Welcome to Fantasy Hockey Live, presented by fan Tracks. Here's 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 sovi here
and Victor Nunyo Fantasy Hockey Live, back once again to talking fantasy hockey.
It is me Jesse Severe Fan Tracks, and he Victor Nuno of ep RNK
side. Victor, how you doing tonight? I'm doing great, Jesse.
It's great to be back with you again after we were apart for a couple
episodes, and today as we're recording, I got really surprised I forgot about
these games over in Sweden. Did it catch you by surprise? You know
what? I caught it this morning beforehand, but yeah, I was.
It does throw you off when there are weekday games in the middle of the
day. It's just there's something not right about that. There's something not wholesome
about it. It was eleven am over here, and then on Sunday,
the day this comes out, it's going to be a five am. So
people got to have set their rosters already. That's way too early here to
be thinking about that. Oh my gosh, Europe. What are you doing
over there? Don't you know that the NHL Games are only supposed to happen
in ungodly hours for you people? All right, I guess you deserve something.
You deserve something. I hope you enjoyed Wings versus Senators. It looks
like it was quite a shootout. And Victor and I are recording at night.
Yes, you got that right. We're recording at night. And that's
okay because in Wisconsin now night is twenty two hours long. It's pretty much
all night at this point, it's all dark all the time. I don't
know, Victor Daleight Savings is a bummer. I think we should make it
permanent. Yeah, stop it back and forth. It's so stupid. And
then yeah, it's like five four forty five at night and it feels like
it's the middle of the night. It's insane. If you wake up in
the middle of the night and you don't know what to do, the best
thing you could do is to log onto our discord and fire off some fantasy
hockey takes. Probably don't give out sleep deprived ones because maybe they won't be
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it nicely. Even if it is. As long as you're being nice,
you just don't get punchy because you didn't get enough sleep. Don't blame me
anyway. The discord is there. You can join it for free. Fantasy
HOCKEYLFE at gmail dot com will get you the link to get in, or
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Victor. Nunio is at Victor Nuno twelve is Victor. That's how it works,
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Patreon dot com slash Fantasy Hockey Life. Sonight, it is once again not
a full on interview episode, but it'll be a two segment episode and we're
gonna be talking some X gamers looking at some of Victor's great writing. That
will be the first segment, and then after that we'll have another edition of
Tidy Takes with Admiral Ryan. So let's take a brief break, come back,
get that show started. Figure you write words at ep ring Side that
people should subscribe to ep ring side to read, but just in case they
don't, let's talk about some of the players who you have been talking about
recently in your column there, and your column is about X gamers and your
column is to talk about players who are hitting certain milestones in their career.
Our listeners know one hundred gamers, fifty gamers, all those different types of
gamers that we do on this show. How's that, How's that? How's
that column working for you so far? Are you enjoying this format? Yeah,
it's really fun. I get to pick basically whichever I want deep dives
on different prospects, some that haven't reached NHL start them, Yes, the
prospect deep dives, and then guys at different stages of their development, see
what's left, what's cooking? And I've been reached. I've reached out a
couple of times to listeners and they always fled me with so many good suggestions
that it's great. It's like I have a queue and then they have suggestions
and I'm like, oh, this guy should move up to the top of
the queue, which is what happened with the next one that's coming out as
Oh, Daniel Gushin is playing a couple NHL games, Now let's do a
deep dive on him. So feel free to reach out with names. I'm
just basically adding them to a queue of things that I'm writing about, and
I might move them around depending on what's happening with that player. So definitely
enjoying it and if you have feedback on what you're liking or not liking,
feel free to let me know. Also, if you have suggestions, I
would really appreciate if people who actually are subscribed are the ones mainly suggesting,
because if you're not reading it, then you can feel free to suggest.
But it's if you're not actually subscribed, then you're not going to be able
to read it. So it's a little bit of a what's the point for
some times, But I still appreciate the feedback, and you can usually get
a snippet of the article even if you're not not subscribed, so that's good
too. Yes, sir, let's talk about a few of these guys and
I will I guess I'll start these out Victor and maybe give people a sense
of what's going on, and then we need to get your take as well.
First, Maki Samuskevitch a first round pick by the Florida Panthers. I
believe he's a winger over there, and he was drafted twenty fourth overall back
in twenty twenty one. And you provide a lot of good data the same
some of the similar types of insights that you give on the show. In
some of the cool charts and graphs on there too about what samus Kevitch has
been able to do for the Florida Panthers so far, but he has not
really permanently cracked the lineup. He's had a couple of games so far this
year that he's made it up there, but he's been sent back to Charlotte,
and I tried to we need to get the inform take, which is
yours, Victor, but I'll just throw a couple points out there. At
the beginning, as I was looking at samus Kevitch's amateur tape, the stuff
that he was doing before he got into the NHL, it seemed to me
like he was making his goals by just a lot of skating into the middle
of the ice and just chucking it in. At Michigan, nobody was really
coming at him, and he just basically got to skate in all by himself,
right in front of the net about between the dots, And yeah,
I don't see how that's going to work in the NHL at least, but
I guess maybe that's something that a lot of guys are able to get away
with. In college, he had a couple of goals in a preseason game
in the NHL this year, but nothing so far at Charlotte. A couple
of assists, that's all. So I don't think he's made the case to
crack the lineup. But you're not just looking on production or some of the
things we've seen in the past. You're looking on potential victor. What is
your take on Mackie Samuskevitch. Yeah, he's a really interesting player, and
you're right, he played on some really good Michigan teams and before that he
played on a really good Chicago Steel team, So you have to start asking
the tough questions, Like you said, is this really going to translate?
