Welcome to Fantasy Hockey Life, presented by fan Tracks, your source of information
and analysis to help you win your fantasy hockey league. Block off hot a
step hit on, Stay Lock. Here's your host, Jesse Sovier and Victor
Nuno Fantasy Hockey Live back once again. Victor Nuno from ep Rinkside. I
am Jesse Severe of fan Tracks. But now I've confused things because I'm gonna
throw it to Victor and ask him how he's doing today. Usa, Usa,
Usa, USA. We've been waiting years for this. Yeah, we
did. We did dog Gunnet. Yeah. It seemed like everybody in the
FHL discord who wasn't from the US was cheering against us. But that's just
how it goes when you're the favorite. Pretty much everyone in that arena.
One of my buddies that actually played beer was there in Gothenburg and he said
maybe two to three percent of the crowd was US, even even all the
neutral fans were basically cheering against the Americans. And I guess for East to
that I'm not always the most favorite internationally. But it was a great It
was a great tournament. We're talking about the World Juniors, of course,
and it was super fun and yeah, the Americans a couple of maybe questionable
performances, but overall pretty dominant and it was fun to see. Yeah,
and the Fantasy hockey wife's is friends with Quinn Finley's mom, so she was
texting her over there in Sweden. Mister Finley took the last shot of the
tournament and I think finished with two points, obviously the player of the tournament.
That that is all we need to speak, no more about that.
Yeah, I just mentioned the discord. You can join that discord. All
you have to do to be a part of it is hit Victor and myself
up at fan Hockey Life is how to catch me at Victor Nuno twelve is
how to catch Victor who's the more interesting exer? And you can also emails
Fantasy Hockey lipat gmail dot com. But it's free and there's been a lot
of buzzing. We had our World Juniors pools that are now wrapped up,
and now we're moving back into the not that we ever moved away, but
the fantasy hockey season is moving increasingly toward a climax. Victor, I just
can't tell people enough about all the things that are going on. But let's
consider that I have told them enough and let you tell them more about things
that they can get by following us even more closely. Yeah, there's lots
of good stuff. If you're interested in some little extras, you can support
us through Patreon. We do a lot of bonus content, patron Casts,
Patron Priority Channel. You can look at all our show notes, which,
especially on a show like today, there's lots of cool graphs and charts that
Mitch does and maybe you don't have full access to, but there's a lot
of good stuff there. We have our your Dynasty the Tidy, which is
really cool, so people are waiting to get into that and it's a really
fun league. We have the Patron Ranks or the Prospect ranks, which we're
working on finalizing and updating them. Hopefully soon we'll have a kind of prototype
that'll show some really cool upside and peripheral categories. So lots of good stuff,
and we invest a lot in trying to bring all this to you.
So if you want to buy us a cup of coffee, that would be
useful. Patreon dot com slash Fantasy Hockey Life. Yeah, I'm rather dissatisfied
with my teams. Let me abuse my station by saying, if anybody in
the Lamuta vision wants to trade and be any win now players would if I've
got left in the prospect system and it ain't much because I've been going for
the win now for a while. Please you can hit me up. Is
that unfair? Is that an unfair thing? Look, you could rip me
off. That's what this comes down to, So let's just be honest about
it, Victor. One guy who will not be ripped off is the guest
that we're going to have today because he is very knowledgeable and once again we're
going to talk a few prospects. So right after this break, we'd be
back to our guests. Welcome to our show. A man who knows his
prospects, and you know that he knows his prospects on x AT Mitch L.
Brown and conveniently enough named Mitchell Brown. Mitch, how you know it?
Today? I am doing shockingly well. I thought I would be dead.
I scheduled this podcast at this time specifically because I would use my last
reserves of energy to do this show, and then I would take a very
long nap, maybe three or four days long, eat nothing but Nanaimo bars
and chocolate. And life would be great. However, this was the most
watchable World Juniors I've ever experienced in my professional career because all of these teams
came to play Norway, they pitied the fool that dumped the pocket, holy
crap, trying to make plays no matter what the score was. It was
super cool. So just like I think part of it obviously having Last Sea
lan and helped me with the data and so on, but like also part
of it was just that the hockey there was like no real grind. It
was just good the entire time, even when it was like even when Cana
was up on lat Via, Latvia was trying like crazy set plays in the
offensive zone and stuff. Yeah, I'm doing shockingly good. How are you
guys doing. We're doing well, man. We're like you were coming off
the adrenaline high of this World Junior's USA, as Victor said in the intro.
But we're ready to talk a little bit, and you are as tuned
in or were as tuned in to this World Junior's Championship as anybody. So
we're really looking forward. That's what we're talking about today, obviously, is
some of the things coming off of that, and we'll talk about some of
the ways that you get data and present it to the public as well as
we go along. But I should defer over to Victor to say how he's
doing. I don't want to speak for you, Victor. How are you
doing? Yeah, I'm still pretty happy with the result, obviously, the
Americans coming through. I was telling Jesse earlier, Mitch Data, it's a
little weird. Probably know how the Canadians feel always being the favorite and all
the pressure. There was more pressure this time, I think on the Americans,
and this time it was a little different kind of being that favorite.
But Theay got it done and it was an exciting term. I agree,
like all the games were very fun to watch and that was a pleasant surprise.
It was so good. And as soon as David Carl came out and
was like we got a shutdown guy and every pairing and none of the guys
were shut down guys, I was like, Team USAY is gonna be so
cool this year. It was great. Yeah, lots of scoring, it
was fun and yeah, so we brought you on to talk World Juniors,
but also to talk a little bit about the awesome player cards and tracking data
that you do. Anyone who listens to this show knows that I've been a
fan for a long time, and I thought it'd be a good time to
highlight a little bit of what goes into it, because has described it's manual
tracking data. It's not something that's automated. It's one of the We asked
our patron some questions for you, and I think one of the first ones
to get us started is just a little bit from Denique about the process,
like what goes into it. Obviously, nobody wants to blow up your spot
or kind of ruin your ability to do this, but honestly, probably if
someone really wanted to do this, they should realize how difficult it is.
