quick. He's not super agile as well. Like he's a decent skater in those aspects, but his top speed is not very good. So what is he, you know, how is he going to translate that to professional hockey? He's been able to exploit, you know, the USHL, the NCAA international tournaments. How is he going to do that at the next level?

So that's where that concern comes from. You know, there's no doubt that he is a goal score and he's a first round talent, but I think that we may even see him go in the top 10 just because of how many goals he scored. but is he going to be able to do that so much in the NHL or the AHL when, you know, that ice time or that space is not being afforded and he doesn't have the same quality of teammates as well. Yeah, you can be small. You can't be small and slow. Exactly. And that's the biggest concern.

I don't have an issue with his size. Like I think he plays pretty feisty for his size. But I think my issue for him is how is he going to get to that space effectively? Well, that's the thing we've seen. You know, I think Corey Prondman, like in his reports, does the, 20 to 80 baseball grade scale and he had a shot as generational level which is 80 and that's even better than he had a guy like martin firck for example who lit up major junior with his shot and playing with some of those top guys in halifax now with a guy like firk and the best example for me with

this and it comes up time and time again but he's one of the guys i've i learned the most from and we learned from our mistakes in terms of an evaluation and i just thought timu polkinen was going to be a no doubt about its star in the NHL. Just everywhere he played, he produced. Just the shot was ridiculous. And then you watched him at the NHL level. And as the game got just a little bit quicker, and defensemen got a little bit better,

and his room to operate shrunk by ever so small a margin from the AHL to the NHL, he just couldn't get a shot off on time. And it was just so abundantly apparent just watching them. And I was like, okay, like this, we need to factor this in now in our analysis. And because it is such a different animal. And so that's the thing I'm worried about.

Now, from what I've gathered from people that I trust with Coughfield, he's not necessarily a fast player from like a straight line A to B like Conner, Michael Grabner scale. Yeah. And I think that's probably what I value more from a player that profiles like him. Like I think of like a Tyler Johnson, for example. I don't think he's necessarily the fastest player and he's obviously a very small player in today's NHL. but he's been so effective offensively, obviously, playing with other great players on Tampa Bay helps,

but his ability to just, like, get to his spots in the offensive zone with creative cuts here and there and small bursts is all you really need. And so if he can, like the baseline for him to pass in that regard for his shot to play in the NHL is pretty small. And I guess whether he can get there remains to be seen. But at some point, the risk is worth a reward

because the shot and the goal-scoring ability are so dynamic and so elite that if you can put him in a position to succeed and he can put himself in a position to succeed, it could be a home run pick. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that you kind of pointed exactly at what he does well is he's just able to find that space

and get the opportunities when they're afforded to him. Well, I think there's also an element of like he could keep up with Jack Hughes. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Well, it was Jack Hughes would go for a run and Coffield would just kind of slip in there and then the puck can do it, right? So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see what he can do with different types of players, for sure. I think that I think in part it's an overcorrection of the changing landscape because we look at Alex de Brincat and everyone's like, well, you need to find the Alex De Brinkat and well, De Brinkat wasn't really a first round player. He was a second round player for a reason. There was flaws to his game and now it seems like everyone's like, well, Coffield's going to be the next to Brinkat. So you have to take him super early. And it's like, well, there is that cofield is a first round talent. There's no doubt about that. I think he does that risk that comes with it. And he doesn't be able to do the same things well enough.

to be a successful NHL player despite the size, despite this lack of straight-line speed. But are we talking about a top-10 talent? I think that's the question. I think everyone agrees. Yeah. A top half of the first round, but does he sneak into that top 10 and enter this group of guys with all the centers we mentioned and stuff like that? I think that's what's going to be.

And for me, I wouldn't, but I'm not 31 teams, right? Like there may be a team that values that goal-scoring ability slightly higher than, say, Alex Newhook, who is a player that we haven't talked about, who is more of a dynamic two-way center who plays with pace. So maybe that's, you know, you want to have a player like that rather than a goal score. And that could be the defining factor. Yeah, that's a lot of stuff to consider, man. This stuff isn't easy.

All right. So we're reaching an hour here. So there's still a bunch of stuff I want to talk about. So we're going to do kind of a rapid-fire-ish section of the show to get to as many topics as we can. Okay. How high is Spencer Knight going to go as the first goalie off the board? We joked at third overall. That's obviously not going to happen.

