The Hockey PDOcast - Stay in School Kids!

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

Mitch Brown from EPRinkside joins Dimitri to talk about how the Devils and Ducks will integrate their top defense prospects into the NHL, the differences between leagues and teams within them at the NCAA and major junior levels, and what to expect from the likes of Brad Lambert and Akito Hirose.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. 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. 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.

Messing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. With the hockey PEDEOCast, my name is Dimitra Filippovich. And joining me is my buddy, Mitch Brown. Mitch, what's going on? I am so glad to be back, as usual. I think I opened the last one in the same way. But, you know, I just can contain my excitement when I get to be on the PDO cast with

Dmitri Filipovich. And for the listeners, this isn't Mitch being sarcastic. This is Mitch genuinely being over-the-moot ecstatic. This is the happiness lives. That's sad. Yeah, yeah. We were talking before we went on there, you're grinding right now. You're working hard on our, on our EP Rinkside draft guide, which is going to be coming out in a couple months.

We'll talk more maybe towards the end about that process and we can kind of help plug the site and get the listeners excited about that as well. But what we're going to do today is we're going to try to find a nice little mix between like prospect, talk, scouting, sort of skill development. We've got some listener questions. I'm going to try to touch on all that. So here's a good way for us to start. Easy chatter asks, what should the devils expect from their glut of defensemen prospects? What sort of impact is expected from Luke Hughes and Shimon Nemitz as soon as next year?

So I think both of them are NHL bound next season. The relative effectiveness of them will probably be very dictated by their role. So I think both Hughes and Nemitz are sort of these high, minute medium efficiency guys. They dump the pocket a lot. They make some more decisions, but they're also a highly skilled dynamic. They can create. And so in the NHL, if they're in kind of a more specialized lower minutes rolled, you're probably going to see some of those poor players kind of just weed themselves out naturally because now they're not being asked to do literally everything for their team every minute they're on the ice. So it's going to be trying to be trying to find

ways to work from into the lineup that best suits their skill set. And of course, I think, Hughes especially, he's someone who you want to be free. You can't really weigh him down with sort of like tactics and structure. Like you want to create favorable situations where he's going to be best with the puck on a stick and create. You don't really want him to be in a position where he has to be, you know, breaking everyone down himself, driving the play entirely forward with the puck on a stick. You want him in a position where he can be free, he can activate, he can play office teammates, he can be with the puck when he sees space.

So just in an environment where these guys can, A, succeed and B, also continue to develop their offensive games. You know, it speaks to the organizational strength that the devils have here on the back end in terms of defensemen on the way up because they traded two guys that they took 20th and 61st overall a couple of years ago in the Timo Meyer package. And then they still are loaded with a number of guys.

We haven't even mentioned Seamus Casey and a few others that they have. in their organization over the next couple of years. Here's how I envision this playing out or what I would do if I was running the devils. This offseason, I would let Damon Severson and Ryan Graves walk in a free agency. I would use that $7.3 million in cab savings that they are currently taking up to cover the pay raises for Jester Bratt and Timo Myers long-term extensions. And then that leaves you with Dougie Hamilton, Jonas Seagenthaler, and John Marito, all of whom are under contract for at least the next four seasons beyond this one.

And, you know, if you want to bring in like some sort of a cost-effective, cheap, left-shot defenseman, they can play with either Marino or Dougie Hamilton in a top four role, that's fine. You know, you've got Kevin Ball there. Maybe he can grow into that role as well. But I would actually kind of to jump off of what you're saying, I would envision a scenario where I would use both Hughes and Emmett's in like a supercharged third pair role where I'm carefully managing their 5-15 usage.

I'm getting them out there for as many offensive zone shifts as I can against, you know, tertiary competition. And I'm letting them sort of thrive in that type of an offensively conducive situation where they're getting to do all the fun stuff without necessarily having to go back and do all the dirty work in their own zone and have to, you know, constantly retrieve the pocket card. I just want them playing downhill as much as possible. And I think it's kind of a model of what the Leafs did with Timothy Lilligrin and Rasmus Sandin, when they integrated them into their NHL lineup, right?

Where for years, now we're seeing Sandine finally playing a larger role on the Washington Capitals, but for years he was playing in this very carefully managed third pair role where he was just absolutely feasting on weak competition. And that's great for a team that's going to have a lot of big money contracts, which the Devils will have over the next couple of years, competing, having very good young players who can fit into the system on ELCs and crush those third pairing minutes is a very valuable proposition. Now, if they can prove that they can handle more and they can grow into bigger roles the season goes on, that's fine, that's gravy. But if they can't,

you have a safety network, you're not asking them to do too much, you're not stretching them too thin, and it works with their development. It gives them more runway to improve, but it also works with the timeline of the team, which is, like, the devils are really good. They're going to be competing for a Stanley Cup this year. They certainly should be aiming to compete for a Stanley Cup over the next handful of years with this score they have. And so that's the way I envision bringing them in and kind of utilizing them. And I think it would actually make sense as, you know, one guy's left shot, one guy's right shot, using them on that third pair role and a very sheltered role. And they have relatively complimentary games too. I think Hughes is both a

shooter and a playmaker, but more importantly, what he does with the puck is he's always trying to get space. And Nemitz likes to activate. And so that's a really good combination as long as they're allowed to do it. Watching the New Jersey Devils offensive zone play isn't exactly groundbreaking right now, but you look at their draft history with Hughes Nemitz and then also say Seamus Casey and Ethan Edwards. These are players who like to activate. They like to be involved. I mean, I would argue that Edwards and Casey, they won't play in the NHL if they're not able to jump into play with every opportunity because it's a huge part of their defensive success just as much as their offenses. success, being able to get on the check early, kill plays, hold the zone. That's all defense.