It's not something you're just going to jump into. But as much as you
want to tell us what kind of goes into it? How do you track
these things? What's your process? That kind of thing about the cards and
the data. So I think that if someone wants to do this, I
would more than welcome than to do it. I think every year that you
track daty, you lose a year on the end of your life. And
I've been doing this for six years and I presume that I'm only going to
live to sixty anyway, just recognize that there are trade offs for doing something
this insanely stupid but yet somehow incredibly rewarding. So the very first thing is
a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet has a bunch of columns. The columns are labeled,
so in my case, I mean, there are million different ways to
do it, but in my case there is a one player column. And
then there are some like variables that you can can and so one line on
a scoring chance will tell you who shot it, if they were pressured by
a defender, and who who passed the puck, what type of pass it
was, who passed the puck preceding that, if there was someone providing a
screen or setting a pick or something that led to the shot, the location,
whether it was a backhand wrister or one timer, if it hit the
net or not, if it generated a rebound, who the goalie was in
net. And then you have six hundred lines like this usually in a given
game, and you have to input all of that manually, like you can
automate some of it because like you can use like the data above it to
infer what occurs. If there's a controlled entry directly before that shot, it's
usually going to be a rush shot, so like the rush section will automatically
fill in. But yes, that's the general process. The next process is
that you have to have a sheet that calculates everything, and so that can
be taxing on the computer, or if you're anything like me, you will
make a stupid mistake for half a season and not realize it and then be
like, huh, it makes a lot more sense that this stat wasn't working
because I broke it sometime in the summer. So yeah, a lot of
patients, a lot of time, and a lot of adapting it to what
you do. But I would say specifically this is a little abstract, but
theoretically you can track anything, right. You can track the craziest things.
It's just a matter of time and definition. So what you try to do
is you say, I have an idea, I want to track this thing,
and there are going to be a million gray areas, and so you
start tracking that thing, and then you have to start figuring out how you're
going to manage all those gray areas. Like for a controlled exit, it
sounds really simple who gets the puck across the blue line? But it's not
that simple because who gets credit? What if the guy passes it and then
someone takes two strives to go across the blue line, who was more of
a factor in that? And you're going to have these questions. That's a
very basic one, but for every type of event, you're going to have
so many of them. And you're constantly I'm constantly at new gray areas to
my tracking and I've been doing this since I was twenty I'm twenty seven now
and I'm still constantly adding stuff and so be prepared for that investment. But
yeah, it's just a ton and a ton of work and time, and
you know, I like in a way like it teaches you new skills,
Like I couldn't do basic arithmetic. I can't even say the word. That's
how bad it was when I first started doing this, and now like I'm
doing more advanced stuff. So yeah, just patience time, and if anyone's
interested in I can send them email me at Mitch Brown three one at gmail
dot com and I can send you what my setup looks like and give you
my glossary and explainer and everything on how I do it. That's amazing.
And arithmetic, by the way, is a great sobriety test, say that
five times fast and if you can without slurring, then you can drive home.
I think it's a good, good test I'm imagining, by the way,
I would love to see that set up too, Not that I want
to do it. I'm just very curious. But I'm also like, I'm
imagining, like when the games were happening, I was even like doing this.
I was imagining what you look like at home doing this. So I'm
just wondering, do you you probably don't watch the live stream or I'm wondering
if you watch like a delayed version, because you can like pause and look
or rewind. Is that what you're doing, because I imagine you might have,
like you said, and you might have to rewind it and be like,
what happened there? Which player was that? You have to put the
right number in the right column of the spreadsheet? Right? So I imagine
you're not just you're not just obviously you're not just sitting back casually watching the
game. You're watching each specific play and you're trying to input each action into
the spreadsheet. So I imagine you have to pause, rewind and that sort
of thing, right, Yeah, And some games are worse than other,
so usually I rewind about eighty two one hundred times in a game, so
like you're constantly just like going back, making sure it's a player, and
like a lot of times the numbers aren't visible. For example, those cursed
USA jerseys this tournament, those blues that the NTDP uses as well, like
just fire those into the sun. You can't see them on anything that isn't
a four K stream. The commentary isn't even the right player out and they're
getting confused, like for some reason, like Olliver More is now Jimmy snutter
Room because the just you can't see the contrast isn't big enough. But yeah,
I've complained about that on two other shows. Maybe I should just stop
there. I think when the jatewent, I would see the jerseys and slack
I would just like type screaming letters into the scouch channel. It was just
one of those experiences. But yeah, lots of rewinding, and usually I
can catch up. So if I'm doing a game live, I can.
If I started at the same time, I can finish at roughly the final
horn if there's enough penalty time, because usually third periods tend to be fewer
events and fewer whistles. The game kind of evolves a little bit, and
then as the tournament wears on, you generally get fewer and fewer events occurring
because teams are playing it's safer, and so they're cutting back off the rushmore,
they're delaying a little bit, they're hammering the puck off the glass and
out more often, so they're not there are fewer broken plays in the neutral
zone, which means you are dumb things for me to record. Yeah,
no, that makes sense, and yeah, I think I'm with you.
If it makes your life easier, I'll join your lobby campaign to have clearly
visible numbers because I want the most accurate data too. One of the things
that Deniko also mentioned here, which I'm also curious about, because if for
those of you who haven't looked at the cards, you can just go look
at Mitch's Twitter and you can see because he'll post a lot of them.
Fear if you have access to the Patreon and the cards that you can see
them there. But some of them are pretty straightforward. They're shooting, and
it's shot attempts versus expected goals, passing attempts and goals, and then there's
a whole transition box. There's a defensive metric, and then there's a miscellaneous
I want to ask you a little bit about some of those, because I
think the shooting, passing, maybe even the transition to some extent are understandable
some of the defensive metrics, and I'm wondering how you calculate the course plus
also in the miscellaneous box, which I've heard some people call the translatability area,
like how well all that player is going to translate to the NHL,
because some of those are some really cool things like advantages created, primary point
involvement, and game score. Those are some of those kind of fancy metrics
that some of us believe might describe an overall impact of the player more than
just can he shoot the puck into the net if he stands in one spot
and doesn't do anything else all game? That kind of thing. So I'm
wondering what your thoughts are on those areas. Okay, So I think the
natural place to start this is actually asking why are they on there? Like
how do I choose to have that many stats on the player card? Because
I think ideally the number of stats that should be on it are one,
right, just one or more realistically five to six. I could just do
shooting, passing, transition efficiency, transition volume for checking and defense. But
then I'm only showing overview stuff like I'm only showing like very basic kind of
things that I think if you're watching these guys regularly, you could mostly infer
you'd be able to figure out, you'd have a pretty good idea of you
know, they have good transition efficiency and so on. And on top of
that, in every given data set, there are a thousand plus players every
year. All those guys do something, So I need to show enough information
to properly showcase the abilities of as many players as possible without overwhelming the user,
which is very tricky. I basically try to show a combination of things
that seem intuitive, like shots. For example, a player you watch,
you're going to know if they shoot a lot, and then they're generally going
to have a lot of shots in the data set. And then I show
stuff that isn't necessarily as intuitive, because I want the person who is looking
at it to engage with it and interact with it critically. I don't want
people just to see it and be like, Oh, this shows that this
player is good, Mitch is so smart. Don't do that like, for
the love of God, just engage with it critically. If you have any
questions about if you get it, if you see a weird result, if
something doesn't look right, nine of the ten times are going to have an
answer as to why that's happening, whether it's just sample size, whether there's
some index in there that works for ninety five percent of players but not for
five and so on. In that way, I think it makes sense to
go through some of the more advanced stuffs cross lane plays. This is you
have the dot lanes. Those who don't know, draw a line from one
faceof dot and the defensive zone to the faceof dot and the offensive zone.
