THIS ONES FOR YOU REUBY.

Hampus Lindholm, a trade-and-extend and how the Bruins opened a new Stanley Cup window.

By Fluto Shinzawa Feb 14, 2023

In 2020, the Bruins’ desperation for a three-zone left-shot defenseman peaked. Zdeno Chara was out. The captain had assumed the role for 14 seasons.

The Bruins had been searching for such a defenseman well before Chara’s time was up. Since 2017-18, when they deployed Torey Krug (5-foot-9) and Matt Grzelcyk (5-10) on their left side, Boston had experienced matchup issues when Chara was on the bench or in the penalty box. During the same time, they have had no such right-side problems with Charlie McAvoy and Brandon Carlo being a 1-2 tandem.

They tried veterans John Moore and Nick Holden. Youngsters such as Jack Ahcan, Jeremy Lauzon, Jakub Zboril, Urho Vaakanainen and Rob O’Gara took their turns. Zboril is the only one remaining — as a regular healthy scratch, no less.

So when Chara’s time ended, the Bruins had to acquire a Norris Trophy-level left-shot defenseman, using a compromised bin of picks and prospects. It seemed like a fool’s errand.

“You’ll never replace a Chara,” said president Cam Neely. “There just aren’t those players out there.”

It turned out one was.

Contender to loser
In 2013-14, a 19-year-old Hampus Lindholm played his first NHL season. The No. 6 pick from the 2012 draft joined a battle-ready roster. Ryan Getzlaf (87 points) and Corey Perry (82) put up totals exceeded just once in their careers. Nick Bonino, Mathieu Perreault and Andrew Cogliano played support roles.

Lindholm scored six goals and 24 assists in 78 games while averaging 19:26 of ice time per appearance. He dressed in 11 of the Ducks’ 13 playoff games. It was the first of five straight postseason appearances for Lindholm. He enjoyed everything about Anaheim: playing for Bruce Boudreau, surfing in the Pacific Ocean, being part of a long-term blue-line plan with Shea Theodore, Brandon Montour and Josh Manson.

But the Ducks’ cycle of contention closed in 2018-19. They missed the playoffs that year. The same thing happened the next two seasons.

When Lindholm reported to camp for 2021-22, he had an unsettled feeling. He was in the final season of his six-year, $31.5 million contract. Part of his job was to mentor 19-year-old Jamie Drysdale, the No. 6 pick in 2020. His uncertainty was amplified when general manager Bob Murray resigned on Nov. 10, 2021, following allegations of improper professional conduct.

As of Feb. 3, 2022, the Ducks were in third place in the Pacific Division. But change was coming.

That day, the Ducks introduced Pat Verbeek as Murray’s replacement. The new GM had just over a month before the March 21, 2022, trade deadline to determine, among other things, Lindholm’s future.

Claude Lemieux, Lindholm’s agent, told Verbeek his client wanted to stay long-term. The longest Verbeek would consider was a five-year extension. Lindholm realized that he, Manson, Rickard Rakell and Nicolas Deslauriers, all pending unrestricted free agents, were not long for Anaheim.

“They made it pretty clear they wanted to get rid of me, Manson, Raks and the older guys,” said Lindholm. “They didn’t really make that big of an effort.”

That opened the door for the Bruins.

Getting their guy
In the fall of 2020, the Bruins kicked the tires on Oliver Ekman-Larsson. In the 2021 offseason, they recruited Ryan Suter. During the 2021-22 season, they inquired on Jakob Chychrun. None of these pursuits panned out.

On Feb. 27, 2021, the Bruins claimed Jarred Tinordi on waivers. On April 21, they acquired Mike Reilly from Ottawa. On July 28, they signed Derek Forbort.

By March of 2022, the Bruins were still looking. Word was out that Lindholm was available. During the Bruins’ video studies, Neely liked what he saw.

“You start looking at film, the thing for me was just the hockey sense from Hampus,” Neely said. “Especially in the D-zone with the puck. The subtle little plays to get out of the zone in a hurry was, I thought, really impressive. If you make that transition from defending to offense, just that first pass is really impressive. His hockey sense is off the charts.”

The problem was Lindholm’s contract. The Bruins did not want to give Anaheim precious futures only to see the defenseman walk at year’s end. One season earlier, the Bruins had acquired Taylor Hall from the Sabres with the intention of re-signing the left wing.

“We have tried to get out of the rental mode,” said Neely. “You give up a lot of assets. Historically, rentals … one team wins a year. When you give up a lot of assets for a player that’s on an expiring contract, you have to decide, ‘OK, are we willing to do that?’”

The Ducks, meanwhile, lost five of seven games after Verbeek took over. By March, they had tumbled to fifth in the Pacific.

Verbeek had given Lemieux permission to speak to interested parties about an extension for Lindholm, pending a trade. Bruins GM Don Sweeney raised his hand. Sweeney had to execute two concepts in one: the trade deadline and free agency day.

Sweeney made it clear to Lemieux that they were willing to go long with his client. By then, they were comfortable with Lindholm’s past performance and his pledge to future fitness.

“We did a lot of homework on the fact of how he prepares,” Neely said. “Is he someone that is committed to conditioning? Is he committed to playing? It’s one thing to say, ‘I want to play eight years.’ But are you really committed, putting in the time, the work and effort to do that at a high level? All those boxes were checked for us.”

On March 19, the Bruins acquired Lindholm and Kodie Curran for Vaakanainen, Moore, a 2022 first-round pick and second-rounders in 2023 and 2024. The Ducks retained 50 percent of Lindholm’s salary. One day later, Lindholm agreed to an eight-year, $52 million extension.

“You’re always paying a high price at the deadline,” said Neely. “Based on where we were as a team, where we thought we were going to be as a team going forward, knowing that we’re having Charlie locked up, we felt if we could get another guy like that, it would be worth the price of admission.”

Word of the trade got out to Lindholm before Verbeek called. He had some time to think about leaving the only employer he’d known. He was anxious. In retrospect, he didn’t need to be.

“It was a big change, which I wanted,” said Lindholm. “I come to a city like Boston, which resembles a lot of European vibes and homes. The decision was kind of easy. But it’s always scary because I don’t know anyone. I’m also a guy where things work out in a way. In the aftermath now, it couldn’t have been any better. If I knew what I know now, I would be here before they even called me.”

A perfect fit
Teams generally do not make Norris candidates available. In the past 10 years, only three defensemen became Norris finalists after leaving their original teams: Chara (2013-14), Brent Burns (2018-19, 2016-17, 2015-16) and Adam Fox (2020-21). Fox was traded twice (first by Calgary, then by Carolina) before he played his first NHL game.

Lindholm may join their company. He is one point shy of matching his career high (34), which he set in 2014-15. He leads the Bruins with 23:32 of ice time per game, 28 seconds short of his career high of 24:00 in 2018-19. At five-on-five, he has a career-high 65.82 goals-for percentage, per Natural Stat Trick. It is the best rate of any defenseman with 900 or more five-on-five minutes.

Coach Jim Montgomery has an almost unfair number of options because of Lindholm and McAvoy. Usually, he’s split them up to produce two tandems with No. 1 defensemen. There may come a time in the playoffs when Montgomery joins the two to form a superpair.

Lindholm also held the fort when McAvoy and Matt Grzeclyk were unavailable at the start of the season. He’s done it all: check up the ice and in the defensive zone, initiate one-man breakouts, join the attack as the weak-side defenseman, be a point threat at five-on-five and on the power play. With the puck on his stick, the 6-foot-4, 215-pound Lindholm has moved like a Rolls-Royce with its V-12 engine in full song.

“He was a big, big reason we were as successful as we were at the start of the year,” said Neely. “For him to be a little more comfortable in the city and understand the routine, and then adjusting to how Monty wants our D to play probably fit into his game a little more than most. From the start of the year with those guys out, it was an enormous help for the team, the way he played.”

The trade-and-extend transaction may also have wedged the Bruins’ championship window open for longer. Lindholm’s presence makes them the Stanley Cup favorite and has them on a historic pace this season. But with Lindholm and McAvoy under contract through 2030, the Bruins have two stud defensemen ready to serve as the organization’s next generation.

Lindholm invites the responsibility, alongside McAvoy and David Pastrnak, to succeed Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and Brad Marchand. In fact, his acquisition, extension and performance could go a long way in convincing Pastrnak to stay. Having two No. 1 defensemen, to say nothing of two aces in net, should keep the Bruins competitive when their ring-winners say goodbye.

“That’s how you want it,” said Lindholm. “It’s going to be here for numbers of years. Because we still have a lot of guys that are going to be here that have been shaped by this culture. Me coming in, it was easy for me. Because I had this kind of environment my early years in Anaheim. It fits into the player and person I want to be when I come to the rink. It’s going to be easy to fall in line with Bergy and Marshy and all those guys. Me, Chucky, Pasta — there’s guys that are hopefully going to be here for a number of years that can keep feeding that on to the next generation.”

The Bruins searched for a defenseman like Lindholm for a long time. It was worth the wait.

“To be able to make that deal, get him in the fold and tie him up for eight years like we did,” said Neely, “was something we certainly wanted to do and were looking to do for quite some time.”

Drance: Canucks’ defensive issues won’t be solved by ‘going back to grade school’.

By Thomas Drance Feb 14, 2023

VANCOUVER — On Monday night, following a humiliating 6-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings, Vancouver Canucks players were effectively lost for words.

New head coach Rick Tocchet, meanwhile, was straightforward and honest and incredibly harsh in his assessment of his team’s defensive play.

“We have to go back to grade school on how to defend,” Tocchet said.

On Monday night at Rogers Arena, on home ice against a below-average offensive team, the Canucks were ventilated for six goals against. There were unforced turnovers, multiple breakaways and one of the worst line changes you’ll ever see — all of which directly led to the puck being dispatched into the Vancouver net over and over again.

By the time the Red Wings got their sixth goal of the evening, they were walking Andrei Kuzmenko, holding possession in a delayed penalty situation and seaming the Canucks at will. The Red Wings — 22nd in goals scored in the NHL this season — were playing with their food.

It was the 25th time in 54 games played this season Vancouver has surrendered five goals or more in a game.

Vancouver is currently averaging — yes, averaging — over four goals permitted per game this season. That’s not just ghastly, it’s historically permissive.

In the 516 completed seasons played by every single NHL member club in the hard-cap era, no team has allowed over four goals per game over the course of an entire NHL season. If current trends continue then, Vancouver — along with the Anaheim Ducks (who have somehow allowed more goals against per game) — could stake a credible claim as one of the most defensively porous teams in a generation.

If it occurs, it will have been hard-earned.

In searching for answers during his postgame press conference on Monday night, Tocchet discussed accountability. He called for an end to the demonstrative angry stick smashing — the most notable stick smash on Monday night belonged to Oliver Ekman-Larsson in the third period — and talked about taking his club through remedial-level defensive walk-throughs at practice on Tuesday.

The entire postgame press conference is worth watching. Tocchet looked and sounded like a man grappling with the enormity of the task ahead of him:


Of course, the issue really isn’t about structure. It’s not about habits, or fitness, or wall work, or systems.

Practice time isn’t going to permit Ekman-Larsson to skate with Dylan Larkin any more than it can galvanize J.T. Miller into a robust defensive pivot at the age of 29.

There’s no positional walk-through capable of transforming any player currently on this Canucks roster into a championship-calibre matchup defender.

Don’t believe me? Consider this: The Canucks organization has put together a historically awful penalty kill across two seasons. In that span of time, the club has churned through four assistant coaches that were directly responsible for running the penalty kill — Nolan Baumgartner, Scott Walker, Brad Shaw, Mike Yeo — working under three separate head coaches. In none of those four distinct eras has this team managed to crest an 80 percent kill rate.

Honestly, this team’s issues aren’t systems-based and anyone can see that. It’s not about Spencer Martin and Collin Delia and Thatcher Demko, either.

Saves, habits and systems and a more consistent work rate would help, but fundamentally this current roster is catastrophically constructed and far too light on both two-way IQ and talent.

In 2020, back in the Edmonton bubble, I remember thinking Tocchet’s Arizona Coyotes were one of the best-drilled defensive teams I’d ever watched. Even though I buy that Tocchet is a quality defensive tactician, asking him to make an average defensive team out of this group is unreasonable.

In the short term anyway, that’s fine. It’s actually a positive.

This Canucks team is reeling and performing so poorly that they’ve actually emerged with a meaningful shot at a bottom-five finish. And I thought it was too late to tank.

A bottom-five finish would be massive for the Canucks, particularly in the midst of the greatest tank battle the NHL has seen since 2014. That’s exactly what the doctor ordered for a team that has cornered the market on expensive middle-six wingers but is short on centremen, quality defenders and elite talent too.

So while two consecutive regulation losses to the deeply mid Red Wings may have felt dispiriting, it’s precisely what the doctor ordered.

If the goals against keep coming and Vancouver’s two-way play improves, and it has under Tocchet despite Monday night’s setback, that’s just about the best-case scenario for the balance of this horrific campaign.

There’s one thing that still matters more than the losses though, and that’s the overall direction of the franchise. A top pick, even a generational one, can only do so much when accompanied by the sort of win-now desperation — bad contracts, short-sighted trades and wasteful asset management — that has defined the past decade of Canucks franchise history.

Down the stretch, what matters isn’t so much what Tocchet can implement as it is for Canucks management to watch this unfold with their hand-picked bench boss, process it and begin to understand the full scope of what’s necessary to turn this franchise around. To abandon the foolish hope of an expedited retool and commit to slow-cooking a contender.

In their first cycle on the job, it’s that level of understanding — grappling with the scale of this club’s shortcomings — that has eluded Canucks management.

Which is odd because if you listen to what they say, Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford and general manager Patrik Allvin have willingly cast aspersions on the sustainability of this club’s short-lived flirtations with success.

They said they didn’t buy the Bruce Boudreau bump and Allvin told Sportsnet on Monday that he didn’t buy the bubble playoff run either.

That’s well and good and even somewhat defensible — even if Allvin’s suggestion that the good teams didn’t try in the bubble is a total absurdity. If the good teams didn’t try in the bubble, why did three of the bubble’s conference finalists repeat at being conference finalists the very next season?

How does management’s apparent skepticism about this group’s best moments square with their actions, though?

Why extend Miller if you don’t believe in what the club accomplished down the stretch last season? Or Kuzmenko? Why sign Ilya Mikheyev if this club is still that far away? Why trade draft picks and futures for mid-20s reclamation projects like Travis Dermott, Jack Studnicka, Ethan Bear and Riley Stillman?

In word, Canucks management has been keen to show their understanding of how far away this team is. In deed, however, they’ve doubled down on an increasingly expensive group of players who in combination are too limited defensively to successfully play winning hockey in the NHL.

Thanks to the perverse incentives that govern the bottom of the NHL standings, every loss is in the club’s best interests at this point in the season. There’s pain in that — Monday’s game was dreadful to watch, outside of one exciting power-play sequence in the second period — but there’s also clarity.

Now it’s on Canucks management to use this dreadful time productively. Opportunity remains to actively weaken the team further by the March 3 NHL trade deadline. They can do their level best to make sure the losing continues. That would be welcome.

Once that’s done, the key is for Canucks management to actually trust what they’re seeing unfold. This time around, they’d best act on it.

The Lightning, the true value of draft picks and when it’s the right time to sell them

The Lightning haven’t been shy come NHL trade deadline these last few years. The team wants to go further than last year’s Stanley Cup Final appearance and wants to add a third championship ring with this core — even if it means paying to make a big move at the deadline.

But just how big is too big?



Tampa Bay moved Cal Foote, a conditional first-rounder in 2025, a 2024 second-rounder plus a third, fourth and fifth-round pick in 2023 for Tanner Jeannot. That’s as many draft picks as goals scored by Jeannot this season.

It’s a massive gamble that the Lightning are hoping will better their chances of winning right now, but it mortgages the future in the process. Is that something a team in this position can and should afford to do?

General manager Julien BriseBois obviously seems to think so, as he made some interesting comments in his press conference after the trade.

Even after having to make some key subtractions over the last year to keep the salary cap in check, Tampa Bay still has many of the key ingredients needed to contend and should do everything to capitalize on that. Their core is incredibly strong, and mostly performing up to expectations; there’s no certainty that could be the case next year with age declines in mind, the chance of injuries, and the ripple effect of any other cap casualties management might have to make.

BriseBois is completely right in all of that — and it’s not the first time he’s moved out first-rounders for non-rental supporting players; just think back to Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow and Brandon Hagel.

But the intriguing part is how he evaluates the draft picks he sent away.

“I know there’s a perceived value of those picks. But we have a really good idea of what the actual value of those picks are. Individually, you can go, ‘What’s that first-round pick worth? What’s the second-round pick?’ And so forth and so on,” BriseBois said.

“When we look at what that’s worth to us, based on the odds of those picks turning into good NHL players down the road, I’d rather have the good player right now for this season and next year and help this group win right now,” BriseBois continued. “Because I know what the odds are of those picks turning into players, I also know what the odds are of those picks turning into players that can help us win while we have this group of players right now in their prime, ready to go for another long run. The odds of that are zero. None of those picks were going to help. None of the players we were going to draft with those picks are going to help us win this year, or next, or probably the year after that. So when you put it into that context and you frame it that way, it ends up being a pretty easy decision actually.”



While it’s a spicy take, BriseBois does have a point.

“A first-round pick isn’t really all that different from a second from an odds perspective,” an NHL team analyst said. “The question comes down to ‘Are you really, truly a contender?’ Teams answer that question incorrectly far too often.”

The value of draft picks is much different to the Lightning and other contenders compared to teams in less competitive positions. Usually, the value isn’t the same as that of a team at the bottom of the standings, or even a team on the rise. That’s been a consensus of those who have done work on the value of a draft pick, from Michael Schuckers to Dom Luszczyszyn, Alan Wells and Prashanth Iyer. The value of early picks is incredibly high and rapidly declines outside of the top 10. First-rounders in the high-20s or later, where a true contender tends to land, aren’t all that more valuable than second-round picks. The gap between picks only shrinks as the draft progresses.