I think it was a bit surprising and reassuring that he made the NHL team
out of camp. I was great. The Panthers are a team. For
him to make that team, that's a feather in his cap. It didn't
go so well the first the few games that he had, but that's also
not terribly surprising. He really did need some AHL time, and for assists
in nine games is not bad. And I think some of the things that
are really interesting to note about him is that he does have a lot of
different skills. He's not just like a one trick pony. He can playmake
he has some pretty decent ability to get in and hold the puck and not
just not lose it or anything like that. So he is a little bit
undersized, but he's really smart and he gets to the right places. He
protects the puck pretty well. I think that's the thing is that he can
probably flex his skills anywhere in the roster, and so that's part of what
helped him make the team, and I think that's also what could help him
succeed in the NHL. And of course you want the guy that's going to
be a for sure top liner, but this is someone who's probably a little
bit more available to you, and I think the upside is still a little
bit or maybe like a fifty point pace maybe upside for a little bit more.
But he also seems pretty for sure to get a decent role with the
big club within the next couple of years. That's that's maybe a little bit
better than some people thought about Samyskevitch. And the other thing is that the
pipeline there in Florida it's not good. He's got the inside track against pretty
much anybody else. That's one thing that is sometimes useful. You never want
to just hang on to the one guy who is the heir parent or the
only guy that's interesting. But it is good, right if you're like,
Okay, there's not much competition. He should get a really good long look.
And so I think that matters, don't you think? Yeah, for
sure he's going to get the opportunity. So if he's got the talent to
follow through with it, sure he's going to have that. So Maggie Samuskevitch
TBD is really the only answer. Fact, that's probably the answer for everybody
we're talking about today, but just spoilers. Next up, Victor Lucas Raymond.
You wrote an article in a you called it Fantasy Hot Focus is the
title of this. Will Lucas Raymond be a star fantasy producer? And I
think that the smart money is probably on yes. Although he's been heartbreaker.
The second year of his career, he didn't get as many points as he
is his rookie year, but remember back two years ago in his rookie year
fifty seven points. I broke down and got myself a month of stat head
from Hockey Reference just so I could run this, just because I care about
our listeners, and I wanted to run this query victor. All of the
players since two thousand and five who've put up at least fifty seven points in
their rookie season. There are fifteen of them, Victor, since the two
thousand and five strike era there and all of them have turned out to be
amazing players. Everybody on the list has hit at least seventy points once in
their career. That would be Patrick Lyone at the lowest at an idea,
and of course Line still has plenty of chances to go to score higher than
that. Paul Stastny is on that list for scoring seventy eight points his first
year. Seventy nine was his career high. But everybody else on this list
who scored that much as a rookie has had point per game seasons. I
think that just in terms of what he was able to produce at that age,
and a lot of these guys are Timmy Pinerin's coming in doing this at
twenty four, Paul Stastny was twenty one. For him to do what he
did at nineteen years old is exceedingly rare, and so I think there's a
good argument just out of that that you can see something. And then of
course today he had a breakaway in Stockholm, a breakaway goal two on one.
He kept it himself and he scored, so obviously that means he's headed
for great things. He's actually scoring pretty well already this season. I know
last year I was just depressed by Lucas Raymond because he didn't have the breakthrough
that we expected. But you looked at this a little more in depth,
Victor, and what did you come to conclusions with Lucas Raymond? Yeah?
I was really interesting. So the genesis this article is also interesting because basically
Michael Clifford, Cam and I were basically arguing about his upside and our private
slack channel over any p ring side and we all were trying to figure out
like where, yeah, where does he sit? How much upside is left?
And there we were throwing some numbers around and blending the eye test and
it's yeah, he's really good, but it's like, how much higher can
he go? Because basically at this point he's been hovering sub sixty point pace.
Right now this season he's at a sixty two point pace after nice production
today, But how much more is there? Was really the genesis of the
question. I know ca Cam definitely is of the opinion that it's more that
he's closer to an eighty point guy at his peak. But what was also
interesting is I got some comments from some of the Detroit writers, from like
the Hockey Writers and George Mallock of the Malak Report, because I wanted to
talk to people who really have their eyes on him daily and see what they
have seen and what have been his struggle and what he can you know,
what he needs to work on, and so that was really interesting too,
really trying to blend that eye test with what you're seeing analytically, because some
of his underlying numbers frankly, are just really poor, like they're just not
good. And even though he's had some pretty decent production you cited his production
at a young age, if you look at his raid stats, they're like
well below replacement level guys that are that what they're doing, and so that
doesn't look good. But obviously, right now, playing with Larkin and Dabrinka,
that is an amazing spot to be in. And I wouldn't say he's
just a passenger either. On that line, He's certainly an important part.
And then you see the finishing ability. His shot has really come a long
way. That was a good finish today, although when he scored that goal
it almost looked like he didn't mean to shoot it there, even though it
went in. It was that went in, but that wasn't where I was
aiming the thing. So I wonder if that was really it or whether he
was relieved that he scored in front of his hometown crowd, because I would
have expected a more jubilant celebration scoring in Stockholm for a switch player. So
that was interesting. But yeah, I just came to the conclusion that I
think he's more of a seventy ish point player moving forward. He might have
some peaks above that, and my advice would be if you could get a
more point per game type player out of someone in your league, I think
I would make that deal. What do you think, Jesse? Would you
make that deal if you could get a for sure point per game player,
if maybe even if he's just a few years older, that might be reasonable.
I don't know if a roster flexibility matters too much, but maybe something
like I don't know if Aichel would be too low, or maybe like a
Brandon point something like that. If someone would give you one of those type
players for Raymond. Do you think you would do that? Boy? I
would take for Raymond because I think Ikeele still got different levels of stardom coming
for him. Then I expect Raymond to get point. Boy, that might
be the break even line, because we know what point is and he's great,
But there are a few more years of tread off those tires. But
yeah, I'm just looking at this exercise and I realized you can make numbers
say anything you want them to. But for the company that he kept by
that nineteen year old breakout year really astounds me, Like it's almost it would
be almost unprecedented for him to fail in his career to produce a lot more
than he did based on that. But you're right, he is getting plenty
of good assistants from his linemates. And as far as how bored he probably
looked today, the team was down four zero at the time when he scored,
He's probably we're getting killed here, and of course they came back and
tied it. Next game up, our next player up, Kent Johnson,
Oh, Kent Johnson. I think I predicted him for a Calder last year,
didn't I? Victor Is and Actually, he was pretty good his rookie
year and he did plenty, but this year not so much. He's the
second down ballot Wolverine graduate that we are taught about today and sort of questionable
circumstances. I don't like the Columbus sent him down to Cleveland. He had
two healthy scratches before that, so he is also having a challenging early season.
