Welcome to Fantasy Hockey Life, presented by fan Tracks, your source of information
and analysis to help you win your fantasy hockey league. Fuck up A step
hit on, Stay Lost. Here's your hosts, Jesse soup Here and Victor
nuno Fans the Hockey Live back once again to talk about all of these wonderful
NHL teams as we preview them. I am Jesse Severe of Fan Tracks and
joining me it is Victor Nunio of Dabber Prospects. How you doing, Victor,
I'm doing awesome, Jesse. Yeah, loving going through the teams,
got really great guests today and looking forward to to get krack in. How
are you doing? Oh see, it had to happen. It had to
happen, and it already did. Yeah. No, I'll tell you what,
Victor. You've been pulling guests. Man, You've been pulling some amazing
guests for these shows, and we're fired up. We're gonna have great ones
and today is certainly no exception. Last year, I think it was kind
of it was starting to be a little bit challenging for us to find somebody
who could really do the kracking because they were just getting started or now the
kracking verse has exploded, so I think we're in good shape here. Yeah,
for sure, you're right. Were there weren't that many people doing it,
but now it's a couple of years and they got some really good,
huge following in terms of fans and some great people covering it. So for
sure, it's great. It's a great market, and it's great to have
them and doing well. Yeah, and they don't have They're not the Golden
Knights who just snuck right into the Cup finals right away and then did it
again. They also have cool teal instead of the Knights colors, so we
like them better as an expansion team even though they're good. Yeah, we'll
move on from that. That is not important. What is important, Victor,
is that people can interact with us and other fantasy hockey fanatics. By
joining our discord, you can hang out and talk. There's hundreds of people
who have joined and there's usually some good interactions going on. And all you
have to do to be a part of that is email us Fantasy Hockey Life
at gmail dot com or direct message Victor or myself on Twitter at fan Hockey
Life is me at Victor Nuno twelve is Victor Victor that is not all.
There are cool things that people need to know about going on out there.
There's a brand new project that is already starting to bear some results. Why
don't you tell people what some of our incredibly clever listeners have done. Yeah,
we've been doing some great stuff and the behind the scenes with a couple
of our patrons doing the Average Draft Position project taken over. Kyler Matson,
who we've talked about with talked with before on the show, was running this
and collecting drafts and giving people an idea where these players are going in fantasy
and who wasn't able to do that this year. So we excided, you
know what, We're just gonna We're gonna take this over. So that's kind
of what we did, and it's been really great. And so we have
a couple of great patrons, Jason and Brandon, that are working really hard
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So, Victor, we need to get onto this. We've got great
talk about the cracking today. Let's come back right after this with our special
guest. We'd like to welcome our next guests, who's talking about the newest
team in the NHL, but certainly not the weakest team. They're all over
it now. It's RJ from Emerald City Hockey. How you doing today?
RJ doing great, Jesse, thanks for having me on. Hey, it's
great talking cracking it. Really, they're coming into their own. They've got
a personality and we've got a lot to talk about from what their year had.
They definitely have to be writing a high coming out of last year,
even though obviously it ended short of a Stanley Cup, which seems to becoming
more realistic all the time. They qualified for the playoffs as a seventh seed
in the West, and they didn't rest on their laurels. There they upset
the defending champs in Colorado before going down in the quarters in a slugfest with
the Dallas Stars. They came into the league with a vibe of using advanced
analytics, steering away from the name brand players, getting some of these guys
in the dispersal draft or the expansion draft and not necessarily going for some of
the big names who were even out there. But they've picked up some really
sharp players. Do you think and does the team think they are built to
a level now that the team is gonna potentially win playoff series under an annual
year and what did people think of this first or you're a Seattle crack in
hockey? The second season was a huge improvement over the first, of course,
as but I think the first season was a little bit of a disappointment
for everybody. I think COVID restrictions not being able to mesh together as a
team maybe played a part in that. In the second season, you have
everybody together for the full year, you had the full training camp, and
things just really clicked, and you had some great offseason editions by Ron Francis
as well, and that roster was really built to a point where not a
lot of people expected them to compete for a playoff spot. I certainly didn't
at the start of the season, but through that exceptional depth, they were
able to go out and beat teams in a way that I think other teams
really weren't prepared for. And now you're looking at that transition where there are
expectations. Now you get one game away from the conference finals, and those
expectations are on you right away. So I think they're looking to take that
next step this year and have some growth from the younger guys that lead to
it. Speaking of growth, but not from the younger guys necessarily. But
Jared McCann as the first forward we're going to talk about, and yeah,
he had a great year, a career year his second year in Seattle,
seventy three point pace and had the most time on ice that he's ever had,
which sixteen twenty one isn't amazing for your top forward, but we know
Seattle spreads the wealth around a little bit. But forty goals thirty assists,
he was really good. Also, he had pretty good hits sixty five twenty
eight blocks, two hundred ten shots, sixteen power play points. These are
all really great numbers in terms of regression meters seventy or sorry, seven percent
shooting over his career average was a little bit high. His PDO was a
little bit high. His bash we talk about block shots, hits one hundred
and thirteenth is position so not amazing. But with those great points, it's
hard to be too upset about it. He's got four years left at five
million, and when you look at his advanced stats like, everything looks good,
like in terms of his expected numbers, his expected goals against for he's
a pretty solid forward all the way around and really dangerous on the power plays.
I guess questions for you, RJ, are did McCann punch above his
weight class this season? Or is this a step that you could expect him
to continue taking by a top forward in his prime? Here had you see
McCann twenty twenty three, twenty four shaking out. I was wondering last season
two and then earlier this season if he was maybe punching above his weight and
if this look shooting it a pretty good clip, right, if that was
unsustainable? But I've given up wondering that because he just keeps doing it,
and I think it just comes down to that elite shot. I'm lucky enough
to be around these practices all the time to see his shot, and it
is really on that upper echelon of NHL player shots, and there's a reason
that goalies just can't seem to find a way to stop it. And he's
good at getting into positions where he can use it. I will say he's
not really a volume shooter. He does, I believe, leave the team
in shots on goal over this season, but really, when you look at
at other guys that are scoring forty goals, that are having seasons like this,
McCann isn't that much from a volume shooter. He's collective with where he
shoots, but he's so good at getting to those areas. His office right
there is on that left side, maybe right at the top of the face
officer, and he's so hard to stop from that spot. I think maybe
we see a little bit of regression. I think he's going to go as
the team goes offensively, but I think we're certainly looking at very minimum thirty
to thirty five goals with forty goal plus upside, and in that sixty five
to seventy five point range. I do think that is sustainable and especially look,
he's got room to grow. As far as that ice time figure,
he was on a line with Mattie Baniers for most of the season, and
Baniers, of course, as a rookie, you're trying to manage his ice
time a little bit. People forget he's only twenty years old. You're trying
to figure out the spots you can put him in, and I think him
being one year older is going to open up more opportunities for mccam. Let's
get into Mattie Baniers, because he had a big jump into this year,
probably as much success as could have been expected and more. Eighty games,
twenty four goals, thirty three assists, seventy nine hits, forty eight blocks,
one hundred forty eight shots. He slipped back a little bit in the
playoffs, which is understandable given the length of the season for a rooki.
He nonetheless walked away with the deserved called for trophy. The million dollar question
is how much better do we expect than years to be in year two?