To put that in context, we can turn to the work of Wells. Tampa Bay’s first-rounders the last few years landed in the 30-32 range. While the dream scenario may be drafting a player with Nathan MacKinnon or Cale Makar’s ceiling, names many of us think to be associated with first-rounders, the chances of that are pretty low with a pick at the very end of Round 1. A Brian Boyle or David Steckel is closer to the median prime performance of a late first, while the higher end is along the lines of a Charlie Coyle or Jason Richardinson. So as much as the draft can be the best way to acquire high-end talent, especially within the constraints of the current free-agent system, it’s not easy to get a franchise player without an early pick. And even then, there’s no guarantee.





Then there’s the timeline perspective of it all, on how long a player can take to reach impact status if they do at all. The further away from the top of the draft, the lower the ceiling and the longer the process it can take to get to that point. Of course, there are exceptions throughout Round 1 and the draft. But those are the outliers, which every team can’t hope their next draft pick will be — especially when there’s a ticking clock on their core being in a prime position to contend.



“(BriseBois is) right in the sense that if you are a team legitimately trying to win the Cup this year and only this year, non-player organizational value provides no direct benefit toward you accomplishing your goal,” an NHL scout said. “Future value doesn’t help you when you want the value your organization holds to be concentrated on your active roster right now. So if you’re looking at it from that point of view, then yeah picks and prospects are only worth anything in relation to their power to buy actual players.”

While BriseBois can be completely right in the value of draft picks to a team’s chances of winning right now, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t reckless in his spending this week, either.

“None of the picks traded for Jeannot are likely to support this (Lightning) core (winning) a Cup; zero disagreement on that point,” the analytics consultant said. “But the next logical step is ‘There is no better utilization of these picks as assets than spending them at (Jeannot).’ Now, you can try to make the argument that there is no better use of assets than what (BriseBois) did with those picks to get Jeannot. You could argue he’s the exact type of complimentary piece this team needs. I get that part, but I really don’t think that’s accurate.”

Even if his time this year in Nashville isn’t an accurate depiction of what Jeannot is capable of, and Tampa Bay maximizes his ability just as they did Coleman and Hagel before him, was he truly worth the price of acquisition? Is moving that much draft capital worth a player, who at his best, probably won’t be more than a middle-six forward, even if stylistically he’s a player built for the playoffs? This trade just seems to highlight the disconnect between the player’s intrinsic and market values. So as much as Tampa Bay is in the right to invest in its current standing, overspending to this extent can be irresponsible.

Now, Tampa Bay is without first-rounders over the next three years, and only has a total of three picks between the first three rounds in 2023, 2024 and 2025. The Lightning are not the only contender to be in a situation like this, either. The Maple Leafs are somewhat similar, but at least still have a 2024 first, and have added more pieces this deadline to show for their picks. Arguably, more teams could follow this path. It may not make sense for Boston considering the age of some of their core pieces, but it may make sense for Edmonton while they have two of the best forwards in the game in their prime. But that front office isn’t nearly as willing to leap or get innovative with their approach like the Lightning and even the Maple Leafs have.


“The Lightning have proven they can do more with less, in terms of draft picks,” a former Eastern Conference assistant general manager said. “A Tampa third gets you more than, say, an Edmonton second, typically.”

That’s something that works to their advantage, especially with the right developmental system in place which Tampa Bay has proven to have.



The other challenge is that even if the intention is to never use the draft picks for their intended purposes, moving too many picks too soon can create challenges that general managers can’t navigate their way out of. Had the Panthers not over-invested in Ben Chiarot last year, for example, maybe they’d be able to afford Jakob Chychrun this year and have a real chance to compete. Instead, their window may close sooner than later because of the damage done to their pool of assets.

“Maybe BriseBois thinks that he can just keep trading future firsts as long as teams accept picks 3-4 years out, and the older this team gets the more I think rivals will take him up on that,” the scout said. “One of these picks is going to be very good at some point, and you can’t conditionally protect them forever. Trading your upcoming picks while you’re good is one thing, but trading them years out is another risk for an aging core.

“Ultimately I just think you have to be prepared to be extremely aggressive tearing things down when it’s time to do so if that’s the path you want to walk.”

Unless there’s a way to recoup assets when the chances of contention aren’t as high as they are right now.

“I think what (BriseBois) can’t say is this: They have a roster of easily monetizable assets (good players on good deals), and so he knows that they can easily recoup those future picks (and more) when that becomes a priority,” the former AGM noted. “In fact, that becomes a necessity when their next cap crunch or reprioritization happens.”

Some teams around the league have seen how they can leverage their cap space to add more assets — the Nikita Zaitsev trade to Chicago shows as much, seeing as the Senators had to attach two picks. That’s something the Lightning obviously can’t afford to do. Rather, they have to know when to cut bait and move players before they lose their value. If Tampa Bay masters this, it could set a trend for other contenders to try and replicate in this copycat league. It obviously requires a lot of forward thinking and willingness to take risks. But if this team burns out as a result of depleting their assets to such a dramatic extent, then they could just follow in line as a cautionary tale on the cost of contending, and overspending on supplemental pieces.

“My job, my responsibility as the custodian for this group is (to) sometimes take risks, to maximize our potential return on this era,” BriseBois said in his press conference. “That’s what I did last night. We’re taking a risk. A calculated risk.”



It’s a bold stance considering what Tampa Bay gave up in a single move, but the reward is what’s in sight right now: Another Stanley Cup. That’s it. Everything else is a problem for another day, another season, and really, another era of Lightning hockey.

Projected to play NHL games

1. Hardy Haman Aktell, LHD, Vaxjo-SHL: Haman Aktell, a former Nashville draft pick, has been a quality member of a top SHL team this season in Vaxjo. Haman Aktell is a huge defenseman who was often injured shortly after Nashville drafted him. He’s been healthy the last few years, though, and his offensive touch has taken off this season. I don’t view him as a big points producer in North America, but he can make a good first pass and has a strong point shot. His skating will be a major limitation in the NHL, but I think he defends well enough to potentially overcome that and be a third-pair defenseman in the league.

2. Sam Malinski, RHD, Cornell-ECAC: Malinski has been a top defenseman in college this season. He has excellent playmaking ability. He makes a lot of difficult passes in the offensive zone and has the ability to run a pro power play with his vision and shot. His skating is solid too and he can create with his skill and feet. Malinski isn’t the biggest defender but he competes well enough that I think he has a shot to be a good pro.

3. Jake Livingstone, RHD, Minnesota State-CCHA: Livingston was a top free-agent target in 2022 but decided to go back to Mankato. He’s not a flashy player, and while he has a good point shot he doesn’t have a ton of offensive skill and his mobility is just OK. Livingston is a 6-foot-3, intelligent, two-way defenseman though. He has enough puck game to project to make NHL outlet passes and the occasional tough O-zone play. Even with his skating, his size and work rate should allow him to take third-pair minutes in the league.

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4. Austen Swankler, C, Bowling Green-CCHA: After bouncing around a few junior teams, including a full OHL season, he was exempted to play college hockey after taking a full year off. Swankler has found his form this year as one of the top scorers in college. Swankler has excellent skill. He is able to dangle college defensemen routinely and shows tremendous small-area puckhandling abilities. He can create a lot with his offensive creativity. The big knock on Swankler was his skating, which used to be terrible. It’s still not an asset, but it’s improved notably, and with a cleaner stride he’s been able to maximize his skill more often. He’s a good pro prospect, but he may be going back to school for his junior season. If he decides to come out there will be plenty of suitors.

5. Victor Ostman, G, Maine-Hockey East: Ostman has been a top goaltender in college this season for Maine. The junior netminder has a highly intriguing toolkit at 6-4 and possesses good athleticism to make tough saves. When he’s on his game and making good reads/decisions with his natural ability, he can look like a pro goalie. I find his reads and puck tracking can be somewhat inconsistent but I think there’s a lot of talent to bet on with Ostman.

Have a chance to play NHL games

6. Jiri Smejkal, LW, Oskarshamm-SHL: Smejkal is a bit on the older side at 26 years old, but he’s having a big year in Sweden and has been a notable part of the Czechia national team, having played for them at the Olympics and worlds. He’s a big, powerful winger with good skills who can help on both special teams. His skating is just OK and whether he will score in North America is a question, but his style lends itself to a real chance to play NHL games.

7. Owen Pederson, LW, Winnipeg-WHL: Pederson has been an important part of a top CHL club in Winnipeg over the last two seasons. He has excellent puck skills and size, and can create a lot around the net which makes him intriguing for the pro game. Pederson’s skating has and continues to be an issue, and I’m not sure I would call him the best playmaker you’ll ever see. I think there’s a toolkit though that gives him a chance, and he’s stood out for me in Winnipeg games when I’m trying to watch other, more highly touted players.

8. Riese Gaber, RW, North Dakota-NCHC: Gaber, like Livingstone, was a priority free agent last season but like many North Dakota players opted to stay in school for another year. He’s an undersized winger, but his skating is excellent and gives him a real chance to play in the NHL. He gives an honest effort every night which when combined with his speed has him buzzing around the ice constantly. Gaber has good puck skills, and can shoot the puck quite well from range too. Whether there’s an NHL role for him given his frame is to be determined.

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9. Hunter McKown, C, Colorado College-NCHC: McKown has scored a lot of goals in college over the last two seasons. He’s a highly-skilled forward, he actually was on the power play for Team USA at the summer world juniors because of the offensive touch he brings. His skating is fine, but won’t be an asset in the NHL. McKown’s overall compete can be inconsistent too and he’s probably not a pro center. The skill and scoring touch will be worth a team taking a gamble on.

10. Christopher Sedoff, LHD, Red Deer-WHL: Sedoff was once thought of as a quality prospect a few years ago. He was on Finland’s U18 team as a 16-year-old. He played up levels because of his skating while also being a decent-sized defenseman who could make stops. There were questions about his skill and ability to move pucks at higher levels and ultimately he went undrafted. Since then he’s been a very good junior defenseman. The offense has been good. As an older WHL player it’s hard to tell whether the puck game is now real or a mirage from an older player in junior, but I think he’s shown enough to warrant taking a shot on.

11. Luke Krys, RHD, Brown-ECAC: Krys, the younger brother of former Chicago draft pick Chad Krys, has been a top player for Brown. He’s a 6-foot-2 defenseman who can skate and competes well, which immediately draws the interest of scouts. He’s a lot better a defender than his brother was, but he doesn’t have near the offensive abilities and whether he can move pucks versus pros will be his challenge even if he shows flashes of skill at the college level.

12. Travis Mitchell, LHD, Cornell-ECAC: Mitchell has played a large role for Cornell this season. The senior defenseman and team captain often lined up on both special teams. He’s a big-body defenseman who competes well and could be a solid pro defender. His skating is fine for his size but not a major selling point. Whether he can move pucks versus men will be Mitchell’s main challenge as I wouldn’t call him a natural offensive type.

13. Anton Malmstrom, LHD, Bowling Green-CCHA: Malmstrom is a 6-foot-4 defenseman who can skate very well for a defender his size. He projects to make a lot of stops at the pro level because of his athleticism. He has very little to no puck game though and his hockey sense will be a major question at higher levels.

14. Cooper Black, G, Dartmouth-ECAC: Black, a freshman at Dartmouth stands out instantly due to his frame. He’s listed at 6-foot-8 but some team sources think he’s closer to 6-foot-9. His technique is rather smooth given that large frame and he shows good hockey sense in net. Not surprisingly, his lower half is a little heavy and how quickly he can move will be his main challenge for the pro game, but Black still moves fairly well for a guy his size. He has a shot to make the NHL, presuming he decides to sign this year which I don’t think is likely.

15. Collin Graf, RW, Quinnipiac-ECAC: Graf has been one of the top scorers in college this season and a big part of Quinnipiac’s success. He’s a skilled offensive player. His vision and his shot are major assets and inside the offensive zone he can be quite dangerous. He can play way too much on the perimeter, though, and his skating isn’t ideal for the pro game.

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16. Grigori Dronov, LHD, Magnitogorsk-KHL: Dronov was often injured coming up as a draft eligible, but as a pro he’s looked like a quality KHL defenseman for a top team in that league. Dronov has good size, he can move pucks well and is able to defend well at the KHL level. The big issue for him in the NHL will be his mobility. I think it’s fine, it works in the KHL for sure, but whether he can skate with NHL forwards will be a test.

17. Konstantin Okulov, RW, CSKA-KHL: Okulov has been a rumored NHL free-agent target for a few years. The 27 year old’s KHL deal expires this summer so we will see if he tries to cross the pond. He has very good offensive skills and is a legit goal-scoring threat at the highest levels. His shot can beat quality goalies from the circles. Whether Okulov’s feet will hold up in the NHL is a question. I don’t think either his compete or skating really stand out, so I wonder if an NHL attempt for him will go like how Vadim Shipachyov’s attempt did which ended quickly.

Longshots to play in the NHL

18. Rickard Hugg, LW, Skelleftea-SHL: Hugg has been a top player for the best team in the SHL this season. His skill and playmaking have shone through much more consistently compared to the prior years I’ve been watching him. He competes well and can score, but he’s 5-foot-11 and not a great skater. He gave one shot in North America and it didn’t go great, but I think a team will give him a second chance.

19. Kyle McDonald, RW, North Bay-OHL: McDonald is a big winger with excellent puck skills and a good track record of scoring goals in the OHL. His skating is quite heavy though and whether he can even be an average AHL skater is a question but he should be able to score as a pro.

20. Jacob Bengtsson, LHD, Lake Superior State University-CCHA: Bengtsson has been a top defenseman in the CCHA over the last few seasons. He’s a good-sized defender with strong hockey sense. His offensive touch isn’t that great, but he can make a good outlet pass and shows instances of O-zone playmaking. Bengtsson’s skating will be his major issue for the NHL. His frame gives him a chance to find a role in the NHL if he finds a way to stand out enough defensively in the AHL.

21. Jaxon Nelson, C, Minnesota-Big Ten: Nelson is a big-body center who has played on both special teams for the Gophers this season and put up decent offensive totals. His skating is fine for a 6-foot-4 guy, but I wouldn’t call him a quick-twitch skater by any means. He has decent skill. I don’t think he’ll be a big scorer versus men but there’s enough talent to his game to be intriguing for the next level.

22. Akito Hirose, LHD, Minnesota State-CCHA: Hirose has been an important player for Mankato over the last few years. He’s a talented offensive player. He’s a strong skater, unusually strong for a college free-agent target and has strong playmaking abilities to go with that. Hirose has a chance to make it on what he can do with the puck, but whether he can defend men will be a question. His skating will help him, but I wouldn’t call him the hardest to play against defenseman.

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23. Valetti Pulli, LHD, TPS-Liiga: Pulli is a massive defenseman at 6-foot-6 who became a regular this season with a good TPS club and got an invite to Finland’s national team. He has some hockey sense, but his puck game is limited. I’ve seen worse feet on a big guy like him but I wouldn’t call his skating an asset either. He will probably get signed but it’s a long path for him to the NHL I think.

24. Jason Polin, RW, Western Michigan-NCHC: Polin is the right wing on that top Western Michigan line. He’s not as naturally skilled as McAllister, but he has the speed and compete level that could make himself valuable as a pro. Polin plays a direct style, often taking pucks wide and to the net. He has good hands, and has scored a lot of goals the last two seasons in college. I do have some questions about how natural a play driver he is and whether he will have offense versus men.

25. Logan Morrison, C, Ottawa-OHL: Morrison has put up huge numbers in junior over the last few seasons. He’s got very good skill and playmaking ability and is a consistent threat to score from the faceoff dots. His average-sized frame combined with a lack of speed and average off-the-puck play will make an NHL path difficult, but he can score.

26. T. J. Hughes, C, Michigan-Ben Ten: Hughes has been quite good for Michigan as a freshman. He’s a very skilled and intelligent center who has shown he can create a lot of offense at the college level and help a power play. His skating is just OK for me and that will be the big thing preventing him from making the NHL level. I suspect he likely goes back for another season, but if he decides to come out I think there would be interest given his scoring record in college and junior and not being undersized.

27. Ryan Siedem, RHD, Harvard-ECAC: Siedem has been a solid two-way defenseman for Harvard. He’s an intelligent player who can make a good first pass and has seen an uptick in his offense this year at the college level. Siedem’s skating has historically been his issue and it’s still not a strength, but given his frame and sense I can see someone taking a shot on him.

28. Max Sasson, C, Western Michigan-NCHC: Sasson has been the center of the top line for Western. He’s a strong skater, and unusually quick for a college free-agent target, especially given he’s not small which will make him quite attractive to NHL clubs. He works hard enough with his feet to potentially play a lower role on a team. The question with him will be offense. Sasson can make plays but he’s not a natural scorer with a ton of skill.

29. Ryan McAllister, LW, Western Michigan-NCHC: McAllister will almost certainly get an NHL deal after the numbers he’s posted in college this season. He was considered the big fish in the first half of the season on the free-agent front, but his scoring has cooled off. He has a lot of skill and offensive creativity. He has great vision and can make a lot of highly-difficult passes at a high rate. He has the offensive touch for the pros, but McAllister’s game has questions on whether the rest of his toolkit translates. He’s an undersized winger who’s a fine but not great skater and plays a lot on the perimeter. I think he will have a lot to prove in the AHL before we start talking about him as a NHL player, although I’m sure he may get some games at the end of the season as part of a deal to get him signed.

30. Isac Brannstrom, LW, Lulea-SHL: The older brother of Ottawa’s Erik Brannstrom, Isac has been a good scorer in the SHL, especially this season. He’s very skilled and creative with the puck, and can run a pro power play effectively with his great vision. He works hard enough, but he’s not that big and unlike his brother, he’s not an amazing skater.

I’m quickly going to highlight some drafted college players who either will be or have the potential to turn into free agents this summer if they so choose to.