And that all starts by having a tight gap through activation. So it's really going to be interesting to see how the devils kind of morph what they're currently doing to fit what is incoming and how they've been drafting. Well, I'm curious for your take on this, because you mentioned, you know, I think you got a write up on Hughes recently and you were talking a little bit about how, and you mentioned it earlier in your in your conversation about him, about how, like, his game is, is right now for good and bad reasons predicated on a volume, right? He eats up a ton of minutes. He has the pocket ton. He makes a lot of decisions. And so the totality kind of adds up. Now he makes

mistakes as well. If he were to be used in this type of role and maybe the supplies to Nemitz as well, do you think that those mistakes would become weeded out, as you said, just because they're having to do less and it's a very simplified sort of list of response. abilities that they have to check off, or could you see it going down their way where all of a sudden, if you're not getting on the ISIS frequently, every one of those mistakes seems to be kind of like a brighter light time, it seems to be shine on it because you have less opportunity to go back out there and at a tone for it and make people forget about it. Well, in a rookie season, it will be both, right?

And I think as we talked about in the draft retrospective, a lot of times when you have the tools, the bad decisions kind of work their way out naturally. There are different solutions to different problems, and problems exist not just within the play that's in front of them, but fatigue levels, how much stress they're under, where the teammates are positioned and so on. And the NHL where players are positioned way more predictably, options are more readily available in the sense that you know where they are. I think that a lot of those plays will work themselves out. For Hughes in particular, I think the tools are incredible. I mean, there's no dispute in that. I mean, it's incredible just watching him take space,

watch him break down opponents, but he will have to learn how to stack the deck in his favor beyond just the skating. He'll have to learn how to manipulate opponents, draw one reaction, go the other way, especially from the point, especially on the breakout two situations where you have pressure coming towards you

and you're skating towards pressure, and he's going to have to find ways to weaponize that more beyond the ways that he currently does, which is kind of just deak through it because his superior hand speed means that he'll beat the vast majority of players in college, and his superior foot speed means that he can just bank it into the corner and then go skate it down. So just finding little ways like that to create advantages, to create space for himself, I think is kind of the next step for him,

and it's kind of going to weed out that inefficiency that currently exists in his game. I like that. Well, I'm curious to see how that plays out, and we might actually get to see him sooner rather than later, depending on how Michigan season ends up finishing here. Okay, let's move on to the next topic. Erhick asks, how much can the Ducks defensive system improve with just the guys they already have in their current pipeline? That is a very tricky question. I mean, when you look at prospects in general, so few of them actually pan out.

I think the Ducks are going to hit on two for sure. I think Zell Wagger and Mnjukov, those are the two obvious ones. Minchikov is going to be more structure-dependent. I mean, we've already seen this. That's why I was so curious to see if Saganah would trade him. They trade him to Ottawa. The production takes a massive hit because, you know, Saginaw just never dumps the puck out or whatever,

and they have this insane offensive zone structure. And Ottawa is a bit more of a traditional regimented team. And so we're kind of looking at what Mijukov is going to have to play in the NHL. and it's still very exciting, it's still electrified, it's still dynamic. It's probably just not quite aligned with the highlights that he was producing in Saginaw. Then Zelweger is total control of the game kind of guy. He's another one of these players who can be a bit inefficient, particularly on the defensive end. Like you see him give up a lot of space sometimes, and then other times he's on his guy super early.

I think in the NHL he's going to be playing less. He's not going to be the guy who has to break the puck out every single time. when you look at him with Everett or Pam Loops, I mean, every single breakout is his. It's him. It's a one-man breakout every single time. He won't be able to do that in the NHL and he won't be asked to do that. So I think we're going to see that energy, I guess, be used more on the insane defensive ability that he has, quite frankly. Like, I think both of them are largely can't miss prospects. Now, you kind of look deeper down it than Jackson Lacombe is a very, very exciting playmaker, very creative.

He might not quite have the defense and he might not quite have the sort of high-level play planning ability to be able to create offense in the NHL. So will he make it? Will he not? It's kind of a 50-50, but if he gets on the power play, then you're really cooking because that man can run an NHL power play from the time he was dropped eligible in Shattuck, St. Mary's. So there are so many different options here up and down.

I mean, Tyson Hines, the Tristan Linnell has like, I think he has 80 points already as a blue liner. You see he's all manipulation, deception. It's just a matter of bringing that to a higher pace. And that Noah Warren, his teammate, is incredibly physical. He can skate. He's an intelligent activator. It's just a matter of finding ways to improve his puck skills and coordination. Ian Moore is kind of a really impressive shutdown defender.