Would you pick over or under seventy points for him? Oh, that's a
good question. I might. I think I would take the under. And
the reason is, though because he had some kind of rookie wall moments from
a production standpoint this past season, where you know, and you saw it
in the playoffs too, where it's just when the game gets really tougherly physical.
He is a twenty year old. I think he does need to bulk
up a little bit more. But even when he wasn't producing, he always
maintained a really good two hundred foot game, and I think he's someone who's
probably going to be a better real life player than a fantasy player over the
course of his career. That's not say you won't be a good fantasy player.
And you look at these numbers he's putting up as a rookie, but
I had caution against maybe chasing that high production upside, especially given how Dave
Haxstall treats his forward lines. And I think now might be a good time
to just get into that little caveat too, because that is something that any
fantasy player needs to know when drafting crap players, is how Dave Hackstall treats
his forward lines. He doesn't like to put first, second, third line
labels on it. He basically has three second lines if you look at their
ice time over the forwards. Alex Wenberg was the ice time leader last season
among the forwards with eighteen forty two a night. I think that ranks sixty
something in the NHL, and you'd expect a lot more from a team's ice
time leader, but that is by design. He doesn't like to wear out
his guys. He likes to have that depth in the lineup. But from
a fantasy perspective, just know, if you're drafting one of these high end
players that you expect to have a top six role, they're not going to
get the kind of ice time that maybe you'd see from a top six guy
on another team. Let's move on to Andre Burkhovski. He had an unfortunate
early end to his season after forty nine games due to a torn groin,
but in the games he played thirteen goals to twenty six assists for thirty nine
points. The aforementioned McCann and the departed Daniel Sprung were the only two on
the team of the higher points per six. The flaw and the ointment is
you didn't have such a great season defensively. Napoulea with or without you chart
for Andre Burrokovski and basically every single player without Burrokowsky shoots up. The goes
in the opposite direction of what you would want in terms of how it goes
with him, Especially striking, to me was the big hit that Beniers took
for the portion of the season when he played with Burerkovsky. But anyway,
what was your word on Andrea's recovery. What kind of deployment performance are you
expecting for Berkowsky in the second year with the Kraken. So, first off,
all indications are that Burrokowsky should be good to go for the start of
training camp next season. He probably would have been able to return in some
fashion if the Kracking had made it to the Cup final. That's what Ron
Francis said. But of course that means that for September and end training camp
he should be good to go. Don't have any worries about him being ready
for the start of the season next year. As far as production, I
would expect maybe something similar to if you extrapolate what he did this past season
out. The tough part with Brokowsky was finding a spot for him in the
lineup. I think they tried a lot of different things line combination wise,
and like you mentioned, playing with Maddie Baniers. You think, oh,
that's a great fit. You've got Burrokowsky, really good scorer, Maddie a
good distributor. But it just didn't quite click. Now I don't know if
that'll click next season, but they struggled to find a real spot for him
in the lineup. But he's too good of a player to really leave out.
I think he was at or near their leading scorer by the time he
had that big injury. So I think that is something to monitor, especially
if you're going through if your draft is after training camp, in the preseason,
where is he slotting in on these lines? Where is he going to
be in the lineup, Because I think that's going to give you a big
indication of what his upside is moving on. Jordan Everley came in and the
jelling to this cracking offense was a fountain of youth for Jordan Everley had seemed.
He scored sixty three points, the most he had since eight years ago
when he was still in Edmonton. Oiler He played every single game and was
mostly lacked to Matt Beni his hip at five on five. Eighty one percent
of his minutes came with Baniers at thirty two. He doesn't do the bash
as we call it, the block shots and hits, and he's a year
from free agency. And as you can deduce from the conversation about Burrokovsky in
terms of in terms of at Baniers also benefited greatly with Everley instead of Burkovsky
on his wing. Do you look at if you look at the Wawie Baniers
scoring drops off the chart in his minutes without Everley? Actually do you see
him as sticking with the Seattle this Seattle first line in the next year?
And is there any threat of his dropping out of the top six or the
top power play? He was third in minutes last year in the power Play,
I should say dropping out of I guess the top six. I don't
see any threat of him dropping out of the top six. And the reason
for that is because he's so good with Maddie Baniers. So you correctly point
out he was attached to Mattie's hip and there's really good chemistry there and I
think that's going to be his ticket to points. If he's playing with Maddie
Baniers, you can rely on a certain level of production and he's trust to
take on those really important even strength minutes. The power play productions there a
little bit I still from the eye test, don't you know how much he
meshes there. He's never been all that great of a power play player over
the course of his career, I think. But the thing to know about
Everley, though, is he is really streaky. If you're going to draft
him in fantasy, you need to know that about him. He'll go nine
games without a goal, twelve games without a goal last season. A season
before last, sorry, he went twenty two games without a goal. He
always makes up for it in the end. But that's just something to know
if you're going to draft him. It can be really tough when you're in
one of those rough patches, but he always does find a way to pick
it back up. Yanni Gored another Kraken who stayed healthy all season. Played
eighty one of the games, fourteen goals and thirty four assists, one hundred
and eighteen hits. He loves to throw those hits, and he also will
get you about half a block in a couple of shots per game. He
has a very reasonable two more years at about five million per on his contract.
Drove excellent possession, physical game, and around a fifty six percent work
four was next to only Ellie tolban In on the team and this thirty one
year old Yanny Gord has been a boon to the team. Interesting is average
town and I dropped one point five minutes. Even with his improving performance.
What kind of a role is Yanni Gord getting at this point in his career?
In what do you foresee for next season? I think he's a very
good three seed and I think he's settled into that role of that you can
put him out there against anybody and you know that you can have a reliable,
defensive impact type of center. He was on a line with Ellie tolvan
and or Oliver b. York Strand for much of the second half of the
season, and that line just had excellent chemistry together. I think you're looking
at he's had forty eight points he's the last two seasons. That's certainly his
ceiling at this point. You look at the ice time drop two and I
think you look at their La Kracken's inaugural season and they were maybe hoping that
Yanni could be a top six type center. He was relied on in that
kind of role because they just had nobody else. And now that they do
have some high, higher end forwards and Matti Veniers coming in, Wenberg taking
more time, Gourd's been pushed down the lineup a little bit. I think
with him, really, what you're getting with that kind of role, He's
gonna provide about that amount of points scoring. He's gonna get his blocks,
he's gonna get his hits because that's what he does. John Forrest and calls
him the pepperpot. He's gonna mix it up for sure, And yeah,
you know what you're getting with him. Brandon tannef why are we bringing him
up on it? Because absolutely adore this guy for fantasy purposes. This man
lays the wood. He was forty third in block shots and hits, and
he has the greatest roster mug shot in the history of North American sports.
If you ask me that stare that Brandon tanne gives you. He provides a
lot of value through those hits. And after two straight years of missing significant
time due to injury, he played all eighty two games this year. Like
clockwork. He gets between about fourteen and fifteen minutes a night. Do you
foresee any change in Tannev's role next year, or is he just gonna go
and knock down two of his opponents on any given night. That's exactly what
he's gonna do. He's gonna do what we all know Brandon Tanef does,
including making the great faces too. I don't know if you saw that fish
photo that he put out yesterday, but he was making the ghost etes all
holding a giant fish. So l clockwork. He does that the offseason as
well. But yeah, he's gonna hit people. There were times I was
worried about him last season given the team's depth, with Sproun Geeky Denato playing
so well, and who do you scratch? You've got to scratch somebody,
right, And there were times where I would have even said, Tanna,
I've given how well these other guys were playing. But his defensive impacts that
the Test doesn't always catch, those are top notch. I know the team
looks at that as well. If you look at some of the analytics too,
They're not going to take him out of the lineup. I don't think
he's really in danger of losing his role at guess the injuries would be the
only concern coming off the ACL tear. A couple of years ago, just
if something were to go wrong. But Brandon Tanna's going to do what he
does, including make those faces. I love that. That's fantastic. So
let's move on to a little bit of a point to pick him here.