It's not great, and it sounds like the coach is doing it because
they don't like his defense. He got benched for most of the third period
for making a dumb defensive play in one of the recent games. And I
looked at Ken Johnson. I'm just curious, just because he was on such
a juggernaut Michigan Wolverinees team and as I look back in his Elite Prospects profile,
and I went and clicked on all the teams that he was on in
all those years. And I know everybody grows up as a really good hockey
player. Everybody in the NHL was the best player from their hometown. That
sort of thing. These guys all grew up feeling like stars, being better
than the people around them. But like every team this guy has ever been
on until he got to Columbus was really good for their division. There's only
one time I think that he was ever on a team that had a lose
record and they still made a run in the playoffs, because hockey playoffs are
crazy. And here he's been plunk down into Columbus. I wonder what that
does to your mentality when you've been a success, you've been on successful teams.
Maybe you're not carrying the team if you're Kent Johnson, but you've been
very successful, and then you land on this Columbus team and suddenly there's expectations
for you to play stronger defense, and the competition's harder, and you're losing
all the time, and you're not getting along with your new coach. And
that's a problem because that coach is going to be there for a little bit.
He's brand new and he's going to get the chance. Maybe this is
more narrative driven, Victor, why don't you tell me about the talent of
this guy? And whether I should be worried that Kent Johnson is headed down
a negative path for his career. Maybe he already needs a change of scenery.
I don't know, well he might, but basically I think this represents
a massive bi low window, being benched, being demoted to the AHL.
I think you have to see this as a massive opportunity because he still has
all the talent in the world and he I think I mentioned we talked about
him actually a little bit on Dauber Prospect's report this week, but it's worth
reiterating that he made several massive jumps in his development. He went from the
BCHL to the NC DOUBLEA, which is like multiple leaps. It would be
a leap going from just the CHL to the NC DOUBLEA, but the BCHL
is so much lower. Then he spent two seasons there and went straight into
the NHL, where he played seventy nine games as a rookie after a nine
game sample after his Michigan tour, and he did okay last season. But
yes, he was horrible defensively, and it's not just like isolated incidents.
He pretty much gets caved in for the most part. And the thing is,
like his offense wasn't really that good either, Like he was his expected
goals in his course set, like he's not driving play. It's actually really
poor. So what are you doing for us if you're out there doing that,
so that's part of the difficulty. But he still has all the skill
in the world, I think, and that's the big thing, is that
the team just needs to figure out how to use him. And he does
struggle a little bit with like maybe overhandling the puck or wanting to play like
his game, which is more of a perimeter type game. He needs to
get inside a little bit more, but he can do it. I still
think that he absolutely has all the talent to be a massive scorer. So
the article is funny because it's a lot of this is why it hasn't gone
and why he might struggle, But then he just has so much talent still
that I think he's going to figure it out. He's too good not to.
And maybe he has to change the way he plays a little bit,
or maybe he just needs to find the right situation. It would be wild,
but I think that CBJ might consider trading him, and it would be
for a lot, but it might be good for him. Or he just
spends some time in the HL, which frankly he probably should have had already
should have had some HL time figure out how to play. Pete Harlan got
to watch that game live and said he was clearly the best player on the
ice, which you would want to see. You would obviously want that to
happen, and so he probably needs a little bit more of that, get
his confidence back and winning against pros and doing what he's been doing. I
think that if you have if someone in Ken Johnson, someone has Ken Johnson
in your league, I would be firing offers to see what the byline is
right now, because it might be really low. You might be able to
get him for some prospect that you like, otherwise wouldn't have any business even
mentioning in the same breath as him. I have him still as my second
overall forward in terms of players under one hundred NHL games. Maybe someone who's
a little bit overachieving right now, maybe you could get him for I don't
know, like a Corolla Marchenko. I wouldn't do that, but maybe somebody
would. Maybe somebody is really excited about Ecklund, or someone like a Connor
z Ai who's looking really good right now. Maybe someone like that would pull
the trigger. So I would definitely just reach out and see what people are
thinking, because I'm sure if someone is rostering Ken Johnson and watched him and
what he is a little bit frustrated with what he's been able to produce so
far, and he's right at that limit. He's at ninety six NHL games
played and he's playing in the HL right now, so that might go on
for a while. But once he crosses whatever threshold it is in your league,
if it's one hundred games, he's going to be really hard to hold
for a competitive team and someone might be looking to move him. So I
don't know, would you do that. I'm sure you would do that,
Jesse, Connor Zery for Ken Johnson? Would I trade Connor Zeri for Kent
Johnson? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you
can't give up on a talent this big. But I don't. Unfortunately,
you've set me up to say that because look, Connor Zeri, fans of
the world, unite, Connor Zeri stands come rally behind me, because I've
got him in two different leagues, and I've been holding out this whole time
to believe that Connor Zerry was going to turn out to be a little bit
more than he was sounding like. And even sweet left wing eligibility going for
that guy now. But yeah, Kent Johnson by Low. I think that's
extremely smart if you can get somebody to sell at this point, but still
a lot of flack right now. There's a lot of reasons why people might
be willing to sell Low other than a guy who is just shooting five percent
at the beginning of the season. There's a little bit more smoke going on
there. One more ex gamers guy. This is your most recent article,
I believe it came out yesterday on Mattias Mitchelli and Arizona Coyote Forward and I
like Michelli. It's hard not to like him. He has been outstanding so
far in his young career and put up a lot of points for not such
a good team down there in the Mullet down in Arizona. He's already got
eleven points through his first fifteen games this year, probably more by the time
you all are listening to this a couple of days hence, and the With
or Without You shows that he's pretty much helping everybody he skates with offensively.
He seems to me like it. He's not getting it on the power play
yet. You made a good point of that in your article, and that's
something that could maybe take him up to another level. I see this Mitchelli
as a guy who could be one of those quiet, lower level players,
those mid round, late round picks that you just plug in and at the
end of the season you've got sixty five points and it's a really positive thing.