So like there are so many different options and so many different player types that they have that all kind of move to one thing. And that's activation being involved in the play creating. And so if you're the Anaheim Ducks, it's about finding ways that you can integrate these players. I think Mnjukov and Zalweger are both NHL next season. But after that, you're going to have to find spaces that aren't stepping on their cohorts toes constantly, right? You know, there's going to be a natural competition to get Lecombe in the lineup when you have Zellweger and Mnjukov doing the same thing but better, and you could do that up and

down with all of these players that they're getting. So the short version is it's going to be a very different blue line with all of these, with all of these talent, but I think you can only really reasonably anticipate two of them hitting and achieving that top four, top three upside. Well, I would add Jamie Drysdale to this list as well. I know he's technically played like about 120 NHL games or something so far, but he still hasn't even turned 21 years old, and we barely got to see him this year. So I would add him to this list of guys that I'm really interested to see

as kind of the final product or on its way there. I'm curious to see what the ducks do with their next coaching hire, because it's clear that Dallas Aiken's is like about, I thought watching last year, watching the Red Wings play, I was like, wow, Jeff Blaschell is really playing out the stringier with this group. But the ducks are taking it to a whole new level because I think if they had anything going this season, they would have already made that change. But I think they just reasonably realize, all right, we're going to revisit this in the offseason.

And so I'm curious to see who they bring in because on the one hand, I'd love to see a very sort of like, you know, young or progressive mind come in that would just allow all these guys to play to their strengths. But at the same time, from what I'm hearing from you say, it makes sense that if you're adding a lot of these skill sets, it's going to be tricky to put them all in there at the same time in the competition for minutes and expect them to kind of stay afloat considering how maybe offensively slanted like they need to play. It might be tricky to manage at the NHL level. At the same time, the Ducks have been so catastrophically bad defensively this year that I can't envision anything being worse.

So it feels like regardless it'll be an improvement. And it certainly will be fun. I mean, this has been a thing that I've been looking forward to since they dropped at Zell Weggers. Just how much more fun can the Anaheim Ducks get? And the answer is a lot. Yeah, I mean, look at these stats, Mitch. They are currently giving up 40 shots a game, 70 shot attempts a game, 4.05 goals against per 60, and 4.08 expected goals against per 60, all of which are the worst totals we've seen since 2007,

and that's as far back as the database goes. I imagine it would go even beyond that. And so when I watch them play right now, I've made this point on the podcast before, but it's worth reiterating here in this conversation. You watch a team like the Arizona Coyotes play, for example, right? And they're clearly a shell of an NHL team. They're very devoid of talent throughout the lineup.

And still, they play a significantly more NHL-level caliber of game than the ducks do who have much more talent throughout the lineup. their lineup for whatever reason and that that's why I can't help but think that it is a coaching thing there's just like zero structure involved right like you watch it's it basically looks like it's five guys who just came in have never played together before or dropping in for a beer league game or kind of just skating around and having fun there's no assignments there's no cohesiveness there's no anything in a defensive zone I've never seen other teams have so much time and space as they do when they play the ducks they're playing a game against the avalanche the other night and it was just

comical watching how many second, third, fourth chances that avalanche were able to get retrieving the puck off their own rebounds because the ducks were just nowhere to be found. And so I'm curious to see how integrating all of a sudden all these young defenders is going to look into that and maybe a different coach will help answer a lot of that. So I guess it's a big TBD, but you're right. From a fun perspective, I'm expecting a significant upgrade. And if that improves them offensively, then at the very least I think just having the puck more often and creating more of themselves is going to help bring down those defensive metrics as well.

Absolutely. I was watching the Ducks for a Mason McTavish article, and one of the interesting things about them is that you see this all the time on Twitter, oh, that play will never work in the NHL. And it's like, well, actually, just watch the Anaheim Ducks, everything works against the Anaheim Ducks. But we've also seen a lot of these players continue to improve. Like, McTavish, despite being in an awful situation, is showing more playmaking ability in the NHL than he has like at any other level. And so I think even though it's ugly to watch sometimes and it's pretty disheartening, having an environment where players just kind of feel like they're doing whatever they want can help younger players especially kind of expand their game. And I think

that's what we're seeing with McAvish and perhaps in a slightly more or significantly more structured environment that still lets players be free and create, those defensemen are really going to shine. Yeah, I'm really pumped to watch Zellweger. I'm planning on at the very least going out to Camloops and watching the Memorial Cup, which they'll be hosting this year in person. His numbers, as you mentioned, since he got there are just, are comical, right? Like, he's pretty much averaging a goal and an assist per game. And I think he has 210 shots on goal in like 30-ish games. is he one of your favorite prospects right now to watch just in terms of how when he's on he can just control a game single-handedly especially from the blue line position?

I mean, he is the game. Yeah. When he's on, obviously, it is his game. And I think what's interesting about him too is that this wasn't how he played at lower levels of hockey or even in his draft year. He was kind of more of a guy who would activate Biafuck, make quick passes. he wasn't really a dynamic puck rusher. And then that kind of all changed in his draft plus one and ever.

I mean, just another level of player. You see that skating, the handling ability, the shooting really take off. And this year he's added more of an in-zone playmaking element. So while he's taking all of these shots, he's still setting up like four to five per game. And he's setting up a couple scoring chances to go with that. So he's just dynamic electrifying. He kills plays early when he's on. Yeah, it's hard to think of a player who's more excited in the WHL.