We're gonna compare these guys because you know, a little bit lower maybe in
terms of what we might project for them. So we're we're gonna start with
Yerkstram versus Schwartz. So byork Strand first year in Seattle would a great pickup.
I think in my mind he ended up with only a forty six point
pace, but there were streaks that were really strong and he was killing it,
and then some other streaks where maybe wasn't as high. He only finished
with the eighth most time on ice for Fords. Did Yorkstran that was interesting?
Maybe he can earn more. We'll let you say that. And then
Jaden Schwartz missed eleven games but ended up at the forty six point pace.
So he's been someone who's been streaky his career. There are times where Jaden
Schwartz is just amazing and times where you're not really sure what you know in
terms of what you're going to expect from him. He's had injury issues,
but up and down in the past recent years up to seventy eight point pace
has Schwartz been all the way down to forty three. So RJ, what
do you think of these two? And who would you take between Jaden Schwartz
and Oliver york Strand. Now, between the two, I would go with
Oliver b. York Strand. Now, Schwartz he has some things going for
him. He's got the advantage of being one of the few guys who will
go net front and so he gets a lot of points that way. Hackstall
loves him too. He calls him the line fixer. You can just put
him on any line and he'll fix it. But for me, it's york
Strand. You got a no question with this because you look at last season.
I think it's a tale of two seasons for york Strand. He had
five more points and ten more games than Schwartz. But he was snake bitten
as you could be at the start of the season, and he knew it
too, and we talked about it. The shots just weren't going in for
him, but to his credit, he did power through and he was able
to get those bounces later in the season. If you take his final forty
one games, let's just call it half a season, last twenty seven regular
season games and those fourteen playoff games, he's scoring in a thirty six goal
pace. He figured it out, and I think that's going to be more
what we see going forward. I don't think you gonna score thirty six goals
next season, but I think it just took him some time to adjust everything
to find a fit on a line. And by the end of the season
two, yes, he was playing on that third line with Gordon Tolfen.
And although it's hard to even label these lines, but if you needed somebody
when Barakhovski went out, when Hackstall needed somebody to go up and try and
fix a line in the top six, Yorkstrand was that guy. And I
think you'll see that if you have injuries in the top six this year.
And that's not to mention Schwartz's injury history too. He's very injury prone.
We know this. He's also got that skin condition like they're managing it okay,
But you've got the whole track suit routine where Schwartz doesn't really practice.
He goes out there in a track suit, will only practice during playoffs and
stuff like that, so you have to factor in not just the possibility,
but the probability that he's going to miss some games. For you. Wait,
I'm actually unaware of this. Can you tell me more about this skin
condition? It was mentioned on a broadcast like a couple of years ago,
but there's yeah, sure, he's just got I don't know if it's what
Marian Hossa was dealing with or something like that, but he's not able to
do the full compliment of practices in the gear and everything, so he just
has the track suit routine where he'll go out practice beforehand in a tracksuit.
But they're trying to manage his reps and everything, and it worked really well
this season, so they were able to manage it. But I don't know,
just a level of something uncertain going forward. I'd love to know exactly
what it's called, because by day, I'm a physician, so I might
know a little bit. Okay, yeah, we don't really have I'm sure
you're well aware NHL teams aren't. You don't really have specific with any injury
stuff. It's so I can't speak to it any further. But that's just
something to know. Yeah, that's what makes it so hard. I was
I'd like to apply some of that knowledge, but I just can't when you
don't know exactly what it is. As you're saying, if they don't tell
you, then you can only guess. But that's good to know. And
yeah, I remember the whole Holest thing. That was very frustrating, I'm
sure for everyone, and I'm sure it's frustrating for Jayden to not be able
to do all the regular things that you want to do with the team in
practice and all that. So that's good to keep in mind. The next
pickom that we're going to talk about is Ellie Tolvanen and Kylie Yamamoto. Tolvanen
was a great waiver claim. I can't believe more teams didn't try to claim
him, but his anyways, that's great for Seattle. His ice time really
fluctuated throughout the season as it is scoring. He had some really strong streaks
but ended up at just a forty two point pace. Yamamo, What a
summer for yams He was sent in a captump to Detroit and then they bought
him out and then Seattle was like sure, one point five million times one
year sounds good for everybody. Maybe he can prove himself, maybe Seattle gets
a good player. Yamamoto has always been an enigma after that seventy nine point
pace twenty seven game season in twenty nineteen twenty where we thought he'd be Wow,
this guy's a point per game player, and then he has averaged thirty
five point pace since then with really good deployment with some good players in Edmonton.
Just hasn't quite worked out the way that Ammamoto I'm sure would have liked
it too. So between tolvan And and Yamamoto, a couple of reclamation projects
here, a couple of guys in new situations. What do you think?
Who would you take? I would take tolvan And, although this one to
me is a lot closer than the york Strand versus Schwartz one. And the
reason I'll take Tolvan is that he has that chemistry with Gordon york Strand,
that line was just together as long as they were all healthy last season,
as soon as tolvin And came into the lineup, and I haven't really seen
him with any other linemate, so it's hard to project where he would go
in another situation. But because I've seen that workout, I'll take the certainty
over a yamamotive. I'd look at Adp first of all, too, because
if you're able to get yamamotive much later then Tolven and maybe that's something to
look at. But the one threat I think for Tolven and potentially is that
I think his spot could be threatened if Shanewright does join that third line and
Gord moves out to wing. I know that's a possibility that the co host
of our podcast dial and he'd like to see. We're going to talk about
that on our podcast today. But I do give Tolvin in the edge finally,
I guess because he has a more defined role on the power Play too.
He's got that one timer that he's famous for, and so he's a
threat there from the right side wall and especially with Sprong gone, he's the
only one left. So I feel like he's going to have that more defined
role on the power Play that's going to let him bank some more points.
You read my mind because the last four I wanted to ask you about with
Shane Wright, but we've followed the Shane Wright saga and really interesting how he
fell into their lap. I think they got a great player there, and
then also kind of interesting how they manage him last year with having him up
and then having him scratch so that they could keep him longer, sending him
to the HL and then dominating or not dominant but doing great at the World
Juniors, and then going back to Windsor. So he's been interesting year for
him, but there's obviously still a lot of potential and a lot of growth
for Shane Wright. Do you think he makes the team and if so,
what kind of role does he have with the Kraken. So a lot of
it's going to depend on whether he's eligible to play in the AHL or not,
and that's something we still don't know. When we talked to Ron Francis,
he said those discussions still need to be had. He hoped that they
can come to a common sense solution because he's I think one game short of
having that AHL eligibility and it's a whole thing. But that's something to watch
for as that news comes out, maybe by training camp. But in his
language, though Francis did suggest that Shane's roster spot is not assured. He
said that it'll depend on what he does between now and the start of the
season. He's referred to Shane as knocking on the door, so he's going
to have that opportunity, but it's certainly not guaranteed, and so I really
think it is going to depend on what he's able to do at training camp,
And honestly, from a fantasy perspective, I personally don't see a whole
lot of upside with him this year. Certainly, if he's allowed to play
in the AHL and that news were to come out, then I think he
might play a significant number of games in Coachella Valley, and then you're looking
at him as more of a late waiver ad rather than somebody that you're going
for as an upside play. But if you can get him maybe really late
in a deep league, again, I'm not don't know the intricacies of all
the fantasy stuff, but might be a decent upside play as just someone to
stash, But personally I'd probably look elsewhere. But another that's another thing where
you need to look at training camp. Is he slotting in on a third
line, is Gord moving over to wing or is he staying in kind of
a fourth line role, And then maybe he might even sent down to Coachella
Valley. I'd just like to stay. We prepare show notes for our patrons
which include all the important information we're going over today. And there is now
a picture of Brandon Tanev's ghost stare holding a fish that is in our show
notes based on your important tip there. So that's great, Vince Done.