Now the bash is not there. This guy is bashless. He's not
taking shots. Last year, I think it was about one shot a game
or something like that, and he doesn't get many hits. It's like a
third of a hit, third of a block per game, if I remember,
I don't have it right in front of me. But that's the sort
of trend that he's on. So that's a problem from a fantasy perspective.
But as a scorer, and especially in scoring only leagues, you have to
love the start that this guy's career has taken. What's your take on Mattias
Micelli Victor. I love Mitchelli, and if you roll the tape back to
previous seasons of FHL, you can hear me talking Mattias Mitchelli up and I
remember talking about how he's not the fleet as afoot, but he's so smart.
He shows up in the right areas before the people who are faster than
him because he can see the play developing and where he needs to be.
He also is an incredible passer, and I tweeted that out in advanced to
the article as I'd already submitted my article. In the game, I think
it was on Tuesday, he made an incredible pass that Jason Zucker tried to
miss but ended up scoring because it was so perfect. I don't know he
threw five guys. He like threaded the needle right onto Jason Zucker's stick.
And I also mentioned that the article he's making Jason Zucker look like an incredible
player. That's how good Mattias Mitchelli is is that he makes everyone else around
him and it doesn't matter who they put him with. He's going to drag
everybody he plays with two relevance because he's such a strong playmaker. And yeah,
the bash is a problem, but he's at one point six shots per
game this season. He was at one and last season in point nine in
the previous season, so he's close to doubling his shots. He still needs
to do more, but it's better. He's definitely not going to hit or
block enough, so that is going to be light. So in a points
only League, he's way better. But he is doing a little bit better
with that, and he knows he has to and he's showing more of a
propensity to do that. But the assists are always going to be there.
He's always going to be assist heavy, and I do think, yeah,
if they can get him on the power play. It's funny a bunch of
Arizona fans where like, yeah, get this guy on top power play,
like he's so good, but he hasn't really had that role yet. I
think he could absolutely explode if he gets that top deployment. But I also
feel like they want him to drive his own line, so he's maybe not
going to get the best players to play with, which is unfortunate. But
yeah, I think this guy should have gotten more calder consideration because what he
did last season with far less to work with was truly impressive. And when
you watch him play, you just see how good he is. If you
watch him closely, he makes the plays that you sometimes don't even see,
and you have the advantage of having a bird's eye view at the entire eyes
and he's making these plays with right there at full speed. He's really a
great player. So I definitely love MITCHELLI, and I think that he has
a lot more upside to give. And I'm not so worried about his foot
speed because that has never been an issue for him, and I think he
can continue to be a really strong producer as long as you're okay with the
bash being a little bit lower. But I do think with the time on
ice and more opportunity, that could come up a little bit. It will
never be great, but it could be closer to acceptable. Victor, you
threw some random and unwarranted shade at Jason Zucker during that conversation. You know
what I call that, Victor, I call that a Zucker punch. Oh
with that, we're going to take a break come back because there are some
cool tidy takes on the way right after this. What are you going to
do? Selfish hockey? That's right, selfish hocking, break it down,
skate fuck, don't got hip be. It's still gonna be there when you've
got jumped on taking coach and coach you're talking for angle, You're still shocking
bad balance. That's a good breakaway. Gotta get the bounced boys. Time
again for another edition of Tidy Takes, where we talk about the league associated
with fantasy hockey life. That is a really cool tier dynasty. If you're
not part of it, you can be if you want to be a patron
and if you want to get on the waiting list. But even if you're
not, hopefully these takes will be relevant because we talked about some really interesting
players what's going on with them? And to do that we have to bring
in our Tidy Admiral Ryan Downie. How are you doing, Ryan, Hey,
Victor, I'm great. Thanks so much for inviting me back here to
talk about what's going on in the Tidy. Of course, there's no better
person. So what do we got on tap for today? This is a
really exciting one. It's one of the segments I prepared when I first heard
we were going to be talking about the Tidy Takes. I went to the
draft to look for outliers, players that maybe you know, we're only picked
by one team or very few teams, and so we've crafted a bit of
a list here of these types of players before I even get into that.
One of the best parts of fantasy hockey is the kind of variety of strategies
approaches that one can take and trying to win a championship, and of course
many of these decisions happen at the draft, and the tidy we have a
continuation draft is maybe the best way to frame it in context. Here,
we did a three round prospect draft for the leagues that were continuing. We
had two leagues Lidstrom and Lord Stanley that had to do full startup draft because
they were entirely new leagues. But these, these drafts from Yoger, Gretzky,
Lemieux, and Or are these continuation style drafts since with only three rounds
you do have an opportunity to figure out who is an outlier and who is
underdrafted. So these are unique picks in that they were made one team only
in one division, and some of these players have been picked up since then,
So we won't really get into that, but I just want to highlight
the managers that have made these picks, made these bets on these players when
maybe other managers weren't feeling so confident. And the first player we're going to
highlight in this context is seemingly a favorite of yours, Victor. I seem
to recall you mentioning on the discord you have five shares of him across all
of your leagues. We're going to start with Tristan Bertucci, who has been
a stalwart on the blue line for the OHL's Barry Colts and has seen steady
offensive improvement as he enters his third season with the Cup with the club Victor.
You recently adjusted Bertucci up from your one hundred and sixteenth ranked D to
number forty three. What's the reasoning behind this adjustment and why did you pick
him in the tidy when nobody else did. Obviously he was just on my
list, so that's the main reason I got him. But yeah, good
recap there. He is someone who is just has a pretty high equivalency and
the way that I like to approach a lot of these players, especially D.