And then you add in the fact that, like, by the numbers, he's the best defenseman that I've tracked in the CHL for, I think, three straight seasons or two straight seasons. He's the top transition. He's the top defense. He's the top offense, or at least one of the top three offensively. And Camloops has Kyle Masters, who's number two in my data set this season in transition two. So at any given time in a game, pretty much you're going up against two best breakups. breakout defensemen in the WHO. So Camloops is going to be very fun to watch down the stretch here and into the Memorial Cup.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, one final note here on the Ducks as we wrap this up, this might be kind of irrelevant just because the organization has changed so much over the years. And I'm sure a lot of the people involved in the drafting and the development have turned over. But if you look at teams that have had success at least, like identifying defensive talent and then making NHL caliber players out of them, the Ducks would have to be near the top of the list, right? Since 2008, they've drafted Justin Schultz, Jake Gardner, Sammy Vanden, Cam Fowler, Josh Manson, Hampaslyn,

home, Shay Theater, or Brandon Montour, Marcus Pedersen, and then even guys like Josh Mahoran and Jacob Megina who have gone on to at least carve out NHL roles as regular players for other teams. So I'm just adding that into the conversation here as well because it might not be a big thing, but at least like there is a track record when you're making the point of like how many of these guys are going to wind up actually being an HLers. At least there is some sort of an optimism to point to that there is like a recipe for success or at least like a blueprint here for them. Yeah, and shout out to Martin Madd for being there since like 2008 and drafting all these guys

and really sticking to his guns on the type of defensemen that he picks. He's been way ahead of the curve, particularly with the mobile puck-moving defenseman. Yep. Okay. Okay, next question here. Saylor asks, what are the differences that you've noticed statistically when tracking prospects across different leagues and how do you account for those differences when comparing? So I guess the short version is the hardest league to create offense in, like in terms of five-on-five scoring chances, expect your goals, is the WHL out of the four major junior league. So the WHL, the O, the Q, and the USHL.

And then obviously the NCAA is the hardest one beyond that if we want to include that as a fifth league. But the league with the most scoring chances has consistently been, but by a narrow margin, the OHL in my last three years of tracking, or the last four years of tracking, because I guess they missed that one season. It's kind of in transition where you kind of see how and why we're getting this though. So college teams opt for a dumpout on half of their exit attempts. Junior teams are pretty consistently around one-third to two-fifths. That's under pressure, by the way.

So it's only counting, like, if you break pressure or you're under pressure at the time of the play. But college players are generally more successful with their pass or exit completing 64% to say, I think it's 55 or 56 for the OHL. So they're dumping the puck out more, but they're completing more of their controlled plays at a higher level. And college player generally post better rush defense results and defensive results in general, making it the hardest elite to gain the offensive zone in, likely because the college game is more structured. Players are older. players are sort of they don't have that same dynamic ability because they're kind of recruited later and so on of the junior leagues it's the WHL that's the trickiest league to gain the offensive

zone and with control but the differences are minute we're talking like usually four to five entries per game it's in a little bit more nuanced stuff so say in the USHL it's far easier for players to create an advantage that is creating space from a pressured position either with passing or carrying the puck than it is in college or in the CHL. The USHL has a lower average mechanical ability skating, up handling, and so on than the other leagues. So that kind of checks out. So it's easier for very toolsy players to go into the USHL and have a lot of success versus the CHL. But for the most part, the leagues are very similar. Like, the easiest way to adjust is just to, like, do relative adjustments within the team. So you take the team average and then you subtract the players'

results from that, or you can do like a REL team version where you're removing the players results from the team average before to give you a little bit more precision. It really only makes a difference, though, with like, say, big teams like the development program, which all the players are much more mechanically refined in their USHL competition. So it's basically Harlem Globetrotters, you know, scoring 10 goals every game. Or CHL outlier, like the Saginaw Spirit, who dumped the puck out on 10% of their exits and to dump it on 20% of their entries. So, like, they just don't get rid of the puck ever. So it's mostly just like you're just kind of tinkering at the margins with most of the leagues, but at higher levels, it tends to be scoring chances are a little trickier to come

by largely because they're not getting quite as many chances off the rush. Well, I guess maybe another complicating factor to consider here wouldn't necessarily be as much from league to league, but maybe within those leagues from team to team, right? Because it does feel like, and I'm curious your take on this, whether it is because of talent gaps or whether it is purely from just the way they run themselves. It feels like the stylistic differences that you're going to encounter and in terms of playing style are much wider than you'd experience in say the NHL, for example, where much to my chagrin,

even like the talent level between the first and the 32nd team is wide. But in terms of the way a lot of those players are trying to play, it's generally fairly similar. It's kind of cookie cutter and that could be frustrating at times. I wish there was more diversity in terms of creativity and approach. but in the WHL, the gap they're going to see between some of these teams seems like it's significantly more different. So that's why it is fascinating when you see a player,

especially a star player, change from one of those environments to the other. But I'd imagine that would be kind of much trickier to contextualize and account for more so than just the differences between the actual league themselves. Yeah, so like I said, you can just kind of use like a rel team kind of metric to get you there, but also that doesn't explain the decisions. they're making like to go back to Luke Hughes. Michigan also doesn't really do the whole dump out things.