Let's go to the blue line. Eighty one games, fourteen goals, fifty
assist Done threatened to double his season high in scoring from his career one point
five hits of black and two shots per game. Excellent peripherals for our perspective.
Average tim and ice jumped three minutes to twenty three forty and he and
Adam Larson have made for a consistent good defensive pairing. In fact, thirteen
seventy one time on ice together led the National Hockey League as a defensive pairing
among the fifty five d pairs that had at least five hundred minutes This year,
they were fifth and goals four per sixty ninth best in fenwood four percentage.
And he's up for a big extension this offseason. Arguable in his prime
as a twenty six year old, will Seattle pay Done like a star defenseman
and will they use them as their long term power play one D one solution.
Yeah, the eight million dollar question right or somewhere in that range.
And Ron Francis of course still trying to figure out an extension with Vince Dunne,
and I'm confident they'll get it done. It doesn't seem like the kind
of case where more drama could happen or done would be traded. But anyway,
assuming that gets done for next season, a big question is can he
reproduce this type of season, because it's really just the one year that he's
had these kind of numbers. He really put in a lot of work last
offseason got to that level where he could be a legitimate top pairing defenseman.
But one thing you have to look out for it is a contract year,
and we've seen a lot of players hit that next level in a contract year
and then go back to where they were before something close to it. I
do think done as a candidate for some regression this coming season. I've watched
him play closely for two years in Seattle, and I can tell you in
that first year he was not the defenseman that he was in the second year.
And I have my concerns about whether he'll be able to maintain that.
I don't think he's going to go back to his first year production, but
still I'm a little bit it's skeptical, and the power Play is a big
part of that, because he really hasn't fully clicked on the power Play.
He was still not their number one unit power play quarterback. They tried it
out in their inaugural season, they tried it out last season, and for
whatever reason, he just doesn't fully click there. And so I think that
might be one of the reasons that Ron Francis might be hesitant to give him
that gigantic contract is that he doesn't look like a true number one power play
quarterback. I think there may be even hoping that a year or two down
the road, Ryker Evans can take over that role, because you're just not
going to get that from done. He'll probably powerplay the quarterback the second power
play unit, But I don't know that you're going to see those huge power
play numbers. I don't think there's a whole lot of upside beyond what he
did this year. Wow, all right is tag team partner? We just
talked about him. Adam Larson, great year, for him as well.
Eighty two games, you put up a career high thirty three points and for
US fantasy types two hundred twenty two hits, one hundred and seventy three blocks,
one hundred forty three shots. That's gold, leaving him is the number
ten fantasy defenseman in the format. Victor and had Play. Are the Kracking
happy with what Larson's performance was last year and do you expect to see him
next to Vince Dunne again all season next year? Yes, I do,
and that Cracking are extremely happy with the season that he's had. And he's
the kind of player that maybe if you're just looking at a point production or
things that you know a more basic fan is going to look at. He
doesn't jump off the page at you, but he is just so solid defensively.
And I do think some of those fantasy metrics captured a little bit with
the blocks, with the hits, and then of course the shot shoots the
puck too. So you said he was the number ten defenseman in your format,
So that kind of ruins my whole narrative here with the he's my sleeper
pick, go get Adam Larson because he was the one guy who's going to
try to sell to you guys more than anybody else. Yeah, I had
even mind my notes. He's not the kind of he's not a sexy pick.
He's not the kind of guy people in the drafting room will be like,
oh, good pick. But maybe he is. I don't know.
But he is just such a solid producer of those bash categories too. And
you know what, he actually puts up decent points, especially alongside of Vince
Done. He's not afraid to shoot the puck. He really does it all
and he's going to get big minutes alongside Vince Done all season. This is
Dave Hackstall's number one deep pair. He will put a label on that.
He won't label us forward lines. He won't say, oh, we have
a first, second, third line. He will say we have a number
one depair. That's the one thing he will label. So those two guys,
as long as they're both healthy, they're gonna be together and they're going
to be playing monster minutes. I'm really glad you express your skepticism on dumb
be Done, because I have been skeptical on him, and I just didn't
really believe exactly what happened last year in terms of continuing. And I've heard
people talk about how he's in this tier with like top fantasy defenseman, like
your foxism of cars, and I'm just like, that's crazy. So I
personally am glad to hear you say that because I also don't really believe that.
And you mentioned Ryker Evans. I wanted to ask you a little follow
up on that, because he's tore it up in the HL. I think
also people may forget that he's a little bit older than you might expect,
even though he's a couple years removed from the draft, because he was an
overager, so he actually be pretty ready. I've seen him in person actually
too, have been to some Barracuda games, seen him in Coachella Valley playing
for Coachella Valley, and he looks really good. He looks too good for
the HL at this point. I don't know what that means for his NHL
projection, But do you think he could make the team and get a role
already as soon as this year? What do you think about Evans? I
think there's a slight possibility he could make the team out of camp. I
think he is that good. He's too good for the AHL. I'd know
that the team has high hopes from longer term. What gives me pauses the
Brian Doomlin signing because I just don't see where Riker Evans fits into this STIG
group if everybody is healthy, and I think he's probably going to start the
season the HL if everybody is healthy, because if you look at Ryker Evans
what it would take for him to be in the lineup as a regular,
You're going to probably have one of Duomlin or Alexiak on the bench, and
that's a lot of money committed, a lot of money committed that you're going
to have up in the press box, right and so I think those guys
are going to have the first crack of the job. I think Evans is
going to be that first call up should somebody get injured. So again I
don't know exactly the fantasy format and everything, but if a krack and defenseman
were to go down and be injured early in the season, that's someone you
want to look for right away on the waiver wire if he's there, or
if you're if you're in a league where you could get him at that point,
I don't think he starts the season on the team I think he starts
in Coachella Valley unless somebody is hurt. Yeah, that makes a ton of
sense for sure. And yeah, and a lot of leagues you certainly could
get him later. Some of the leagues we play, he's probably already rostered.
Deeper leagues, but in certainly shallower ones. Keep an eye on Riker
Evans for sure, because he's a kind of guy that could get called up
mid season and potentially run a power play because he has that skill set.