But I'm going to throw some stats at you here. So Craig Vatten has him 13th. Okay. Bob McKenzie, and this was back in April, so we'll see what his updated list looks like, but had him 15th. Sam Constantino has him 18th. I think typically where I've seen,

he's like sort of in that 15-ish to 20-ish range, which I'm not sure whether that says more about night or the class or the analysts putting him in these spots, but it goes against what we've seen over the past, however many years where there's been a pretty clear shift towards goalies not being. taken definitely in the teens but mostly even in the first round like most of the past i'd say eight or so drafts there's like a couple guys right there's samsonov and 15 he went

22nd um the dead the stars in 2017 traded up and he took ottinger 26 but beyond that like you're looking at carter heart 48 uh last year old off limbalm 39 Mason macdonald 34 the fukali 36 like it's generally that sort of early second roundish range where we start to see a goalie taken how high do you think night is going to rise in this year's class I think he'll probably go in the early 20s. I think he is the far and away best goaltender in this draft class. He's literally the only goaltender in this class that I am aware of. Pretty much, actually.

The European ranked goaltenders, I think, is like 20, maybe 15 or something. Like, it's a really small group for this year, which every time I open it up, I'm like, oh, yeah. But I think he's clear the best one in this group, and I think he has a lot of area within his game that he can still improve with good goaltending coaching, which I think is something that teams are getting, really on board with and really investing in that aspect to try to reap those rewards and doing that with your goalies through development process. I think Spencer Knight has the right toolbox to take an even bigger step forward. And I think what we're seeing in the trend is you mentioned those handful of goalies that were drafted in the first round. You have to be an elite prospect and that's

kind of where I put him in terms of goal tending prospects. You feel the knight is in that group of elite. Yeah. I would actually probably throw Thatcher Demko in that group as well as if he didn't have busted up hips. He probably would have been a first round pick as well. Right. But yeah, it's one of those players that just kind of has everything, or sorry, one of those goaltenders that has everything right going for him. He's got the size, he's got the technical abilities. He has the athleticism. I know goaltending, people hate that word, but me who's not very good at goaltending, we'll use that word. He has all the things working for him, and he's, you know, ready to be molded into a starting goaltender.

It kind of takes like a certain flex from a GM to take a goalie that high, though, right? Because even like the most recent guys, that went that high was, as I mentioned, Samsonov in 2015, and he was like, I remember he was considered like a sure fire, no doubt about it. Like maybe not as great of a prospect as Vasilevsky a couple years before, but like everyone was like, yeah, Sanstonov is clearly the best goal in his class, like he's going to be a stud. It was in 2015, and he still has not played an NHL game. And obviously having Braden Holby in Washington certainly helps where there's, there hasn't necessarily been a massive impetus or desire to throw him into the fire and have him play in the NHL.

But with a lot of these guys, like, you have to sort of realize that even as good as Spencer Knight is, or it could be, you're probably not going to see anything from that pick for realistically three, four, maybe even five years. And for a lot of GMs, like, if you have a pick that's that high, it's pretty tough to reconcile not getting a guy who can help you sooner. Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot more risk with the goaltenders. Right. And they're going to take a longer timeline to get there most of the time. We've obviously seen Carter Hart kind of exceed expectations. And even Samsonoff didn't play fantastic in the HL this year.

And that kind of, you know, even reinforces the point that, you know, you're going to have to have some serious Cajona as to want to take a goaltender that early. But if you get it right, you have a starting goaltender for 10 years, and that's pretty hard to replace. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's, it's, I mean, that's always what I'm watching just because it has changed so much over the past decade or whatever. So the first goalie off the board is always a big thing.

Okay, we're getting to that point of the show. Give me a red flag prospect, the guy that you're seeing anywhere in the first round where you're like, maybe he is a first round pick, but I am not as high on him as the rest of the industry is. I'll give two. One, it seems to be a huge talking about it,

is full Broberg. He's a really intriguing defenseman in the sense that he can skate and he has the size and he's shown really well at international tournaments. He struggled mightily at the Elspenskin level. His hockey IQ has stood out. He's still a first round player to me, but I've seen him being ranked in the top 10 and top 15,

and I have some, you know, some serious trepidations about that just because of the fact that I think that his overall impact won't be what everyone expects him to be. And we've kind of seen his draft stock slowly fall over the course of the year to a little bit more reasonable expectations. But I think that there's a lot of people that still view him as a top 10 talent just because of how well he did at Hulinka to start the year. And he had a good U-18. There's no doubt about that.