People around the league believe it’s a strong probability that Erik Portillo won’t sign with Buffalo, so I expect him to either be a free agent by June 1 or have his right traded to a team he will sign with. The same goes with Anaheim’s Henry Thrun (who hits free agency on Aug. 15). Both would be “projected to play NHL games tier” prospects but not high-echelon types.

Jackson LaCombe would be the biggest name here if he got to free agency but I believe he is likely to sign with Anaheim. I’ve heard Ryan Johnson will probably sign with Buffalo too. I don’t know what Philadelphia’s plans are with Jay O’Brien but I would be a little surprised if they signed him instead of taking the compensatory second-round pick at this stage.

Dominic Basse, G, St. Cloud State-NCHC (rights owned by Chicago)

Magnus Chrona, G, Denver-NCHC (rights owned by San Jose)

John Farinacci, C, Harvard-ECAC (rights owned by Arizona)

Mitchell Gibson, G, Harvard-ECAC (rights owned by Washington)

Carter Gylander, G, Colgate-ECAC (rights owned by Detroit)

Ryan Johnson, LHD, Minnesota-Big Ten (rights owned by Buffalo)

Jackson LaCombe, LHD, Minnesota-Big Ten (rights owned by Anaheim)

Aidan McDonough, LW, Northeastern-Hockey East (rights owned by Vancouver)

Nikita Nesterenko, C, Boston College-Hockey East (rights owned by Minnesota)

Jay O’Brien, C, Boston University-Hockey East (rights owned by Philadelphia)

Jayden Struble, LHD, Northeastern-Hockey East (rights owned by Montreal)

Henry Thrun, LHD, Harvard-ECAC (rights owned by Anaheim)

Matt Steinburg, C, Cornell-ECAC (rights owned by Colorado)

Why Filip Hronek will give the Canucks’ blue line a massive upgrade.

By Harman Dayal
Mar 6, 2023

Vancouver’s big swing for Filip Hronek was a stunning, polarizing twist to the club’s trade deadline plans. The debate in this market has been so concentrated on the cost and aggressive timing of the trade that we haven’t spent enough time analyzing what kind of value Hronek will bring.

It’s important to dive into that because the 25-year-old right-shot defender is in the middle of a breakout season where he’s provided borderline top-pair quality value. Did the Red Wings sell high on a player who is having an outlier year and/or setting himself up for a big extension at the end of next season that may be risky? Or did the Canucks seize a unique opportunity to add a player at a premium position who’s legitimately levelled up his game?

Let’s dig in.

Hronek broke into the league as a 21-year-old and was immediately thrust into a major role. He was thrown to the wolves, playing 22-24 minutes per game in a top-pair role on an awful, rebuilding Red Wings team and tasked with defending the opposition’s best players. Hronek was offensively productive immediately, scoring 80 points in 167 games (a 39-points-per-82-games pace) through his first three NHL seasons.

There were major holes in his all-around game, however. Hronek struggled to drive even-strength play and was on the ice for 81 goals for and 139 against at five-on-five in those first three seasons. He was even a healthy scratch for a pair of games early in 2021-22.

It’s understandable, however, for a young defenceman to struggle to handle tough minutes on a bad, rebuilding team.

Hronek has taken a huge step this year. It’s the second season that he’s settled into a second-pair role behind Moritz Seider. That meant a lighter workload where he’s faced league-average matchups (only occasionally playing against top lines) and slightly trimmed minutes. Hronek’s responded by tying his career high of 38 points in 18 fewer games than last year and driving a positive five-on-five goal share for the first time in his career.

It’s worth pointing out that he’s been the beneficiary of a 103 PDO (PDO is the sum of his team’s shooting percentage offensively and save percentage defensively when that player is on the ice), which means he’s had some offensive bounces and that defensively, his goalies have been rocking a higher-than-usual save percentage. I wouldn’t be too worried about this breakout being unsustainable because part of that good fortune has been offset by some of the minutes he’s had to play with Ben Chiarot.

Chiarot had a cratering impact on Seider’s number early in the season. When they got split up, Chiarot had a similarly devastating impact on Hronek’s five-on-five play.

Hronek’s had an encouraging two-way impact whenever he’s paired with anybody but Chiarot. The numbers only tell part of the story for a player, however. I watched some tapes of Hronek’s game this season to get further insight into why he’s had a breakout year and what type of impact he can have on the Canucks’ blue line.

Hronek’s significantly improved defensive play

Hronek’s evolution this season was immediately apparent when watching film. In the past, he’s been described as a player with defensive warts, but I came away impressed with how complete his all-around game appeared. He definitely didn’t look like the second coming of Chris Tanev defensively or anything, but he profiles like a reliable, well-rounded player.

The best standout trait defensively was his competitiveness. Hronek is average sized but he excels as a one-on-one defender. When an attacker handles the puck for too long, Hronek is aggressive at closing the gap and using his body and stick to disrupt the play and create a change in possession. In the clip below, Dylan Cozens weaves his way into the offensive zone for a clean entry. Cozens tries to cut back to make a pass, but Hronek pounces and breaks up the play and the Red Wings are able to transition out of their zone.

Hronek is constantly trying to harass and apply pressure on puck carriers. Here’s another example on Matt Boldy which results in a change of possession.

Below, you’ll see a neat one-on-one defensive sequence against Steven Stamkos. Hronek maintains a tight gap, Stamkos runs out of space to make a play and then the former makes a short D-to-D pass to Chiarot that helps the Red Wings break out the other way.

Hronek’s competitiveness allows him to effectively battle against bigger forwards around the crease. There was one play in that same Tampa Bay game, for example, where he won a crucial battle against Alex Killorn for a rebound right in front of the net.

When a team is able to cycle the puck around the zone quickly, Hronek can be prone to closing space a split second too late which sometimes resulted in chances against. He isn’t the most agile rush defender either. Here’s a two-on-one rush below where the Sabres are able to make three passes across back and forth before generating a Grade-A chance.

One of the biggest issues for the Canucks is that their defencemen don’t read plays fast enough to take away dangerous offensive threats. Hronek, on the other hand, is constantly scanning and checking over his shoulder to try and clog passing lanes. That’s helped him defend cross-seam passes. I’ve thrown together a compilation of three examples where that helped him block a dangerous pass.

Hronek doesn’t make egregious reads or throw himself way out of position either. He’s taken a serious step this season toward becoming a competitive, effective defensive player which has been evident in his drastically improved penalty-killing results as well.

How much will Hronek’s puck-moving help the Canucks?

One of the other surprises when watching Hronek was that he isn’t quite the workhorse puck-mover I thought he might be. He’s still a solid transporter and will instantly become the Canucks’ best puck-mover from the right side, don’t get me wrong. But I would hesitate to use words like “high end” and “dynamic” to describe his transportation skills.

This season, Hronek’s led 5.04 defensive zone exits with possession per 60 minutes according to Corey Sznajder’s tracking. That ranks fourth among Red Wings defencemen behind Seider, Jake Walman and Olli Määttä.

Hronek is a smooth, cerebral puck carrier. That allows him to skate the puck up ice when the opposition forecheck has backed up. Here are a couple of examples below.

Hronek is mobile but doesn’t have the type of explosive acceleration with his first two steps that would allow him to separate from forecheckers that are hounding him. In other words, give him some space and he’s a confident puck carrier. But forecheck him aggressively and he’ll look to pass or punt the puck up ice.

When forecheckers are closing fast, he can be a little inconsistent. Sometimes, he’ll make a brilliant, nifty pass like this:

Other times, he might not make the best decision under pressure. On the play below, for example, Hronek has the option to make a bank pass to a teammate in the neutral zone but instead sends it off the boards and back to the Minnesota Wild.

Later in that game, he didn’t make the best decision/pass from a set breakout which allowed the Wild to re-enter the zone.

Overall, Hronek looks like the sort of player whose puck-moving utility hinges on the quality of the close support of his teammates. When he has wingers and centres who come deep and provide good passing options to relieve pressure, he can hit those targets efficiently. If he has space for himself, he can skate it out individually too. But if teammate support is mixed, he often does flip pucks out or off the boards.

Hronek’s mobility and solid puck-moving skills will help the Canucks. But don’t tie a slow, anchor of a partner next to him and expect that he’ll be able to carry the pair by himself the way a dynamic, elite puck transporter might be able to.

Hronek’s wicked shot and other offensive tools

Hronek is a dual threat in the offensive zone, dangerous as both a shooter and passer. He can rip the puck with a hard one-timer but also walk in and pick his spot with a snipe.

Teams have to respect his shot, so he’s capable of faking a bomb and then hitting a teammate with a shot pass.

Good reads with the puck come naturally to Hronek, who can walk the line pretty well too.

Hronek is really adept at pinching up the wall to keep plays alive in the offensive zone. None of those are highlight-reel plays on their own, but the benefit accumulates over time.

A defenceman’s ability to register points is often tied to opportunity though, so don’t be surprised if his production tapers given that 16 of Hronek’s 38 points have come on the power play where the Canucks already have Quinn Hughes (unless they go with two defenders on PP1).

We don’t know yet if Hronek will slot with Hughes at five-on-five or on a second pair so that the Canucks can split their two best defencemen up and maximize the amount of time that at least one of them is on the ice. But Hronek will at least surely get some shifts with Hughes when the Canucks are trailing. That’ll be really exciting to watch because Hughes has never had a partner with Hronek’s offensive versatility.

Conclusion

Hronek profiles as a jack-of-all-trades two-way defenceman. He wasn’t quite as dynamic leading breakouts as I anticipated but was far more reliable defensively than I expected, especially now that his matchups and minutes have been scaled more reasonably. He checks the boxes of a quality No. 3 defenceman to me — somebody who can either caddy a legitimate No. 1 like Hughes or be an effective driver on his own pair, provided he has a competent partner.

Regardless of how he’s deployed, Hronek is far and away better than any right-shot defencemen the Canucks have employed this season and should be a core player for some time.

Who are the NHL comparables for the Canucks’ top defence prospects?

By Thomas Drance
Apr 6, 2023

Over the past week, we’ve been diving deep into the state of the Vancouver Canucks’ prospect system.

We’ve taken stock of who is trending up and who is trending down in Vancouver’s system. We’ve ranked the top-10 prospects, and honourable mentions. And we’ve taken a lengthy, quantitative look at comparables for Vancouver’s top forward prospects.

Now it’s time to dive into the state of Vancouver’s pipeline on defence, which the club has recently added to with the signing of NCAA free agents Akito Hirose and Cole McWard.

As a reminder, our approach to selecting players’ comparables goes beyond the stylistic comps that are common around draft season. We lean heavily on the Cohort Model approach that was originally developed at CanucksArmy.com a decade ago, building a data set that factors in player size, age, scoring rates and the current league they’re playing in.

From there we identify NHL players past and present who are a close profile match — statistically speaking — with where various Canucks prospects are at this stage of their current development. The purpose of the exercise is to give us a realistic range of probabilistic outcomes for the development of these players, so that we can seek to answer the big question: “What can the Canucks expect to get from their prospect pipeline in the years to come?”

Some qualifiers are worth noting. First of all, we select both a high-end and a low-end comparable to reflect the range of possible outcomes for each prospect. Secondly, the attrition rate for NHL prospects is extremely high, so all of these comparables — even the low-end comps — are relatively optimistic.

Let’s get into the comparables for Vancouver’s top blue-line prospects.


Elias Pettersson
High-end comparable: Robert Hagg

Elias Pettersson played a starring role for Team Sweden at the U20 World Junior Championships this past season, impressing scouts enormously with his physical assertiveness and natural ability to be in the way. A player whose value is tied up on the defensive side of the puck, Pettersson spent much of his season with Örebro of the SHL.

With Örebro, Pettersson averaged under 10 minutes per game and produced seven points in 43 games — which is the typical usage for a young player in the SHL. Mostly it’s just a positive sign that Pettersson was able to stick in the SHL with a high-quality team for so many games while logging a regular shift in his draft plus-one season.

Pettersson also spent a small handful of games — 14 games total — with the Örebro J20 side, dominating at that level and producing over a point per game.

That Pettersson played so regularly in the SHL at a young age gives him a real shot at being an impact NHL defender, although his upside is likely limited by an overall lack of offensive production and upside.

As a result of his pedestrian statistical profile, Robert Hagg stands out as Pettersson’s highest upside comparable and though the 2013 first-round pick has appeared in 335 NHL games, he’s settled into a career as a depth defender. Like Pettersson, Hagg managed to hang around in the SHL in his draft plus-one season, dominating at the J20 level and playing a starring role for Sweden at the U20s.

Hagg was a higher-pedigree player and moved over to North America after his draft plus-one SHL campaign, whereas Pettersson seems likely to play at least another year in Sweden. In any event, the Hagg comparable tells us a lot, namely that if Pettersson is going to have top-four upside in the NHL down the line, you’d hope to see him round out his production significantly in his draft plus-two season in the SHL.

Mattias Ekholm is a good example of this — he wasn’t a comparable for Pettersson that we could consider based on his draft plus-one production, because Ekholm spent his age-18 season in the Allsvenskan — since he was drafted as a physical defensive defender, but has emerged as a unicorn top-four defensive defender in the NHL. Ekholm’s two-way progress was significant as a 19-year-old, as he produced 33 points in 55 games in his draft plus-two season.

There’s a lot to like in Pettersson’s game and profile. Still, if he’s going to elevate himself into consideration as a guy with top-four upside, the tell will be in his offensive output next season.

Low-end comparable: Jacob Larsson

Like Hagg, Jacob Larsson was a late first-round pick of the Anaheim Ducks organization in 2016. Like Hagg and Pettersson, he was a precocious achiever in the SHL in his draft plus-one campaign — with 14 points in 47 games in his age-18 campaign, Larsson actually out-produced both Hagg and Pettersson by a significant margin with Frölunda HC in his draft plus-one season.

Despite an auspicious profile as a teenager and his draft pedigree, Larsson struggled to carve out an everyday role on a deep Anaheim Ducks blue line once he came over to North America. His game and development stagnated. Even as the Ducks entered a rebuilding mode, Larsson was unable to carve out a full-time role in the NHL. He’s played over 170 NHL games in his career, but is currently an Ottawa Senators farmhand.

One thing to note about Larsson, is that his counting statistics didn’t take a big leap in his draft plus-two season, in fact, his production took a bit of a step backward when he managed just five points in 29 games with Frölunda HC as a 19-year-old.

There’s a lesson here for Pettersson. His ultimate success at the NHL level will be determined primarily by his two-way play and physical value, but the NHL is the best league in the world, and it’s worth remembering that even those players that ultimately are counted on to be defensive minded in the NHL tend to be dynamic offensive pieces at lower levels.

Filip Johansson
High-end comparable: Calle Rosen

Unsigned by the Minnesota Wild, who selected him in the first round of the 2018 NHL Entry Draft, Filip Johansson has enjoyed an offensive breakout in his age-23 campaign with Frölunda HC.

After years of playing a smaller role and being a very pedestrian offensive point producer at the SHL level, Johansson has logged over 20 minutes per game for Frölunda while nearly doubling his production year-over-year — he’s managed seven goals and 25 points between the regular season and playoffs.

Johansson will come over to North America following this season, and there’s a sense internally within the Canucks organization that Johansson could push to make Vancouver’s NHL roster next season. There’s a chance that occurs, but Johansson’s comparables are highly pedestrian — even with his relative breakout at the age of 23.

His highest-end NHL comparable is Calle Rosen, the ex-Toronto Maple Leafs depth defender who has carved out an everyday role for himself this season with the St. Louis Blues. Rosen is, like Johansson, a sneaky talented two-way defender, with better offensive instincts than defensive ones.

There’s a real chance that Johansson plays NHL games for the Canucks next season, particularly if he’s able to put in a strong training camp performance this upcoming fall, but his profile points to him having limited third-pair or NHL depth defender upside if he hits.

Low-end comparable: Right-handed Mikael Wikstrand

Mikael Wikstrand was a mid-round pick of the Ottawa Senators in 2012. Although the Senators signed him to an entry-level contract, he never came over to North America.

Wikstrand had a heavy shot and good offensive instincts, and like Johansson, had an offensive breakout at the age of 23. Going into the 2015-16 season, the Senators believed that they had found a diamond in the rough in Wikstrand and intended to give him every opportunity to win a job at training camp. An illness in his family, however, kept him in Sweden.

Wikstrand remains a productive professional player and has had quality stints in both the SHL and the KHL in recent seasons.

Ultimately, as excited as Vancouver is internally about Johansson, the vast majority of players with similar statistical profiles to Johansson at the age of 23 haven’t successfully made the leap to North American professional hockey.

Jacob Truscott
High-end comparable: Paul Martin

Injuries have limited what was shaping up to be a breakout campaign for Jacob Truscott this season. As Michigan arrived in Tampa Bay for practices ahead of the Frozen Four, Truscott remained unavailable. He’s not expected to play for the national championship this weekend.

Prior to the injury, however, Truscott was putting it all together in a major way in his junior season. The well-rounded 20-year-old lefty has spent much of this season on the right side, caddying for Luke Hughes. He was producing offence at a higher clip than he’d ever previously managed at the Division-I level, while grafting a new-found level of physical assertiveness onto his reliable, two-way game.

Hopefully, Truscott can come back from his head injury in short order, both because he’s a talented young person, and because he profiles as arguably the most intriguing defensive prospect in Vancouver’s system.

Truscott has a handful of high-end comparables in our data set based on his stellar performance as a junior defender, including bonafide top-four players like Mike Matheson, Devon Toews, Alec Martinez and Jake Walman.

Our favourite comparable for him, however, is Paul Martin, the longtime two-way ace for the New Jersey Devils. Like Truscott, who has spent his college career on a loaded Michigan Wolverines defence corps overshadowed by the likes of Owen Power and Hughes, Martin played for a ridiculous Minnesota Golden Gophers side headlined by higher pedigree college defenders like Jordan Leopold and Keith Ballard.