They'll do any dump out, but save for Luke Hughes, who dumps the puck out a lot relative to the team average, but he's also playing like 27 minutes a game. So efficiency-wise, it doesn't check out great, but per 60, he still looks like an excellent player, which I think is more in line with his actual status as a prospect. But there is like, the OHL is the more advanced league in terms of tactics. It's where the vast majority of teams play a very offensively inclined,

very modern, in motion kind of offensive zone structure with generally more team-involved defenses. The WHL is very hit or miss. You have some of the most progressive forward-thinking teams in the entire country in the WHL, and you also have teams that still don't really know how to create any sort of offense off the rush. So yeah, it's a huge factor. And then you just add in the fact that oftentimes when you look at CHL trade deadlines, you're basically, you have an insane team and you're adding an insane player to an already insane team. And so there's only so much offense that can go around unless you're old and Zellweger. Then it's just like, you know what?

I'm the team now. But for most players, there's going to be diminishing returns with the more talent that you add, just because there's only so much ice time. there's only so much offense and there are only so many scoring chances that you can create despite how despite what camp loops in Seattle are trying to do right now. So I'm curious for your take then. How much of that do you attribute to to personnel and town level and how much do you do contribute that to actual sort of what the team or group is trying to accomplish whether

the coaching staff or even going higher up? Because let's use Saginaw's example, right? You mentioned how they're playing a very like possession heavy style in terms of not getting rid of it on the blue lines whenever they can, and then having a guy like Mitchikov, who ties in so neatly to that, are they playing differently now that he's not on the team? Is it still carrying over? Or is it a thing where you have that type of player and it's a perfect blend between talent and system, and then you take off from there? How does that work? Generally, teams have more, like, strong identities in junior where they don't really change much.

Like, you know, maybe they pick like one superstar or something. They might change it, but for Saginaw, this is how they wanted to play with or with Ovin Jukov. And they continue to do that. And that's the case for most teams. They kind of have like a specific identity that they're trying to build towards. And that's even more pronounced in college hockey where players are getting recruited, for example, from stupidly young ages and getting told, you know, if you want to play this style of hockey, this is where you're, this is where you want to go. But the Q draws on a lower, like, it draws on fewer players than the other league. So the bottom end of the league isn't nearly as good. like that's why you see a lot of players who get waived through the OHL and the WHL end up in the

queue but not really so much vice versa. So yeah, it plays a it plays a huge factor and that's just one other way to instead of like that you can't really you don't really see and say goals per game or whatever. I would say the queue was still the weakest of the leagues players generally younger players generally have more success immediately because they're elevated into higher roles that they wouldn't get in other leagues but that's not really reflected in say the overall scoring of the league or even the microdata. All right, Mitch, let's take a break here. And then when we come back,

we're going to keep going through some of these listener questions and talking about prospects and development and all that good stuff. You are listening to the HockeyPediocast, as always, streaming on a sportsnet radio network. Your number one spot for Flames coverage can be found on Flames Talk with me, Pat Steinberg. Exclusive interviews, trusted insiders,

and the latest news. Listen live weekday afternoons in four or stream the Flames Talk podcast on demand. All right, we're back here on the Hockey PEOCast, chatting with Mitch Brown. Mitch, before we close the conversation on that question we had before the break about sort of differences between leagues, a question related to that from Beast here who asked, in terms of development, are top prospects better off playing on top NCAA teams rather than the AHL? Now Beast is a Sharks fan and uses Thomas Bordlow as an example here.

And asks if Bordlow would have been better off staying in Michigan this year, rather than playing for the barracuda. What are your thoughts on that? Well, I think the AHL is a lie and team shouldn't use it. So, yeah, of course, I think the players should stick around in college hockey more, especially if you're Thomas Bordolo and you have Brandon Nerato as you were head coached with that insane offensive zone structure, the breakouts, the creativity, the skills coaching.

Yeah, you should have stayed. He should have really stayed. It would have been very cool to watch him excel and expand his game and a structure like that. I think for the vast majority of players spending more time, in college or spending more time in junior is going to benefit. It's going to allow them to expand their game, develop new skills, have an easier time taking the skills that they're learning and training during the summer

and integrate them into a game situation. So, yeah, there are a few times where you want players in professional, like to get timing and so on, like you want to see them in the HL, more like your off-puck guys, the hard worker defensive players, the guys who rely on sort of getting open inside space and so on. but yeah, stay in college. That's stay in school. Not because school.

Stay in school. Hockey purposes. Yeah, you're in here first. No, I would say, though, I generally agree with you. I just did a full show yesterday with Sean Shapiro talking about the H.L and how NHL teams use it for good and bad reasons is a developmental league and there's a lot of issues with it. In this case, though, just on the barracuda, if you're looking at it, at least they had Eklund and Gushin and Robbins and Weisblad and a bunch of actual prospects of the, they've drafted recently that will theoretically or hopefully for their purposes be members of

the sharks over the next couple of years. So in that case, I don't necessarily mind it entirely because you're developing some sort of like patterns and chemistry with those players getting to play together with lower stakes involved. And then hopefully we're going to see that translate to success at the NHL level for them in the next couple of years. If it was a case where like you had an AHL team that was purely journeymen and veterans and guys that are never going to be playing in the league.