Those are the two lines that divide the inside from the outside. In the
chl the vast majority of rushes are they start on the outside and they finish
on the outside, or they start on the inside and they finish on the
inside. It's very rare for players to cross those lanes. I think it's
ten percent of rushes in the COCHL across lane. In the NHL, that's
almost twenty five percent simply being able to make those cross lane plays because there's
an amount of skill that goes into them They're not just like doing a couple
quick crossovers, although that helps, a lot of them are passing through pressure.
You're weaponizing pressure instead of skating away from it. That's something that is
highly translatable to the NHL. And then the next one is boards to middle
plays, which is going the same idea at lower levels. Guys who take
the puck off the boards drive the inside, they aren't always going to have
great offensive results because they're reliant on their teammates to create offensive chances for them
or to just simply gabble up the loose puck and create a chance. Say
Matthew Nys, he was not a guy who created a ton of high danger
offense in the USHL, but in the NCAA when he plays a snugger and
Logan Cooley, he does because he's very good at getting the puck off the
boards to the middle and so that skill translates to a higher level and it
leads to him getting better offensive results down the road. And that's as simple
as basically, you have a guy on you along the boards, you have
to beat him, whether that's with a pass, carry drive, and there
are a few other different ways advantages is created. This is a big one.
This is basically just how much you create time and space so you can
pass it through an opponent. You can drive off the boards and beat them
to the net. You can use the net your own net as a funnel
and then a shield to step out in front. You can pass across ice,
and so on. So there are lots of different ways that you can
do it. You can set picks. All that stuff gets funneled into advantages
created, and this is one metric that is particularly good at identifying players who
will score in junior in the future, even if they're not scoring already.
So I'm lingeran it's My favorite example of this was a guy who posted incredible
advantages created hasn't scored a lick in his life, but he's a good NHL
player because he's very good at a defending b creating time and space for his
teammates. Like look at him on the breakout with the Rangers. A lot
of times, it's not that he's the guy who gets the puck over the
blue line. It's that he draws the first four checker and then quickly throws
a cross ice to his partner, who then has an easy up and out
outlet, and so that's the type of stuff they are trying to measure.
And then there's off puck assists, which is like setting picks running the middle
and so on. You see some people who are like someone will post a
video like, oh, look at this great off puck play by this guy
who skates down the middle and create space for a shot behind him, and
someone will be like, oh, everyone in junior can do that. Wrong.
You only get a couple of those successful events of every single game in
the CHL and in the NHL it's every shift. So being able to do
those things at a younger age is super big. And then offensive involvement pretty
simple, just the percentage of chances you're setting up. So much of how
much offense you're going to create in junior is dependent on those around you,
especially if you're more of a passer, and so adjusting four team is a
big theme. And then game score is just a volume, no efficiency,
just straight volume. So even though game score is a basic one, I
like having it there because it's just like the does things meter, and sometimes
just doing things is like such an incredibly valuable skill. The World Juniors was
dominated this year by guys who were just does things and that's pretty awesome.
Two bunning compliments and a question coming your way. Mitch. First, Yeah,
it talk about the holy grail to be able to figure out when a
guy's production in CHL is going to translate into things that can carry over to
the NHL. That is the thing that we all want to see. As
far as you're tracking, I know I did tracking. I've mentioned on the
show before for I don't know, maybe half a season for Ryan Stimpson when
he was doing the passing project and tracking the Royal Road passes and all the
stuff you're talking about there, and a dang near killed me. So the
idea that you've tracked all these things is madness and I do truly. It's
we're not worthy on that one. But I'm building to the question from Austin.
Wanted to know if you've had player cards that have given different results from
your own eye test to the player, because that's the thing. You're not
tracking stats alone. You're tracking those stats visually and you can't help but watch
the player play at the same time. I wonder whether Austin asks a great
question. You're watching this, then you come out, you look at the
stats you're like, that is not the way I saw this playing out when
I was watching the game. Has that ever happened? Honestly, not really.