So you would want that guy. All right, Let's move on to the
goalies. The Kraken had the twenty six ranked expected goals in terms of involving
hockey expected goals against for sixty but concedered only the eighteenth ranked goals three point
seven actual goals, So that's pretty good, and of course Grubauer was the
main guy for him that We also saw the rebirth or revolution of Martin Jones,
which was interesting. But back to Gruerbauer, we had he had a
percentage for the second straight season in Seattle, even though he's playing a lot
of games and he's keeping the team minute for the most part. But last
season he had fifty five. Grubauer had four point nine goal safe above expected
and his Delta Fenwick in terms of the expected safe percentage based on what he
had at all situations was pretty good. But in terms of his even strength,
he was actually a little bit lower than what you would have expected for
his safe percentage. And they'll Jones is gone now, so Grubauer is still
around. He's got four years left at five point nine million. I think
at the time when we made that signing after winning winning in Colorado was okay
or being good with Colorado, wondered how he translated to a different team in
a different situation. I think we have some information about that, but we're
not one hundred percent sure. So I think our j the question is Gruberer
going to get his safe percentage for nine hundred and what do you expect from
him? Because he is a volume starter on a good team, so he
has interests and he was still valuable for the most part, except in leagues
that really hone in on some of those metrics and can punish you if you
don't get your safe percentage too high. But what were your thoughts on Grubauer.
He's certainly the undisputed starter. He's going to get volume starts and we
know this, so that's something that's pretty much built in as long as he's
healthy. That nine hundred percentage question is something we were tracking all season long.
Last year a couple of times he went over very briefly. But I
think one thing you need to know about Grubauer and really any crack and goalie
is that Dave Hackstall's system makes goalie numbers look worse than the goalies are actually
playing. And the reason for that is you don't have a whole lot of
shots against, generally, but the ones that you do are generally higher quality
chances You'll have the team just not allow hardly any shots for ten fifteen minutes,
and then all of a sudden, there's just a great a chance any
the goalie stops that are and that's something that Grubauer has been dealing with both
seasons in Seattle. I'd say his inaugural season he was just flat out bad,
one of the worst goalie seasons in the last twenty years, and so
combined with that, the numbers looked awful. And then this season I think
he was actually legitimately good, but even playing fairly well, that say percentage
number is still going to be low. And I think you can chuck a
lot of it up to hackstall systems. So I'm not particularly optimistic about his
chances of getting over that nine hundred, or at least not very much over
that if he is able to get there. So that's just something to know.
Given the system, you're not going to get those great safe percentage numbers,
even though you will get a lot of starts, you will get a
lot of wins. So just know that if you're going to be drafting Philip
Gruebauer. Yeah, that's a great point, and I see that when you
watch the games too. It's like nothing and then you're like, whoa good
chance? And that's really hard from a goalie psychology point of view, which
you've alluded to, and I've heard a lot of goalie experts talk about that.
Some goalies just don't thrive in that system. They have a really hard
time. They just they want the volume and it's tough to get in that
rhythm. So it'll be interesting to see how he managed that. But yeah,
the bottom line is Cracking should still be a good team and he'll be
the starter, so you like that. As far as the backup, we
don't really know the Krack can have Drieger and Joey de Chord signed to the
NHL contracts this year, and as far as I can tell, neither our
waiver exempts. So that's going to create a bit of an interesting situation.
Dreeger missed all of last season after being really good in Florida, and we've
seen him play pretty well at times. I don't know that we know what
to expect from him. A Chord was really not great in the minors,
So I'm not really sure where to expect from this backup situation other than,
as you said already, Gubar is going to play a lot. So what
do we think about the cracking backup? Yeah, it's gonna be an all
out battle in training camp, and I think you have both guys that are
going to come in and compete for a spot. I had the chance to
ask Ron Franzi's point blank about this. I said, what's your outlook on
the goalie situation with Joey with Driggs here, both of them together going to
the training camp, And he said, that's pretty simple. You've got two
guys, and you've got three guys, and you've got two nets. They're
going to battle it out in training camp and one of those guys going to
have to go through waivers and be sent down to Coachella Valley. As for
which it is, if I'm handicapping the goalie race right now, personally,
I'd say maybe fifty five forty five into Chord's favor, just because he's played
better more recently. He had an excellent run with the Coachella Valley Firebirds,
leading them all the way to Game seven of the Calder Cup Finals. Looked
very good there, and I think there's a reason the team wanted to bring
him back and was comfortable giving him a two year deal with that kind of
money. I think they're hoping that he can run with this and take the
job, and hopefully he can. Chris Drieger, ANHL player, was not
bad with the Florida Panthers that he's not going away. Had that ACL injury,
and he did come back and play some games for the Firebirds in the
at the AHL level after recovering from his injury, but he seemed like he'd
never grant fully back up to one hundred percent. So he's going to be
battling it out for the job. Give me whoever's got the lower adp Right,
that's who I'd just do that lower bet. I think to Chord probably
has the better odds slightly. But I know, like my co host of
our podcast, Dylan, he disagrees with me. He thinks it'll be drigger.
Maybe that tells you something tremendous or Jay, you have given us some
great insight on the Seattle cracking. Why don't you let people know where they
can follow your work? Right? You can listen to us on the Deep
Dive podcast. We have our own podcast, a weekly podcast, and all
things cracking on our YouTube channel that is Emerald City Hockey. We do a
live interactive postgame show after every single cracking game. And then finally on social
media, especially for fantasy hockey, that's gonna be super important. Starting goalies,
projected lineups, we got that for every game. We're usually the first
to put that put that kind of stuff out. We take great pride in
getting it out very quickly. Make sure to follow us Twitter, Instagram,
my threads. Even it's all the same user name and that is Emerald City
hk Y. So Emerald City hk Y. Awesome. Thank you so much
for coming on r J and good luck to the cracking next year. Yeah,
thanks for having me, Wilson. That's a fire. Quit grab.
Now it's your weekly goalie talk with Kats Silverman. Cat's instinct. Time to
talk to Seattle krack in time to get kracking on the Seattle goalies. Cat.
So we got Kat Silverman here in goldmag We're gonna talk about some prospect
goalies. We're gonna start with Simeon via Zavoi, the Azavoi yaz a boy.
He's a six foot three, twenty twenty one, sixth round pick by
Seattle. He split his time between the VHL and MHL last season with some
pretty strong results he has. He's looking he's grown up in the toll Parer
system and really good numbers evenly split between the VHL MHL this season. Last
season he was all MHL, split between two different teams, and so that's
a little interesting his hockey prospecting. He's looking like a thirty twenty. He
started with twenty and now he's a thirty one percent chance of being a star.
And so there's some decent comps there. It's the one I put on
the sheet here is Patrick Waugh, which is silly because he's unique, but
his equivalency wasn't really that high this early in his career, and then it
took off like a rocket ship. Not that I'm saying that's going to happen,
but there's at least some decent comps there. So what do your instincts
tell you about VI as a voye man? That's I think it's weird because
his numbers in Russia are unbelievably good, and it's rare that we see a
guy who puts up numbers that are that good throughout the Russian system. He
was playing in the MHL, which is there essentially their equivalent of the Major
Juniors, and then the VHL he's putting up the same numbers, which is
like their equivalent of the HL. And I think this year will probably,
barring some major atastrophe in the depth chart, there get a chance to see
him play some HL games, just based on his age and his experience level
and the numbers he's been putting up elsewhere. It's always hard to tell,
though, just what that means for them coming over to North America and if
they're that good in the system, if they're going to come over to North
America, because sometimes teams want to keep those guys just because they're consistent and
they're good, and they're homegrown talent. And I appreciate that he's getting consistent
reps and that he's getting the chance to if he's not getting the game starts
in one league, they're moving him up and down within the system so that
he's playing at the VHL and the MHL, so he's getting those, he's
getting game action, and he's getting to face the pock and face different levels
of competition. But nothing about his game stood out when I was watching just
a few highlights of them as being overly impressive or overly concerning. Some of
the Russian players get a little too excited outside of the blue paint. They
start to challenge a little too aggressively, and so I was looked to see
if some of the prospects are staying a little farther in their crease and he's
one of those. But didn't notice anything about his technique that really just stood
out to me as Wow, this guy is ready for the big leagues.