I don't love that environment. And so I think in this case, obviously the point you make about him departing from Michigan and how good he had it there and with the potential for that is something to consider as well. But I wanted to make that point as well just in terms of what the barracuda had in place this season and the players they have there and what that means for borderline moving forward. Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. If you have younger talent around you, these are players that you're going to play with at the NHO level.

It helps. Okay. Ryan Carlson asks, how has your opinion on hockey changed since you started doing this job or looking at hockey analytics versus today? What players do you like the public models tend to view less favorably? You can use that from the actual NHL level or from prospect rankings and all that. I'm curious to see what you have to say about that. So I think my B1 hockey has changed significantly, largely because as you spend more time

and scouting and talking to people and learning more, you realize that everyone has very specific viewpoints. And it's okay if you're adaptable and you can see the beauty and other styles and other ways of playing. So that's kind of the big thing. I used to be very singularly focused on sort of building towards one goal, one identity, find players who fit one specific thing. But the reality of it is you have 32N HL teams. That's not going to happen. Maybe you just look at one an arch type of player, you're going to end up in trouble. I mean, we've seen teams that currently have this issue where they've drafted one type of player over and over and over again, and they can't quite figure out ways to integrate them into their

AHL lineup consistently, and not all of them will have success, and maybe their NHL lineup isn't diverse enough as a result. So that'd be the big change. And then as for public models, I would say, speaking from like a junior hockey standpoint, point, the players who play high minutes and relatively low efficiency are players who get crushed by efficiency metrics. And so the better the tools are, the less their inefficiency is going to matter because it means they're going to have more built-in solutions to the problems of the game. And so beyond the Nemitz and Hughes examples, two that come to mind are Bowen Byram and Noah Dobbson.

These were two high minute mid-efficiency players and junior who then they step up into the NHL and Noah Dobson's defensive metrics aside have become more efficient with their touches at the NHL level because they're not asked to do everything for 30 minutes a game. Yeah, that's a really good one. I think for me, the biggest one is just coming to really value or cherish, you know, whether it's playmaking ability or shot-making ability, just players who can problems off offensively because especially, and this applies maybe more so to the NHL level, which I focus on, but teams have gotten so good at taking away those dangerous areas on the ice,

especially when you come to the playoffs, right? Time and time again, we see teams like the Tampa Bay Lightning just basically load up in the box there in front of the net and just are like, all right, Florida Panthers, everything you tried to do in the regular season won't work now, how are you going to beat us? and they simply had no way to sort of break through that defensive structure. And so players, to me, that are able to find ways to problem to solve that and then also be just pure shot makers in terms of scoring from all over the offensive zone at a high level, now those players are very rare to come by.

But I do think shooting talent is something that I've come around on much more, right? When I first started working with hockey analytics, for me, it was like, all right, I'm purely just looking at raw shot attempts, and that's all the matters. And then it's like, all right, now we need to narrow it down to scoring chances. and eventually comes at a point where you realize that shooting talent is a real thing and not every shot is created equally, especially based on what position they play. And so for me, forwards who can really just consistently score at a high level are not necessarily underrated because players that score goals and put up points do generally

wind up getting paid the most on the open market. But for me, I still find like sometimes we kind of scoff of that or overlook it because it's like, oh, well, this player is shooting a high percentage. It's not sustainable. And sometimes it might be if it's totally a departure from their career norms, but there are certain players that have established that as a realistic baseline for themselves. And that's a very, very valuable skill in my eye. Absolutely. That's a really great point. And that's largely the trend that I think a lot of NHL teams and junior teams have followed as well, realizing that if you just throw a bunch of stuff at the net and in a junior, it's way more pronounced because you have guys who can shoot 20% from one specific spot on the ice, right? from a purely scouting perspective, something that always comes to mind for me,

especially these last couple years, is more like physical skills. So not necessarily like hitting people, but understanding how to gain leverage on them, how to lean in before you cut back to create that little bit of extra space, how to skate through opponent's hands to give yourself more space between the opponent or like when you're driving the net. And so little things like that are super important abilities for NHL players to have. than a lot of the stuff that we went through on the draft retrospective. I don't know if I talked about it, but when Dave and I are going through,

one of the most consistent things is that players often don't develop physical skills. They learn little bits here and there, but they mostly learn how to bypass them. They mostly learn how to make a quicker pass off the boards rather than learning how to engage properly. And so if you're, say, a prospect like Matthew Nyes, the fact that you're so confident under physical pressure, but also have the handling skills to be able to break the puck off the boards and now have the playmaking. He has that super adaptable skill set that back in his draft year when we ranked him like in the 50s, we missed on because we thought that he wasn't a play driver. We just didn't weigh the fact that all these other little things that he do,

that he does well like in the puck off the boards to the inside, are going to translate well to the NHL, in my opinion, because we still have yet to see. But I think that's the way that it's trending. So when you're watching tape on a prospect like that, do you need to see like at least instances, even if they are rare that like, that your eyes notice as, okay, this is a building block where you could potentially add to this or build to this because you're saying like you're not just going to like out of thin air all of a sudden add new skills like that? Or is it like, like how do we project that in terms of like the growth and development of players adding and layering on to those skills and being able to sequence them more effectively? Do you need to see? at least like the occasional proof of that on tape from that player? Or do you think that if you bring them into a different environment with a pro-level coaching staff and training staff and skills coaches, that they'll be able to get more out of that that you haven't even seen before?