As you mentioned, it just comes down to I'm tracking the things that
interest me and the things that I value in scouting a player, and so
certainly there are times where like a player will have generally better results than I
expect them to think. Anthony Romani was a good example last year, who
we would have ranked had I finished watching North Bay a day earlier, But
we finalized the board the day that I finished watching them, so he did
not get on the board, and he's going to get picked this year because
he's like a goal per game in the OHL. With him, he was
a guy who I quite liked because of his transition passing and I liked his
ability to get open get scoring chances. But I didn't expect him to be
like a top ten player in the CHL as he was last year, And
so usually it's that I don't. The big thing for me is that it
helps me seek quality and frequency better than I would if I did not have
the data. Yeah, that makes sense. So Denique Wonders also a player
who maybe has scored very high in your model that was underrated in real life,
or possibly the opposite, maybe someone who poured scorely in the model but
went onto a great NHL career. So basically outliers in the data. One
that maybe doesn't isn't really he's either overcaptured or undercaptured and had an opposite effect
in the NHL. Can you think of some of those, yeah, players
who scored very highly that maybe went a bit lower than they should have in
the draft. Andre Miller looked like a top ten pick. All On Zaldegger
had top fifteen results. Jake Sanderson by December of his draft year had the
results of a top ten pick, and I don't think anyone really had him
in that range at that time. Jason Robertson, as I wrote on the
ep rink side, but he had results of a top three to top five
pick in his draft year and didn't go until the second. Adam Fox wasn't
too far behind. But so I think broadly the theme between all this is
that again, all these guys are players who generally generate lots of high quality
scoring chances opportunities. Shot quality is the big thing, and or it's guys
who were very efficient very toolsy and create out a really high volume. So
guys who they might not necessarily make the best play every single time, but
their ability to do things so overwhelms that fact that it doesn't matter. They're
very good at creating advantages, and then as they get older, they get
better at making the best decision with those advantages that they created. So we
can go deeper with that team as well. So Ranker Evans, who we
ranked his original draft year. He was on a bad team but posted incredible
transition results. You blend that with the fact that the kid could really skate,
He jumped into the play aton, he was active offensively. He went
on picked, but he was picked in the early second the next year,
and he had like best defenseman in the COCHL results that year. And for
more examples, like think of anyone really that elite prospects has ranked high or
ranked at all, and then they get picked in their D plus one or
they go really lay Noah Chance Adwick who's been probably a top ten defenseman in
the COCHL this year, and I think we might have been the only people
to rank him. Rodwin Denizio, who is the star of the world,
who was a star at the World Juniors. This year we ranked him,
he goes unpicked, largely because the great data showed that he was rough,
but he was making high value plays. And then he gets picked the following
year afterwards, and then as for the opposite, this is a hard question
to answer because I don't want to turn around and be like, oh,
this guy who posted mediocre data isn't going to make the NHL at all,
because I only have six years of data. It's important to remember that seems
like a really long time. I'm sure my face shows it, but in
terms of like actual statistical rigor of six years is nothing. It's nothing.
There are guys who from the first year that I've started tracking, are just
starting to become good NHL players. I guess the preliminary refining of this is
that players there are guys who like outperformed. There are results in junior Certainly
like Aiden McDonough. He was a pretty bad D plus one in the USAHL,
but Drudg bred Get disagreed with the stats and picked him, and then
he turned out to be a good NCAA player and posted good results. But
they end up posting good results at some point in their career, right,
So in a way that basically every player, just like scoring who makes the
NHL posts good results. So it's hard to answer the flip side of that
question. It's not to say that everyone who posts good results make the NHL.
They absolutely do not. It's just that it's very unusual for players to
have bad results and to make the NHL at this stage. Of course,
that could change in a year or two when all these guys start making the
NHL. For my first few years of data, and it's just a little
early to answer that latter part. Yeah, that's fair and totally reasonable.
And obviously, like you said, the more you do it, the better
you get, and you refine things and the data has a stronger track record.
All those things are are really important to keep in mind. And another
thing Patrick asks here on a different angle, and I think this is always
hard to keep in mind because Issenon's get cut up in this too. You
see a metric that's like off the charts and you're like, WHOA, this
guy is going to be an amazing goal scorer or whatever. So I guess
what his question is, what are the cards really good at telling us?
And maybe what are they not so good at telling us what are the strengths
and weaknesses, because I think it's tempting. We'll talk about some of these
in the next part. And you can see someone who has a really poor
defensive metric and you might say he's poor defensively. Maybe it doesn't capture all
that he does, or maybe it just looks at some things that maybe there's
some blind spots elsewhere. So what do you think the cards are really good
at? Like, what are they telling us in general? And what are
they really good and not so good at telling us? I guess the central
idea is that tracking data is really good at telling us what is happening if
it's tracked properly and if you have covered your bases enough, but it's not
so good at telling us what isn't I guess that might actually sound a little
bit of deuce. But so, the number one strength of tracking data is
that it can tell us who carries the puck across either line, who generates
the most scoring chances, who sets up their teammates the most, and so
on, And it can get more granular. It can tell us like who's
better at defending the rush, who's best at getting defensive zone breakups. In
that sense, it's great at highlighting the style of a player, and when
coupled with the evaluator's own sense, it's quite good at showing the strengths and
the weaknesses of a player. But to tie it back to the beginning part,
it fails because it doesn't account for things that aren't happening, or more
specifically, it fails when it doesn't account for things that aren't happening. So
defense is notoriously hard to measure because good defense usually leads to an absence of
things happening. So let's say you're a good prospect on a bad team.
You're very good at getting open, but you don't get the puck much.
Hosting good offensive results is going to be hard. If you're a defenseman who's
on a bad team, who's primarily a good off puck defender, you're gonna
not get a ton of breakups or of rush stops because you're not going to
have the support to go and attack guys defensively to do those things. And
then another thing that data doesn't account for is the opportunity cost aspect of offense,
or just decision making in general. Right, like it struggles to capture.
If you have a two on one and you decide that you're gonna shoot
it far or glove side instead of passionate, cross slow to a teammate who's
wide open. You can track that if you're an absolute Sickoh, but I
have limitations and I have desires, like leave my desk a couple hours every
single day, go outside, eat food. Maybe, so I can't do
that. Theoretically you can, and that would be the next big breakthrough in
tracking data like that would be able to account for a lot. The flip
side of that, however, and now I'm just rambling, is advantage is
created. Right. As I've talked about in the Draft Retrospective series on ep
ring side, the decisions that a player makes aren't necessarily the most predictive for
NHL success the positions and the opportunities that they get, because opportunities and decisions
are dictated by coaching, Which is a perfect segue into the next thing that
I want to talk about, which is context. So I try to adjust
for context, but you can never really fully calculated, if that makes sense,
Like the transition metrics are adjusted for the team average, like Saganaw doesn't
dump the puck out. Swift Current doesn't dump the puck out very much,
but some other teams are going to dump the puck out a ton, and
so it's important to have that context there. And as I mentioned earlier,
offense is adjusted to the volume of chances the team creates. But players,
and I cannot stress this enough. I cannot stress this enough, do not
make decisions randomly. It's decided by the structure directly i e. What the
coach wants them to do, and indirectly as in what types of options the
structure creates for the players. And there's always the limitations of teammates. Like
sometimes I see people post a video on Twitter and they're like this was a
dumb turnover, and it's like they made the right pass. The guy just
didn't have a stick on the ice. He's twenty three years old. He
should have a stick on the ice. That's not a failing to the guy
who passed the puck. And so you know, you're constantly having and scouting
and in data and everything to figure out the best way to manage the contextual
side of this. And then where it gets really tricky is that, especially
at lower level hockey, different players have different levels of freedom. There are
guys who the coach won't talk to at all, and there are other guys
who the coaches if you passed that puck across the blue line, I'm never
gonna play you again. And that's like impossible to adjust for statistically because I
can't like talk to every single player and be like, what is your coach
telling you to do and then cop with a mathematical formula to figure out that.