Martin, however, had the metronomic two-way game and the transition ability to complement star players. It served him well across an NHL career that spanned nearly 1,000 NHL games between the regular season and Stanley Cup playoffs, nearly all of them spent as a credible top-four defender.

Low-end comparable: Left-handed Robbie Russo

Robbie Russo has developed into a reliable American League defender in his professional career. At the NCAA level, however, Russo was on a Notre Dame team headlined by a higher-pedigree right-handed defender in Stephen Johns. He didn’t really break out until his senior season, after Johns turned professional.

Russo spurned the New York Islanders team that drafted him following his college career and signed with the Detroit Red Wings, appearing in 19 NHL games and otherwise topping out as a top blueliner at the AHL level.

While Truscott has some excellent comparables, there’s a lot of Russo-type players — including former Canucks prospect Jeremy Price and Evan Oberg — in our data set as well. Hopefully, Truscott is able to return to full health soon, because he looks like a good bet to provide the club with organizational depth at least, and has the upside to be a real player, particularly given the rapid improvement he’s shown over the past couple of years.

Kirill Kudryavtsev
High-end comparable: Left-handed Dylan DeMelo

Vancouver’s seventh-round pick at the 2022 NHL Entry Draft, Kirill Kudryavtsev put in a tremendous season in the OHL as a draft plus-one player and has already earned an entry-level contract with the Canucks. Those are both very good signs for a 19-year-old defender drafted as late as Kudryavtsev was just 10 months ago.

While Kudryavtsev’s calling card is two-way play, he really broke out offensively this season for the Soo Greyhounds, as his production leapt from 39 points in his draft-eligible season to 50 points this past year. That’s a close match with what happened to Dylan DeMelo after he was selected in the sixth round at the 2011 NHL Entry Draft by the Ottawa Senators and his production jumped from 27 points to 47 the next season — putting him on the map as a credible NHL defensive prospect.

DeMelo’s NHL career has been defined by his transitional defensive abilities, just like Kudryavtsev’s likely will be if he hits as an NHL-level player. Like we previously explained, however, often a player’s suitability to be a defensive piece in the NHL is foretold in part by an offensive breakout at lower levels.

DeMelo maintained his offensive gains the next season, before turning professional as a 20-year-old. He’s since played 468 NHL games for the Sharks, Senators and Winnipeg Jets organization.

Low-end comparable: Derek Joslin

Kudryavtsev has a variety of real comparables in the OHL this season, including the likes of Travis Dermott and TJ Brodie, among others.

He also has a lot of comparables like Derek Jolsin, a solid depth defender who was a late-round pick of the Sharks organization and had a similar offensive breakout to DeMelo and Kudryavtsev as a draft plus-one defender in the OHL.

Unlike DeMelo, whose defensive game and transition abilities have permitted him to establish himself as a solid top-four defender, Joslin’s defensive reliability never quite took that step. He topped out as an organizational depth piece, appearing in just over 100 games — including two with the Canucks during the 2011-12 season.

For blue-line prospects with a defensive bent, you want to see an offensive breakout at lower levels if they’re a player with NHL upside. Ultimately their NHL fates, however, are determined by the reliability of their defensive game at the NHL level.

Joni Jurmo
High-end comparable: Niko Mikkola

Joni Jurmo’s development has been a bit stilted since he was drafted by the Canucks with their first pick of the 2020 NHL Entry Draft, in which the club selected him in the third round.

This past year, for example, Jurmo hung around in Liiga, the top Finnish men’s league, for the entire season, but wasn’t enormously productive — producing just 13 points in 52 games with Jukurit Mikkeli. That’s not precisely the step you’d have hoped to see from a player who produced 10 points in 50 games in the same league as a 19-year-old last season.

The year-over-year consistency makes Jurmo a close match with New York Rangers depth defender Niko Mikkola, who produced at a very similar rate for three consecutive seasons following his draft year in Liiga. He ultimately came over to North America following his draft plus-four campaign, and slowly found his way to the NHL with the Blues. He’s appeared in 166 NHL games and will hold down a depth role with the Rangers in the Stanley Cup playoffs this spring.

Mikkola’s overall defensive reliability was always his calling card, however, whereas the hope when the Canucks originally drafted Jurmo was that he might be a more dynamic contributor. Considering the lack of development he’s demonstrated offensively, Jurmo is going to have to really sharpen up his defensive instincts if he’s going follow a Mikkola-like path to the NHL.

Low-end comparable: Joni Tuulola

Joni Tuulola was a late-round pick and, like Jurmo, was a pedestrian point producer with great athletic tools until he broke out offensively during his Draft plus-four season.

Tuulola joined the Chicago Blackhawks organization at the age of 23, but never made it to the NHL, topping out as a moderately effective, if smooth skating defender in the AHL. He’s since returned to Finland, where he’s a top-four defender for Tampere.

Cole McWard
High-end comparable: “New NHL” version of Rob Scuderi

The Canucks moved aggressively to sign 21-year-old right-handed defender Cole McWard out of Ohio State this week. McWard profiles somewhat differently from your typical NCAA free agent, in that he’s relatively young — he was only a sophomore this season — and still has some development runway remaining. He’s also somewhat distinct from a prospect like Max Sasson or Akito Hirose in that he wasn’t a dominant player for his team in Division I this past season.

McWard is more of a project than you’d typically expect from an NCAA free agent, which isn’t necessarily a negative thing. There’s less pressure on a 21-year-old player who will turn 22 this summer to make an immediate impact at training camp, and McWard has a longer timeline to develop internally while retaining realistic NHL upside than a soon-to-be 24-year-old like Akito Hirose does.

McWard hasn’t been a dynamic point producer in the NCAA, and has something of a dime-a-dozen statistical profile. Most of his comparables who made it to the NHL are third-pair or depth player types — players like Taylor Fedun, Matt Benning, Ben Lovejoy, Dylan Reese and Matt Bartkowski.

One exception is Rob Scuderi, a throwback physical defender who carved out a lengthy NHL career as a physical top-four defender and won multiple Stanley Cups with the L.A. Kings and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

McWard and Scuderi are the same height, but McWard is a far more dynamic skater than Scuderi was at the same age, which is effectively a prerequisite for NHL defenders in the contemporary game. If McWard hits as a full-time NHL player his ceiling might look something like a new NHL version of Scuderi.

Low-end comparable: Right-handed Jordan Oesterle

Jordan Oesterle is a versatile depth defender at the NHL level, capable of playing both sides. At the same age as McWard, he produced similarly for a Western Michigan team that had few very future NHL-level players — aside from Oesterle himself, and a freshman teammate named Sheldon Dries.

Like McWard, Oesterle’s primary skill is his skating ability and defensive IQ, and he’s managed to carve out a nearly 350-game NHL career as a result of those attributes.

Akito Hirose
High-end comparable: “New NHL” version of Nate Prosser

Akito Hirose is an interesting case, because the only NHL comparables in his data set are a pair of players who primarily made it to the NHL as a result of their size and physical play.

Nate Prosser is only an inch-and-a-half taller than Hirose, but the difference between the two players, even at the same age, is about 40 pounds of weight. Historically speaking, players who produced the way Hirose did as an age-23 player in the NCAA this past season only make it to the NHL on the back of being imposing physical specimens.

The NHL game has changed over the past few years, particularly for defenders. The emphasis these days is often on speed, as opposed to brute force.

So while Hirose doesn’t have meaningful historical comps that fit his game stylistically, his skill set is now something of a template for what defensive defenders in the NHL look like — mobile, intelligent and cool as a cucumber under pressure.

Low-end comparable: Left-handed Tucker Poolman

Poolman is the other NHL-level comparable in Hirose’s data set. Like Hirose, Poolman made it to the NHL on the back of his defensive awareness and skating ability.

The major difference between the two players, to the eye anyway, is that Hirose seems to have more puck-moving upside than Poolman.

In any event, if the Canucks are able to mine a Poolman-level contributor out of Hirose that would be a tremendous outcome for the organization.

Who are the NHL comparables for the Canucks’ top forward prospects?

By Thomas Drance
Apr 5, 2023

Probability isn’t destiny and it’s important to keep that in mind when analyzing young hockey players in their teens or early 20s that aspire to future jobs at the NHL level.

No one makes it to the NHL without overcoming extremely long odds, and some of the best players in the league made themselves into what they are in defiance of all reasonable expectations through talent, work ethic and sheer force of will.

Edmonton Oilers superstar Leon Draisaitl, for example, was drafted as a two-way, playmaking centreman. In his first draft-eligible campaign, he was outscored by fellow WHL draft-eligible forwards Jake Virtanen and Sam Reinhardt.

At the time, probability favoured Draisaitl developing into a big, two-way centreman. There was nothing in his past production that screamed “future elite finisher.”

Draisaitl, however, worked on his shot obsessively, developed a bizarre and brilliant, super-fast wrist shot release and is now the single most efficient true talent finisher in the NHL — having eclipsed even Steven Stamkos over the past five years. It’s a reminder that some super elite performers can break bell curves.

Those are the outliers. The vast majority of hockey prospects, however, are going to fall well short of ever making a significant impact at the NHL level. Some will never make it at all. It’s a tough league.

Spotlighting this range of probabilities is the point of the comparable exercise that we’ve done regularly at The Athletic in analyzing Canucks prospects over the past few years.

Our approach goes beyond the stylistic comparables that are common around draft season, and instead leans heavily on the Cohort Model approach that was originally developed at CanucksArmy.com a decade ago. Effectively I build a data set that factors in player size, age, scoring rates and current league. I identify NHL players past and present that are a close profile match with where various Canucks prospects are at this stage of their current development.

That data is combined with some creative license to produce these “comps” for the purpose of illustrating what a best-case scenario and a more realistic scenario might look like for each Canucks prospect as they develop.

Now, all of that said, it’s worth noting that the attrition rate for NHL prospects is extremely high, so all of these comparables — even the low-end comps — are relatively high end. To be included as a “comp” at all, you have to be a player that made it. So keep in mind that even the “low-end comparables” are relatively optimistic.

We’ll start today with a look at the forwards in Vancouver’s system, and tomorrow we’ll cover off the defenseman. In addition to spotlighting the top-10 Canucks prospects on The Athletic’s end-of-season Canucks prospect rankings, we’ve also included some of the more interesting Honourable Mentions and the club’s recent acquisitions in NCAA free agency.

Jonathan Lekkerimäki
High-end comparable: n/a

There’s really no sugarcoating this. Beset by injuries and poor performance despite moving down a league as a draft plus-one player, Vancouver’s 2022 first-round pick Jonathan Lekkerimäki has had a nightmare season. His campaign has gone so poorly that our comparables exercise yielded no meaningful NHL-level successes.

History suggests that scoring wingers who produce the way Lekkerimäki did in the Allsvenkan as an 18-year-old simply don’t go on to make an impact in the NHL.

The only meaningful NHL comparable that we could find for Lekkerimäki based on his frame, Allsvenkan scoring rate and age is Calgary Flames centre Mikael Backlund, but Backlund has cemented himself as an impact guy at the NHL level based mostly on his two-way mastery. He’s also a centremen.

As such, I figured we’d best leave Lekkerimäki’s section blank. There’s just too much uncertainty in his projection now and it didn’t seem fair or instructive to assign him a fringe NHL player as a high-end comparable, like an Anton Blidh.

This season has obviously dented Lekkerimäki’s stock significantly. It’s been a deeply worrying season, even accounting for the injury context.

That said, this is still a player with considerable upside, if he can stay healthy and get his game back on track. Twelve months ago, Lekkerimäki’s best comparable based on his SHL scoring rates as a 17-year-old were players like William Nylander, Lucas Wallmark and Rasmus Asplund. The only other pedigree player who’d produced at comparable rates in the SHL at the same age (Nylander) went on to NHL stardom in short order.

It seems unlikely at this juncture that Lekkerimäki will follow that sort of path to meteoric NHL success based on his considerable struggles in his draft plus-one campaign, but patience is warranted given the uniqueness of Lekkerimäki’s skill set. He’s still got time yet to fulfill the promise he showed 10 months ago when he was widely viewed as a steal value-wise in the middle of the first round.

Low-end comparable: Oskar Steen

Oskar Steen, not unlike Lekkerimäki, struggled mightily in his draft plus-one campaign. A similarly skilled, shifty offensive winger, Steen produced sparingly in the Allsvenkan as an 18-year-old player, and bounced between leagues on loan as he carved out a niche in Sweden’s top professional leagues.

It wasn’t until his early 20s that Steen really took off as an impact player in the SHL, earning a contract from the Boston Bruins on the back of a 17-goal, 37-point season in 46 games for Färjestad BK as a 21-year-old.

Since arriving in North America, Steen has been a useful American League player, rounding out his two-way game, producing at an OK clip for the Providence Bruins, while proving useful for Boston in 25 NHL games across three seasons as an injury call up.

If Lekkerimäki takes a bit more time to regain his footing in Sweden and struggles to round out his two-way game, Steen’s progression offers a snapshot of a realistic path he could follow as an organizational depth piece.

Aatu Räty
High-end comparable: J.T. Miller

The first thing to know about Aatu Räty’s statistical profile in his draft plus-two campaign, is that the very fact that he’s played a handful of NHL games this early in his career is a strong data point indicating that he’s exceedingly likely to have a lengthy NHL career.

Räty won’t turn 21 until November, and currently counts as one of just 10 players from the 2020 NHL Draft class to have appeared in over 10 games. Based on our data set, 20-year-old forwards deemed advanced enough to play even a small sample of games tend to become regular NHL contributors over 80 percent of the time.

Among the players that Räty is a statistical comparable for based on his age-20 NHL-level production are a bunch of star NHL centremen, including Ryan Johansen, Alexander Wennberg and Canucks centre J.T. Miller. Factoring in his AHL production yields a ton of promising comparables as well, including the likes of Mika Zibanejad and, once again, Miller.

I figured I’d best pick Miller as Räty’s comparable, because both players are left-handed, have similar frames and both players were drafted as pivots, but at a precocious stage in their respective development have (or had) a variety of talent evaluators insisting that they’ll ultimately end up as wingers at the NHL level.

It’s actually shocking how similar Miller’s draft plus-two production is to what Räty has managed between the New York Islanders and Canucks organizations as a 20-year-old. In his draft plus-two season, Miller appeared in 42 American League games and produced 23 points (0.55 points per game), which is a close match with Räty’s 25 points in 47 American League contests (0.53 points per game).

Similar to Räty, Miller earned a cup of coffee with the New York Rangers in his draft plus-two season, producing two goals and two assists across 24 contests with the Rangers during the 2012-13 season (0.17 points per game). That’s also a reasonably close match with Räty’s two goals and one assist in 15 NHL games this season (0.2 points per game).

Now, this isn’t a perfect comparable, although it is a compelling one statistically. Miller was viewed as more of a playmaker when he was a prospect and has always had a quick first step, whereas Räty has always been viewed as a shoot-first player whose skating needs considerable improvement.

The Miller comparable, however, is an instructive one because it’s a useful reminder that the NHL is a league that tends to eat its young. To be useful in the AHL and get into an NHL lineup and be even modestly productive at the age of 20 tends to be a sign that a prospect has a very bright future. Räty, in other words, is our top Canucks prospect for a reason.

It’s going to take a lot of work for Räty to level up his game to the point of being an everyday NHL player, much less a star, but he’s on a track that’s far more auspicious than any other player in Vancouver’s system save, perhaps, for Artūrs Šilovs.

Low-end comparable: Jacob de la Rose

Playing in NHL games at a young age is a very good sign for Räty, and it strongly suggests that he’ll play many more in his NHL career. It doesn’t guarantee, however, that he’ll be an impact player in the top league in the world.

The case of Jacob de la Rose is an instructive one. de la Rose was a high second-round pick of the Montreal Canadiens in 2013 and in his draft plus-two campaign, de la Rose appeared in 33 games at the NHL level — producing six points, which is a near-perfect points-per-game match for Räty’s NHL-level output this season.

de la Rose was thought of as an advanced two-way player at a very young age, but there were concerns about his foot speed and those concerns were never really addressed. That ended up limiting de la Rose’s upside, as the Swedish-born forward struggled to establish himself as a top-nine contributor in the NHL.

de la Rose never built off of his excellent rookie campaign in the NHL, and ended up bouncing around between NHL organizations as a fourth-line piece. After the pandemic-abbreviated 2021 campaign, in which de la Rose spent considerable time on the St. Louis Blues taxi squad, he departed for Europe where he’s played for the past two years.

de la Rose played in nearly 250 NHL games, which is a solid achievement for a second-round pick. It’s also a useful reminder that while Räty has made a promising start to his North American professional career, his development going forward will ultimately be determinative about whether he’s an impact player, or a depth piece going forward.


Danila Klimovich
High-end comparable: Ivan Barbashev

Danila Klimovich is still very young to be a full-time American League player, although the data set of possible comparables is rapidly expanding.

In his second season in North American professional hockey, Klimovich has taken a small step for the Abbotsford Canucks. He’s still not a signature part of the club’s attack, but he’s been more productive than he was last year and has shown glimpses of real growth in terms of hockey IQ and reliability this season.

Klimovich remains a project, based largely on his background as a high-skilled, highly-individualistic player who came up playing inferior competition in Belarus. He’s still got a lot to learn about the details of the North American professional game, and if he’s going to make it as an impact NHL guy, the pressure will be on Klimovich to take a big step next season.

For now, however, there’s plenty of good NHL wingers who produced at a similar clip as 20-year-old players in the American League to what Klimovich has managed (25 points in 62 games) in Abbotsford this season. Among them, Ivan Barbashev, who was a far more polished two-way piece coming out of the QMJHL.

In his first season of professional hockey at the age of 20, Barbashev managed 28 points in 65 games for the Chicago Wolves. It took him two additional seasons to establish himself as an everyday NHL-level player, and five additional seasons before he developed into a 20-goal, 50-point player.

The Barbashev comparable is a reminder that patience is sometimes required in waiting for young players to reach their potential in the NHL. That’s a truism that’s particularly applicable for Klimovich, based on his unique development path.