I think a lot of players know that like they have the skill, they have it in practice, but they don't necessarily have it in a game for whatever reason because maybe they're just not comfortable with it. There's the pressures, all these things going on in your head that kind of prevent you from doing stuff that you're not 100% certain of. And so the flashes certainly count, but a lot of it is just being in the right structure where you can really refine that, the right environment story, where you can really refine that, really hone in on it, drill that for days and days and days and days until you get super

confident, and then integrated it into your game in a way where you can problem solve. So when you're scouting for that, you're looking at adaptability in other areas of the rink, because being adaptable in certain places usually means you're adaptable as a whole. And then also the mechanical ability, how well they skate. how well they shoot the puck, how well they puck handle, and their functional speed, their ability to do all these things with their feet moving. The NHL is fast. You have to be able to link things together and do them at the same time.

All right. Travis asks, would love to hear your thoughts on Brad Lambert. He's currently been tearing up the WHL after a so-so start in the HL. I should say that when you wind up going to the WHL, he went to an absolutely stacked Seattle team. So I imagine that plays into this as well, but I'm curious for your thoughts on his. to drop this one season.

So the most interesting part for me has been, he looks like a fantastic defensive player in the WHO. Like the forechecking, the defense, the awareness, how he's eliminating threats, how he's backtracking. He's playing like a very pro-style game that we haven't necessarily seen from him before, even when he was playing pro, which is kind of funny. And then with that, his offense has taken a pretty significant step up.

We know that he can be a dynamic puck carrier, but that's not really what he's been in Seattle. He's been more of a give-and-go, move the puck quickly to his line-mates sprint to get it back. So I think, I don't know if he's projecting as the same sort of high-end score, elite dynamic player that back in his draft minus one, people thought he was going to become. But there's still a world where he's a clear top nine forward

who can play defense, he can score some goals, he can set teammates up. He can bring a little bit of value up and down the lineup. But just watching him in Seattle now, you see a way more pro-ready pro-style player than you ever did in Finland, which is kind of crazy. Kudos to him pulling that off. Yeah, to me, in my limited viewings, it certainly seems like he has a very projectable skill set in that regard, because at the very least, just based on the skating and now that you mentioned that ability

to sort of disrupt defensively and add layers to that as well. There's a lot there. I'm curious to see you mentioning that sort of the give-and-go element and adding some nuance to his offensive game, whether that is the real deal and whether he can take that to the next level, because I think that'll obviously separate him from just being sort of like a useful role player who uses skating to potentially being a difference maker. And I think that's what people, like the latter, that's what people had hoped initially and then maybe soured on a little bit. So, you know, time will tell, but it's clearly in a good spot right now. Now, a prolific skating

puck-carian guy, like we'll see what situation once he does make the Jets he steps into because we're currently seeing a guy in Nick Keeler's not exactly being put in a position to succeed with his coach. So that's obviously way down the road. I think he's still ways away from that. But I'm really going to be following him closely because he's obviously a very divisive prospect last year at the track.

Yeah, Seattle plays this interesting structure where the defenseman kind of manipulating coming pressure along and stretch the ice, which certainly plays into Lambert's advantages with speed and so on. But I think he's just as much part of Seattle success as anyone else on that team. So he's not simply just excelling in an environment that's Taylor made to him. He's been a huge part of that machine that the Seattle Thunderbirds are.

Okay, why hockey here asks Florida is a Florida missing defensive talent is really crushing in this year. If you could go back and redo either a first or second round pick of theirs from that 2016 to 2020 one window, who is that piece that could really help them right now. Now obviously this is a bit of a, you know, hindsight being 20, 20, redoing the picks and all that. But it's funny why Hockey also mentions, I'm not going to go back to 2015 because I've excised that from my memory. And that was, of course, probably the best draft of what, the past 20 years. And they had the 11th pick and they took loss on Krause there. Now, I will say a lot of the defensemen for the purposes of this question that went after him

wouldn't necessarily be helping them right now. It was like, Jacob Sporrell, Noahilson, Jacob Larson, Gabriel Carlson, there was Thomas Shabbat in there as well, but it was kind of until you got into the late second round, a very, very shaky defensive class. But it's an interesting question to consider because there was a window there where the Panthers were consistently picking in not necessarily like super prime spots, but there in kind of the middle of the first round and there were a lot of interesting players available. And they just basically whiffed on on most of them for the large part up until you basically get to like Spencer Knight and Antoine Lundell. So I don't know, do you have any names here?

I gave you this question before to prepare a little bit. Do you have any names here that they could have potentially reasonably gotten in those spots that would have made a difference for them right now? I think the obvious one is picking Keandre Miller over Dennyenko. I had it that way in the 2018 draft. I would have done it. Of course, I'm just sitting here, you know, not working in the NHL. but I thought Keandre Miller was a better bet than Nesanko were talking.