In that sense, it's why a lot of huge minute, high skilled
prospects, usually defensemen, will have some like kind of wonky transition results.
They won't be like super efficient because they just can't be efficient within the role
or the environment that they're given. Like it's a pretty I think Simone Nemts
at the World Juniors was a guy who was an example of this, where
he was one of the leaders in game score, but he wasn't very efficient.
But is simply because he's playing big minutes on a team where fifteen of
his minutes every single night, he's not going to have any passing option.
So what do you expect him to do? Carrie the puck up himself every
single time. That's only going to work fifteen percent of the time. There
are just so many little things. And I guess there's the opportunity side of
it too. The players need opportunity to post good results, and sometimes players
can't apply things that they're good at, like the vast majority of players can
do most things at this level. It just comes down to opportunity and a
billing and ability to apply it. So in that sense, like to tie
it all together, because I have been talking probably for a very long time,
is that it doesn't tell you that player X is better than player why
straight up, even if one has a dark blue chart and one has a
mixture of light blue and gray. But it can help inform you of the
stylistic differences, and with metrics like advantages created boards to metal plays and so
on, it can tell you which one might be more translatable to the NHL
if you're willing to put in the time and effort into identifying why they have
those results. Very good, That is some good data people ought to look
at. We need to talk about these World juniors and a couple of the
players that we're playing for and will drew so right after this, so goalies
got no reasonly back with Mitch Brown, and we need to talk about some
of the great performances we saw or some of the players that we need to
talk about after that World Junior's Victor who we got first. Well, the
first one we're going to talk about is the fresh prince that is Will Smith.
And this was These are based on what people wanted to hear about,
so people are curious about Will Smith. He had nine points in seven games,
helping USA to the gold medal. I think at times he was very
good offensively when you're tracking data. His primary assists for sixty were really high,
his expected goals were really high. A lot of his other metrics,
including transition and defense in particular, were not so good or poor. His
defense is rated at ten ten percent tile, which is really bad. These
are six tracked games and a small tournament, small sample size, all that
kind of stuff. But I think the overall context so far Will Smith in
his transition to the NCAA, he's been very good. Twenty three points in
seventeen games. The points are there after being over two points per game at
the USNTDP, but some of his equivalencies have actually gone down. Just based
on this as well, Wondering overall how is he how is he looking?
Are you concerned about anything? What did you think about Will Smith in this
tournament? Mitch and his projection moving forward? Now, so I thought he
was Will Smith. The fact that he's the fourth over pick, I think
has people's expectations a little bit shifted. He's a quieter, hyper efficient offensive
player who's very good at creating extreme high value offensive situations. So like cross
a lot one time or so how many times did you see him fire one
of those or create one of those this tournament? A lot? Because that's
what he does. That's what he's good at. He's not so good at
the controlled entry stuff. He's not so good at dynamic rushes. Ryan Leonard
handles those on that line gave Paroda's more of the transition passing than Smith does.
He's not a four checker. He's not much of an offensive player.
As a result, his game tends to fall very much into the background.
That's just the cost of doing business with Will Smith. And that's not to
say that he can't be a great offensive player. He can be, but
you do have to see more urgency from him, more pace, more aggressiveness
with the pluck to be able to translate his offensive game to the next level.
With that said, he is pretty sublime offensively, He's very the same.
He can control the game. So this tournament was just him holding the
line, and I think it showed at a larger scale some of the concerns
that we had last season. I think this tournament pretty much confirmed that our
suspicion last year that of the three, Ryan Leonard and Gay Perrot are the
player drivers. And that's not to say that Will Smith is going to be
the third best player of them in the NHL, but that for now,
Will Smith the image and Will Smith the player aren't always going to a line
just because of the way that he plays. Dang, all right, all
right, that's a rough blow, Victor, roughblow, Victor will Smith,
fresh prints of your San Jose Sharks. I suspect Mitch that if you just
ask somebody who casually followed the tournament what goalie performance was the best, Who
was the goalie who was most outstanding? A whole lot of people might say
Hugo Havelid. But I I'm curious your opinion and your data on this.
Do you think Joel actually asked the question, is Hugo Havlot going to get
drafted this year? What's his upside? So I don't know goalies because goalies
scare me and I don't like being scared. So I don't know goalies.
But how many five, ten, five to eleven goalies get picked into the
NHL? Especially re entry is like he's twenty already. I think Michael DiPietro
thing is probably going to scare some teams away from picking non six to one
goalies and up yeah, I doubt he gets picked for me. The best
goalie of this term was Adam guy In again second straight year. He was
ridiculous ash she was so good. He was phenomenal. It's incredible watching him
play too, because it's not just the story of how he got here,
but like he is very entertaining, Like he's a rare goalie who like you're
just watching the game and you see him like controlling the game with his movement,
how active he is trying to find guys and so on. Yeah,
I really liked watching him. And then Trey Augustine. I know he only
got in four games, but I was really impressed with him. Simple technically
sound, moved, very economical. I was pretty impressed with him. There
were a lot of goalies at this tournament who were bad. This was a
tournament, This was not a tournament for good goaltending, is for sure.
But I understand that the context was a little different this year with every team
being or trying to play offense, and there was a lot of talent available.
But yeah, I wouldn't bet on hav Lead getting picked, certainly not
as a five ten, five eleven goalie. Yeah, I'm with you with
Augustine. I thought there were times where USA was getting it taken to them
and he was holding them in. I mean that first period against that first
part of the game against Sweden, it could have been like four or five
nothing, you know, before they realized what happened to them. So he
kept it in it, which is also the case. Was it last World
Junior or the World Junior before? I can't remember where he kept them in
the gold medal game. So yeah, he's definitely tracking data. There is
goalie tracking data and goal save above expected Trey Augustine was the best with Adam
Guyan right behind, so there's some and not too many were above right,
as you mentioned, a lot of them were below that that average line or
expected line, So that's good to know. So the next player we want
to talk about is Lane Hudson and Ryan. I think initially in the tournament
was kungu in cheek saying is he as good as we thought? Or did
any of the performance answer some questions? Defensively, when I watched Lane,
I think I was overall pretty impressed. Some of his defensive work with his
stick and some of his skating was seemed a little bit better to me.