I know I might have a different take than some I know my co
host over at our Prospects Report, Peter Harling, has a very different approach
to D. But I like to take the guys that have a high upside
and if it doesn't really work out, then usually within a couple of years
they're not progressing, they're not putting up a lot of points, and you
take a flyer and then if it seems like it's training the rong direction,
you just drop them, but sometimes they really hit and it's fantastic to have
those high points scoring D And this is a guy who has a really high
or had a pretty high star potential on hockey prospecting. In fact, he
had one of the highest of the guys that was left and thirty second total
in terms of guys that have not played one hundred games. And so there's
some kind of bus I would say in there, guys like Zach Jones,
Olie Julevi, Kaylen Addison, Ryan Murkley, Ryan Riley Walsh, guys who
maybe didn't quite work out. But for the most part, these guys with
high hockey prospecting star potential tend to either get a pretty long look or work
out pretty well. So I'm going to take a bet on those guys,
especially because I have time to either use them as an asset if they pop
off in their D plus one or even more, I can trade them for
something, or I can obviously use them if it comes to that. But
so far, he looks like he at this point, he looks like he
may have peaked in his draft season because he's trended down a little bit since
then. Obviously it's still very early, and we can't make any definitive judgments,
but so far twelve points in eighteen games after fifty and sixty three last
season, so you know, still really early, but maybe he won't be
continuing to progress. And Hockey Prospecting and Jay Fresh haven't updated their cards yet,
but they're a little bit lower or Jay Fresh is a little bit lower
on him, but twenty five percent star potential. During his draft season,
he had the trajectory of Dougie Hamilton, which you know, there are other
guys that he looked like too, like Dante Fabreau and Calvin de Haan,
So obviously he could just end up being you know, Calvin de Haan and
then that's not very exciting. But the potential is there for him to really
pop off, and that's why I wanted to take him. And yes,
thanks for prompting me on this segment, because when you put it in the
notes that he was the I think I had him around the nineties. I
had moved him up a little bit since the draft, but then I moved
him all the way up to forty three because there were a lot of guys
that I liked him better then. So yeah, Tristan Bertucci. I'm not
saying he's going to be Dougie Hamilton, but I think it's definitely worth rostering
him and then for the next year and a half see how he does,
and if he continues to progress, you'll be happy about that. Plus,
I think you have to take into account what Dallas has been doing with their
draft lately, and they just have made some great picks. So that's another
reason why, regardless of what you know about Bertucci, you have to be
a little excited because Dallas took him, you think, Yeah, I think
you have to be excited, especially about with Peverley there in the player development
role. He's been doing incredible work for them with the prospects and specifically focusing
on those Ahl guys. I'm really excited to see what goes on in Dallas
on the blue line over the next couple of years. They've been super strong
in that respect, and I think they're only going to continue. To your
point about taking swings on these guys, not every defenseman is a Luke Hughes
or a David Yurachek or a Rasmus Dalleen a couple of years ago, We're
not always going to have these home run guys right away, So I love
taking swings on guys like Tristan Bertucci. I have a lot of ownership of
Lucas Dragasevitch, Luca Kennoni, Klein Addison. I did own Merkley back in
the day. That didn't really work out as well, But you got to
find some of these guys somewhere, and I think you've got him really appropriately
rated here with these prospects. He seems at the very least he could end
up being a pretty good defensive option with some upside, And so that's enough
for me to have some level of interest in this player. In the tidy
at our next player could fill that mold as well. We have bo Achy
and just for context here, bo is owned in Lord Stanley, which is
the top tier division. He was drafted by Brandon of the River City Ronan
tidy Lemieux with the second to last pick. He has since been picked up
in Yoger and or there's this player has been gaining some traction over the past
couple of months, and as a special treat for us, we actually have
a clip here from Brandon himself on why he picked bow Achy and tidy Lemeux
take it away Brandon bo Achy. First things first, I am a fan
of the Oilers, so there is some homersm that goes into making the pick.
That said, I did scout him over the offseason for the FHL,
and upon viewing bo there are two things that stood out quite clearly above the
rest. Number one is his skating. He doesn't have a high motor,
meaning when you watch him, his feet aren't going a mile a minute,
that typical North American hustle that we tend to favor and like to see.
Bo more so has springs in his legs. He knows how to shift his
weight very well. This means that his multi directional agility is excellent. Even
going from skinning backwards defending a rush and let's see the play moves towards the
boards. His pivot towards the play, especially with a defensive presence, to
almost thwart the player spatially. He gets there so quickly and smoothly, so
he's not pivoting and chup chop with his feet. It's a movement back to
his supporting his back leg, his far leg, and then a spring forth
from there, taking that backwards momentum and spinning it to a lateral movement change,
so oftentimes he is ahead of where the play needs to be. It
helps him spring up and activate on the rush from time to time. But
the defensive zone coverage is quite impressive and he's quite multi tooled when it comes
to defending players on the rush. Otherwise, his poise is striking. That
was the first thing that I noticed. There's no panic to his game.
Always eyes up, heads up, looking for the best possible play, very
composed. You just get that feeling that the guy is going to be in
the league for years, like possibly two decades. I don't think his ceiling
is extremely high, like I think in my report, I believe I said
an elite second line defense partner, right, So like a guy that's incredibly
stick, maybe does p K a little moon lighting on the power play,
maybe seconds power play. He might not be a very high points driver thirty
to forty, maybe upwards of forty five points, but a guy that's going
to control the play, sell it down, and get the play moving in
the right direction for his team. I guess the long term versatility what he
could become, what he could hone. And it's not saying that that he's
a slouch offensively is a really good shot, really hard shot. He's just
not as dynamic as some of the guys like your Minshikov's and your Zeltwiggers.
He doesn't get a lot of the fanfare because I think he projects to be
like that middle pair letter on his chest, sort of player that's bow in
a nutshell. Thanks Brandon. It's great to hear more voices from our FHL
community in the Tidy Takes segment, and we're hoping to hear more from you
and other community members as we go forward here. Back to Aiki, the
Oilers clearly have some belief in the player, similar to Brandon and other managers
across our tidy leagues, having just signed him to an entry level contract on
October tenth. Victor bo Aichi is your one hundred and sixteenth ranked defender.
Presently, will we see a rankings bump for him a la Tristan Bertucci?
And what do you make of Brandon's pick of him in the Tidy I don't
see him rising quite as quickly, but there's certainly a possibility. He plays
for the same team that Brent Clark played for last season, and there was
definitely the coming back and forth with Clark and taking some of that opportunity away
from him, and so you hope that this season that's not going to happen.