But I think that's a player that has the stock is getting a little bit ahead of him. And who's your second guy? Alex Vlasic with the U.S. program. There's some people who have him in the first round, early second round. He's six, six. Oh, wow. That's what he's got. That must be useful for hockey.

Yeah. I have a lot of rebounds. I have a lot of concerns. Yeah, a lot of concerns about his hockey IQ and his ability to read the play. Again, he's a player that probably will be an NHL player, but I don't view him as having an impact in any sense of where he will be selected. All right. Here's mine. This might be an easy one.

but Brett Leeson. Yeah, that was, that would have been one on the list. He's a broken-ass man. He's playing against children. He is pretty much playing his children. I mean, I'm willing to buy the argument

that people can develop and get better over time and maybe a guy who came late to the game has a different trajectory. Yeah. But man, I remember like, I was listening, like I was watching the world juniors

and it's like, oh, Brett Leeson really found his game this year. It's like, yeah, he's fucking my age almost, man. He's old. He just was, he lifted up the couch, and his game was right there. This guy's got like a full beard.

What's going on? Yeah, that would probably be the one that I would have thrown on that. And now, especially that his teams in the Memorial Cup, it's like, man, like, everyone's like,

oh, Brett Lison. Oh, this guy's rising up. I've seen him somewhere, like in some drafts like in the early 20s, and I'm just like, oh, my God. Yeah, no, thank you. I would feel comfortable taking him in the early second because of the fact that you could just insert him into your age

a lineup next year. But that's about as far as I go, like not a first round. Early 20s, are we talking about his draft slot or his age? Like, come on, Jeez, Louise. He's 24. Haven't we learned about this stuff?

Like, whenever a guy goes from like, yeah, he had eight goals in 2016, 16 goals in 2017, 46 this year. It's like, oh, I wonder what changed. Yeah. And if I'm not mistaken, like, compared to other 20-year-olds, it wasn't like that great of a season. Like, it was fine. Yeah.

Yeah. It's my, yeah, old rager's, it's not groundbreaking territory to say be careful of the production. Here's my, oh, give me a, okay, under the radar. riser slash flyer slash guy that you're higher on than the industry is. Oh, wow. That's a good question. Yeah, let's go with that.

Arthur Calli. Yeah. But I've seen him being ranked as early as like 12th. Yeah, but I've seen him also like in the late teens quite a bit. Yeah. And I can already, I mean, here's Sam Constantino's right up on him. He can score goals and no doubt about that with 51 this season. But is his effort and play away from the puck consistent enough?

Yeah. I feel like I've seen this story enough times to know how. Calliyev's career is going to turn down and it will probably exceed his draft slot. Yeah, he'll start, he'll just turn it on. Yeah, he'd produce crazy amounts of numbers and was, you know, he just was one of those players that would disappear for 58 minutes of the game and then he had, his team sucked. Yeah, and then he'd score four goals or whatever and he'd be like, yeah, I'm done here. Yeah, yeah, which I feel like is a good skill.

Like, if you can, here's the thing. A lot of guys can try really hard, but they can't actually do that no matter how hard they try. Yeah. I'd be much more willing to take a guy who physically can do that sort of stuff. then either put him in a position where he's playing with other good players and he's inspired or motivate him financially or any capacity or he just matures and realizes he should be doing it more often like there's certain things you can and can teach and in that case I am intrigued by the talent enough where I think you should go top 15 at least and and I wouldn't be surprised

to see him go like late teens maybe even into early 20 yeah and I think that would be great value I think that there's a couple teams in that range that have their second first second first round pick in there so that's good that be great yeah the Rangers have 20 well the abs have their at 16, which I think would be awesome. And the Kings have 22. So, yeah, those are a couple teams who have a, their second. Yeah, those are teams that you might, you could see being a little bit more swing for the fences, for lack of a better term, and going with a player with that kind of risk.