Low-end comparable: Thomas Jurco

Like Klimovich, Jurco was an enormously-skilled winger with NHL size and incredible tools who similarly put up pedestrian counting stats in his draft plus-two campaign in the American League (28 points in 74 games).

Jurco went on to play over 200 NHL games, but he never delivered on the promise that he showed in the QMJHL and never really established himself as a mainstay top-six winger at the NHL level. For all of his offensive tools, there just wasn’t enough roundedness in Jurco’s game and he couldn’t adapt to fit the mold as a bottom-six player in the show.

Jurco’s career is a reminder that only the absolute best of the best go on to play in offensive roles at the NHL level. Often a player with raw tools needs to adapt their game and master the details away from the puck to earn the sort of break required to carve out a niche at the NHL level.

Josh Bloom
High-end comparable: Warren Foegele

Recently acquired from the Buffalo Sabres, Josh Bloom is a speedy forward with middle-six upside who has produced at roughly a point-per-game clip in the OHL in his draft plus-two campaign.

There’s some skill to Bloom’s game, but for the most part, if he makes it, history suggests he’s got the statistical profile of a bottom-six forward at the NHL level. Most of his comparables are players like Ben Eager, Matt Martin, Matt Luff and Andy Andreoff — players who carved out careers at the NHL level based largely on intimidation and physical play.

The comparable that stands out to me in the data set as a best-case comparable for Bloom, however, is Edmonton Oilers winger Warren Foegele. Similarly drafted in the third round, Foegele left the University of New Hampshire in his draft plus-two season to join the Kingston Frontenacs in the OHL where he produced at roughly a point-per-game clip.

Foegele spent one more season in major junior before turning pro, where he quickly cemented himself as an NHL-level player for the Carolina Hurricanes after one AHL season. His speed, abilities in transition and forechecking tenacity have made Foegele into a solid contributor as a third-line player.

If Bloom hits as a prospect, his NHL upside probably looks pretty similar.

Low-end comparable: Darren Archibald

Bloom’s statistical profile is dime a dozen.

For every success story like Foegele, there’s a player like former Canucks forward Darren Archibald, who produced at a similarly solid clip in the OHL as a 19-year-old to what Bloom has managed and ended up carving out a solid professional career as a very good American League player capable of giving an NHL organization a small handful of games.

Bloom’s speed gives him a real chance, but it’s a big leap between being a good American League player and being an everyday NHL contributor. It’s not a leap that many players are able to make successfully.

Aidan McDonough
High-end comparable: Ryan Malone

Like Aidan McDonough, Ryan Malone was drafted as an overage player and spent four years in the NCAA before turning pro. Malone was a similarly solid point producer in college, with an enormous frame and some questions coming into the NHL about his foot speed.

Joining an up-and-coming young Pittsburgh Penguins team, however, Malone took off. He played just three games in the American League before becoming a full-time NHL player, and went on to be a 20-goal scorer on six occasions over a highly-successful NHL career.

The real lesson of the Malone comparable for McDonough, is that Malone — who started his NHL career as a 24-year-old — was effectively NHL-ready immediately. He didn’t have much developmental runway and he didn’t need it, he just arrived in the NHL and crushed it immediately.

McDonough is a mature prospect at this point. In all likelihood, if he’s going to hit, it’s going to happen right away. McDonough is off to a solid start through four NHL games, but the expectations for him at training camp next season should be very high.

Low-end comparable: Left-handed Ryan Jones

Ryan Jones was a different sort of player than McDonough, a less productive player on balance through his college career, but with far better speed and more physical edge to his game.

In any event, Jones — like Malone — made it to the NHL almost immediately and carved out a solid niche as an energy player, ultimately playing a top-nine role for some very bad Edmonton Oilers teams during their run of picking first overall at the NHL Entry Draft a decade ago.

Jones and Malone both illustrate the lack of a real developmental runway that McDonough faces. In Malone’s case, he cemented himself as a top-six guy immediately and never looked back. Jones, meanwhile, took a similar path to the league, but topped out as a third-line energy contributor.


Lucas Forsell
High-end comparable: Jakub Vrana

With 13 goals across 42 SHL games as a 19-year-old this season, Lucas Forsell is one of the fastest risers in Vancouver’s prospect system. He’s put himself in a position where he’s got real NHL comparables based on his scoring rates this season, the most impressive of which is Jakub Vrana.

As a 19-year-old player, Vrana was a slight, 6-foot-tall winger who scored 16 goals in 55 SHL games — although he was more productive overall with a better assist rate. Vrana had far more pedigree as a first-round pick and more obvious skill as a puck carrier, but the production and size comp holds up.

It’s highly unlikely Forsell hits the five-on-five rate stat excellence that Vrana has tended to maintain in his NHL career to this point, but Forsell’s rapid improvement and productivity gives him a real chance to be a meaningful NHL player, perhaps even in a top-six role down the line.

Low-end comparable: Rasmus Asplund

Although Rasmus Asplund was drafted in the second round as a centremen, he’s likely bound for a longer-term role on the wing in the NHL. Asplund was similarly slight, with good speed and eerily similar scoring rates in his age-19 season at the SHL level.

Asplund is trending toward becoming a depth piece at the NHL level at the moment, but if Forsell can follow a similar path, that would be a huge win given that the Canucks selected him in the seventh round of the 2021 draft.

Max Sasson
High-end comparable: Left-handed Sam Lafferty

With 20 goals and 49 points in 48 games, Max Sasson was an elite NCAA player this past season for Western Michigan. He played huge minutes, contributed in all facets of the game and was one of the best centremen in Division 1.

Sasson’s age-22 performance is a close match with what Sam Lafferty accomplished for Brown as a 22-year-old (13 goals, 35 points in 31 games). And it’s a decent stylistic match too, based on Sasson’s pace and the mature details in his game.

Lafferty had a down year as a 23-year-old collegiate player, but still earned a contract with the Penguins. He spent only one season in the American League — another good reminder of the limited developmental runway of players that sign with NHL teams in their early 20s — and quickly established himself as an NHL depth piece, before breaking out for the Chicago Blackhawks this past season and garnering a huge price on the trade market at this past deadline.

The Lafferty comparable is helpful in that it reinforces how little time Sasson has to push for an NHL roster spot given his age, and reminds us too that if the Canucks are creative and aggressive in managing Sasson’s contract status should his game trend in the right direction, they can create significant value for themselves.


Low-end comparable: Left-handed Corban Knight

Corban Knight was a similarly elite two-way centre at the University of North Dakota, before signing with the Calgary Flames following his senior season.

Knight, however, never established himself as an NHL player, topping out as a quality defensive pivot in the American League. Now 32, Knight is the best defensive pivot in the KHL and might be worth a look for NHL teams on the lookout for the next Derek Ryan.

The Knight comparable reminds us that the leap from elite Division-I pivot and NHL player is significant, and that’s a bridge that a 22-year-old prospect like Sasson doesn’t have a ton of time — perhaps a season-and-a-half at the most — to cross.

NHL scouts poll: Who should the Canucks be hoping for with the 11th pick?


It’s an annual event for the Vancouver Canucks at this point, fated like November rain in their market: On Monday night the club didn’t win either of the drawings at the NHL Draft lottery.

Considering that the glittering, hyper-local prize at the top of the 2023 NHL Draft class is North Vancouver’s own Connor Bedard, this year’s draft lottery results hit a bit differently for Canucks fans. There’s just a bit of extra sting attached.

The Canucks weren’t all that interested in juking their draft lottery odds or maximizing their perch in the draft order to begin with, however, and after surging late in the year following the coaching change, this was far and away the most probable outcome.

What’s done is done. At least there’s real value in the certainty that the draft lottery brings.

The club is now locked in at pick No. 11, and for Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin and his amateur scouting staff, who are currently in town and going through their pre-draft meetings, they can now go through their evaluation process with a fixed point in mind.

Every draft is a crucial one for every NHL team, particularly in the contemporary NHL where affordable labour rules, but for a Canucks organization with a relatively weak prospect pool intent on retooling around their current core group, the 11th overall pick looms particularly large. From Dallas to Boston to Minnesota, it’s all but impossible to find an organization that has successfully retooled in the hard cap era without finding a major star outside of the top 10 at the NHL Entry Draft.

So who should Vancouver be hoping falls to them with the 11th overall pick in 2023?

To get a sense of the industry view of the 2023 draft class, your team at The Athletic’s Vancouver bureau reached out to a quartet of veteran amateur talent evaluators from across the league. In order for these NHL amateur scouts to speak freely about the middle range of the first round of the draft class, we’ve granted them anonymity and will identify them solely as Scout 1, Scout 2, Scout 3 and Scout 4. Some quotes have been edited for readability or clarity.

Who would you be hoping falls to the 11th spot in the draft order?

Scout 1: I don’t think Zach Benson will fall, but I would be hopeful people overlook Ryan Leonard because he’s 5-foot-11.

Scout 2: From 10-12, you’re hoping maybe Benson somehow slips, or maybe Colby Barlow. I think he’s close to being NHL ready. Dalibor Dvorsky was outstanding at the U18s for Slovakia — I think he’s a slam dunk if he hasn’t already been snapped up.

Scout 3: There’s really good players at the top end of this draft and that could bump a player like Benson down, and they’re bigger players. The only other smaller player up there is Matvei Michkov, the other top guys are all six-footers. So I could see Benson falling into the 10 or 11 hole, I could see that happening.

Scout 4: I think there’s a slim chance Benson falls. I don’t think it’ll happen, but you never rule out what can happen at the draft with a guy who is 5-foot-9 and 160 pounds. If there’s a guy to slide, that might be the guy and that’s probably going to be the reason.

Benson snagged an injury at the end of the year and hasn’t quite been up to his usual standard in the playoffs, but he should be in his usual form by the time the WHL final rolls around. It could also depend on how the playoffs go, if certain teams find success playing heavy hockey and you look at the size and weight on the back-end for teams that got through round 1, you could see teams getting a bit gun-shy about taking a guy Benson’s size. I think that would be ridiculous, but there’s always a chance.

He might be the smartest player in this draft class, and he might be the hardest-working player in this draft class. Right there with that foundation, you have a player that could go a long, long way in the NHL. I’m not sure his skating or hands are at the high end of this draft class, but they both project out well. All in, this is a guy that has a good shot of being an All-Star level scoring winger with high-end two-way ability when he’s at the peak of his career.

Would Dvorsky still be in range outside of the top 10 given his recent dominance of the U18 World Championship?

Scout 1: Prior to the U18 tournament, we were talking about trading up for this guy, like we’re unloading to get him. Since then his stock has taken off. For me, he’s battling (Will) Smith in the 4-5-6 range. If he gets to Vancouver and they don’t take him, that’s criminal.

Scout 2: He’s a nice blend of having an NHL shot — he can score through traffic — and vision and anticipation which is high-end. He spins, he creates more space and time for his linemates to get open. At one point pace sometimes (was a concern), he’s not a fast skater but his tempo was good, he changes speeds, he attacks from different angles. I think he’s going to be a good two-way centreman.

Scout 3: I can’t see Dvorsky slipping that far. He was just outstanding at the U18 World Championship, he carried that team on his shoulders the whole tournament. He never quit. He’s six-foot-1, he’s 190 pounds, and he’s a complete player.

Is there a defenseman who would warrant a top 10 pick?

Scout 1: I wouldn’t take a D in that No.9-11 range. Because of their shortage, they’re going to be over-drafted.

Scout 2: There’s not a defenceman that would jump into that top 10 for me. Would a team like Vancouver be willing to move down a couple slots, pick up (an extra asset) and take a player like David Reinbacher around 12 or 13? I don’t think that’s a stretch. The problem is those guys — Reinbacher, Axel Sandin-Pellikka — get picked earlier because there’s not many of them.

Scout 3: I don’t think there are any defenseman worth picking that high. Reinbacher would be the only guy I’d consider. The year for drafting defenseman, and I wonder if teams are going to make mistakes in this class by reaching for defenders. There’s like 22 or 23 defenders tracking to be first or second-round calibre defenders in the 2024 draft class, based on what I’m projecting right now, and probably 10 of them will warrant selection in the first round.

As a result, a player like Reinbacher is going to carry a little bit higher value this year. Teams are going to be looking to address that need, and you shouldn’t address need in the first round, but some teams will.

Scout 4: It’s not really a great year for defenseman.

The big defenseman that’s highly rated in the draft simply because he’s a big defenseman always sets off alarm bells, because you have to be bringing more than that to the table in the top 10. Luckily Reinbacher seems to be a solid prospect, and is likely to be a solid NHL contributor for a long time.

Still, Reinbacher might go even higher than that because everyone wants that right-shot defenseman. Just shooting right is worth like plus-5 in terms of his draft stock. The things that everyone is looking for at the draft are centres and right-handed defensemen, so whenever you see a guy like Reinbacher, with that size, that’s cat nip to teams. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he goes higher than 11 or 12 on draft day.

Would Reinbacher be a good fit for the Canucks at 11th overall?

Scout 1: I’m not sold on him. He’s going to go in the 8-12 range — maybe even 6 or 7 — because someone will overdraft him, but I see him as more of a mid-to-late first-round talent. Drafting for need is going to bite you, especially when next year’s D crop is outstanding.

That said, he’s got a good body, moves well, good brain. The skating and hockey sense is his (top) quality and he’s a good puck mover. The (offensive) numbers are misleading, I think they’re more fortuitous than they are (for) him making plays — lots of second assists. He doesn’t have the compete level either. I wouldn’t call him soft but he’s definitely just a stick-on-puck and possession type of guy.

He’s going to play (in the NHL) but I think he’s more of a complementary guy — he’s not the type to rebuild a blue line around the way David Jiricek or Moritz Seider are. If you’re already a good team and you bring him into the fold, you’re going to be really happy. He’s a player, but at 9/10/11? It’s not sexy.

You either have to live with the knowledge of over-drafting him or you trade back and there’s a risk that you might not even get him and he was your No. 1 option.

Scout 2: Reinbacher’s a good player — he’s a late 2004 birthday — sometimes those late ’04 birthdays can go underrated and not enough love from scouts because they don’t get those (international) tournaments that get all the viewings in November, February and now the world championships.

He’s more of a two-way defender. He’s tall, slender puck-moving defenceman. He’s got good mobility, he excels at exiting the (defensive) zone with the puck. I don’t think he’s the type of player to lead the rush, but one of those guys that anticipates, jumps in holes and brings that second wave of offence on a rush.

Scout 3: I think he’s right in Vancouver’s wheelhouse and I like Reinbacher, but I don’t like him that high personally.

You’ve got to hope with him. He’s an Austrian kid used to playing on the European ice who doesn’t really have a physical dimension to his game just yet and picked up a lot of secondary points — so I don’t really think he’s a driver of offence, even though his point totals reflect otherwise.

I wasn’t overwhelmingly impressed with him at the world juniors against his own age group. He’s got to get bigger and stronger, which applies to everybody, so that’s one “hope.”

Then he’s got to translate his game to the North American ice, so that’s another “hope.”

Thirdly he’s got to play more physically on North American ice at his position, so that’s another gamble.

Then finally I’m not sure he’s going to be an offensive driver, even though he’s scoring goals in the Swiss league, he’s not a driver and he certainly didn’t seem like an offensive driver in the world juniors.

What about the other defencemen expected to be contenders to go in the first round? Would any of Mikhail Gulyayev, Axel Sandin-Pellikka, Dmitri Simashev or Tom Willander warrant selection on the fringes of the top 10?

Scout 3: I like Sandin-Pelikka, he’s got a clear way of playing as a power-play guy. I don’t think he warrants selection at that point in the draft though.

Willander is a heck of a defenseman, but I don’t know if he’s in that 11 or 12-pick grouping either. Those two though are first-round calibre players, in my book.

The Russian, Simashev, he’s really good, he’s 6-foot-4 and 205, if he was a North American player or Swedish or Finnish or German or something, he’d probably be picked in the back part of the top-10. We’ll see how teams weigh that risk.

It’s tough, if you’re dead set on picking a defenseman that high. Especially if you’re a team that needs another young, right-handed defender. The thing to remember though is that even Reinbacher, who is the best of this group, is 3-4 years away from playing, I think, especially because he doesn’t play a hard, heavy game.

Scout 4: I like Gulyayev. He started the season with a lot of heat. He was putting up a ton of points on the power play with a really good MHL team in Omsk. Then he cooled off.

It’s hard to forecast Russian players, because it’s tough to get a read on them with how their system over there works. Teams aren’t incentivized to play their best players, because they want to give an edge to guys that will be with them long-term. Different teams have different approaches in terms of moving guys up to the VHL and the KHL, as opposed to why and who they hold down.

It’s encouraging that he spent some time in the VHL and I thought he held his own. I’m not sure that he’s at the top half of the first round of this draft class in terms of the defenders in it, but there’s things to like. He can be overly simplistic in how he moves the puck. I’m not sure how high his upside is, but he’s certainly intriguing.

And Simashev, you see 6-foot-4, 200 pounds with mediocre scoring numbers and think he’s going to be a defensive guy, but he’s not. He’s a smooth skater, good puck mover and can transition the puck really well.

Scout 1: Sandin Pellikka’s a great player. But I’d be very leery of past history with 5-foot-11ish D. Erik Brannstrom, Victor Soderstrom, Nils Lundkvist — none of these guys are hitting their mark. And Reinbacher’s not Erik Karlsson. (Adam) Boqvist was the closest to Karlsson and he hasn’t even hit. You’ve got to be special as a smaller D to (go that high). Like Quinn (Hughes) was special. The skating, skill level, hockey sense, already being in the NCAA in his draft year — those were all separating skills. Sandin Pelikka’s brain is separating but nothing else is exceptional. That would worry me.

Scout 2: I think Sandin Pellikka is more of a mid-first-round talent for me — No. 12-18ish. He has a little bit of Hughes in his game with his edges. He moves pucks, he’s got good poise, he has a really good offensive blue-line presence. But how many 5-foot-11 defencemen can you have on your roster before you have too many? If you have Hughes and Hronek, can you add another 5-foot-11 defenceman to that group and win a Stanley Cup? I don’t know.