That isn't going to happen, but you hope that Ake gets a little
bit more opportunity on the power play. So far he has had more,
but not as much as you would like. There's a guy named Connor Punnett
or Punette who is a twenty year old, undrafted left handed who's getting about
a minute more and getting the most amount of power play times so far for
the Colts. So we'll see if he can get there. I imagine he
probably could, but I'm still not convinced he's best in that role, so
that may be part of it too. Ep rings Side rated him as the
fourth best neutral zone and the fourth best shutdown defender in the draft, which
is great for him and his prospects to be an NHL player. Not a
ringing endorsement of his offensive skills, but certainly should get some NHL times.
So maybe that's part of what Brandon is thinking, and certainly with other GMS
he at some point in the draft, you just want to take shots on
guys who are going to get games and that is going to be valuable.
So I like that. And he can skate already at an NHL level,
so you really love to see that. And it's not like his skating is
going to get worse unless there's some injury knock on wood. But the other
thing the EP team noted is there have been some flashes of offense, and
I think a lot of times you're trying to work on certain things and maybe
that was just a focus for him being really sound defensively and that's a great
foundation to work from and maybe he can thrive and flex more of his offensive
skills this season. So that's what I'm looking for. It's really a wait
and see for me with Aki. I think he has a really strong foundation,
but he might end up end up just becoming one of those strong two
way defenders that never really developed too much offense. And that's pretty realistic,
I would say, But right now he's got a couple of decent comps.
There's guys like John Moore, Kyle Capabienco, Kaden Gooley. Would I think
be a very good outcome, but that seems a little less realistic at this
point, but you never know. His tracking data for Mitch Brown looked really
good in a couple of offensive categories, but overall there was some holes there.
So we have to see this all get fleshed out. So right now
I'm waiting and seeing with Aiki, but I'm certainly open to the possibility of
moving him up. Yeah, he's certainly in the fat end of the funnel.
I love the way that you and Jesse talk about like players entering the
funnel and then their outcomes shrinking as time goes on. One thing I love
about Aiki is his ability to prevent zone entries at the blue line. That
skill alone, as you said, should get him some NHL time, and
in the tidy NHL time for these prospects is actually a huge asset because we
do give points for time on ice and for some of these peripheral stats that
kind of rely on you being on the ice. Since I really do think
that there's some potential here for Aki to be a hold potentially or at least
maybe a great stream every now and again, this is years down the road,
of course we're talking here, but very excited to see what happens with
bo Aki. And again, thanks Brandon for for your contribution and for picking
this player and allowing us to talk about them. The last defender we're going
to talk about who fits the criteria of being drafted in the twenty twenty three
Tidy Prospects Draft as an outlier, is a really exciting one. Hunter Drewstevich
drafted by Aaron in Tidy Gretzky and has since been picked up I'm sure across
the Tidy because he is killing it for the Kitchener Rangers this year. He's
the owner of a fifty seven point season with the Rangers last year, but
is now easily clearing a point per game. In fact, I think it's
one point six points per game right now for the Rangers. In his D
plus one season. He is a dominant force in the OHL right now,
nearly matching Carson Raykov for the OHL scoring lead. Victor, you have bumped
this exciting player up from your ninety third Ranke d to forty second, right
around Tristan Bertucci and slightly ahead. What do you think of Aaron's final pick
in this year's draft and how does Bruce Davich compare to Bertucci and Aky.
I have to give props that was a fantastic selection because, as you mentioned,
no one else was really thinking that maybe it was just a Canucks homer.
Certainly, if you follow Vancouver Canucks writers or people on Twitter, you've
heard all about Bruce Tevitch's accolades because that's all they're talking about constantly, because
it's been incredible and that's pretty exciting. So yeah, there's no debating he's
had a monster D plus ones to start to the D plus one season.
It is worth noting that he is a very old for this draft class player,
being a late November birthday. He's about to turn nineteen, so being
a little bit older, a little bit more physically mature. He has good
height and decent size, good mobility, so he had a lot of the
tools to be right there and pop off. And obviously he's getting the opportunity,
but he's making the most of it too, and you love to see
that. He was an easy selection for HL Defenseman of the Month for October.
He's making a case to be that again for November, I would say,
and I think the steep rise in his development curve, you got to
be careful because it has some serious g force to it. If you're watching
it, you could get some maybe some some vertigo if you're looking straight up
at that line, because it's going from sub second line potential in a D
minus one to above superstar potential at this point if you're looking at the PNHL
graph through Mason Black's app and that's not saying he's going to stay there,
but it's really good to see him there. Right now, his closest comp
looks like a Damon Severson, which maybe not seem too exciting. There's still
potential to flesh out other parts. It is worth noting that the thirty two
points he has so far in his nineteen OHL games includes five shots on or
five goals on forty two shots, which is twelve percent shooting percentage. You
have to imagine that's coming down probably by half or more. He also has
four more secondary assists than primary assists, which isn't an outlandish number, but
you certainly want to see those primaries be a little higher. So he probably
deserves more like twenty five to twenty six points in those nineteen games, which
is still excellent, but maybe not as incredible as it currently looks. Maybe
with a lot of these things, when you look at these hot starts,
maybe you should just calm down a little bit in terms of pumping up the
tires, but still worth arise from what I had him ninety third to forty
second. He's still someone your go want to pick up in any leagues he
might be available, and certainly there's some exciting potential for more. And with
Vancouver they don't have the most stout prospect pool. Of course, they have
a no question, no doubt, number one offensive defenseman for years to come,
So you have to wonder how much he can produce outside of Quinn Hughes,
who knows what things are going to look like when he gets there.