You have lots of years of tracking data with Lane Hudson, and the worst
part is always the defensive game. But this tournament it was the best of
the last ones that I've seen you had. Actually it was a little bit
worse this twenty twenty four. I was looking at last year's World Junior was
a little bit better, but he generally is in kind of that thirty to
fifty percent tile range, whereas the offense and transition is actually much better.
But I did what I saw there and offensively, he just completely dictates the
pace in the game. It's impressive to watch, and at the end,
I think my favorite part was when he stepped up and through some haymakers with
the guy that's seven inches eight inches taller than him Antonio Hanson and took him
down. That was showing some physicality there, which is not something I necessarily
want to see from Lane Hudson. But it was nice to see that he's
not going to back down from those sort of challenges. Tell us what you
thought about Hudson. Did he prove or disprove any questions about his defensive game
or anything else that we learned from him. I thought we learned a lot
about Layneotton this terminal. I was really impressed, and I understand he wasn't
as dynamic as normal, he wasn't as electrifying as normal. But you saw
very much a NHL version of Lane Hudson, and the same way you saw
very much an NHL version of Denton Mattachuck or Rodin Nitzio, where their game
was simplified, but in a way they also optimized that they were making better
decisions. They were controlling the play in ways that are more translatable. So
instead of trying to dipsy dangle everyone, he was creating more space up top
and allowing his teammates to walk into shots. He was still creating offense while
keeping the turnovers fewer. And I think you did see some concerns, right,
Obviously, the skating, the explosiveness. He would trick a guy and
then the guy would just be like, take one step and catch up to
him and strimm of the buck. So that's concerning. But he had other
ways to impact the game offensively, which was great and it was so good
to see him do that. And then defensively, You're totally right, Victor.
The physical aspect of his game was so much better. He was much
better at getting inside people's hands, winning positioning, the stick work was so
much better. The rush defense, this is the worst I've ever seen Lanehatson
defend the rush. It was just atrocious. I don't even know what he
was doing out there some of those nights. Like it wasn't a lack of
effort. I think it was that he was trying to play a more risk
free defensive style and in doing so he conceded the zone a ton, But
he did help offset it with more breakups deeper in the zone. But in
terms of translatability, this version of Lane Hudson is what you will see in
the NHL. He's not going to be a hundred point destroy everyone defensive who
breaks ankles from a point every single game. But a guy who can find
seems, create opportunities, shift through the defense in the right moment. Yeah,
that was Lane Hudson and that was really fun and that's a hell of
a prospect. It was so cool watching him play in an NHL way.
All right, Mitch, I don't want to scare you, but I got
to give the people what they want. So I'm going to drag you back
over to the goalies and Ts Rousseau. But Canadians they're watching their guy,
Mats Rousseau. And you know, obviously candidate didn't get the outcome that they
wanted from the tournament. But do you think that Rousseau will get drafted this
year? And if so, what kind of upside would he have. I
have my doubts that he gets picked. I think he needed a good World
Juniors as a sub six foot goalie to get picked. He's a problem with
him is the size and the lack of explosiveness given his technical ability. If
he had a little bit more explosiveness, he's probably a pick regardless, just
because there are so many components there that can help overcome the whole being five
to eleven thing that scares teams away. But because he doesn't have that,
I'm not sure. And then at the World Juniors he was not great in
front of a team that gave him a ton of the They really helped him
personally. Samuel Saint Hilaire, I think he probably should have gotten to look
this tournament. And I also think he has the higher NHL upside. I
wouldn't be surprised if he gets picked in the mid to late rounds and then
is in the NHL within three years. There were definitely people we did a
little World Junior Fantasy Hockey life pool. There were a lot of people who
picked Saint Hilaire and were really disappointed he didn't get more of a look as
well. Fair enough, Yeah, they're with you all right, Eastern Cowen.
As you might imagine, Mitch, there are one or two people who
listen to this podcast that are Leaf fans, and there of course looking at
their Eastern Cowen and their favorite Maple Leaf prospect and possibly a little disappointed or
just confused with what happened. I think overall the performance from a lot of
Canada's top players was a little disappointing. But do you think that maybe some
of the hype was over amplified by Leaf's nation or like how legit is Eastern
Cowen. Looking at your tracking data from last year, I don't think the
new ones available yet or it's going to be soon. But he was actually
really good offensively in some of those metrics, so I think, you know,
some people weren't too surprised that he went as early as he did,
and in this tournament he was actually really good defensively. That was one of
his weaknesses last year, and defensively he was sixty eighth percentile and his transition
game was really good. Maybe his offense wasn't there, you know, his
expectacles was below average, But what did you think of Cowen? And what
does the tracking data tell us about his performance? So I think this ties
into the earlier conversation, right, Cowen's always been very good defensively. The
difference is that he's very good at pushing guys into unfavorable situations rather than being
the guy who steals the puck. So he's not going to check out well
in tracking data. But if you watch him even last year, he was
very good defensively and that means that extended to this tournament. He didn't have
quite the same energy or physicality as he normally does at this tournament because at
his core, what he is he's a super annoying, super physical offensive guy
who likes to delay off the rush. He didn't have as much physicality,
he wasn't annoying, and he didn't have the delay game off the rush,
and so he wasn't able to create as much offense at this tournament and he
wasn't as noticeable. However, he still did the Eastern Cown things like at
some point, I just don't know what more we wanted an eighteen year old
Eastern Cowen to do. He still got the puck off the boards to the
inside a ton. He created tons of favorable situations. We saw him play
a higher pace give and go transition game that yes had had some mixed results,
and he wasn't able. He wasn't as able to create high injurer offense
as a result, because so much of his game is like gain the zone,
delay, find the trailer, then sprint the net for a rebound or
another pass he was He didn't have any of those plays this tournament, but
I was pretty impressed with him. I think next year he comes back,
he's going to be a top guy. You're going to see a more dynamic
version of him. As for is he legit, Yeah, he projects as
a plug and play top nine forward. You can play them on the top
line, you can play them on the third line. He's going to do
the same thing. He's probably going to get to spend it a few times.