Back to the forwards, Colby Barlow seems to be rising in the draft order. Is there a chance he’s gone by No. 11?

Scout 2: I think he belongs right in that 10-12 range. He has an NHL shot, he can really score from distance. He goes to traffic areas as well, the front of the net. He’s heavy and hard. I think he’s very close to playing in the NHL, which is very nice for teams, nowadays they like knowing what they’re going to get (as opposed to a project player). I wouldn’t say he’s a flashy player but he plays with lots of substance.

Scout 3: Barlow is right in that range, but trending to where he might be gone by the time the draft gets to 11 or 12. You win with guys like Colby Barlow, and they’re hard to find.

There’s two natural centremen in the WHL that will likely go in the middle of the first round in Nate Danielson and Brayden Yager. Would you consider either at No. 11?

Scout 4: Danielson is really interesting. He’s been a highly touted kid for a while, lot of pedigree, in terms of his tools it’s all there. He’s blindingly fast in a straight line, he’s got good hands. I’m not sure there’s a ton of upside, because I just haven’t seen the hockey sense. He can be a bit one-dimensional five-on-five.

I don’t think a team drafting him is going to be getting a future fixture in the top-six, he presents more like a mid-six, two-way guy with how solid he can be defensively and how proficient he is with his speed. For me, he’s a speed guy, a North-South centre, but he could also be a winger. Offensively I think he plays more like a winger, better suited to burning teams out wide. I just don’t think he brings a ton to the table in terms of in-zone offensive ability.

With Yager, he hasn’t helped his stock through the course of the entire season, because going in, he was being talked about as a potential top-five pick. I think it’s fair to have expected a little bit more this season.

If a team drafts him in the top-10 or in the early teens, they’re going to be drawn to how skilled and how fast he is. He can rifle a puck, he has great hands, his skating ability on straight lines and on angles is really good, it’s close to NHL-level right now. In terms of his tool kit, he’s as talented as anyone in this draft class.

Scout 2: Yager is an interesting story. For me, he was one of the best players at the Ivan Hlinka last summer, he was a dynamic player for Canada. But then he wasn’t outstanding this season, I don’t think he played to the level of what people were anticipating after the Hlinka. He went long periods of time where maybe he only scored on the power play, he didn’t generate a ton at five-on-five. I think the consensus (question) out there is what version is he: a high-end player who can drive a line offensively or is he more of a future third line, two-way piece?

With Danielson, I’m a middle first round rating for him. I really like him, I would take him on my team any day, I just don’t know if he has enough offence to be taken that high.

Scout 3: Danielson carries a little bit more skill than a player like Samuel Honzek and a little bit more speed, although Honzek is heavier and has a bit more grit in his game. He’s a nice prospect, but just outside the top-10 feels a bit high.

Yager’s production has just been inconsistent, the night-to-night consistency just hasn’t been there. He was sensational at the Ivan Hlinka last year, but it didn’t carry through in the regular season this year. I think he’ll go around the early teens or in that range anyway.

Of the U.S. National Development Team guys pushing to go in the middle of the first round — Leonard, Oliver Moore and Gabe Perreault — should any of them be a consideration as high as No. 11?

Scout 3: To me, Oliver Moore is out of the top 10. I’m not sure he has enough dimension to his game. His skating and speed carry him, but I’m not sure if the other parts of his game score as high. That, for me, knocks him down a bit.

Perreault is interesting. He’s likely a winger at the NHL level, but you can’t deny the production, he broke every USA scoring record ever this year. He’s a super-talented kid, even if his skating is only average. From a style standpoint he still gets to where he needs to go and he’s incredibly smart and incredibly skilled.

He’s also 5-foot-11, not 5-foot-9, so that takes some of the angst away from drafting a small player and you just can’t deny the production. He’s playing with two really good players in Smith and Leonard, but if there’s someone who is going to jump into the top 10 and be a surprise it’s going to be Perreault or Leonard. They were great at the U18s and they’ve been great all year.

Scout 2: I like Moore and I think that range where Vancouver’s at is where he’s going to taken. High-end engine, high-end pace. He drives play. The question will be how much of a true scorer will he be at the pro level but he’s going to do so many other things — he’s going to kill penalties, play four-on-four, drive play in all situations that he’ll fall in that area.

As for Leonard, when you watch hockey games and you see flashy things players do and you’re like ‘Oh that was a high-end pass or vision,’ — that’s the types of plays Leonard can make. He’s highly creative. He sometimes gets overlooked because of playing with Smith but he’s a really good player. I view him as more of a winger, although maybe you could get away with him as a centre.

Scout 1: With Moore, his speed and pace is otherworldly. Being that fast, he’s always going to play (in the NHL). You just have to be careful that he doesn’t turn into like Andrew Cogliano. I don’t think he’s a centre, not at his size and lack of vision. For me, there’s buyer beware, if you think you’re getting a top-six player. I don’t think the skill’s there and I don’t think the awareness is either.

You just win with Leonard. You’re getting a guy that whether it’s a physical play, a pass, a goal — he can play in any scenario, he’ll perform in the playoffs. He plays heavy, retrieves pucks and has a ton of skill. He’s got a heavy shot, everything is taken to the net, nothing is (restricted) to the outside.

Could a player like Nanaimo-born power forward Matthew Wood be an option as high as No. 11?

Scout 3: He’s certainly jumped for me, but I don’t know if he’s jumped high enough to be a top-10 pick.

He’s got the size and skill and hockey sense that’s tough to find, but I worry about the motor and that holds him back a bit in my book. The character part, for me, is so important and it has to be there in the first round. You can’t gamble on character and motor high in the first round.

Scout 4: I have a tough time seeing him get into the top 10, but he presents an interesting package. He’s a huge kid and he’s filled the net at every level he’s ever played at, which makes him an interesting project. So there’s an outside chance.

At the NCAA level, I’m not sure his production and his play were aligned. There’s some weaknesses with his skating and it’s a really difficult projection. A guy with size and skill who fills the net is a guy that teams will take a chance on. There’s some people dropping Tage Thompson comps, but I don’t really see that. He’s very interesting, he’s divisive, I’ll say that.

Scout 1: I think he should be a consideration where the Canucks pick. The skating isn’t there yet — and he’s probably never going to be a top-end speed guy — but his skating’s going to be good enough. … His hands, skill and hockey sense are high-end. He plays a lot like (Matt) Boldy at the same age. Boldy’s not a warrior, not a particularly quick skater, but the hands, the brains, hash marks down is lethal, power play is lethal.

Another local product that has appeared in or near the top 10 on a lot of public lists is Andrew Cristall. Should he be a consideration for Vancouver at this point in the draft?

Scout 3: I liked his regular season performances better than what I saw at the U18 world championships, to be honest. I only thought he was OK, and I thought he’d open his eyes on the bigger ice, but he didn’t for me.

He’s going to be a first-round pick somewhere, but I’m not sure where. Some teams will look at the skating and size and take him out of their consideration set. Other teams are going to have an analytics team pounding the table on him, and they’ll probably have him pretty high. He’s extremely smart, he can score, his hands are slick. He’s got a ton of skill, but the size is a bit of a detriment and his skating is only average.

Scout 2: This is a guy that you either love him or you’re really concerned about his game.

When I talk about the idea of players’ points and whether the way they get them in junior translate to the pro game — he’s one of those guys that as a scout, we’re all trying to figure out because he’s not the prototypical speedy guy with pace. He’s good in tight areas, he’s highly intelligent, he has high-end puck skills. For me, I believe he’s going to be more of a power-play specialist than he is a five-on-five producer. He’s going to have to go to a team that’s willing to look past some physical deficiencies, playing him with the right opportunity and using his assets to the best of their abilities. He doesn’t check off all my boxes for a high-end first-round name for me but it doesn’t mean he’s not going to have a productive offensive career in the NHL.

Scout 4: I could see him go in the top-15 if a team gets enamoured with his skill and creativity, but I could also see him falling into the back half of the second round with how poorly he skates. The danger with him is you don’t want to be the team that passes on Mitch Marner, but you also don’t want to be the team that takes Jeremy Bracco.

What Cristall is good at he’s legitimately elite at. He’s on the high end of this draft class in terms of his creativity and offensive ability, but there’s a lot of risk.

Scout 1: I have a huge appreciation for his hockey sense, skill and production, but he’s a mystery and it’s going to be feast or famine.

Words, words, words.

Words, words, words.
- bloatedmosquito

This is Lefty's private thread. Only he reads it, much like Minivans Draft Class thread, crickets.

This is Lefty's private thread. Only he reads it, much like Minivans Draft Class thread, crickets.
- Marwood

It's not a discussion page, it's just for review.

It's not a discussion page, it's just for review.
- manvanfan

Sure.

Holy fuck

2023 NHL Draft: Pronman and Wheeler debate the top prospects, from Cristall to Simashev.

The Athletic NHL Staff
Jun 12, 2023

When the NHL Draft rolls around and the picks start flying, teams’ preferences on prospects are on full display.

But what is still left unseen is all the work and debate that led to those final lists — with differing opinions going head-to-head before ultimately reaching a final decision. We’ll never get to fully see those debates, of course. But we can get a feel for how some of them may play out by pitting our own two prospect analysts, Corey Pronman and Scott Wheeler, against one another about some of the top names in this draft.

Here’s part one of our two-part debate series between Pronman and Wheeler.

Max Bultman: Every year, it feels like one of the big debates around ranking season is how to handle the smaller, skilled wingers, and Zach Benson feels like a great snapshot for that in this class. His production in the WHL was tremendous. He’s a player you both clearly like, but Scott has him all the way up at No. 6 on his board whereas Corey slotted him at No. 17.

Let’s start with Scott: Why should Benson be the exception to the overall trend of smaller, skilled forwards tending to wait around for a bit on draft day?

Scott Wheeler: I think the best way to approach the question of size is to treat it on a case-by-case, player-by-player basis. Is there a trend of smaller wingers falling at the draft? Absolutely. Should that trend create a default position with which we treat smaller wingers? I would argue absolutely not.


What do Clayton Keller, Kirill Kaprizov, Johnny Gaudreau, Jesper Bratt, Kevin Fiala, Mats Zuccarello, Brad Marchand, Alex DeBrincat, Travis Konecny, Jonathan Marchessault, Andrew Mangiapane, Cole Caufield, and Conor Garland all have in common? They’re all 5-foot-10 or shorter wingers who play at the top of NHL lineups. Another theme? The vast majority were drafted too low. Are there an equal number of smaller wingers who we could argue were drafted much too high? And if the answer is no, which I think the data says it is, then where does the inefficiency lie, really?

Read more: 2023 NHL Draft goalie rankings: Which prospects have the best chance to break through?

So why should Benson be the exception? Because he doesn’t play like a smaller winger, nor does he have the limitations people expect of someone his size. He’s an excellent two-way player who wins the lion’s share of his battles and reads the game defensively at an advanced level. He’s also a competitor in the truest sense who gets up and under sticks and is in the thick of the battle at all times. And then on top of that, he’s got the advantages of skill, and handling, and touch, and maneuverability that you’d expect a smaller player to have. For those reasons, if he goes in and around No. 17, I expect we’ll be having the same conversation about him in a few years that we’re having about the aforementioned group of NHL players.

Max Bultman: Corey, how would you respond?

Corey Pronman: With guys who are of the smallish variety on wing, especially if they are not an elite skater, the question I come back to is whether they are a special small wing, or a more routine variety. The special guys help NHL teams. The routine ones tend to fade into the background and end up in Europe. I rated Cole Caufield and Lucas Raymond very highly. In Caufield, I saw special skill and a special shot, and in Raymond, I saw a special combination of skill/hockey IQ. For me, Benson does not rise to that level. He has excellent hands, vision and competitiveness but I don’t think any of those traits rise to the special level from my viewings. A lot of those names Scott name referenced — Keller, Kaprizov, Gaudreau, Bratt, Fiala, Marchand, Konecny, and Mangiapane — all skate better than Benson in my view.

Zuccarello and Marchessault, as well as Jaden Schwartz, have been the names I’ve thought about when watching Benson this season. Those are all excellent players but I would question, even despite Marchessault’s excellent postseason, whether any of them would be top 10 picks in a redraft of their birth years (given the first two went undrafted).

There’s just so much risk in that player type that high in the draft. It’s why in the last 20 or so years there’s been something like 10 players who have played NHL games and been a first-round pick after being a 5-foot-9 guy or smaller. One of those guys is Sergei Samsonov, who was a dynamic skater and incredibly skilled and his size still caught up with him. There’s a lot of risk that you’re picking Tyler Ennis, Jordan Schroeder or no player at all in the top 10. We’ll see what Marco Rossi’s career trajectory ends up being. You’re basically hoping for Daniel Briere or Caufield. That’s the end of the recent comparables at that size in the draft in the first round. I would want less risk in the top 10.

Max Bultman: It feels like this gap in your respective rankings comes down to one line Corey said, that he feels Benson’s skill, shot and hockey IQ don’t rise to the Lucas Raymond/Cole Caufield level, and without the skating of many of the high-end players at his size.

Scott, how do you rate Benson by those attributes?

Scott Wheeler: I don’t think there’s any sense comparing him to Caufield, because Caufield was singular in makeup. But I don’t think Raymond’s IQ/skill was in a singular stratosphere (high-end, for sure) and I consider them a similar caliber of prospect at the same age.

I think the biggest difference in where we land on Benson’s attributes rests in his skating. If his skating weren’t an asset, it would show on the ice. He wouldn’t be in all of the pucks he’s in on, he wouldn’t be an impactful defensive player.

In practical terms, who won more battles, or was more impactful defensively, for the Ice this year: a 5-foot-9 Benson or a 6-foot-4, 11th-overall pick in Conor Geekie? And who will be more proficient in those areas in the NHL? I think in both cases the answer is Benson.

I never watched a game this season where Benson wasn’t playing fast and influencing the game with his pace, and I would argue he’s an above-average skater and a better one at this age than some of those guys Corey listed as better skaters were.

Max Bultman: While we’re on the topic, let’s talk about another high-scoring WHL winger you two are even more split on, Andrew Cristall. He’s No. 13 for Scott, and No. 68 for Corey.

Corey, at one time you had Cristall rated quite a bit higher — No. 33 as recently as March — so I’ll start by asking what your key concerns are.

Corey Pronman: That player-type hitting is rare. The barely 5-foot-10 one-way wing without great speed with a technically flawed stride and a lot of skill sense and scoring ability. Adam Mascherin, Jeremy Bracco, Jonathan Dahlen are all recent comparables that come to mind. Cristall is arguably better than all of them at the same age. You have to respect the great things he’s done in the WHL and what he can do inside the offensive zone. But I don’t see anyone in the NHL who looks like him, never mind a team in the summer. If Bobby Brink hits it could change that discussion though.

Scott Wheeler: I look at the conversation around Cristall similar to the one around Jordan Dumais last year. Dumais played to 109 points in 68 games in his draft year, was drafted 96th overall because of concerns about his skating at his size, and then immediately impressed as a standout in Columbus’ development camp and rookie tournament (against older, bigger, stronger players and even some professionals/AHLers), went for 140 points in the Q, won QMJHL MVP, and is now signed to an NHL deal, has a real path to the NHL in front of him, and is a lock to play for Canada at the 2024 world juniors.

Cristall paced to 119 points in 68 games in his draft year (on a worse Kelowna team than the Halifax one Dumais played on) and the concerns about his game are similar. Certainly the skating, as it stands right now, is an issue. He knows that. His camp knows that. But I know he’s committed to working on it with Barb Aidelbaum all summer, there’s belief that his physical maturity is a step behind and will come, and I won’t be the least bit surprised if he leads the WHL in scoring next year and gets an NHL contract in short order, just like Dumais. That’s not a player you draft in the second or third round behind guys who are half as productive and have limitations of their own, even if they’re better skaters.

The only players in recent CHL history who’ve produced near that level in their draft year and haven’t quote-unquote hit, are Nic Petan and you could probably argue Sam Gagner because he was drafted sixth (although Gagner has 1,000-plus games played and 500-plus points). If those are his worst-case scenarios, that’s still a gamble I’d take in the first.

Max Bultman: Does it concern you though that he wasn’t really able to translate that into the WHL playoffs, albeit in a small sample, or quite so much in international play for Canada? Especially when it comes to talking about whether his worst scenario is something like Petan, or more like Bracco?

Scott Wheeler: It’s not nothing, but I’m not sure it’s something, if that makes sense. He was up against the deepest team in the WHL in Seattle in that first round, and he was up against it basically alone as a draft eligible against a roster full of 19- and 20-year-old drafted players whose job it was to neutralize him. There aren’t many (any?) non-Bedard forwards in junior hockey this year who I think would have broken through in those games in the same scenario. The Rockets scored four goals total in that series and he scored one of them.

I think there was more to read into at U18 Worlds, but that line with him and Barlow didn’t click, he got going after moving off of it, the line still didn’t click in his absence, and he was miscast as the bumper on the PP. I would have liked to see him elevate there regardless though, for sure.

Max Bultman: Corey, we’ll go to you for the last word here. With his production being what it is, as Scott noted, what more would you have needed to see from Cristall to believe he could break that lack of precedent with his player type?

Corey Pronman: The production is certainly high-end. I named dropped guys like Bracco, Dahlen and Mascherin, but I think Cristall is a better player than all of them at the same age. How much better? It’s unclear. There just aren’t any examples I can think of of a 5-10, one-way wing with mediocre footspeed, who 10-2s around the ice a disproportionate amount of time, having a meaningful NHL career. Scott points to the production historically hitting, which is highly relevant, but I would counter by asking how many players looked like Cristall at the same age? Because Taylor Cammarata had off-the-charts numbers in junior but was a tiny forward who was a heavily flawed skater. Then he went to college and couldn’t impact the play against bigger, faster players. That’s my concern watching Cristall in the Seattle series and at the U18s. Tom Willander, Theo Lindstein and Axel Sandin Pellikka nullified him two games in a row. Same for Kevin Korchinski, Nolan Allan and Luke Prokop in Seattle. Every NHL game has six of those guys on the ice every night. While history favors guys who score at his rate having long NHL careers, history also says players who look like Cristall tend not to. Who is looking at history from the proper lens?