It'll certainly be at least two or three years from now. But the fact
that he is older, maybe he gets there a little bit sooner than some
of the other prospects. So you have to like that about Rushtevich. But
yeah, he's a yeah. If he's somehow available, definitely go get him
and then just ask questions later. But in terms of if you're trying to
acquire him, maybe wait a little bit to see how he settles out,
or and like now is probably not the time to buy because he is looking
so great, But if you could sell him for like a kite Gooley or
someone who's doing really right now or has a little bit more certainty, then
I would probably do that because people sometimes get a little enamored with these hot
starts. And I'm not saying he's not good, but he also isn't this
good. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't think Vancouver needs
another superstar level defender. We can hopefully we can pump the brakes on that
a little bit, but hey, it's a great start to the season for
Hunter Bruce Davich and I'm looking forward to seeing how he continues on through this
season. We'll finish off this segment by talking about a forward for the Peter
Harlings in the world who are not interested in these defensemen, and this is
one that has the potential to be interesting maybe a few years down the road.
Felix Ungersorum owned in Lord Stanley as well, but drafted by the Mutant
Monsters in Gretzky as Mister Irrelevant, the last pick of our three round continuation
draft. He's a young Norwegian winger signed to his ELC with the Canes as
of July fifteenth, so they have some belief in the player and he fits
the type of player that Carolina really seems to covet and have almost way too
much of in their system of being generally good with one or two elite tools.
He's come up in the Leksantz system. I don't have a whole lot
of ability into the SHL myself. So what can you tell us about Hungersorm
Victor? Right now? His PNHILI is seventy, so that's pretty good.
If you rock in a seventy point paces as a four, that's pretty decent.
His star potential is around fourteen percent, so he definitely is someone that
is worth following and tracking. The most fun number I can tell you about
Felix Hungersarem is that is September fourteenth. September fourteenth, Why is that interesting?
That's his birthdate? And does anyone know the cutoff for draft eligible prospects.
Yep, it's September fifteenth, So he is literally one day away from
being eligible for the twenty twenty four draft, and that is going to majorly
matter because he's literally the youngest you could possibly be, and so his runway
to improve is just massive. And you have to love the fact that he
played seven SAHL games last season. He's already played eight this season. And
no Jay twenty time. Last season he played primarily in the J twenty was
over a point per game, which is really nice. A lot of times
the draft eligible, especially the super young ones playing the J eighteen nationale there
in Sweden, not the J twenty, So that's even more impressive that he
was able to play a couple levels above his age group. And I imagine
as such a young player, he's been doing this his entire life because he's
pretty much always been the youngest of his age group. And the fact that
he's showing this of those four says he have this season three or primary and
he's rocking a fifty seven percent Fenwick, that's pretty awesome for a guy playing
thirteen minutes in the SHL against no doubt, really strong competition. His periffs
aren't much, but I just think that Felix hungerstorm, which by the way,
his initials f us, what's the fuss with him? I just I
kind of love that, by the way. But there's the fuss with him
is that there's a massive runway to improve, and you just I love to
take those players because he's already showing some potential and he could just get so
much better. Over the course of this year or next. It's gonna be
a wait, I would imagine, because even though he's playing in the SHL,
he's probably gonna need at least one, maybe two more years of regular
playing time there to increase his time on ice and then probably come to North
America have an HL year. So you're probably looking at three years from now
at the earliest. But still he could be really good when that time comes
and step right into an NHL lineup and put sixty to seventy points on the
board. So I really like that. That's the fuss with Felix. I
love that. What's the fuss? It's incredible these guys in Carolina. They
just pick these guys up. It's like they make them in a factory or
something, and they're just great at hockey. And that's the first thing that
they look for is can this guy play hockey? And then they you've got
him behind like a lot of a lot of guys in that system. There's
Jayden Peran, Alex Paravalov, Alex Reikov, Kruz Lucius, you had Ryan
Suzuki in the past. These guys are just solid hockey players. They might
have that one skill that they're really good at. But I'm really excited to
see how it plays out. Because you know the way that Carolina runs their
four line approach and doling out the ice time evenly, you know you have
some real opportunities to get some exciting players here. So great pick there by
the Mutant Monsters, and great picks by all of these managers as we look
to find those margins that will make us successful in the Tidy. It's,
as I said, one of those things I really love about playing in the
Tidy is the variety of categories that we receive fantasy points for. We've discussed
a number of different types of players here, from the defensive defenseman, the
scoring defenseman, scoring wingers. Each of these player archetypes has value in the
Tidy. It's one of the most complete leagues I've ever played in and the
most similar to a real hockey feel that I've experienced so far. Before we
go, Victor, i'd love to get your insight on a trade that happened
early in the Tidy offseason this past summer that's become relevant over the past few
weeks. Mason Lori recently made his debut for the Boston Bruins, assisting on
a goal in his first game against my Toronto Maple leafs Boo, before scoring
his first two games later against before scoring his first two games later against Dallas.
In his first six games with the Bes, he's been hovering around twenty
minutes a night and playing on the top pairing with McAvoy, and all of
this on a blue line that features solid pros like Hampus, Lindholme, Brandon
Carlo go down the list. The trading question comes from our tidy yogur division
where the Pesky Sens acquired Mason Lorai along with Alex Rome Romanov, Matthew Dumba
and Yanni Hawkenpa from JB in exchange for goalie Semyon Varlamov and d Tony DiAngelo
Victor. What do you make of this deal that shakes up the back ends
of both of these teams and results in a very nice prospect acquisition for the
Pesky Sins. Yeah, this is a really interesting deal. And just to
recap what's happening on the Bruins right now, so you have right handed d
McAvoy, Carlo, Shaddon, Kirk and lefties Lindholm, Fobutt and Lorii so
it makes sense I would say to just pair the weakest lefty with McAvoy,
although I'm not sure that Lori is the weakest. Is currently the worst in
terms of course he against PC, but his expected goals against per sixty is
middle of the pack and ahead of Macaboys, So at any rate, it
makes sense to keep those two together. Playing against the strongest competition as a
top pairing is probably skewing some of those results. But I really like Lare.
I have mentioned before that I thought he was good enough to play in
the league. I don't didn't know that he get a ton of points,
but the priff should be okay. And the way that the tidy scoring goes
is you get extra points for time on ice Fenwick, which Boston is a
good play driving team, and if he can get a takeaway or two that
will bump up his scoring too. The other guys and the other defenseman,
the Ramanaf, Dumba, Hockenpaw, I'm not so excited about them because they
to me, they look they always seemed a little bit more like roughly replacement
level guys, especially Dumba, he has really fallen off. And Ramanov,
even though he had some sort of solid production, especially with the move to
Long Island. It's get caved in there a little bit, so they're not
the strongest play driving and Hackinpaw is just a block machine. But getting shot
against isn't really helpful for your Fenwick. I'm not as excited about those guys.