It almost looked like some of the games that I saw highlights from weren't his
most challenging ones. I think just based on age and when he was drafted.
We're probably a couple of years out from seeing him in North America anyway,
but he's one that if he does come over, could be a really
good pickup option for someone nice. Yeah. Always hard to know is some
of these Russian guys. And the next guy I want to talk about also
from overseas, and that's Nicholas Coco. He was twenty two second round pick
by the Krack in six foot three. He's in the car Pot system there
in the Liga, and this season he played mostly in the Mestice but also
in the Liga and on loan to Sipa. These names are not familiar to
me. Sorry, but I know you've talked previously about the car pod system
and have had some good things to say about it. I will say though
his equivalency right now looks really low in those systems. It's a little bit
interesting to see and most of his comps are really not great. And then
there's like a random Tim Thomas and a Unice Corpuslo who had a really wild
development trajectory, especially considering where he's at now in his career. So what
do your instincts tell us about Nicholas Coco and should we be excited about him.
The car Pod system obviously is one of the Finnished systems that I think
is the best primed for goaltenders meeting with success, especially if they do want
to leave finlandon play overseas, because that system just has a higher level of
coaching, attention, higher level of just an overall systematic structure to it.
That's the system that leave I Marilinen, I believe he is Ottawa Carolina.
I believe it's Ottawa go blum Quist, Justice in Noonan are all from the
car Pot system. So it's a it's an easy team to look at and
say, oh if this It's almost like looking at for Lunda over in Sweden
where Henry Lenquist played, just saying oh, this is a team that they
are. They're developing these guys to go over and play in North America.
His game's a little weird to me because a lot of the Finnish goaltenders like
to play very low. They like to really move their feet a lot,
get out to the top of their crease, move around really quickly, sometimes
have a tendency to hold their upper bodies a little bit too low. And
Nicholas Coco does the opposite, He tries to make sure that he's covering the
top of his net even when he needs to move from side to side when
he needs to get that lateral rith going, which sometimes pays off for him,
sometimes does not. I think his decision making at times looked like he
was trying so hard to establish his overall technical consistency and really find his niche
when it came to the way that he played that he almost sacrificed a couple
goals there. And I don't hate that because he's young enough that he can
do that. It's just once again, Seattle has a system where everyone is
a wait and see. He was playing in mess diis for a chunk of
the year. Unfortunately, I think a few too many guys from that system
ended up getting drafted all at the same time, and they almost didn't have
enough spots within the Liga, the mess disc and then their U twenty and
U eighteen system to really have everyone getting sufficient starts. So I think that's
how we ended up getting loaned to Sipop, But obviously that's only known by
the GM over there, so hard to tell for sure, but that does
signify if he is one of the ones that did get loaned out, that
he is not a top priority in their development system, which might explain why
he's not at nearly as high of an NHL success predictor rate as some of
the other guys that we've looked at from that system in the past. So
I think he's There are a couple of guys that have gotten drafted by teams
in the past that I look at, and I wonder why the team,
if they just wanted another body in the system, if they drafted the kid
purely so they had someone their development camp as a shooter tuotor. But and
I don't think that he's anywhere near that level. But I don't think that
he is one of the top ones to look at the moment. But I
do, if I understand correctly, a couple of guys from that system are
going to be graduating out, So there's a chance that we'll get to see
more from him this year and we'll have a clearer picture of what he's going
to look like moving forward. All right, that's good to know. And
the last guy we're going to talk about Joey Decord six foot three, taken
way back in twenty fifteen, He's now twenty six years old, only a
handful of NHL games to his name. His equivalence. He has also looked
very flat his entire career. His top comp is probably someone like Jimmy Howard,
who is an NHL starter. So that's great. Do you think the
chord is ever going to be anything more than a spot backup? And what
do your instincts tell you about him? Oh? So, I got to
he's a unique goaltender for me because he's one of the few that I've gotten
to see extensive footage of his games pre pros in person, because I got
to watch him play at ASU for a couple of years there, and I
had to watch him playing a lot of his games, and I didn't love
his game. I thought his decision making was a little scattered all over the
place, his technique was a little haphazard. He was a really effective goaltender
for them with the defensive structure that they had. He worked really well with
his defense, which I think is up plus to his name. And I
think that he did a really good job of when he allowed a just absolutely
wild goal, just shaking it off and moving on. He was like a
goldfish. He'd allow a really bad goal just shake it off and he was
good to go. But that being said, there were times where I watched
him and I thought, this kid is not going to be a not just
pro ready next year, but he's not going to be a pro goaltender.
And I was shocked when he did end up getting signed. And I believe
when he got signed because it was during his final collegiate season. He ended
up going straight to the NHL. He had been in Ottawa's system, and
now he's in Seattle's. I don't know if he's shown me anything yet that
indicates his game is improving enough at the NHL level to feel more confident that
he's going to be I'm more permanent fixture at the NHL level. I think
that ultimately I look at him more as like a Michael Hutchinson, sort of
a tweener who plays most effectively in the HL and then can come up to
the NHL when there's an injury or an illness villain if needed, can play
a couple of games if needed. Sometimes if he's riding on the adrenaline,
can really put up an incredible performance here and there. But I just don't
love his game enough to feel confident that he's there to stay essentially at the
NHL level. I think there are too many other guys who do have more
consistency and more technical decision making pros essentially on the ice that I don't really
see him as someone that people should hang their hats on his career there.
I don't think he's someone that anyone should be hitching their wagon too. Who
is their top only prospect in Seattle? Yes, honestly, it's I think
they don't even know at this point. They've rotated through so many guys since
they were since their inception, and I think that's for a young expansion team,
a good thing. They haven't really just picked one guy and committed to
him. But this is a team that had Martin Jones. I don't think
they really know what direction they want their goaltending to go just yet. I
would say maybe, I don't know. Decord's probably the most an already right
now, but that's not saying a ton. I think that they've focused on
other areas first, which is fine. They have the ability to trade and
sign for NHL talent when they need it. I don't think they need to
rush into immediately adding a top tier goaltending prospect. But that is kind of
a weakness in their system there, in my opinion. If they treat it
like they treat the skaters on the team, they're just gonna go with a
bunch of guys and one of them will be okay, one of them will
be Martin Jones, Martin Jones at best. All right, thanks for giving
us your instincts on the Seattle Crack and goalies. Cat. Absolutely, we'll
be back right after this. The nine dig Retrack Project had a couple of
years. They've been stacking up that system. They're all the way up to
nineteenth in Victor's rankings of the thirty two NHL clubs. In terms of their
prospect system. They pulled a few guys in this year's draft, Edward Shale
as number twenty overall, Carson repcoff Oscar Fisker Mulgard, and Lucas Dragasavitch,
who has come up several times on our shows. Those were just in the
first two rounds. Were the Krakens picks. We are going to start though,
with none of those people, but a different guy. Who is your
no brainer? Who is it, Victor? It's such a no brainer.
He already came up on the show, and that is Ryker Evans twenty one
second round pick. Their second ever pick drafted. Isn't dull as an overager.