He's going to draw a ton of penalties. He's going to annoy everyone,
and he's going to create space for his teammates. I like to call
him the mini Matthew Knights. Looking at this next player, Frank Nazer on
the primary points five on five chart, he is so high up in the
expected primary assist per sixty that I'm afraid if he fell he would hurt himself.
And the question we got from Bacon in Space is why does he love
primary assists so much? Any any thoughts on that one. Yeah, that's
a really fun question because you can take it in a few different ways.
It's for me, that question is like what does he do differently than other
people to create offense? Right? And I think with Frank it's the fearlessness
is back. He's back, and I know he faded throughout the tournament.
He had a good Gold medal game. But he's seeing those lanes that he
wasn't using in the NCAA before. He's seeing those crosssawt opportunities, the high
danger chances. We were talking about shot quality earlier. This guy all he
does is look for quality, high pace, cut back, find the guy
in the middle, attack the inside, slip the puck under a stick,
cross loot one timer. That thing goes in fifty percent of the time.
He had so many passes that he was basically just turning for reference. The
high danger chance unassisted is usually like a twenty percent shot if it's a cross
slot one time, or it's thirty. If it's to the far post,
it's fifty. And so he was going for not the high danger chances,
but the one timer. It's the crossland feeds the stuff behind the net.
And you saw a really nice little interaction with how Team USA played so team
Sweden. If you watch that gold medal game, one of the things that
really stands out is Sweden looked very slow behind the net. Team USA always
had speed behind behind the offensive net. Sweden grinds it out behind the net,
lots of cycling down low and then squired a puck out into the middle
team USA does their cycle higher up, and so when guys like Frank Nazar
get the puck off the boards, they just sprint behind the net and they
have speed going to the high danger area. When you're behind the net,
the entire game reacts to you. You're in control, you can dictate it,
and that's where you want your skill players. And so you really saw
in that game the contrast between and Frank Nasar was taking advantage of that all
tournament long. And so I think he's back. He was great on the
four check. He was really dependable, defensively, high paced, played fearlessly.
It was just so much fun to watch. For me, that was
the highly of the turn, seeing Frank Nasar back and doing Frank Nasar Things's
like, Man, I was giddy every time I saw him step on the
ice. I was like, this is what it's about. I was so
happy for him. Yeah, super excited to see that. Like you said
too, A lot of the passes that he made, it's the forward almost
had no choice but to score. Yeah, it would be harder to not
score. It would be the score. I could probably put those some of
those in. No. Yeah, he's really impressive and it ties into the
last question a little bit, But I just wanted to reference the chart a
little bit. Gay pro up there, Martin Johnson of Norway up there,
and maybe some other Canadians that people wouldn't expect, like Matthew Wood really high
expected primary sist Jordan Dumay, who I'm sure a lot of Canadians are upset
didn't score more. But in your tracking data he was creating, it just
didn't didn't convert, and that that can happen. Yeah, So with do
May, I think this is interesting discussion. It's he created, he got
pucks off the to the middle, created opportunities, but a lot of them
were It was volume more so than quality. It wasn't necessarily a ton of
high danger looks, but more stuff to the guy who was like at the
short side for a one time or that's easier to save. It was more
to guys at the top of the slot where it's easier to save, and
so on. I think that ties into a broader projection concern with his game.
He's he's an incredibly smart player. It's just that the way that he
creates, combined with his like lack of speed and physicality, means that he's
going to have to play this ultra precise, ultra intelligent, super deceptive game
where the margins are so slim that it's going to be harder for him,
like significantly so to score in the NHL than it will be at any other
level. And I think he needs to start finding ways to create more of
that high value translatable offense rather than just creating like walking opportunities. Yeah,
and we didn't plan to talk about this, but can I ask you about
Matthew Wood real quick? Sure? Yeah, Becau. He's someone who I
was a little concerned about. His feet are just lacking, but he's a
big dude and he can impose his physicality. Having a bit of a down
year in the NCAA just in terms of what he did in his first year,
but I thought he was impressive at times with this tournament. He was
often like a fourth or fifth liner, and he worked his way up the
lineup and I think did some really good things on maybe a subpar Canadian performance,
and some of the charts that you have and some of your tracking data
shows that he did do some really good things. I do think though,
he needs someone to move the puck and transition things for him because that's never
going to be his strength with his foot speed. So it seems like someone
who needs some help. But if he gets it, he can be really
effective. Where's your thoughts on Wood? Yeah, I really liked Matthew Woods
this tournament. I think again, another shot quality guy. Created a lot
of high danger offense, had that nice goal in the game that they got
eliminated in. Showed more of a playmaking side. He was very driven to
get to the middle. The interesting part about a transition game is that he's
actually very smart and he can make moves around guys and so on. It's
just as he said, the foot speed kind of hampers him and so I
want him to play more of a passing style. But him and Carson Raykov,
these were two of the very best players in the tournament offensively, and
they barely played. Canada had a lot of tactical issues that they failed with,
but they also did not ice the best team that they could have with
the guys that they brought. Ray Cobbin would both need to be in that
Raykov should have been in the top six. He was by everything that I
have, he was like he was one of their best forwards. Top three
minimum by almost everything, and that guy played like forty five minutes in the
tournament at five on five. It was some ridiculous usage. And the thing
is, I don't in both wood case in wood case as well, like
they did what the coach wanted them, wanted to do, but they just
didn't get rewarded for it. They played physical, they were engaged defensively,
they tried, and they didn't get rewarded for that, whereas other guys in
the top six didn't do those things and continued to play there. It was
very strange overall. Yeah, no shortage of being spilled on all the tactical
decisions that Canada made. But let's wrap up with the final question from Patrick.
This is open ended, and do you have any names of players who
you think have really risen or fallen in the last six months. I know
that you've been tracking CHL and other games and the new player cards will be
available soon, but I'm wondering if any of them come to mind in terms
of someone whose stock has really risen or fallen. So I think I do
actually have a preview of that data out on my Patreon now there are twenty
nine teams, four hundred players with at least four games, so it's not
like the deepest data set, but there's a lot of interesting stuff there.
I think players who've risen the most Noah Chadwick probably the most improved player CHL.