Yeah, yeah, the problem is that I have so many in that, like, I kind of get a little too invested in some players. I think the one that jumps to the top is Tony Honka, the brother of the much maligned Dallas defenseman. I think he's a player that his stock entering the season. year people were really excited about him and then it just slowly tumbled to the point where I think it's over corrected way too much you know myself and a bunch of other people we use tools that allow us to kind of look at comparables and there's only

10 players out of this draft class that have no comparables based on their you know size and their production and he is one of them and he has just continuing to see his draft stock fall or the others you would be surprised jack Hughes Caulfield Turcotte Fensori which he's a really small guy caco obviously Pustilla, Honka, and Tepley. And then there's a five-foot Russian winger. So really, there's only nine. And I'm not going to try to pronounce his name, but those are the nine.

And each one kind of comes with, you know, obviously most of those names make sense. There's a couple that are small. And then there's the European players. So immediately for me, when I, you know, look at this, the numbers of the players, then those players jump to the top. That's usually a reason to be like, okay, there's probably a reason why. And a lot of the times it's just because they've done things that nobody else has. I like that.

Okay, let's end on this. So one of my favorite parts of last year's show when we did this was at the end, we kind of got a little deep, you know, we started talking about draft philosophy and, and kind of bigger picture stuff like that. And I'm always curious because now, you know, you and I have been doing this for long enough. You especially have focused on the draft a lot more in the past couple years. And so, you know, like I was talking about with team of Poccanan, you learn certain things, you trial by error, you mess up, and then you're like, okay, now I've learned from this next year,

I'm going to do better in this capacity. And so I'm kind of curious, as time's gone on, as you've done a couple drafts here now, are there certain things that you've either wised up to or noticed or what you prioritize, either from an eye test perspective or a numerical perspective, has changed? You can take this any way you want, but just sort of, as time's gone on, what have you sort of realized about yourself as an analyst when it comes to the draft in terms of what you're looking for and what you care about the most?

Yeah, I think it's a, an important skill to have is to be self-reflective and to kind of figure out how to be better. And I think that that's something I've tried to focus on and kind of answer that question. The biggest thing for me is like how much does the player do on his home? Because a lot of times you can look at the numbers and that may see a player stock, you know, stock rise and they can go up in there. So that's really what I've tried to kind of figure out. And also how are their skills going to be translatable to the next level? And, you know, when you're starting it off, you're going to go to junior games and you're going to be like,

oh, that kid's really good. but is he just got his head down and he's going to get clocked every time, but because he can get away within junior, he's putting up a lot of points. But if he goes to the AHL, he's not going to do that and so on and so forth, or is he not penetrating the home plate area enough to generate offense in that sense? And like there's so many of different aspects. So that's something I've tried to kind of put more of a focus on, is trying to figure out that.

And then the other thing is that, you know, as we've kind of gotten more invested in this is more layers to the analysis. And luckily there's a lot of people in the public community who are starting to do manual tracking, which now it then allows us to then add, more layers to it. So that's zone entry, zone exits, all these different things that are generally more available at the NHL level. But at these junior levels, you have to have, you know, do the work to find it. But that adds layers on it. So, you know, you look at players as like, how does this

player's high zone entry rate, success rate translates? So then you go back and watch said player and you're like, okay, well, he's really good at gaining the line and waiting for his teammates. And how is that going to translate to the next level and why is he effective? So that's something that I think I've added personally and something that teams are also starting to add more in their, you know, their building boxes figuring out how the players do things that aren't just showing up on a score sheet kind of thing, right? Yeah. No, I think that's a great point because obviously, I mean, if you just look at the sort of superficial, especially the box car number, is like you can learn stuff from it, obviously. Like you'd prefer a guy who has produced at this

point because it makes you feel more comfortable that he will at the higher levels. But I'm much more interested in how has he gotten there and sort of, how translatable are those skills, right? And sometimes there's stories in there where a guy might not be as good as his number suggests or a guy might be even better as you're talking about upward calls and with like the process versus the results and how comfortable we feel saying that

one is what will lead to the other and stuff like that. So I mean, it's kind of the blessing and the curse or sort of like the fun thing, but also the scary thing about all this where it's like there's still so much more room to grow or getting better at it. But it also is what makes it ultimately fun. And there's no like real right answers most of the time.