Debuted in the HL this season forty four points in seventy one games for
Coachella Valley in the regular season, lost in game seven of the Calder Cup
final point per game. Twenty six points in twenty six games and the playoffs,
including five goals, a twenty one assists. There'll be twenty two this
season. He's pretty NHL ready. We talked about him potentially getting a look,
especially with injuries. He's got tears left on the entry level. He
also could just continue to slide. One of the things that is nice we've
talked about Jacob Stoler. He is the HL insider for the Hockey News,
and he does he's really great player cards like what Jay Fresh does, but
for the HL and Ryker Evans eighty nine percent game score and meaning he impacts
the game in a lot of ways. Most of his data looks really good,
including his goals for of course he against expected goals against hits big hitter.
Not so good in terms of the powerplay goals, but powerplay assists is
good. Not the biggest shooter, but overall looks really good and definitely encouraged
to follow him and check out his work. I keep encouraging him to make
that publicly available on a website, but he just tweets them out as of
now. Anyways, we need to learn a little bit more about Evans Jesse
and you have that information from r Fahl Scout. Yes, thanks to our
scout, Jacob, I do have some words on Evans. His skating according
to Jacob, good smooth skating defenseman with good strides and speed moving up the
ice. Good strong cuts and edges that make him useful along the boards.
Puck handling is great, very poised with the put, great vision that allows
him to maneuvers way around defenders in transition, and good hockey sense. His
shot good quick risk shot, good slap shot. Sometimes jumps into the play
to create scoring chance, but leans more towards shooting the puck through traffic.
In terms of his panic meter, it's low, extremely poised on both ends
of the ice, very rarely makes mistakes and less fully covered. Defense is
great. He reads plays very well, knows where he needs to be at
the right times. Good gap control can be aggressive by forcing opponents toward the
outside. His best asset then, are the puck skills and transition game.
The biggest concerned physicality. Coming in at just six foot, going to need
to grow up to be a bit stronger. He's shown some flashes in the
HL, but he's gonna need more to succeed in the end. Top tier,
potential top four defenseman. His game could translate easily to the NHL.
If his offensive game continues to approve, he could be a second pairing defenseman,
maybe a quarterback for a power play unit. Maybe most likely Tier still
probably in the NHL, a top six guy. Worst case scenario's offensive game
doesn't come along and he becomes a reliable, shutdown, puck moving defenceman.
Stylistic comparable. He went with Brady say so yeah. Overall, A big
fan is Jacob of Riker Evans game. And we'll see what the NHL ranking
has to say. Mason Black who provides comparisons and tweets them out and gets
votes off the internet, And this week it's going to be Riker Evans versus
Owen Pickering, the first ground pick last year for the Pittsburgh Penguins in the
poll, the votes came in for Riker Evans fifty five percent to forty five
percent with one hundred and fifty five votes counted. So yeah, Riker Evans
over Owen pickering Victor. Is that the way that you would lean with this
particular competition. I still want to say pick pickering, right, because it
just sounds fine, But it's Yeah, it's like a literation. I like
it. It's not only like it, it is it, but yes,
it's We are on our six of recording, y'all. A little behind the
scenes, we're a little bit ilarious right now. The more tired Victor gets,
the more pedantick he gives. That's how this goes. Yes, But
yeah, as fun as that would sound, to go pick erring to pick
pick ring, I think it's got to be Evans. I think Evans is
so close to NHL ready. I don't like to think about who's blocking him
or what kind of opportunity, but when you're this close to the NHL,
I think it does matter. And Evans is basically NHL ready. He could
step into the role if the CRACK can decide that Vince dunne is Worth is
too expensive and they don't want to give him a big contract, which I
personally would do that. Then they can just slot Evans right into that spot
and that would be amazing. So I think for all that reason, even
if they do resign done, I would definitely take Evans here. I like
Pickering, I'm just not sure that he has the biggest upside, but he
is still a big dude that needs they'll fill into his body, so it's
possible that he can continue to get there, but he's just several years away.
So I'm definitely taking Evans. I like his upside. I like how
close he is to be an NHL ready. I like how there's no one
really competing for his spot. People may say, oh, Dragon Sevach,
but like Dragon Sevishill needs how to learn how to play average NHL defense,
which he is a long way away from. Reminds me of Ryan Merkley,
who I think you could say at this point never really figured it out.
And so anyways, I'm not worried about someone like Dragon Sevas taking his spot.
You also look at his comps on Hockey Prospecting and he doesn't look like
the most amazing partly because, as I mentioned, being drafted as an overager,
you got to regress his equivalency, so they don't look great. He
graduated with a nine percent chance of being a star and six two percent chance
of being an NHLer, So there's that. The top TWN Hockey model has
him about four percent chance of being a star but sixty one percent chance of
being an nhlor. So he seems pretty like he's going to be an NHLer.
It's just a matter of what the upside is. But when you watch
him in person and we see what he's doing in the HL, I think
that's all pretty clear. I think he can do it. He can play,
he can get offensive production, at least in the HL. We'll see
if it translates. But that's why I'm taking Jesse. Makes sense to me,
Victor. Let's go on to your need to know prospect. My need
to know is David go yet he's going to be the need to know Seattle
twenty two second round pick ninety two points in sixty three games in the OHL
this past season, and that was a big step up from his previous year.
He had in his draft season seventy three points in sixty six games for
Sudbury in the OHL. He also got into a few Coachella Valley fireboard games
at the end of the season, which was nice to see. He didn't
really do much in the regular season within two games, had seven playoff games
with two points. They did something there, which is nice. Signed his
entry level deal in April, and because of his age, he's not twenty
until March twenty seventh of next year, so he's going to be back in
the OHL probably unless he makes the team, which I seriously doubt. So
you're gonna see another year in the OHL of David Go. Yet, what
did he do there this year? In terms of Brown's tracking data, his
primary assist rate was really good. He was almost two standard deviations above the
mean. Really great At slop passes for sixty he tries a lot of them.
They don't work out so well most of the time. His success rate
is actually pretty low, but he tries really dangerous passes, which is good.
His expected goal is also pretty high. In terms of his offense,
he rates out at a ninety six percentile. Interesting. His transition isn't very
It isn't good in some ways. In some ways it's actually okay in terms
of his controlled entries, but in terms of his cross lane plays, it's
not so good, so he's kind of above average. His defense actually rates
out is not so great forty fourth percentile. But overall he's a pretty strong
player ninety third percentile in Mick Brown's tracking data. But that only tells us
part of the story. Jesse tell us the rest of the story from our
FHL scout counter point, here comes the word on the street from Jeremy,
our FHL scount skating above average, very fast skater, although his strength on
his feet and edgework holding back from being truly elite. Passing is elite,
quick hands, smooth passer, says Jeremy. Shooting average the skill he needs
to improve for him to hit his peak. He currently doesn't appear to be
a dangerous shooter, although he is a high volume one. A lot of
his quote shots are breakaways or tapins created by his speed and not slot chances.
He also has a bit of a wind up on his rister that will
make it easy to get in front or get stick on stick before he releases.
In terms of In terms of his IQ Hockey IQ, it's above average.
He seems to know where teammates are Reeds plays wells does need a bit
more sense of urgency or care when he's the last man back on the power
play for checking, Average go ahead does not have much snarl or tenacity to
dog puck carriers. Hopefully he can get paired with linemates that do this for
him give him the space to create defense. Average shows flashes of really good
possessing, poaching passes in the neutral zone and leading to breaks with his hands
and vision, but not a consistent force best asset stick handling and passing.