Tools, very intelligent, played the game, played the modern game already back in 2018. So, yeah, that's kind of the obvious one. And I guess there's instead of Emil Heindman in 2020, you had all reasonable picks of the time were Wyatt Kaiser, who's currently in the NHL with Chicago, Brock Faber, who won some awards this year as the best defensive defenseman or best defenseman in general. I can't remember. Tapping Yamla, who scored a lot last season, hasn't scored as much as much of this year, but still remains a very effective two-way presence. And I guess Ian Moore, as well, who's really blossomed into the shutdown in your face physical defenseman in

college and still has enough offense to believe that using Mielboa makes some positive plays in the offensive end. So those are the two that come to mind. Yeah, the 2018, Denisenko 15th, and then Kyodrian Miller going 22nd popped off to me as well just because, you know, our level for Giondra Miller we've talked about in the past together is well documented, but I can't think of a more perfect player for the way they want to play and what they currently need than him stylistically. You could even go Ty Smith, 17th two picks after Gregor Zenko, just because they could have then traded him for John Marino, and that would have helped quite a bit, but I guess that is definitely playing the hindsight game. Yeah, it's a tough one. There's a lot. Basically, you could pretty much

go in any of them, right? Like, this one's pure hindsight, but even in 2016, you go in the second round, They take Adam Masher in 38th and then a handful of picks later, you go on this run of like Sam Gerard, Ryan Lindgren, and Philip Ronek, and pretty much any top war offence in right now would help them significantly, and they didn't wind up mining any of those from that window of years. So that's tough and that's kind of a big reason why they've gotten to this position right now. All right, let's end on this. As we're recording, the Canucks sign Akito Hirosi from the NCAA.

I'm curious for your thoughts on them and letting you. and Canucks fans know kind of what to expect from him and what his game looks like. So he's one of the best college free agents we've seen in the last few years. For the most part, college free agents are more physically mature, less-toolsy kind of prospects who are getting contracts to potentially become fourth-liners. Herosi has an unusual high degree of skill and technical ability for college-free agents. Some of that, I guess, formerly came at the expensive size, but now you see it he's balked up a little bit he's way more physical he's a real difference maker on

the defensive end suffocating gap great stick work and then always always always always activates he's involved in every single play the other top college free agent this year other than sam wins he is jake livingstone who is akito herosi's most common defensive partner this season and they are both these activating defensemen who will both jump into the play at the exact same time ahead of their forwards and then look for each other rossi has this really good ability to to kind of step into pressure and then cut back and then find a teammate who then makes the next play. So he's not necessarily this incredible play creator, like he's not going to put the finishing touches on plays, but he's going to build the offense towards those opportunities.

So his game will largely be dependent on the environment that he plays in. If he's in a structure that's similar to what he gets at Minnesota State, which is he gets to activate, he gets to create, he looks to be more of a playmaker than a point shooter, he will have a ton of success in the NHL. He could be number four, number five. I have little doubt in my mind. If he does not get that, he's going to struggle significantly in the NHL.

Well, I'm curious for his path is because he's already about to turn 24 years old, right? So I assume part of him signing is that the, I mean, the roadmap is pretty clear for him. I think you can make an argument he steps in as basically the best defenseman that's not currently in the NHL that the Canucks have in. system. Yeah, yeah. I think, how's Jack Rathbun doing these days? I loved him back in college. Not as well as I'd hoped. All right. Well, I think he certainly has an argument. And then you add in the fact that he is, he hasn't improved so much. And again, well, he's on the older end of things. He's

only a third year college player. He didn't have the same level of physical maturity as a lot of these other college players did. So he has a little bit more wiggle room, a little bit more time than sort of your standard college free agent in terms of timeline. And on top of that, you see a lot of players like this. They have the activation game. They step in. You know, they have 30 teams interested in them because they do all sorts of crazy things with the puck and then the teams that they sign with don't actually value what they do. And so they don't actually get to play. And Herosi is a prime candidate to unfortunately follow that path. But I hope it doesn't happen because I've loved watching him for years. He's very impressive on the defensive end. He's diversified, expanded, refined.

He's in everything you could ask for. And he's just fun. Like the details that this player has, truly, truly incredible, the type of stuff that you would want, you would give to NHLers. You would give some of the stuff that he does to NHLs and be like, this is how you break up a play in the neutral zone. This is how you convert rush activation into rush. defense and so on. So a very video friendly player. There we go. I'm certainly used more of that in my life and I am excited to watch them play in Vancouver. All right, Mitch, uh, that's all we got time for today. I'll let you on the way out, let the listeners know where they can check you out and plug whatever you want.

All right, you can follow me at Mitchell Brown on Twitter. I just tweeted out a two minute and 22nd video compilation of Herosie. I'm not paying for Twitter Blue so like I can't have a video longer than that. Otherwise, it would have been six minutes. But check that out. And then also go to E.P.Ringside.com. We just started a Rinkside only subscription. I think it's $599 U.S. per month. If you've been on the fence because of

price, this is your opportunity to get in. And then in a few months, our draft guide launches, which will have over 300 players. I am slowly plugging away on it. What I mean by that is I'm filing like dozens of reports

every single day to get there. So if you would do me the honor and check it out when it launches sometime in early June, that would be great. Yeah, I co-assigned that. Can't wait to see the final product. Everyone should be using this opportunity, as you mentioned, to subscribe to ringside while they can to check out both Mitch and mine's writing. My only plug is to go smash that five-star button for the PDOCAS wherever you listen to the show. And we'll be back tomorrow with more here of the HockeyPedocat streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.