You have to note that the goalie is certainly the highest points per game
here, no question, But how much is Vrolumov actually going to play when
you have Soroken they're certainly mixing it up a little bit. It's not like
he doesn't play, and when he does play, he's great, So it's
just a matter of can he get enough games to make it worthwhile. I
also in these situations tend to look at how many off night games these teams
play, and if I remember correctly, the Islanders don't really have many of
those, although they do have a fair number of back to backs. So
maybe that's part of the thought process here that with all those back and backs
he'll get a certain number of games. Right now, he's got five and
Sorokn has ten games played. If you're rocking about a third of the games
played, that's not so bad and goalies are really hard to get in tidies,
and for that part, I don't mind it so much. I have
always been someone who is not the biggest fan of Tony d. Di Angelo,
even before he started all his antics, although it's been a couple of
years since he's done anything super stupid. But the other thing is he just
he's not someone that commands an opportunity because his skill set is very limited.
But if he's not producing, or if they want to shake things up,
he can sit in the press box, or he can move down the lineup
a little bit. So that part would always worry me a little bit,
though you have to acknowledge the fact that when he does play, he's productive
and he certainly gets in. I haven't really rostered him ever until this season
when he was a free agent in a shallow dynasty. So I picked him
up and wrote him for a while, but then he slowed down and I
dropped him. But anyways, I really like the lower side here, mainly
because you can just flex him up and down and put him in whenever you
want, and he's putting up pretty good points, and so you have to
be happy about that if you can, if it fits your team structure though,
to have a goalie playing a third of the games and putting up really
high points and you can manage the the loss of an asset like Laura and
you have a pretty strong team. Otherwise, I could see this being a
real win for either side. What do you think, Ran? Yeah?
I agree. I focus in immediately on those pros on the pesky Sen side.
You mentioned Vermanov and Hawk and Pod, and you know what you're getting
from those guys. But the addition of Fenwick in this league makes it a
very easy kind of calculation here, because if you're getting shots against, you're
not really a valuable asset. It doesn't outpace your hits or your blocks.
And Vermanov and Hackenpire are certainly experts in their fields that feel being crushing guys
in the corner or guys who try to cross the blue line. So in
a Cats league, certainly you want those guys. They're exciting to own.
But in this league they out like it cancels each other out between the Fenwick
and the blocks and the hits. So it's interesting. Dumba, I'm sure
that Dumba was included. This deal happened back in July or early August.
I can't recall right now, but early in the offseason, once we had
figured out that Dumba was moving on to Arizona, and I think you take
that upside swing in the hope that maybe he achieves some kind of relevance in
Arizona. He's been fine. He's had some blocks and some hits, being
pretty good for Bash, but he's being outpaced by the other offensive defenseman on
that team. Although Vallamaki currently is injured, so who knows what's going to
happen with that powerplay spot. Probably Dursey keeps it, but we'll see.
So you can see it, you're adding a little bit to the decor here.
I think it's a fair trade. Like you mentioned, low Ray,
you can flex him up and down, and that's a super valuable asset to
have in Tidy. To have an NHL player who's playing almost every one of
the games and you're able to flex him in as much as possible. That's
a great asset to have. And you're having to give up Varlamov and a
solid goaltender, but like you said, he's not going to play that much.
And although goalies are a valuable commodity in this league. You want a
goalie, he's going to start more often than not. I think I think
it's fairly even. I would probably prefer the lower ra side just because I'm
a sicko for prospect. Give me that low ray side. And again,
what a great deal to discuss here, especially given low rise recent rise to
the NHL. Yeah, for sure, super exciting and always nice to have
those deals that kind of makes sense on both sides. So definitely great to
discuss. And in terms of the tidy takes, feel free everyone to give
us your feedback on the segment, things you would like to hear, and
we'll be happy to try to do that. But thanks so much Ryan for
helping make this segment happen a pleasure. Is always a couple of things to
mention poll to get out of here today. One of those is fan tracks.
Play your leaks there, move your leaks over. You can do all
your dynasties here. That's the best place to do it because they've got all
the players in there, and you could do different scoring settings, hundreds of
different ones, salaries, contracts, you can customize your rookie eligibility to the
number of games you think ought to be part of a rookie eligibility and even
by position, start up your leagues the day after the last season ends.
They're just a ton of things going on there. If you make a trade
offer right now in fan tracks, there is a separate little chat that goes
on. You don't have to send a actual additional trade offer or a counter
to have a conversation with the person. There's a little chat window that will
go right along the trade talks with somebody. That's pretty cool. There's also
a lot of fantasy content on fan tracks HQ, which is associated with fan
Tracks Fantasy Hockey. Whole bunch of stuff over there. We think the entire
FHL crew. There's a ton of good folks here. Content curator Kevin Adams.
He's been helping with show prep. Ryan Downey, you heard him this
episode. Helps to commission all the tidy leagues and he is the Tidy Admiral
Brandon, our website guru, doing a fantastic job. Jeremy Vee, lead
scout for Fantasy Hockey Life, Jason helping with the prospect ranks. Paul assisting
with workflow and processes. If you've got skills you'd like to lend the show
Victor could use the hand hit him up in discord, emailer Twitter. We're
also brought to you by Dabber Hockey Dabber Prospects. We're part of the Dabber
Hockey podcast network. Victor is an editor over there. Follow us work there
as well as this other podcast, Dauber Prospects Report with Peter Harling. I
also do a solo show, Dynasty Sports Life. I talk all kinds of
different Dynasty sports. There's more overlap than you would think, and I like
talking baseball, basketball, and football in addition to just hockey. I would
say follow us on X Victor Nuno twelve is how to get Victor fan Hockey
Life is how to catch me. Both of those can be really cool.
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