Max Bultman: Let’s talk about a guy on the complete opposite end of the spectrum here: Dmitri Simashev has the athletic tools teams salivate over in a defender. But his production wouldn’t necessarily suggest that. Corey, you have him as a top 10 player in the class. Should a player like him go in the top half of the first round?

Corey Pronman: I think on talent he deserves to be up there. The physical traits are obvious between his skating, his 6-foot-4 frame and his physical play. The offense is the minor debate around his game. I think when looking at players in Russia the club they play on is hugely important context. Loko is often a loaded team with a lot of very good, older players in that league. They were the clear offensive leader in the MHL this season so there was only so much power play time to go around for a guy like Simashev. That said, by the end of the season he was a PP1 guy and major minutes player for them in the playoffs, where he scored two goals and six points in 10 games. He also put up good numbers as an underage in the MHL. When he’s played for Russia’s national team, such as at the Black Sea Cup both a few weeks ago and a year ago for their U20 team, or their U18 team as a U16 at the European Youth Olympics, he’s shown he can run a power play effectively and create offense. I’m not going to sit here and say he’s a premium skill/IQ type of defenseman, he isn’t. And the KHL contract is a concern in 2023. But he’s a top-15 talent for sure in my mind. He has a lot of similarities to guys like Darnell Nurse, K’Andre Miller, Adam Larsson and Rasmus Ristolainen as draft eligibles.

Max Bultman: Scott, you have him outside the first round. How would you respond?

Scott Wheeler: I think for me it comes down to what you want to spend a top-10/15 asset on. If we’re to look back at the Larsson, Nurse, Ristolainen and Miller picks, for example, I think we would agree that the best value play of the bunch was on Miller, and that’s because he was taken No. 22. I think in hindsight you’re less excited about using a No. 4 pick in 2011 to get a Larsson, or a No. 7 and No. 8 pick to get a Nurse or a Ristolainen in 2013. You might still be happy with those picks, but none of them are picks-of-the-draft type plays and that’s because of the asset used to acquire them and the availability of equal defenders lower in the draft. In 2011, Mika Zibanejad, Mark Scheifele and Sean Couturier went in quick succession after Larsson. In 2013, Josh Morrissey, Ryan Pulock and Shea Theodore were drafted in the first round after Nurse and Ristolainen.

If you’re drafting a player predominantly for their length, skating and defence, as you would be in taking Simashev, I think you’re making a relatively safe, low-reward play in the top 15, even if he hits and becomes a Miller, or a Nurse, or a Larsson, or a Ristolainen (which I’m not convinced he will). You might get a solid top-four guy out of it. You might also have been able to get an equivalent guy elsewhere in the first round, and you’re probably also passing up on forwards who are ultimately going to have a greater impact, especially in a draft as strong as this one up front. I wouldn’t be fussed if a team coveting a defenseman took Simashev in the late teens or 20s (ala Miller). He’s still one of my top-ranked defensemen.

Max Bultman: Corey, you’ve done plenty of re-drafts over the years for us. What do you make of that line of thinking?

Corey Pronman: Larsson and Nurse are both front-line players on very good teams that have been part of recent deep playoff runs. I think Seattle and Edmonton wouldn’t quickly exchange them for some of the names suggested above. I think both are also going very high in a re-draft of those years. Theodore may go over Nurse but I think the rest of the names are debatable.

History to me doesn’t tend to favor one player type over the either. Griffin Reinhart and Derrick Pouliot missed in the top 8 in the same draft for very different reasons while Morgan Rielly, Hampus Lindholm, Matt Dumba and Jacob Trouba hit. Bowen Byram and Moritz Seider can come from the same top 10.

It’s about taking the best player. Best player doesn’t always mean most productive or most skilled because you need to be able to make stops too as a defenseman. Every player has risks that may keep them from panning out. There’s a reason Edmonton traded Barrie for Ekholm. That player type is highly coveted in the league.

This whole debate basically comes down to whether you think Simashev has offense. If you just look at his point totals from this season I get the concern. It’s not ideal and a legit knock, but I think there’s so much circumstantial evidence that suggests he can move pucks that I’m not overly concerned. I think he will have a long, productive NHL career playing major minutes for a franchise.

Max Bultman: Scott, last word to you.

Scott Wheeler: I think the inputs (his play) match the outputs (the point totals) with Simashev, so it’s not just about the statistical profile there. I see a player who skates well and can transport pucks and play in transition, but hasn’t shown me much with the puck outside of moments in games where he has time and space to skate into.

Certainly we agree that Ekholm is a better player than Barrie, but neither of those players were drafted anywhere near the top 15 in the draft and of course, you’d love to develop a player in his mould with a fourth-round pick. I would argue, however, that at any point before this season in Larsson’s career (without question the best of his career, at age 30), he was a flawed player in many respects, and a long way from Zibanejad, Scheifele and Couturier. There’s a reason the two contracts which have carried through the prime of his career have paid him $4M AAV.

What I’m hearing about Canucks’ No. 11 draft targets: Tom Willander, Nate Danielson, more.

By Harman Dayal

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The hockey world gathered in Buffalo for the NHL Scouting Combine last week. NHL GMs, prospects, scouts and top agents went back and forth between KeyBank Arena and the hotel nearby hosting the event.

The physical testing happened on Friday and Saturday, but that was ironically far from the most important part of the week, with the majority of GMs, executives and agents missing Saturday’s testing and flying back home early. Most teams trusted their strength and conditioning personnel, who observe the testing from the floor level, to analyze and make observations.

The early and middle part of the week is when the action was really happening. That’s when teams interviewed top prospects, when GMs had a chance to meet one another face to face and when team staffers had another chance to meet as a group and chart plans for the draft.

Here’s what The Athletic learned about the Canucks’ potential draft targets after spending most of last week in Buffalo.

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What is an NHL draft prospect interview actually like? The secrets behind the process

Draft interviews at the combine aren’t the best way for a team to get to know a prospect.

The standard interviews are prescheduled in 15-20 minute blocks, which isn’t enough time to go too in-depth, especially if it’s the team’s first time meeting the prospect in person. Teams with first-round picks will interview the vast majority of top prospects, and could meet with as many as 30-40 players — it could mean almost nothing if a club had a standard combine interview with a player.

Teams will often take the few prospects they’re more seriously considering out for dinner in Buffalo (or during the week of the draft). It may not be as useful of an indicator for a team drafting top-five because the few legitimate candidates are already obvious, but when you’re outside the top 10, it can be a sign of which names to keep an eye on. For example, Montreal informally met or had dinner with all of Shane Wright, Juraj Slafkovsky and Logan Cooley last year in Buffalo, which didn’t provide any clues for who they might select at No. 1. But in 2019, it was well publicized that they took Cole Caufield out for dinner during combine week in Buffalo, and he was eventually taken by them at No. 15.

Tom Willander, Nate Danielson and Colby Barlow are three players the Canucks took out for dinners last week in Buffalo. It’s possible there were others as well, but these are the names The Athletic confirmed directly with the respective players after we heard buzz about them meeting separately with the Canucks.

Axel Sandin Pellikka, on the other hand, was not taken out for dinner with the Canucks. He did not have contact with Vancouver this week beyond the standard combine interview. That’s noteworthy because Sandin Pellikka’s lack of size and billing as an offensively tilted defenceman with power-play quarterback upside was starting to make us wonder if the Canucks might prefer a different style of player.

Willander, a 6-foot-1 right-handed defender, is one of the draft classes’ biggest risers. He was projected to go in the middle or late first round for most of the year but turned teams’ heads after a strong performance for Sweden at the U18 World Championship. He’s a pretty strong bet to go in the top 10-15 picks and may even become the second defender off the board after David Reinbacher, who’s unlikely to be available when the Canucks select at No. 11.

“He’s a very, very competitive and very smooth-skating, agile and strong right-handed defenceman that can skate for days, retrieve pucks and break them out with his feet and decision making,” said Chris Abbott, GM of Rögle BK, the organization Willander played for this season.

Willander’s skating is his best attribute but his size and competitiveness offer some unique defensive tools as well.

“He can be nasty at times, he defends hard, he gets (defensive) stops quickly in his own zone,” said Abbott. “That’s for sure a strength of his is using his size — which I would actually say he plays bigger than he is — and he’s got a nastiness that is natural for him whereas some players I think have to manufacture that.”

You can understand why Willander’s two-way skill set as a right-shot defender could appeal to the Canucks. He doesn’t have the highest upside as he lacks dynamic skill, playmaking and creativity, but it’s difficult to find RD that can skate, defend hard and move pucks well while also boasting above-average size, which will make him a coveted player.

Willander will leave Sweden to play for Boston University this fall in the NCAA. It’s not a decision many players in his situation make, but he felt it would offer him a bigger role in addition to making him comfortable with the smaller-sized rinks in North America.

Danielson, who’s one of the oldest players in this draft class, is a bit of a polarizing prospect. He’s a right-shot centre with a projectable 6-1 frame, solid two-way chops, good wheels and an uptempo style. All of that gives him a very high floor. Danielson has some skill but the big question mark is whether he has enough offensive dynamism, creativity and playmaking to top out as more than a future third-line centre.

It’s been five years since the Canucks drafted a centre or defenceman in the first two rounds. The last player was Quinn Hughes in 2018, with wingers Vasily Podkolzin, Nils Höglander, Danila Klimovich and Jonathan Lekkerimaki joining the fold since then. No. 11 might be rich for Danielson based on the upside of the other potential players available at that slot, but if the Canucks would strongly prefer to walk away from the pick with either a centre or defenceman, you can understand why they’d strongly consider him.

Barlow is a winger, but the stylistic profile of his game could make him a logical option for Vancouver. He’s a high-end goal scorer (46 goals in 59 OHL games this season) with a gritty, direct, hard-to-play-against style. He already has a pretty thick frame, is highly competitive and captained Owen Sound in the OHL. Vancouver’s front office has mentioned sandpaper and the need to become harder to play against in the past and Barlow would certainly add those traits in addition to his offensive potential.

Barlow can produce by beating goalies from midrange or driving to the inside with deft hands. He can also kill penalties and his physical maturity means there’s a good chance he can contribute in the NHL sooner rather than later.

Barlow’s skating could use some work and the other noteworthy consideration is that he already looks like a grown man with his full-grown beard and filled-out frame. Does that mean he has less runway for physical development left?

More names could easily emerge between now and the draft in Nashville, but for now, Willander, Danielson and Barlow have established themselves as three names to keep an eye on from a Canucks perspective.

Canucks coach Rick Tocchet on Ekman-Larsson buyout, training-camp plans and more.
By Thomas Drance
31m ago

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The NHL Draft is often a good time to chat with the head coach of a team.

During the season, the coach is an NHL club’s metronome: the schedule-maker, the primary organizational spokesperson, the day-to-day heartbeat of the club. There’s a lot going on and it’s a high-pressure job.

At the draft, however, a coach can get a little bit bored. In contrast with the churn of the regular season, at the draft, a coach’s presence is effectively ornamental.

“We were sitting beside St. Louis,” Canucks coach Rick Tocchet said of his draft-floor experience in Nashville, “So I kept on looking over at Craig Berube, who is one of my best friends, and we’d just look at each other and shrug because we’re doing nothing. I’m just trying to stay out of everybody’s way!”

On Day 2 of the draft in Nashville, The Athletic caught up with Tocchet for a brief one-on-one and covered off a variety of offseason topics from his reaction to the Tom Willander pick, what he noticed while watching the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Oliver Ekman-Larsson buyout and his plans and preparation for his first Canucks training camp.

(The interview has been edited for length and readability, and some clips have been previously run on Sportsnet 650.)

No one is usually happier when a team drafts a big defender that can skate than the head coach. Was that your reaction to the Tom Wallinder pick on Wednesday?

I don’t watch a lot of junior hockey, so I don’t know a lot about the prospects. But based on some of the video I watched and talking to some other people in hockey, he’s a mobile guy that’s one of the better skaters in the draft and who can defend the puck. I mean, sign me up for that!

The offense will come, but when you have that ability to defend with your feet and get ahead of people, that’s a big commodity. I’m definitely happy about it.

What’s the summer been like for you? We saw you were at UFC, so you’ve got back to Vancouver a bit. What have you been up to?

Yeah, I had a meeting about three weeks ago with Jim (Rutherford) and Patrik (Allvin), and Footie (Adam Foote) came in. I’ve got a meeting this week at development camp. All of our guys are coming in for coaching meetings.

Then in Whistler later this summer … we’re going to have a coaches symposium. I’ve got projects for the coaches, like you look at the top teams, and what do they do so well. We’re going to see if there’s something we can learn from them.

With Vegas, there were the four lines that can score, but it wasn’t just the results, it was the way they seemed to filter the puck down low and generate quality looks with all four lines on the ice. Is that something of a departure from how teams tried to win five years ago and the punt-and-hunt style that your teams in Pittsburgh played?

I think with Vegas, Dallas, a lot of these good teams, now I call them space plays and we did do a lot of that in Pittsburgh, because we want the puck out of their end as soon as possible. So they throw it out to an area then skate underneath it, or put pressure on to get it moving.

I think some of our guys had that concept last year with our team and it’s a copycat league, right? And you’re seeing a lot of teams play that way, so you’ve got to put your hat on and think about it. If teams are going to punting it like that, what do you do? How do you counteract it?

I like that style, but when we get the puck on a space play, what do we do with it to counteract how teams are playing these days?

Is there anything you saw in the playoffs from Florida, for example, because they struggled to breakdown the 1-3-1 last playoffs, but it seemed like they were more tactically malleable this year and were able to punch above their weight with their pressure game. Is there something you can draw from that?

Florida is one of the teams that when they get the puck, their D just flip it out to the neutral zone. Their forwards — Sam Bennett, Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Carter Verhaeghe — they put a lot of pressure on opponents. Give that staff credit, because they were comfortable in that identity, comfortable with not being as concerned about coming out of their own zone clean. They were happy to get the puck out and deal with it in the other zones.

And then they had a heavy forecheck, they had some guys that weren’t afraid to get in (and be physical).

You had Jason King depart your coaching staff, you’ve got Sergei Gonchar, and Patrik discussed his role changing a bit, but do you plan on bringing a power-play coach in? Are you still working on that?

We’re still talking about it.

We have a lot of hands on deck between Gonchar and the twins, who will help. Hopefully, we can get Gonchar in for more days. If we can increase his days a little bit more that would be helpful, but I understand his situation. So it’ll be a little bit of a committee.

I really believe that, power play, I want them to take ownership, too, in the meetings and get their thoughts. So it’ll be more of a committee right now.

I don’t think we’ll bring something more in right now, unless something really hits us over the head. We really liked Jason, but we have a lot of guys with us and we thought we had too many people.

When you came in, and I won’t sugarcoat it, there were pointed questions about the relationship between you and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Have you had a chance to talk to him since he was bought out, and did the decision to buy him out reflect anything about where you guys were at, or was it just business?

Absolutely not.

Up until a week before he was bought out, he was fully coming back in my mind. And then circumstances — and we all know why and understand why — but I’ve spoken with him three times since. I’ve actually had some conversations with other people on other teams about him, and he’s even talked to me about going through the process. I really want to help him out, but we have a great relationship and he’s also forged a good relationship with Adam Foote.

It’s honestly a little hurtful, but saying that, it’s a business and we needed cap space. I think everyone understood where we were at, and I’ll do whatever I can to help him out.

In Arizona, you had a back-end heavy team, but it looks on paper like you’re going to have a forward-heavy team now — although the roster will probably change shortly. How hard is it going to be after next season for me to describe what a Rick Tocchet team looks like, given that you’re surely going to coach the team to maximize your personnel?


Coaches have to be flexible.

When I went to Arizona, the team I had there, we had Darcy Kuemper, who was a backup goalie at the time, but I thought there was more there. I thought if we could devise a defensive system where we could lean on our defense, who were veteran guys, we could stay in games and be competitive.

You have to coach to your roster, but I will always think you have to defend the puck to win. Think about the Vegas Golden Knights. Did you notice that not one guy was at the NHL Awards? Not one guy was there for an individual award, but they won the Stanley Cup.
They defended the puck well. They handled pressure situations. If somebody made a mistake, they didn’t panic. They were in it.

That’s the mentality I want our team to have. Mistakes happen, it’s OK, but can we hold it together? Can we avoid making two or three mistakes and then there’s a backdoor play and the puck is in our net.

I thought we did a better job with that as a group as we went along, but saying that, I love pressure, and I love teams that know how to play under pressure, but it starts with defending the puck. For me, that’s the main thing for our team: we are going to have to defend the puck.

Does it matter that your team played its best defensive hockey in the last 15 games of the year, in terms of going into training camp and having proof of concept?

That’s what Foote says! He says. “Thank God we came in when we did, and won’t have to go in fresh at training camp.”

It’s a huge difference. Now, guys kind of know what we want. There’s going to be new wrinkles, we’ll do some different things. It will probably help, to what level? I don’t know. But it’ll help.

What does a Rick Tocchet training camp look like?

Well from day one, we’re going into systems, power play and reps — lots of reps.

I can’t wait. I expect there to be pace from the very first day.

Some coaches like the first few days, like to kill their guys, but for me, if you’re not ready to go, you’re going to be in the C Group. And that’s not to say that if you’re in the C Group, you’re in trouble, but the C Group is for young guys and that’s what we’re designing now.

The point is, if you don’t come into camp up to the standard of the Canucks, then you won’t be in the first two teams. That’s the bottom line.

What does your fitness test look like?

Well, there’s the eye test, but there’s also a real test: a bike and a skating test.