I think he was a sixth rounder by the Toronto Maple Leafs. He's
always been more of an offensively inclined guy. He just didn't score, but
the tracking data showed that he was actually very good at creating scoring chances,
and he was good at defending the rush. And I was very curious to
see him this season, and surely enough, he's been a dynamic offensive player,
jumping into the play a lot, showing some improved footwork. Probably the
most improved player in the CHL. Probably a top ten defense in the COCHL
this season. Been very impressed with him. Another guy who's really risen his
Maverick Limrou. He's been a bit of an awkward guy, but of a
tough guy to evaluate because you see the glimpses of the brain flashes of like
activation, skill playmaking, but he's just been limited by his body in his
mechanical ability, but coordination wasn't always there, and he would also just like
endlessly hunt big hits, but he's really sorted that out this year where he's
more stable, he plays a more controlled style, and he's creating a ton
of offense out there. He's very impressive to watch. I thought some of
his plays at the World Juniors this year are pretty impressive, where you have
this big guy who fakes a pass up the boards, cut back and then
attacks the middle and then jumps into the play. And he's been a huge
rise for me this season. Very impressed and I think if you were a
prospect, like draft person, two guys who should be watching for this year
Harrison Brunnick and Tarren Smith. Terren Smith didn't play last year. I think
he only appeared in fourteen games because of an injury. He has a nasty
style, and this dude just drips style. When you watch him play.
He does all sorts of crazy things from the blue line, NonStop entertainment value.
He's really picking it up. And Harrison Brunnick tough team, strong tracking,
data, really involved. He's a guy who you can clearly see has
studied a lot of Kill mccartape. From the point he's doing a lot of
that lateral movement stop start, dangle through guys and so on. Six foot
three defenseman fun to watch. And then as for the guys who have fallen,
now one is harder. I was trying to think of guys who will
fall and as I was talking, and no one is coming to me.
But yeah, anyone in the AHL usually is a good bet. That's the
rule of thumb. If you're in the AHL for more than a year and
you're not leading the league in scoring, that's usually a good bet to be
a little bit concerned, because I think the more time you spend in the
AHL, in a weird way, the harder it can be to transition to
the NHL. They're very different leagues in terms of projection, in terms of
how they play, in terms of tactics, because the AHL is overcoached their
NHL tactics. NHL desires for guys who don't have the ability to make those
plays consistently. And so for guys in the AHL for a year and a
half plus and they're not leading the league in scoring, say Maverick Bork,
then it's time to start being concerned about where they're at. There we go,
Mitch, why don't you let everybody know about the great places that they
can see things like those cards that are coming out and everything else you got
going on out there. Yes, so you can follow me at mitche ol
Brown on Twitter. In my bio there's a link to the Patreon where you
can subscribe. I think we have over two hundred subscribers so far. We
have currently available all the world Junior's data from last season. There's a preview
of this year's COCHL data with over four hundred players. And you can also
had to eperingside dot com read our articles. We have some fun stuff coming
out the Lastie Landon and I have an article on what went wrong for Canada,
Why I know Uslin should have won MVP, how Sweden could have gotten
more out of Yonatan Leakemaki and so on, and so lots of fun stuff
coming on EP ring side, So check that all out. You said the
magic word, Lacarry, Maki, Mitch. We appreciate that on this show.
But more to the point, we appreciate you coming on barely having slept,
running on fumes and adrenaline and probably coffee at this point. Thank you
so much for being a part of this and going over some of this great
world Junior's material with us absolutely anytime. Real ones know what I'm about to
say. Fantracks dot Com are shows brought to you by them. They do
some wonderful fantasy leagues. That is, you play your leagues. There are
ten different sports, Fantasy Hockey chief among them. For our audience. I'm
sure you can move your leagues over to fan tracks. You ask them and
they'll help you. I bet you if you open up Let's say you're a
fantasy football player. I'll bet you if you open up your league, I
believe it would be Monday morning. I think I don't think there's a Sunday
night game. There's a good chance you could set up a fantasy football league
for twenty twenty four. That's how quick they are in opening up their platform,
unlike others where you will be waiting very very late in the game and
it'll be very difficult to do things like prospect drafts, all the options for
scoring, salaries, contracts, rookie eligibility that you want to have. Theantrack
SHQ lots of fantasy content. There lots of fantasy hockey articles. Our FHL
crew is an army content curator. Kevin Adams helps out with the show prep
boy. We appreciate that he puts in a lot of the stuff. People
who have the access to the show sheets, the patrons know and would be
surprised how much of that is Kevin putting into this right now. Ryan Downey,
the Tidy Admiral, he helps commission all the tidy leagues. That's a
lot of work. Appreciate our guy, Ryan, even though he stomped me
in the World Junior's Draft. Brandon our website Gurua doing a fantastic job.
There's a lot going on with the website. I think Victor talked about it
at the beginning of the show. Jeremy V lead scout. We're always working
on scouting reports. We're always looking at video on prospects around here, not
just Victor, but the whole crew, and Jeremy V is the ring master.
Jason helps with our prospect ranks. That is what Victor's putting together there.
Paul is trying to help us keep the whole thing together with workflow and
if you have skills, you'd like to lend the show and keep making this
an even stronger operation. Hit Victor up in the discord email or X.
We're also brought to you by Daber Hockey and Dabber Prospects. Victor is an
editor there. Follow us work there as well as this other podcast, Dauber
Prospects Report with Peter Harling. I do a solo show, Dynasty Sports Life.
I talk for different Dynasty Sports sometimes multiple at the same time. We're
gonna dig way down deep in some baseball prospects this week with Nate Handy,
one of our favorite guests, who gets into some of the guys who you
know, hockey has the same type of guys, guys who don't have the
pedigree, but they start to show out a little bit. They passed the
eye test in the in the minors, and maybe we need to pay more
attention to them. That's Nate's favorite flavor a player. I write a little
bit for fan Tracks myself. If you don't know, I've been writing an
off season series on off season Dynasty Prep, which really, frankly overlaps a
whole lot to my preparation or my thought process on Dynasty Hockey in the third
edition about the trades that you can do around your prospect draft is out right
now. Follow Victor and myself on X at fan Hockey Life is me at
Victor Nuno twelve v C two R and you N one two is Victor Rate
and Review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever else you get your
pods. Just go on to Spreaker. That's the link I've been tweeting out
lately. That's the hosting service that holds our pods. As we kind of
branch out and we're doing this, I'm posting them independently now. It's a
pretty cool thing. Rate and review that is a way to get more people
interested in the show. Thank you for listening once again, hope you enjoyed
your world. Junior's time. We're getting back more focused on the fantasy hockey
season and until next time, keep living that fantasy hockey life.