The concern consistency and engagement. Seems less engaged without the puck, which leads
to him disappearing for shifts and stretches. What is the top outcome for him?
A first line center seventy to eighty points, says Jeremy. If the
offensive skill can consistently flash, he'll be exciting to watch for years to come.
There's a boombust profile here. His fifty percentile role is a third line
winger with some flash. There's some risk here, especially with the crack and
having beneers and right ahead of him. It would give him a bit more
opportunity to showcase his offense. Stylistic comparable roof Jack Hughes the shiftiness and vision
are comparable, but the finishing quality in general, like you are not there
at the level of Hughes. Let's go to the NHL Rankking Mason Black with
his data and pull. He put David Goyette up against Jackson Blake, a
twenty twenty one fourth round pick of the Carolina Hurricanes, and what do we
see here between the two? We put it out on the internet the Twitter
and the vote came in for David Goyett seventy five to twenty five percent over
Jackson Blake. Victor, is that what you would have done in a matchup
of these two young players? Oh yeah, I like it. Go yeah,
I think he he really the Sudbury didn't have the most talent to work
with, but he did. He did really well with what they had.
I think Blake is not really going to be a scoring threat as he moves
up in the league. There's still a chance he's in the NC DOUBAA.
But I think Oh Yet has a little bit more offense to give, so
I really I like him. He's also a bit younger, actually, both
these guys are younger. Go Yet in March twenty seventh birthday. Blake is
actually in August third, so if you regress his numbers a year, he'd
actually be pretty great. So maybe there's some opportunity there. But I like
go Yet. I like his opportunity. I think there aren't there's a whole
lot in this system either, so I think he has a good opportunity within
the system. But also just in terms of his development, one more year
in junior, I think he can really pop off. So yeah, I
like him. In terms of his hockey prospecting, he kind of looks like
some guys. Most of the guys that are like man Or didn't make it.
Andre Kuzmanko is one of them that was interesting, Martin Nachez is one.
I think he actually looks a fair amount like Devin Setegucci, who was
a pretty average producer for the Sharks. I think he could be something like
that. So that's not bad. And in terms of top down hockey,
seven percent chance of being a star, thirty percent chance of being an NHL
or so a little less optimistic, but yeah, there's this is a lower
depth guy. But go Yet is someone who should be interesting to people,
and Victor to keep your eye on prospect is who Tie Nelson is. To
keep your eye on Seattle's third round from twenty twenty two. He's only five
foot ten, but he's built like a tank two hundred pounds. He's thick,
he's strong, he hits people. He puts seventy eight points in sixty
seven games for North Bay Battalion of the OHL. Really nice increase endpoint pays
for the defenceman from his previous season. He was at fifty one points in
sixty six games in his draft year, which is really good, and then
blew that away this year and then twenty five points in twenty playoff games also
really nice job there. He has one more year in North Bay thanks to
the CHL and HL agreement signed his entry level though, So that's good to
see how much the organization believes in him. And now we're going to hear
from our FHL scout. From you, Jesse, and our FHL scout on
this one is also Jeremy. He is going to provide the following report on
our guy, mister Nelson skating elite stride as smooth and effortless. Got quite
a bit of power and good etche work, but not a ton of pick
him up put him down foot speed. Puck cane lane above average for Nelson
the shot Elite. The more Jeremy watched, the more he wondered if this
was the best asset actually for Nelson. He thinks last time he was a
bit off put. The last time he reviewed Nelson's performance, he was put
off by the fact he didn't shoot that hard or score, but his ability
to seemingly get every shot through any amount of traffic is really valuable. His
IQ above average offensively average. Defensively, he's good to find an outlet passes,
but isn't always aware of where his man is in the zone. Defense
average. Jeremy has a bit more concerned about the defense than the last time
that he reviewed this player. He isn't particularly aggressive about gaping up and his
size. At his size, he has less of a chance to recover when
he gets caught. Best asset shot and skating. It's a potentially deadly combination
if he reaches his peak outcome. But the biggest concern he's going to need
to learn to body up to defend NHL caliber forwards top tier potential. What
is the UPMO outcome we could get out of Nelson? Tier one? The
offensive talent is there, not sure if he'll score many goals, but could
see him putting up ten plus forty or ten plus fifty lines consistently with peak
seasons on a hypothetical powerhouse team even higher. Most likely Tier two Settling is
a second pairing powerplay two type defenseman, especially with some competition in Seattle system
already, the right hand shot and skating ability will help him a lot.
Though stylistic comparable, the smooth skating and ability to get pucks on net reminds
him of grab your chair Kaal mccarr. Clearly different stratospheres, Sarah, okay,
but you don't see this kind of offensive talent every day. To compare
it to other guys that Jeremy's looked at more recently, maybe something more like
Kevin Kortchinsky, but Korchinsky has better skating ability, better defense, more prototypical
size. Anyway, NHL Rankking Mason Black came in and his tie Nelson vote
competition is Christian Cairo of the Dallas Ours their number two or the second round
pick in last year's twenty twenty two draft, And wow, the vote came
out dead even Actually, I'm sure it came out different because it says fifty
to fifty and there were one hundred and thirty nine votes, but they were
both within a rounding error of being even so tie Nelson Christian Kirrou break the
tie, Victor. Which one is better? Oh? Man, that's tough.
I like both of these. I thought you were gonna give men who
you thought first. I think that I think that Kirrou might have some more
opportunity in Dallas than Nelson does. Here there's obviously there's his skin up at
the major level and that there's some guys moving through. But and Nelson,
there really is a murderous row of defenseman coming up through the system. I
definitely think it's Kirrou. I like him a lot more, but there is
there's really decent opportunity for Nelson, and he's such a tank. He's I
think he's got even though he's not the tallest guy, he plays tough,
and I think that's something that can translate Kiru. Yes, that's Jordan Cairou's
a little brother. And yes, christ and Kirru does have sick mits just
like his brother Jordan, and has some really good projectability too in terms of
his offense. He was able to increase his star potential this year so that
was nice in the OHL. And he's not the biggest guy either, five
ten, just like Nelson, a little bit lighter, but he they're both
rice shots, and I just kind of trust Dallas is drafting a little bit
more. And I really thought that he was great in his draft here.
And remember that draft class was just so exceptional for defenseman. So even though
you're talking about defenseman taking way later, they still have pretty good upside.
So anyways, I like no I like Kirru here, but not to say
that I don't like Nelson. I would take Kirru though. Back to Nelson
his hockey prospecting, he was able to increase his star potential a little bit.
He looks like some guys that are in this model. Connor Timmins is
one that he looks and he was able to turn his career around and get
some good opportunity with the Leafs in Arizona. So that was nice to see.
So maybe that's an outcome where it takes them while maybe the offense isn't
fully translate. The Top Town Hockey model has him at a six percent chance
of being a star, seventy eight percent chance of being an NHLer. So
that's pretty decent in terms of overall. I think that he's someone who you
should be interested in. Maybe don't expect a huge amount of offense and Jesse.
There's more guys we could talk about, but we're at a time so
you can read more on the one note that we have in as a patron,
And if you're interested in helping out with some scouting, you can hit
me up on the discord or Twitter or email us. You get some pretty
great access to stats and videos if you're interested in doing that. It's just
to do a couple of reports. Someone All right, that's it, let's
come right back, close up the show, back to close us out.
Q are gonna play your leagues on fan tracks. I will just suggest it
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