Alex Trinca was just hired from Pittsburgh and he’s got some good ideas. He likes skating tests, but he’s not a huge skating test guy. I’m not going to put on a huge skating test, but it’ll be enough for us to tell who has done their work.

The next few days, we’ll see a bunch of change with free agency. What’s it like for you, just the anticipation of waiting to see what your roster looks like?

There’s a lot of, not so much anxiety, but uncertainty, and possibilities, because you don’t know what’s coming. Free agency can be a crapshoot, so who knows.

I’ll tell you this though: Sitting at the draft table, they showed the pump-up video for the Canucks pick. Watching those videos and it’s Elias Pettersson blocking a shot, or J.T. Miller doing something, and it fired me up. It was like a little reminder that this is coming, and I’ve got to be ready. My staff has got to be ready.

Here is an article from the Athletic and Pierre Lebrun

Teams have until the end of business Tuesday to submit their positions on the decentralized draft format the league floated last week.

My understanding is that the league won’t immediately come out and announce the results of that vote but rather will go back to the clubs via another memo at some point to share the results, feedback and potential next steps.

It’s far from scientific, but most of what I’ve heard from team executives since deputy commissioner Bill Daly sent the memo to team presidents and GMs on Wednesday has been in favor of the concept, where, similar to the NFL, front offices would stay home in their team headquarters while drafted players would still go on stage in a central location and be greeted by the commissioner.

“I think it’s a very intriguing change,” veteran Oilers GM Ken Holland told me Monday. “The most important people in the draft, in my opinion, are the fans and the kids who are getting drafted. They’ll all continue to be in the same city. And this would allow NHL teams to be in their offices not only preparing for the draft but also free agency.”

Lou Lamoriello, the dean of GMs, is unequivocal in his support.

“Yes, I’m for it,” the Islanders GM told me Monday.

He supports it for a few reasons, the first being the stress on the calendar that week.

“Last year, you’ve got the draft the 28th and 29th, you’ve got qualifying offers due on the 30th, and you start talking free agency on the 1st,” Lamoriello said. “So in a period of four days, you’re trying to get pretty important information and decisions crammed in. And you’re taking the risk of weather, the risk of travel interruptions, all of the things that you really can’t control.”

Indeed, last season, front offices understandably found it difficult to leave Nashville on June 29 or 30 after the draft and turn around and be ready for the July 1 opening of free agency. There were nightmare travel stories, too, getting in and out of Nashville.

The 2024 draft is tentatively scheduled for June 28 and 29 (likely in Vegas), with free agency July 1.

“In my opinion, it’s just tough,” Lamoriello said.

And under the proposed changes, where front offices can bunker down in their own offices, “you get your own people in here earlier and you can do all these activities (draft, qualifying offers, free agency) at home and not take the risk of not having the ability to do things right,” Lamoriello said. “For the good of the game, for the good of the integrity of these important decisions (during draft week), this is the way to go.
“This is why other leagues are doing it.”

That is part of what planted the seed for the potential change, as did the precedent of going to a virtual draft during the pandemic.

“Listen, I love both,” Avalanche president Joe Sakic told me Monday. “We’ve done both now. And I think both are great. It’s great being in the same city with all the teams and the building and the atmosphere, especially the first night with the crowd. To have all the hockey people in the building face to face — and that week you can get together and get a lot done — that’s exciting.”

(As an aside, for many years I’ve pushed for the idea of actually opening free agency the day after the draft ends, still in the draft city, so everything would happen right there on the draft floor with GMs and agents all in the same place. I always thought it would be great TV. But it’ll never happen.)

“I also know when you have it local you can include your market with the draft parties,” Sakic added.

Echoing that point, a few other governors mentioned over the past week the idea that a decentralized draft would allow clubs to engage more in their home markets, hosting some sort of draft event for fans.

“Like I said, both are good, but if we ended up changing it to where we stay in our local cities, maybe try it for a few years to see how it works,” Sakic said. “To be honest, you can always go back, but why not try this way for a few years to see if everybody’s market responds?

“Either way, it’s a great, exciting day.”

The reality is that the draft has changed so much over the years. It used to be that most teams were in the same hotel, which facilitated GMs meeting and talking trades and so on. Teams and agents were all literally in the same place. Now NHL front offices are scattered across a dozen different hotels, with GMs communicating mostly over the phone with their colleagues and not in person.

And in the meantime, front offices continue to modernize and expand, which makes sense. Trying to fit everyone around a draft team table is something else. Look at how many people go up on stage in the first round to help welcome their draft pick. It’s an army.

So while I totally get why some people don’t want the draft to change — it’s unique in sports to have the whole hockey world descend on one place once a year — I also understand why some team executives feel it’s run its course as currently set up.

“I do understand the uniqueness of it,” Lamoriello said. “I understand the thought process of the way people interact. I personally like that, myself. But I don’t think it should upstage what we’re there for and how important these days are.”

Should clubs vote to go ahead with the new draft format, there’s also the question of when that change would occur.

In the memo that was sent to teams last week, Daly wrote:

“Finally, in the event there is a consensus among a strong majority of Clubs to pursue a transition to the New Draft Format as discussed herein, we would most likely target the 2025 NHL Draft as the initial year of implementation. Having said that, since plans for the 2024 NHL Draft have not been finalized as of the date of this memorandum, it remains conceivable that we may seek to transition to the New Draft Format as early as next Spring.”

As of Monday, the league still hadn’t finalized plans for the 2024 draft. Nailing down a venue in Las Vegas has been the delay.

So we’ll see where this all goes, but I think it’s evident a new draft format is probably in the offing.

Here is an article from the Athletic and Pierre Lebrun

Teams have until the end of business Tuesday to submit their positions on the decentralized draft format the league floated last week.

My understanding is that the league won’t immediately come out and announce the results of that vote but rather will go back to the clubs via another memo at some point to share the results, feedback and potential next steps.

It’s far from scientific, but most of what I’ve heard from team executives since deputy commissioner Bill Daly sent the memo to team presidents and GMs on Wednesday has been in favor of the concept, where, similar to the NFL, front offices would stay home in their team headquarters while drafted players would still go on stage in a central location and be greeted by the commissioner.

“I think it’s a very intriguing change,” veteran Oilers GM Ken Holland told me Monday. “The most important people in the draft, in my opinion, are the fans and the kids who are getting drafted. They’ll all continue to be in the same city. And this would allow NHL teams to be in their offices not only preparing for the draft but also free agency.”

Lou Lamoriello, the dean of GMs, is unequivocal in his support.

“Yes, I’m for it,” the Islanders GM told me Monday.

He supports it for a few reasons, the first being the stress on the calendar that week.

“Last year, you’ve got the draft the 28th and 29th, you’ve got qualifying offers due on the 30th, and you start talking free agency on the 1st,” Lamoriello said. “So in a period of four days, you’re trying to get pretty important information and decisions crammed in. And you’re taking the risk of weather, the risk of travel interruptions, all of the things that you really can’t control.”

Indeed, last season, front offices understandably found it difficult to leave Nashville on June 29 or 30 after the draft and turn around and be ready for the July 1 opening of free agency. There were nightmare travel stories, too, getting in and out of Nashville.

The 2024 draft is tentatively scheduled for June 28 and 29 (likely in Vegas), with free agency July 1.

“In my opinion, it’s just tough,” Lamoriello said.

And under the proposed changes, where front offices can bunker down in their own offices, “you get your own people in here earlier and you can do all these activities (draft, qualifying offers, free agency) at home and not take the risk of not having the ability to do things right,” Lamoriello said. “For the good of the game, for the good of the integrity of these important decisions (during draft week), this is the way to go.
“This is why other leagues are doing it.”

That is part of what planted the seed for the potential change, as did the precedent of going to a virtual draft during the pandemic.

“Listen, I love both,” Avalanche president Joe Sakic told me Monday. “We’ve done both now. And I think both are great. It’s great being in the same city with all the teams and the building and the atmosphere, especially the first night with the crowd. To have all the hockey people in the building face to face — and that week you can get together and get a lot done — that’s exciting.”

(As an aside, for many years I’ve pushed for the idea of actually opening free agency the day after the draft ends, still in the draft city, so everything would happen right there on the draft floor with GMs and agents all in the same place. I always thought it would be great TV. But it’ll never happen.)

“I also know when you have it local you can include your market with the draft parties,” Sakic added.

Echoing that point, a few other governors mentioned over the past week the idea that a decentralized draft would allow clubs to engage more in their home markets, hosting some sort of draft event for fans.

“Like I said, both are good, but if we ended up changing it to where we stay in our local cities, maybe try it for a few years to see how it works,” Sakic said. “To be honest, you can always go back, but why not try this way for a few years to see if everybody’s market responds?

“Either way, it’s a great, exciting day.”

The reality is that the draft has changed so much over the years. It used to be that most teams were in the same hotel, which facilitated GMs meeting and talking trades and so on. Teams and agents were all literally in the same place. Now NHL front offices are scattered across a dozen different hotels, with GMs communicating mostly over the phone with their colleagues and not in person.

And in the meantime, front offices continue to modernize and expand, which makes sense. Trying to fit everyone around a draft team table is something else. Look at how many people go up on stage in the first round to help welcome their draft pick. It’s an army.

So while I totally get why some people don’t want the draft to change — it’s unique in sports to have the whole hockey world descend on one place once a year — I also understand why some team executives feel it’s run its course as currently set up.

“I do understand the uniqueness of it,” Lamoriello said. “I understand the thought process of the way people interact. I personally like that, myself. But I don’t think it should upstage what we’re there for and how important these days are.”

Should clubs vote to go ahead with the new draft format, there’s also the question of when that change would occur.

In the memo that was sent to teams last week, Daly wrote:

“Finally, in the event there is a consensus among a strong majority of Clubs to pursue a transition to the New Draft Format as discussed herein, we would most likely target the 2025 NHL Draft as the initial year of implementation. Having said that, since plans for the 2024 NHL Draft have not been finalized as of the date of this memorandum, it remains conceivable that we may seek to transition to the New Draft Format as early as next Spring.”

As of Monday, the league still hadn’t finalized plans for the 2024 draft. Nailing down a venue in Las Vegas has been the delay.

So we’ll see where this all goes, but I think it’s evident a new draft format is probably in the offing.
- Makita

Thank you for posting that.
I understand both sides of the argument but I still prefer the current, or soon to be old method.

We desperately need a blogger who is committed to the team and the market and not some wanker from the Boston who owes Eklund a favour.

Thank you for posting that.
I understand both sides of the argument but I still prefer the current, or soon to be old method.

We desperately need a blogger who is committed to the team and the market and not some wanker from the Boston who owes Eklund a favour.
- Marwood

I'm with you and can see both sides, I did like Sakic's idea.

We were really spoiled with Carol, I see there are several posts to EK (in the main blog) to get a new blogger but not likely to happen.

I'm with you and can see both sides, I did like Sakic's idea.

We were really spoiled with Carol, I see there are several posts to EK (in the main blog) to get a new blogger but not likely to happen.
- Makita

Sakic's idea was very good. I suspect we will see the remote draft begin this spring, hopefully someone at head office heard Burnaby Joe's idea.

We were indeed, spoilt by having Carol. I know the protests fall on deaf ears, too bad they don't see that a good article/blog can generate discussion.

I'm with you and can see both sides, I did like Sakic's idea.

We were really spoiled with Carol, I see there are several posts to EK (in the main blog) to get a new blogger but not likely to happen.
- Makita

Why?

Why?
- bloatedmosquito

Well there are various reasons I think its not likely to happen.
1.) There are several fan bases that have been requesting for blogger or a change for many years and nothing happens. Some bloggers cover several teams and have a small following.
2.)Carol recommended a blogger that would have been more engaged, we waited months and then Michael came along.
3.)NewYorkNuck has been sending EK PM's requesting a change and has even volunteered to blog for free, no response.
4.)There are other issues with this site that have been pointed out by some refs that don't receive action or response.
5.)This site is constantly crashing, does that mean not enough attention is being given here? I don't know but it certainly needs upgrading.

There are more reasons but I'm already getting to long posting as it is.

Here is an article from the Athletic and Pierre Lebrun

Teams have until the end of business Tuesday to submit their positions on the decentralized draft format the league floated last week.

My understanding is that the league won’t immediately come out and announce the results of that vote but rather will go back to the clubs via another memo at some point to share the results, feedback and potential next steps.

It’s far from scientific, but most of what I’ve heard from team executives since deputy commissioner Bill Daly sent the memo to team presidents and GMs on Wednesday has been in favor of the concept, where, similar to the NFL, front offices would stay home in their team headquarters while drafted players would still go on stage in a central location and be greeted by the commissioner.

“I think it’s a very intriguing change,” veteran Oilers GM Ken Holland told me Monday. “The most important people in the draft, in my opinion, are the fans and the kids who are getting drafted. They’ll all continue to be in the same city. And this would allow NHL teams to be in their offices not only preparing for the draft but also free agency.”

Lou Lamoriello, the dean of GMs, is unequivocal in his support.

“Yes, I’m for it,” the Islanders GM told me Monday.

He supports it for a few reasons, the first being the stress on the calendar that week.

“Last year, you’ve got the draft the 28th and 29th, you’ve got qualifying offers due on the 30th, and you start talking free agency on the 1st,” Lamoriello said. “So in a period of four days, you’re trying to get pretty important information and decisions crammed in. And you’re taking the risk of weather, the risk of travel interruptions, all of the things that you really can’t control.”

Indeed, last season, front offices understandably found it difficult to leave Nashville on June 29 or 30 after the draft and turn around and be ready for the July 1 opening of free agency. There were nightmare travel stories, too, getting in and out of Nashville.

The 2024 draft is tentatively scheduled for June 28 and 29 (likely in Vegas), with free agency July 1.

“In my opinion, it’s just tough,” Lamoriello said.

And under the proposed changes, where front offices can bunker down in their own offices, “you get your own people in here earlier and you can do all these activities (draft, qualifying offers, free agency) at home and not take the risk of not having the ability to do things right,” Lamoriello said. “For the good of the game, for the good of the integrity of these important decisions (during draft week), this is the way to go.
“This is why other leagues are doing it.”

That is part of what planted the seed for the potential change, as did the precedent of going to a virtual draft during the pandemic.

“Listen, I love both,” Avalanche president Joe Sakic told me Monday. “We’ve done both now. And I think both are great. It’s great being in the same city with all the teams and the building and the atmosphere, especially the first night with the crowd. To have all the hockey people in the building face to face — and that week you can get together and get a lot done — that’s exciting.”

(As an aside, for many years I’ve pushed for the idea of actually opening free agency the day after the draft ends, still in the draft city, so everything would happen right there on the draft floor with GMs and agents all in the same place. I always thought it would be great TV. But it’ll never happen.)

“I also know when you have it local you can include your market with the draft parties,” Sakic added.

Echoing that point, a few other governors mentioned over the past week the idea that a decentralized draft would allow clubs to engage more in their home markets, hosting some sort of draft event for fans.

“Like I said, both are good, but if we ended up changing it to where we stay in our local cities, maybe try it for a few years to see how it works,” Sakic said. “To be honest, you can always go back, but why not try this way for a few years to see if everybody’s market responds?

“Either way, it’s a great, exciting day.”

The reality is that the draft has changed so much over the years. It used to be that most teams were in the same hotel, which facilitated GMs meeting and talking trades and so on. Teams and agents were all literally in the same place. Now NHL front offices are scattered across a dozen different hotels, with GMs communicating mostly over the phone with their colleagues and not in person.

And in the meantime, front offices continue to modernize and expand, which makes sense. Trying to fit everyone around a draft team table is something else. Look at how many people go up on stage in the first round to help welcome their draft pick. It’s an army.

So while I totally get why some people don’t want the draft to change — it’s unique in sports to have the whole hockey world descend on one place once a year — I also understand why some team executives feel it’s run its course as currently set up.

“I do understand the uniqueness of it,” Lamoriello said. “I understand the thought process of the way people interact. I personally like that, myself. But I don’t think it should upstage what we’re there for and how important these days are.”

Should clubs vote to go ahead with the new draft format, there’s also the question of when that change would occur.

In the memo that was sent to teams last week, Daly wrote:

“Finally, in the event there is a consensus among a strong majority of Clubs to pursue a transition to the New Draft Format as discussed herein, we would most likely target the 2025 NHL Draft as the initial year of implementation. Having said that, since plans for the 2024 NHL Draft have not been finalized as of the date of this memorandum, it remains conceivable that we may seek to transition to the New Draft Format as early as next Spring.”

As of Monday, the league still hadn’t finalized plans for the 2024 draft. Nailing down a venue in Las Vegas has been the delay.

So we’ll see where this all goes, but I think it’s evident a new draft format is probably in the offing.
- Makita

Thanks for posting.

I guess if they considered starting the season earlier, have the draft earlier or move free agency back a week or 2, then they aren't so pushed for time.
Also, condense this draft to the 1 day, like it used to be and restrict how many representatives each team can have at the table.

Thanks for posting.

I guess if they considered starting the season earlier, have the draft earlier or move free agency back a week or 2, then they aren't so pushed for time.
Also, condense this draft to the 1 day, like it used to be and restrict how many representatives each team can have at the table.
- Reubenkincade

I’d go the other way. Have the draft on June 29/30 and free agency the next day, execs are all in one place, more trades, tv coverage for signings.

Well there are various reasons I think its not likely to happen.
1.) There are several fan bases that have been requesting for blogger or a change for many years and nothing happens. Some bloggers cover several teams and have a small following.
2.)Carol recommended a blogger that would have been more engaged, we waited months and then Michael came along.
3.)NewYorkNuck has been sending EK PM's requesting a change and has even volunteered to blog for free, no response.
4.)There are other issues with this site that have been pointed out by some refs that don't receive action or response.
5.)This site is constantly crashing, does that mean not enough attention is being given here? I don't know but it certainly needs upgrading.

There are more reasons but I'm already getting to long posting as it is.
- Makita

Sad seems it’s all going to end with a crash.