Like there's obviously bad takes and good takes sometimes, but like for the most part, you, you can talk to 10 different other people, and they'll all have different lists of guys who they like more than the industry or guys who they like less and for different reasons. And that's what makes this fun because it feels like all, it's a year-round thing, but especially now as we head towards a draft, like the conversations are so exciting. Yeah, and it also can be who watched who on what night. Exactly. There's been a lot of especially with like teenagers. Yeah. There's, there's been nights where I've gone and seen Bowen Byron play live and he's been bad. He's been.

not good. And you're like, if you walked away from that game, you're like, how was that guy top three talents? And then there's nights where you go and he's the best player on the ice by a country mile. And you're like, well, okay. So that's kind of also another layer that I think does get overlooked. And, you know, obviously people have different opinions. And it's all about collaborating and figuring out how to make each other better in that

sense when we're kind of talking about, you know, analyzing these prospects because there's so much uncertainty. It's not simply like NHL versus NHL. We're talking about, you know, different levels of competition. And then junior teams are really good high-end, really terrible bottom. And then there's teams that load up and who are they playing with and all these different layers that kind of add to the overall picture, which is, you know, not as clear as we would hope. Well, no, for sure. I remember I was looking at like Guelph's roster page the other day.

It's like what their team looked like at the start of the year. Or it's like towards the end of it when they load up. It was just like, oh, my God. Yeah, exactly. The entire picture changed. Yeah, who benefits from that. It could be a draft eligible player. And then you'll see that I can't think of any off the top of my head.

but you'll see a player who's, you know, ranking skyrockets at the end of the year. And you're like, well, why did he? He's like, oh, we put up a lot of points. But why did he all of a sudden put up a lot of points? And maybe a player got injured. And then he suddenly got a role that he wasn't being afforded to in the first half. And then, you know, how does that change the perception of it? Is there anyone from last year that you've completely changed your mind on,

like in terms of any of the highish guys in the first round? Not that I can think of off the top of my head. I was really high on Wallstrom. And I think that he, you know, he has struggled. bit at the college level, but I'm not overly concerned about that, but otherwise I don't think so. I actually had a funny memory is that when we did this last year, I kept referring to Quinn Hughes as Quinton. And you're like, can you just refer to him as Quinn? Yeah, and he was a player that I thought would be gone, you know, before the Kinnacks would

take him. And here he is, you know, doing his thing over here. So I honestly can't think of anyone there. I think that BoyQuist might be the only one because he had, you know, there were some concerns about what he was going to do defensively, but then he played pretty well in In juniors. But even with him, I feel like there was like Evan Blouchard came on the team or something after, right? Yeah. Because he didn't start the air with them. And then so like just another example of how much the major junior stuff can change

of the season. Yeah, exactly. They kind of formed a one-two punch, you know, as there. And, you know, so. All right. Let's get out of here. So as promised, let the listeners know what you're up to with next-gen hockey and all the profiles you guys have been doing.

Yeah. So myself and Jeremy Davis have created next-gen hockey, which is basically, what we're trying to make is everything that we did at Canucks Army but in one stop. So we are going to aim for 100 prospect profiles. I don't know if we'll get there because we're trying to do a little bit more thorough to make it worth the price of admission. And then we're getting some help from other fellow Canucks Army writers. So it's just basically any prospect that we view as a top 100 prospect will have all

their data that's available to them. That's goals for. Wowies, you know, the prospect graduation probability system, seal, which is developed by Garrett Hole here in Vancouver. different things that give you kind of different layers to it and then you know full scouting report so it's been really exciting and we've been really encouraged by the reception um to it so far and we're we're excited where it's going awesome and you guys also you are doing a weekly draft podcast well it's on the radio radio but in podcast form yeah exactly i was going to say where what outlet in

Vancouver am i not part of might be easier to do uh yeah so myself and saty r shaw and cam robinson we do a weekly podcast for sports 10650 uh talking Prospects, not just specifically Vancouver ones. We do obviously have a little bit Canucks talk on there, but we talk about all the different prospects and I've been talking about the draft class specifically. So that's coming out every Saturday. And then also the athletic Vancouver,

elite prospects and Canucks Armory.com. Oh, man, I'm tired. Just thinking about it. All right. All right. This is a blast, Ryan. Thanks for doing this. And I'm looking forward to the drafts here in Vancouver.

So we're going to have some good times there. And then next May, we'll have you back on for your annual librarians and all the other videos. Sounds good. Thanks for having me. follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovic and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdfast.