Welcome to Fantasy Hockey Life, presented by fan Tracks, your source of information
and analysis to help you win your fantasy hockey league. Fuck off, that's
a step on. Stay lot. Here's your hosts, Jesse Severer and Victor
Nuno Fantasy Hockey Live. I am Justice Severe fan Tracks and joining me Victor
Nuno of Daubert Prospects. Victor, how you doing today? I'm doing awesome,
Jesse. Definitely looking forward to talk to one of our main prospect guys.
One of the things that we quote on just about every episode, the
hockey prospecting at NHL E data. It's it's great stuff. And definitely looking
forward to hearing from Byron. And I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Jesse. How are you doing? Hey, I'm doing good, man,
I'm doing good. I agree. Byron beater Is is a good friend of
the show at this point. He's always got some stuff that we have been
using on this show. Victory, I just got to ask you, man,
We've been talking about this NHL draft a long time. You have been
thinking about it for months. You spent a whole weekend in Nashville living it
full time. We've done a whole bunch of episodes. Are you burned out
on this draft? Man? Are you just ready at this point to say,
Okay, let's get through a couple more episodes and then somebody wake me
when it's when it's Celebrini time, when it's time to celebrini, celebrate.
Man, it's already celebrity time. We're already talking about gearing up for the
Helenka Gretzky Tournament with Peter over at Dabar Prospects Report and all my colleagues over
there at Dabar Prospects. We're already turning the page to the next draft class
and we will be looking at some of that. But no, I don't
I don't tire of talking about this class, because first of all, it's
a great class, and we're all really eager to see how they do and
how things progress and how wrong we were about all these guys. So it's
definitely a good time, and there's always new angles and information to explore.
I don't think you could talk to enough people and exhaust how many different ways
you could think about each prospect. So sometimes you hear different opinions and you're
like, I don't agree with that at all, and sometimes you hear something
new and it really opens up your mind, and so I really enjoy that,
and so that's what I like about it. So no, I'm not
tired of it, are you? Oh? No, man, I'm loving
it. I'm getting into it. And Victor and I for those who don't
know, Victor and I have are participated in a four sports startup draft right
now doing that on the other side on my other podcast, Dynasty Sports Life,
and with a group of twenty five people, including many co owners,
in an eighteen team league. And yeah, Victor, he's over there chirping
me a little bit on some of my hockey picks because it's a salary league.
But I know you were dying for the prospect end of this draft to
come up so that you can start popping some of these twenty threes. Yeah,
your strategy so far appears to be just shovel money into the furnace because
you went for some expensive guys, and I think we did our whole salary
cap Dynasty series. And I'm chirping you, but realistically, in the first
few rounds, it doesn't really matter how expensive the guys are. But I
am happy with the guys that I got who I think are similar, maybe
a little bit lower in tier, but way cheaper. So I think that
I'll be able to get some pretty good guys later that maybe are a little
bit more expensive. It's all just different ways to build a roster, but
it is a good time. I'm so far, I have recognized exactly four
of our picks of the twelve, three of them were hockey players, and
one of them was a San Francisco forty nine ers, So that's the only
way I knew Brandon Aiyuk's name. But other than that, I'm convinced that
these people are drafting made up people that just have strange names. That's mine.
I'm holding to that. That's fair enough. That's fair enough. I
think that's a reasonable take. Yep, we're having fun over there. But
right now we're having fun talking twenty three Drive. We'll never be tired of
it because we've got Byron Bader, and that's just making it better and better.
Right after that, we are extremely pleased to welcome a good friend,
a guy who has cited very often on this show for his expertise in hockey
prospecting, no pun intended. It is Byron Bader, and how you doing
today, doing great? How are you guys doing very good? And you
might what do you mean knowing pun intend Byron? You have the website Hockey
Prospecting dot com. You were the man behind a lot of the things that
we like to cite on this show, in a lot of a lot of
the wonderful comparisons that can come out of some of these quantitative things. But
you, I imagine you've been pretty deep into this NHL draft this year,
right, Yeah, this has been a good one. You always love when
the draft has tons of those high caliber prospects that look great in a model
like mine. So, yeah, lots to talk about. And I've been
doing a lot of podcasts and a lot of radio hits and stuff talk about
this draft because it's such a good deep draft for sure, that's tremendous.
So our plan tonight is we're going to start out with the I guess it's
the depressing news. I don't know. We already behind the curtain. We
already started Byron out depressed before we started this episode. And so now we're
gonna ramp up, but we're gonna do it slowly. We can't jump straight
up to high speed. We're gonna start with talking about some of the guys
who went a little bit higher than they should have, and then we're going
to talk about some of the guys who maybe went a little bit lower than
they should have according to Byron's assessment on it. And we'll start out with
a guy very near the top of the draft, Leo Carlson, number two
overall to Anaheim, is somebody who perhaps you thought should have gone at maybe
one spot lower. It sounds like from your take on this, the order
of two and three did seem to be up in the air until very late
in the game between Anaheim and Columbus. And of course we'll get to the
guy at the Michigan Center who's on the other half of this a little bit
later in the show time will tell us which one was right. But it
sounds like you might have you think Carlson maybe didn't quite deserve the spot.
Tell us your take on Leo Carlson. Darn Yeah, this is not a
drastic take. I just thought he would go third. That was the consensus
was Fantility was going to be the A was obvious choice at second, and
then he doesn't when he looked at Badard, obviously looks generational deservment of going
number one, and then Fantilly he also looks amazing, like he looks Pat
Lafontaine and lind Ross and stuff like that, like a player that I would
think would go a second overall type thing. And then Carlson he looks a
bit just a bit lower than that, not a very common profile where he
was in the euro circuit there, and he looked really good in his pre
draft year and then he just didn't jump up like I was expecting in his
draft year. But there's still lots of runaway there. I'm sure he's gonna
probably hit the NHL and be just fine. But yeah, I just how
good Fantilly looked, and just the overall consensus and what the most everybody was
saying was Fentility's going to go second, which totally made sense, and it
wasn't really until about thirty minutes before the draft starting, you've heard little rumblings
that maybe Carlson was going to be second. But yeah, it was a
little bit surprising. But I just expected Fentility to go second and then Carlson
to go right after him, and it was the opposite. So it's definitely
a little bit of a shock for those of us who were there in Nashville,
but as you said, not terribly surprising. Let's move on to the
next guy that you thought went a little bit early, and that was Dmitri
Simashev. He went sixth overall to Arizona, first Russian taken, not Mitch
Cough, which I know would have been your preference, and he was the
second defenseman taken. He literally didn't score in the KHL, which makes it
hard to look good in your model when you don't score points. And his
MHL production was a little modest. It's my understanding that you give people a
token five percent star potential if they don't have much correct me if I'm wrong
there. So his NHL probably just comes out of the model, to be
honest. That's funny that you would notice that, of course, but I
mean that's kind of like the default where the model starts or something. Yeah.
I do talk about these every week, so I I do notice that.
And just twenty two percent chance of being an NHLer, I think one
of the comps I see for him that seems maybe a reasonable Travis Anheim,
but he doesn't have a lot of great ones, and so a lot of
us in the public scudding community really like sima Chev for his tools and some
of his potential, but he's certainly not there yet. And tell us why
you're a little skeptical on sima Chev. Yeah, when you look at him
like he like for a big guy, he can really cook, like he
can fly up the ice, and he's big and mean and all that stuff.
But yeah, when you look at players that look like this and have
this type of production. He's a bit older too. I think he's born
in February, and he's he has like a slightly above average equivalency for his
draft year, I would call it. So when you look at guys that
look like that, like they very rarely turn into offensive star ours star defenseman
in the NHL. That's probably like a one out of fifteen, one out
of twenty type thing. So yeah, okay, he's a defenseman, and
maybe you don't need a star out of a defenseman. But like drafting at
sixth overall, like you probably want a guy that can run your first power
play unit and be very good defensively, but also put up fifty or so
points a year, which I don't think you're getting with Simmaschev and like some
of the comparables that I've heard, like which was it resonates with me because
Calgary guy is like a guy like Zadorov be a huge, mean Russian that
can absolutely fly at the ice, so that you know if that's what you're
getting. Even if that's yeah, he get zador Off at sixth overall,
like that is a reach, Like a guy like that probably should have been
drafted at the back end of the teams, maybe into the twenties. Especially
with a draft as deep as this, you might get a player there,
but I'm not sure it's going to be what you're expecting there, just base
on thirty years of history and what tends to happen with players as older players
that look like that. Yeah, six was a bit of a reach for
me, especially to be the first Russian taken ahead of Mishkov was. Yeah,
it was a bit of a shocker. For sure, He's probably taken
I would say ten to twenty spots ahead of kind of boy probably should have
been taken. Yeah, it seems like there's a bit of a gamble here
on being able to put all these tools together and develop everything. If it
all goes perfectly then maybe you get a little bit more than what you're saying
is the more reasonable projections. So it seems like a lot to bank on
that you can really develop that perfectly, especially in Arizona. A yeah,
for sure. A bit of a gamble for sure. Okay, Byron the
nixt guy, we want to talk about Adam guy On. We haven't talked
much about the twenty twenty three goalies in all of our draft review episodes,
but guy it was the first off the board, coming in a pick thirty
five, almost at the top of the second round, an overager sixty three
headed from Minnesota to luth in the fall. He put up the highest say
percentage of the world juniors last year and nine thirty six and fourth starts.
I guess that's the kind of thing that takes you from undrafted to taking at
the top of the second round. Is it just that taking an overage goalie
this high was a reach considering Chicago's desperate need to stock talent around Connorbadard or
what an other reason would you have? What? What's your take on why
guy On probably was drafted too high? Here? Yeah, you mentioned it
all. He's an overager, so he's older, than the rest of the
crop being drafted. Really, and I don't mind taking overage goalies. I've
been very vocal about this, but I talk about it in terms of taking
like euro goalies that are on the pro circuit as overages. So he is
Slovakian, I think, and he came over to the US. He's playing
for, believe, the NHL, which is like a second tier a third
tier US program, and his numbers are okay but nothing earth shattering, and
he's an overage to be picked this early, like basically at the very top
end of the first round seemed quite high for me, especially like you mentioned,
like the stuff that was still available in terms of skaters for a Chicago
prospect system which needs to really load up their skaters and build it back up.
I don't know why they would take a goalie this early. He's going
to be a project. If he makes it, he's going to be three
or four years out. I know you have to take these goalies and develop
them, but yeah, it seemed like a bit of a reach to me.
And just yeah, like just the talent that was available. Andrew Crystal
was available, who was apparently one of the Guard's best friends and he doesn't
have the foot speed, but when you look at him, a guy like
him in my model, like most of these guys make the NHL shell and
over half of them turn into stars. So you could have had that just
sitting there, and like the storylines just write themselves. Are just good pal
and somebody who actually has the talent. So, yeah, it was there's
so many factors. There's so many players still available at that point, and
then that's the first goalie off the board. It was a bit of a
bit of a shock to the system, and I thought Chicago would go with
a different prospect there for sure. Oh, you bring up such a good
point. When Christall was falling, we were all playing in the table and
hoping that Chicago would do that just like Columbus did. They got Fantilly and
they took his best friend, Gavin Brindley, and so we were thinking,
that's so fun. But yeah, I didn't know that that's very cool.
Yeah, yeah, And I realized that Brindley. That might have been a
little early for Brindley, but because their pals and he's he's in that range,
it seemed like why not, right, Yeah, No, And when
they took Brindley, like I liked him, Like I had him ranked right
around that spot, so I don't think that was too far over reach either.
But yeah, like it's the stuff that writes itself, like when you
know Crystal was still there, I was tweeting about Cavalier and Brad Richards,
like this is exact situation happened when Macavalier was drafted. I think in ninety
eight he played with Brad Richards on Ramouski and I think he even suggested to
the team that they should look at this guy, and they took Brad Richards
in the third round and they both end up as basically like superstars for Tampa,
winning them a Cup essentially, Like it could have been that type of
moment, Like that's how Brad Richards looked in the model as well, Like
he looked really good, and I'm sure there was stuff about his size and
skating or whatever, but you could have that with Crystal and it would have
been really cool. So missed moment all around for sure. And speaking of
missed moments, I know you tweeted about what Arizona could have done with their
picks and didn't and instead of who they could have had, they took some
of Chevan Danil Boot with their second pick, and it was very clear because
they drafted a large goalie with their third pick. But it's very clear they
were going for size and they went rush in Russian, which was interesting back
to back and Boot, so he's an interesting guy. He had two goals
fifteen and fifteen games with Locomotive in the KHL and fifteen goals eleven assists in
twenty six MHL games. Goes thirteenth overall to Arizona. He's huge, he's
six five two or three, but he doesn't really play like a super big
manner imposing physical presence. His star potential just at fourteen percent fifty fifty chance
of making the NHL. Most of his comps are average producers, like a
Daniel Sprong type. So tell us why you think Daniel Boot might have been
a reach and maybe tell them what you come up with some alternate scenarios that
could have set up Arizona for years to come. Yeah. I like Boot,
like the size, and he's got decent production. In his draft yere.
In his pre draft yere, he didn't really jump up the level.
He remained at the same level, which is typical of these players. That
don't really hit that next level and turn into stars. Really, So yeah,
I liked him, but more of like but picking the twenties and so
that was just taken a good ten spots ahead of probably where I would have
taken him, especially again in this deep draft. Yeah, guys that look
like this from the forward side, like he's a forward version of simashevin Away.
These guys rarely turn into stars, like once every four or five years,
you're going to get a star out of these guys. And there's a
lot that look like this. If you expanded across all the different leagues and
stuff like, there's always four or five two upwards the ten guides that look
like this that are drafted every year, and not a lot of them turn
into stars. If you're drafted, not a very high ceiling, I would
say, especially your two first round picks. There's not a lot of star
ceiling, I would say there. So that was my concern with Boot.
But yeah, the alternate universe that I was looking at, like if they
walked up to the plate at six overall and took Mishkov, whether or not
he would have gone there, and no, what all the backstories are with
who he agreed to meet with and all that type of stuff. But basically
in Mishkov and we'll talk about him a little bit later, you're getting like
a certain near a certain superstar out of him. And then with their next
pick, they could have got Zach Benson, which I mean that would have
he looks fantastic to talk about him later too, But you could have had
those two like star pieces that very likely both turn into stars, and that
sets you up for the next decade, right. So instead, they've got
these two Russian projects that if they do hit exactly as they're hoping that they
do, like, it's going to take years and years, Like you're probably
looking at at least five or six years if they hit their absolute maximum potential
of whatever they think that is. These guys don't tend to rapidly evolve,
and by the next year they're doubling their point totals and they're ready for the
NHL type thing. It's going to be a project with both of them,
and I don't think that, certainly both of them. I don't think they're
going to hit these massive ceilings that maybe Arizona sees from them, maybe one
of them does, Probably both don't quite get there, I would say,
and don't hit that ceiling that they think that they can hit. So just
meet us in Houston, Daniel. We'll be ready for you three or four
years from now. Nate Danielson, Boy, and Nate Danielson has come up
a lot because he is probably the most common answer to the question who among
the lottery teams reached for a player or who went too early. I think
this is the fourth straight episode where we puzzled over this. It really just
has been that puzzling of a pick. A tall Senterman Centerman Danielson is for
the Brandon Wheat Kings who went at pick nine to the Detroit Red Wings.
He posted more than a point per game for the second year in the WHL.
He became the captain for the team. This year wasn't a very good
team in terms of the record, but still, when should Danielson have gone?
And how seriously do we have to take the Stevie Y factor of taking
these picks that surprise some of us in the first round and usually turn out
to be a little bit better than we expect. Had a similar story to
Boot in terms of how he looks like that pretty good production of his pre
draft year and then doesn't really go up a level in his draft year.
A bit of an older player probably would have. Yeah, I probably would
have taken him in the twenties to twenty five slot would have been very reasonable
for me. Again, he's jumping up over ten spots here, and yeah,
Detroit kind of has this reputation for taking these guys earlier, but they
normally do it with Europeans, so it's a bit odd that they go for
the Hler that's like completely the Cider and Casper and Edmondson was maybe a bit
early, but probably right around where he's supposed to go. Lucas Raymond like
these they're all Europeans, so then to do it again, but now you're
dipping into the chl market. Yeah, I worked out with Cider and people
are really high on Casper. I don't know if he's going to be quite
what people think he's going to be, but they're doing it over and over
and their system like you can only hit on so many of those kind of
reaches a year after years, So walking away from these guys that are already
showing like certain abilities that they could be the next star or the next superstar
for the red wings and kind of banking on Oh, we're going with more
of a two way skill set and we're going to helpfully develop them into these
like perfect specimens. Yeah, you can only win at the lottery so many
times that I don't know if it's going to work out every time like this.
Yeah, it's been interesting. Like I'm a big Stevie y guys that
was my favorite growing up and stuff. But yeah, the picks have been
they're shying away from like these like obvious star picks, and it's focusing on
this type of player that they're looking for, and I'm curious where it goes.
And in ten years if they see something different and they hit on a
lot of these guys and they're like they get like a lot of stars out
of these guys that don't look like the prototypical star from a model like mine,
or if in ten years you look back and it's all we could have
had this guy, but we chose this guy ten spots ahead of where he
should have gone and they didn't really work out as we were expecting type thing.
They will be interesting case study to look back on for ten years from
now, for sure. Yeah, keep reaching so often you're gonna pull something,
Stevie. Why so gotta be careful. All right, let's move on
to the next guy. David Reinbacher went fifth overall to Montreal. That Kerry
Price moment was difficult to watch. It seemed like even he was confused why
they were taking the big Austrian defenseman. He does have a really high floored,
good size, He's a right shot, he's a great skater, had
pretty good production in the Swiss League, which I know has a pretty high
equivalence. He looked good at the World Juniors. You have him at a
thirty six percent chance of being a star and seventy two percent chance of being
an NHLA. There's a lot of star comps here. You've got a little
bit lower one and Ivan pro Rov Headman and Morgan Riley there. Why do
you think that montre all left so much talent on the board or maybe was
there there's better options there? Would you think about this pick? Yeah?
I mean that one's more of a specific to this draft, Like most drafts,
if you're getting a pick that looks like that, like he was by
the scouts consensus, the best to way d option out there, and when
the model he looks pretty good as well. Most drafts, getting him at
fifth overall would be totally fine, like you'd be or even you'd almost be
like lucky to get something like that at fifth overall. But it was just
this draft with obviously Mishkov sitting there and then you have Benson, you have
all these guys still there, and then you go with Ryan Backer at five.
That was the only thing is there was a couple big star pieces that
were there that Montreal could have had and said they went with the defenders.
Yeah, I mean it's lower or he's just taken higher than I was expecting,
and probably that I would have liked. But he's still a really good
looking prospered and in most years like it would be fine to take him at
five years, just because this was such a deep draft and there was those
big pieces still left on the board that yeah, I probably would have liked
them to go with one of those high potential forward pieces. So East and
Colin of the now the Toronto maple leaves five ten London Nights Centerman, who
had the misfortune of being drafted above his perceived predact value into the insanity that
is the Toronto media market. He put up over point per game on his
team's run to the OHL Finals this year. So there were certainly some good
accomplishments, some good vibes coming in to his draft year. To the end
of that draft year, where do you assess that he should have been drafted
and was there perhaps someone else you would have had in mind for the leaves
there? Yeah, you look at his profile on the model, like two
NHLLER probability right now, six percent star probability. A lot of these guys
miss, and there was so much stuff on the board at this point.
And the other thing, he's decently young, he's born in May. But
he's also like smaller, like he's five to ten, which is funny because
teams stay away from small guys left and right throughout the draft. Yet this
guy I think was supposed to be He was ranked maybe at the back end
of the second into the third round, and you'd jump up and you'd take
him. And he's like one of these smaller guys that doesn't look overly great
like most time, like the small elite ones I'm all over because they're gonna
they're gonna get drafted much later than they should. But this is the opposite
case where he he's not outscoring his peers to the degree that you'd probably want
from a first round pick, especially a smaller first round pick. So yeah,
that one was a bit of a surprise when that one came across.
A bit of a reach for sure, who would I have taken there?
Crystal was still there, Guyayev was still there. So yeah, I'm just
not sure what the angle was with this pick and what they're hoping to get
out of it. But yeah, it's interesting when that one popped up on
the board, for sure, And I think that was the consensus sort of
reaction when we all saw it, Like even the panel was like scrambling to
get information on him because they weren't expecting him to get picked at that point.
Yeah, a bit of a surprise choice for True Living's first draft pick
ever. With the main police, all right, let's take a brief break,
come back and talk about the flip side of this conversation. Back and
we gave the bad news some guys who maybe went a little early, but
let's talk about some guys who slipped a little farther than they should have,
or people who may turn out to be great values according to your assessment here
Byron And first of all, we talked about the other side of this,
Adam fan Tilly versus Leo Carlson. On the Fantilly side of this, the
centiment from Michigan was thought for months to be a slam dunk behind Connor Bdard
and the Jackets must have sprinted to the podium to take Fantilly when they saw
he slipped there. And he joins an improving roster where he certainly could become
the center one in not too many years. Boone Jenner is not the level
of impediment that some teams that you know that you have if you're going to
Jack Hughes's team, let's put it that way. This is the flip side
of that coin. But what are some good things you would say about Adam
Fantilly that maybe haven't been said yet. Yeah, I think it's probably all
being said at this point. But yeah, like center with good size and
like massive almost elite outlier production. He's not quite at that generational profile of
a Bdard or Michco. But he's basically like the one step below that I
would call that I mentioned it before, but like compares with guys like Lynn
Ross and Pat Lafontaine alex Ander Daiglo, which is a miss on that part,
but I was more Daglo, I think, than his actual talent,
and then a newer guy like Marco Rossie who were still waiting and to see
what he turns into. But he basically has everything, like putting up numbers
in the NCAA that we haven't seen since Jack Eichel and Paul Korea in their
draft year type thing. Yeah, so typically a player that looks like this,
like you'd be pretty excited to get that type of player at first overall
on most any given a year, to get that type of talent at third
overall is almost unheard of. So yeah, I think he's gonna fit really
well with Columbus and like you said, like probably take over that one C
spot with Goodreau pretty fast. If not this year, I could certainly see
it by his second year type thing. But yeah, I think he's gonna
I think he's gonna make the NHL right away, and I think he's gonna
almost surprise people with how immediately good he is. That's my expectation. He's
going to be even better than you think type thing. Speaking of better than
you might think matt Vey. Mitchkoff is the next guy we're going to talk
about. Goes seventh overall to Philly. The numbers are just ridiculous. On
our previous podcast, I talked about how he has the best draft eligible KHL
scoring point pace. The only one who scored more than him was Tarasenko and
basically any other great Russian you can think of, Mitchkoff did better in this
season. And when you look at his hockey prospecting comps, they're literally all
NHL superstars or Hall of famers. And what is there to say, by
or another than how did six teams pass on matt Vey Mitchkoff and how much
will they regret it in the coming years. Yeah, and I don't know
all the backstories of what happened there, but yeah, he's got that generational
profile. It's almost identical to Badar in a different ways, coming from a
different league. But when you equate everything, you normalize all the data like
we do in hockey prospecting, he looks that same way. And when you
look at every single players ever picked that whether it come from the CHL or
to come from Europe or whatever, they've all been point per game or more
superstars. So not even though you might get like a fifty sixty point guy
to this, every single one who's looked at like again, there's only I
don't know, seven or eight of them or ten maybe over the course of
forty years, every single one has turned into a point per game or more
superstars. So to pass on that, even if there's some uncertainty there,
there's basically no way you're going to be able to beat that out with the
player you've chosen, essentially from basically the badard pick. Even if we go
Carlson fantilly like pass that, there's no way you're going to be able to
beat that out in my mind. So, yeah, that's pretty surprising that
that he dropped that far, and especially he wasn't even the first Russian taken.
So I think some of those teams are going to be kicking themselves for
sure. Yeah, when people say that Matt, they Mitchkoff might be better
than we amag And I always think back to that Han solo line from Star
Wars. I don't know, I can imagine quite a bit. Listen,
if you would rescuer, the reward would be what, well, more wealth
than you can imagine I don't know, I can imagine quite a bit.
Let's talk about Mickael Glayev. He is a guy you've already mentioned as perhaps
better than he was drafted, or a guy who hung around until a little
bit later than he should have. Near the end of round one, Colorado
snagged this defenseman out of the KHL. As usual for these situations, he
got very limited exposure in the cave, but a lot of run in the
MHL. More than a point per game for Amski yastra B is a pretty
great line. Actually only five ten, which certainly doesn't give him a leg
up, but he has a decent defensive reputation from reading some of the scouting
reports a scouting EP the EP guy called him a discount Simaschev. I thought
that was an interesting phrasing. Why do you think Glayev deserved to go higher
than he did? And what kind of a ceiling do you see with this
prospect? Yeah, when you look at he has a very rare profile in
the model. Not a lot look like that. There's maybe five or six
of them, and they've basically all made the NHL. They've all made two
hundred games essentially, and most of them turn into stars. So that's what
you're passing up by letting Colorado walk up to the podium and take him with
whatever it was the last or second last pick. He's five ten, say
he's a defenseman, so that's gonna downgrade him right there. But yeah,
like the production is just off the wall. I remember I was reading the
EP scouting report there too, and there's one part where they're talking about because
if you've watched him, like he can just absolutely fly, like just cook
through the neutral zone and just create stuff out of nothing, And they talked
about how sometimes he's inconsistent and they want to see more out of him,
which is funny because if you look at like his production the way I do
in the model, like he's basically in like the ninety nine point five percentile,
Like what how much more is there for a pretty young guy to do
in his draft here? Which is interesting. It's interesting that they said that
because if there's more to unlock there than good, heavens, like, what
is this guy going to be? Yeah, like he's Yeah, from what
you read, it sounds like he's okay defensively maybe not great, but like
the way he can move, like he's very reminds me a lot the way
he skates of Zellweger, Like he can just create stuff out of nothing and
just like quick transitions and he's just flying past people while they're trying to figure
out what's going on. Yeah, I love that pick. It's not going
to be something where he's in the NHL next year or anything, but what
a system to go into it into Colorado. It's probably going to be like
another two or three years and then he goes in there and then he's are
is there to show him the way and show him how things are in professional
hockey North America. Like just a perfect mentor type thing. So yeah,
I love that pick, and I think some teams are for sure going to
be kicking themselves about that one too. Nice. Speaking of kicking themselves,
the next guy, Zach Benson, goes thirteenth overall to Buffalo. We were
all waiting for him to go and figured he would fall a little bit because
he is a bit under size five ten, one hundred and seventy pounds,
but he's a bit of a late birthday when may so he's got a little
bit of room to grow. And from what I hear, he's been one
of the best players on that Winnipeg Ice team for the last couple of years,
even with Savoy and or Savoy and Geeky being drafted already, and he
had sixty two points in sixty games for the Winnipeg Ice last season, along
with thirty six goals. That's pretty great. He's got some really good comps.
The one that I like the best is he looks a lot like Mitch
Marner in your model, and I think that there's some similarities in the play
style. Even I think Benson might even be a better defensive player. So
the question is, oh, and there are similar size those two. Mitch
Miner's not the biggest guy Byron. Is the hype for Benson a little bit
overblown or is it legit? And how does he fit into this already stacked
Buffalo prospect pool. No, I think it's very legitimate hype for him,
and he probably should have definitely gone a lot higher. This one is double
devastating for me because I actually bet on him to go to be like drafted
like before, like ninth or something, and then he went way past it,
So I lost fifty bucks on that. And also he was three spots
away from the flames, So it is double whammy there. But yeah,
you mentioned the comps. There's not a lot of comps that look like that
that have the youth behind him. And then they have that insane draft year
production and then the pre draft gear production. Mitch Marner's a comp, Marks
a Bard's a comp. Bigger guys like Joe Thornton, Jason Spetza couldn't Buyfielder
comps. And that's it. Really, You're just looking at the great list
of players that kind of always hit and always hit big. And I think
he has all the makings of it because there's not the like red flags like
you have with like Crystal, where you know the skatings are very good,
like he's very good skater and stuff like. So yeah, I think Buffalo
made out like band that's here, and that really boosted up their pool they
needed. They needed one or two more star pieces that really bring their pool
up. They have power. I was looking pretty good in the system.
Daline is graduated now he's like a superstar type thing, but like they needed
to add another star piece to it, and I think they got done Benson,
And yeah, I was pretty surprised to see him drop all the way
to thirteenth there, but the size is always gonna ding you, And yeah,
I think they got a heck of a player there, Lucas Dragasevich,
a young defenseman taken by the Seattle Crackman krackin Seattle Kracking, that's what they're
called. Out of the WHL's Tri City Americans. Dragasevic has skill and offensive
chops decent size is ninety four seventy five points in sixty eight games last year,
eleven more than anybody else on Tri City, and again he was a
defenceman doing that. How high should Dragasevic have gone and what kind of a
pro do you think he'll make? Byron? Yeah, A bit of a
shocker with him too, Like I know, he was ranked a little bit
lower because his defensive game isn't great. But typically when you look at players
like that, especially with good size like Dragasevitch, they typically our first round
picks, and when you break it down, like similar to Gliayev, like
most of the ones that fall within this kind of category, there's not a
huge group because maybe ten of them, but they've basically all made the NHL
and a lot of them turn into stars. So yeah, there's some stuff
that you got to figure out on the defensive side. Can you make that
work? Can he play his game in the NHL? Can he be like
a top power play unit guy or will he not get that opportunity type thing?
But which at pick fifty seven, like what's available at that point?
Like I wouldn't say there was much better at that point. Like I said,
like almost all these guys go in the first round at some point,
especially when they have good size. Where he is take and you'd almost think
that he's like five nine or five ten or something. In fact, he's
six two. So I think Seattle snuck away with him and got massive value
to get him at pick fifty seven right before the third round starts. So
yeah, I think he could be something. Again, it's not going to
be it's probably not going to be quick. It's not going to be a
year or that type of thing. But in two or three years you could
have a nice piece there where you wonder hoddity fall that far because, like
I said, like all the guys that look like that make the NHL,
and a good deal of them turn into stars. That's what you could have
in drag a Sevage for sure. Another guy that we wondered a little bit
why he fell so far, and that was Gabe Pero, who fell to
twenty third to the Rangers. I guess we knew a little bit about why
he fell. The skating is maybe not great, and he is slightly undersized
at five eleven, but all he did was break scoring records at the USNDP,
even though Will Smith got a lot more credit and even Ryan Leonard for
his all around game and Gabe Pro certainly doesn't have that. But Pro was
also great at the U eighteens, and his scoring profile looks really good.
And most of the comps here again are mostly superstars, but he does have
more busts in his comps than some of the other guys that we've talked about.
One of the one of the couple of the stars on here, Yamor
Yager Pavel Burrey are two of the guys that he has comps with for Paros.
So, Byron, why do you think he fell so far when his
other two teammates went top eight? Yeah, I mean, I think that's
what you mentioned, Like, he probably doesn't have quite the all around game,
but that being said, because where was he picked, he was picked
like or something like that. Yeah, so I thought like he'd be more
pick like in the early to mid teens based on this deep draft. A
lot of time you see a player like that and they'd be taken at the
back end of the top ten. The big thing with him is he at
the massive production this year. You know, he's decently young, but he
didn't have much production as pre draft year. And that's that difference between the
ones that look like him in his draft gear and they have the big production
in the pre draft gear, they tend to hit more as stars, whereas
these ones sometimes they don't. Like Essentially, both Strone brothers, Ryan and
Dylan look very similar and they both are on the fringe but never really got
there. But both those guys were drafted top five, so he looked similar
to that. So yeah, to get this type of value twenty third like
huge for the Rangers. And yeah, if I was a Rangers fan,
I'd be pretty pretty excited to get that type of value so late, because
yeah, it looks really good. And like I said, like I expected
him to go around the pick fifteen, and typically a player that looks like
that might go even a little bit earlier than that. To get that at
twenty third. It's pretty good stuff by Man as a Caps fan. Dylan
Stroone, he's hit in the stride. I like Dylan Stone these days.
He's picking it up after slower start to his career. Ruslan Kajayev, a
six more goalie out of the MHL, was selected near the end of the
fifth round by Carolina. I could find only very sparse stats of this guy
looking things up. I imagine that's what happens when you were goalie in the
MHL. But what have you seen of this guy and what is the reason
that you see him as a value by Carolina at this point in the draft.
Iron, Yeah, when you when you look at in the goalie model
I have, I'm very favorable of Europeans because they just have a different track
from CHL goalies and really North American goalies, where they can be playing in
the junior league, which is like the equivalent of the OHL MHL, and
they can be up playing in the KHL like the next week. They can
bounce around seemingly wherever, like within that team's structure in between the MHL,
VHL and KHL, Whereas CHL goalies especially like they're just stuck in the CHL
until they're pretty enough that they can go to the HL. So they're facing
like those shots from teenagers for years and years and they just what I found
from my research is a lot of them a lot more than bust out than
the Europeans because they're not able to face that like competition from like men is
what you need. You need that earlier, the earlier the better, essentially.
So this guy he's playing in the NMHL is some decent numbers. He's
massive, and so that's why the model really likes him. Like he was
he had the highest l probability of all the goalies twenty three draft and yeah,
so he's drafted like at the back end of the fifth round like Carolina,
who just this is what they do, and they just sneak into the
European pockets and then just take all these guys and everybody else is avoiding and
they end up with this like massive haul of prospects that they shouldn't have for
a team that's trying to contend for the Cup. And it is trading first
round picks and stuff, but that's what they do. So, yeah,
they get this guy and so if he gets on like the KHL track within
the two next two or three years, like he's just going to shoot up
nasively because those are the goalies that tend to make it. He's sitting right
on the fringe there, and he'll probably be on that circuit and getting playing
time within the basically the second best league in the world pretty rapidly. And
this is what Potchekov looks like there. Carolina's other sort of stud goalie is
this. He started off in the MHL and within a couple of years he
was in the KHL like this, This is what I'm envisioning for him.
So yeah, so I really like that pick and thought Carolina stole that one
at almost the sixth round type thing. Well, tremendous, Yeah, I've
had I've I love this take about the goalies Byron, and I definitely have
been suggesting some similar things in terms of fantasy management, because you're right,
the HL goalies get stuck for so long, and at least you can get
those over here a little bit more. And I love the point about seeing
Professor shots so much earlier. I think that really shaped shirt developments in a
similar vein. I would just wait and see who the Euro goalies are that
you can get and having your lineup a little bit earlier. Yeah, for
sure. Like the big kind of hidden market that not a lot of teams
have started to cash in on yet is drafting overage goalies, but drafting ones
that are basically playing like SHL or the KHL or like D plus one or
D plus two season, because those are the ones that are rapidly evolving and
they're facing the professional shots early on. And if I was a drafting team
like I'd basically be looking for those goalies laid in the draft because they have
a good shot, better shot than overage goalie is playing in the USAHL or
maybe is in is DP plus two and just starting out in Ncuba a type
thing, because it's just a whole different ball game. Yeah, it seems
like something you can't make up later. It's important part of the development.
Yeah, let's let's move over to the next guy. Andrew Stall We mentioned
him earlier. He went fortieth overall to Washington, which you know, probably
a bit later than some people had him, but I think it was reasonable
based on some of the size concerns that some people have, But in terms
of the raw skill, super high and I have him ranked twelfth in my
fantasy ranking. I know for fantasy people like him a lot more. And
he had really great production for Colona on the WHL. And I think the
Hockey prospecting star potential sixty percent is super high. That's what he's at,
sixty eight percent chance of being an NHLer. He's got some comps that maybe
it didn't turn out so well, like you're Brian Little's and Derek Brossard's,
but he's got a lot of really great comps to like Tarasenko and Tyler Sagan.
Tell us why this was a really great value for Washington bron Yeah,
like you mentioned, like the comps here are pretty good, Like basically nearly
one hundred percent of players that look like this, like same kind of age.
He's an older player, really good production in his pre draft year and
even better production in his draft year, like going up to an elite level.
You look at them and you know there's very few bus from there.
So at the very worst in the second round, where you know only about
thirty percent of players drafted make the NHL, like you're getting a guy with
a ninety five percent chance. Really, when you break down the dating,
you look specifically at guys that look like this that make the NHL type thing,
and a lot of them turn into stars. You know, some recent
guys like Dry Cital, Ryan and Reinhardt, Cole Proffetti, like that's what
they kind of look like and they're taking top ten essentially. So typically these
guys are taken early and it's rare that they fall to the second round.
Like one similar one from a few years ago. He doesn't look quite the
same. He looked a little bit better, but like Alex de Brinkak look
like this, and people thought, for a small guys, he's not super
super fast, and so they were a bit tepid on him, and he
drops to the second round and now obviously he's worked up great. So that
might be what you're looking at with Crystal. Is the same type of thing
where you look back in five years and it's all dis guys shouldn't have dropped
to the second round, and we would say, yes, yeah, you
should. Enough Bemour Mukhanov another trip to the MHL for US and another late
hurricane pick this one number one sixty three off the board, and in this
case a teammate of Guyayev, the previously mentioned player, the Centerman. Mukhanov
is short five eight, but apparently one hundred and seventy nine pounds, which
is not small for somebody who is five eight. That seems pretty sturdy to
me. I see that the Elite Prospects Guide had him way way higher than
it's maybe one hundred spots higher in the rankings that he was selected. What
gives you optimism for Mukhanov and how do you see his game translating to the
NHL Byron Yeah, I was, Yeah, he's a small guy, but
it's very thick built, like an oak stump almost. But when I'm looking
at my whole list of prospects and the way I filtered to the high probability
guys, he bubbled to the top, like, Okay, this guy isn't
talked about a lot. But then you get into some certain scouting circles and
stuff like the EP rankings, which I heavily lie them. You know,
is read their guide when it comes out, and they are very high in
them. And then they seated some other public scouts out there that I trust,
and they they'd have him ranked in the late first or second round type
thing. He's got really good production he's really young, he's a good center,
and then you have these scouts that are also not bringing up red flags
about him, So that gives me kind of the confidence. Yet like this
guy's could make it, like he's especially if he shoots up a couple levels,
like over the next couple of years and when he goes back to Russia
or whatever. Like players that look like this very good production in their draft
here and they're also very young like this. These are the types of ones
that kind of come out of nowhere, these deep round picks or maybe even
undrafted guys, and then they just somehow find a spot in the NHL.
But when you look at them in the model, like a lot of these
guys, these guys make it, and some of them turn into stars.
Like like a guy like Marty Saint Louis, smaller framed guy that's also thick
like that, Like he looks very similar to this because he's born in the
summer and he has the same equivalency. Was that it's the absolute ceiling type
thing. But yeah, I think this guy could come in in three or
four years some and surprise some people and actually make the NHL because yeah,
he has that look and when you read the scouting stuff like it all sounds
pretty favorable. So yeah, I love that pick for Carolina and thought he
would go I thought he'd go much higher than that, for sure, for
sure. And another guy that I really love this pick is cohen Ziemer when
seventy eighth overall to Los Angeles at this point in the third round, I
think you're just you're just laughing all the way home with this pick. And
a guy had incredible production in the WHL for Prince George forty one goals,
forty eight assists in sixty eight games, and he's got decent size. There's
some concerns about maybe the translatability of his game to the NHL, but you're
talking about a guy with a forty percent chance of being a star, sixty
four percent chance of being an NHLer. He's got some comps of Dawson Mercer
who's in the league now, and Logan Cature, Nazi Kadri, even some
Rod Niedemeyer. So there's some variability there in terms of the outcomes. But
he's the guy who for me, one of the highest differentials on my rankings,
which I had him eighteenth, in terms of where he was drafting the
NHL versus where I would rank him fantasy wise. So that's a massive value
and probably a guy that in a lot of leagues you can get later.
So tell us, Byron, why you think this was a pretty good value
at seventy eight. Yeah, when you look at guys that have his sort
of profile, same age and production in his pre draft year and then into
his draft year. Typically, like you've seen from the collumps, these are
guys that are often drafted in the first round, like usually like a mid
first round pick. There was a few of them taken this year literally as
mid first round picks that look similar. Obviously they have more of the intangibles
and all that type of stuff, but guys like Oliver Moore, Matthew Would
they look very similar to Cohen Ziemer. So to get this type of value
like in the third round, I mean, it's just massive. They're not
often available that late. Another guy that looks exactly that you like this that
was available in the third round was Brandon Point and Ziemer is not five nine
or five ten, so it's a bit surprising that he's available there and he's
not going to end up like prating Point obviously, but yeah, I think
it was huge value to get that at that point, and the kings of
being cashion in on these these guys that hockey prospecting would find as good value.
They've been cashing on these guys for years, so I'm not surprised that
he goes to a team like Los Angeles and the third round. There.
The last guy we've got on this list Igor Klimov, and he didn't even
get drafted this time. Somehow I got all the MHL guys today. Victor
hates the mhl's guts. I think we've established that in the past on this
show. Klimovich. Anyway, back to him forty nine points in thirty two
games last year for Sabirski Snapperry's Noble sibers Novo Siberis. That's real out there,
that's Siberia type territory listed five to nine and one fifty nine. His
dad actually got a cup of coffee with the Chicago Blackhawks thirty years ago after
a journeyman career, so does have some bloodlines, some history with the sport.
What is Klimovich's projection Byron and was it a mistake for him to be
left undrafted? Yeah, he was an interesting one, like he was basically
the highest value forward by the model that basically wasn't taken massive production in the
MHL. Typically these guys, even playing in Siberia, they're typically taken at
some point, so it's a been surprised that somebody didn't even take like a
seventh round flyer on him type. But again, he's small, so that's
going to come into it. He's pretty slight. He looks very similar like
in terms of his profile on the model to mcconough, but he's not quite
as thick as him type thing, and I think mcconaugh's more of a two
way center. Klemovic is, I believe a winger, so maybe doesn't have
that two way game to him. But yeah, typically players that look like
this get drafted with equivalence he's this high, especially the young ones. He's
born in May. I don't have all the records of the guys not drafted
into the NHL over the past thirty years, but I would guess that there's
very few that have an equivalency this high, especially from the last twenty or
some years, where you know, dipping into the euro markets is being very
frequent, and that's not as especially drafting the Russians and that type of thing.
Guys that look like this typically get drafted. Does he go up another
level in his d plus one year and now he's on team's radars, and
then he's drafted. He's like he's drafted as an over ranger, or maybe
you see him his name emerging four or five years it's like one of these
three agents coming out of the KHL or something that a team takes a run
on. But yeah, I was pretty surprised that he went completely undrafted because
he looked like he had the numbers that at some point a team would sneak
him in there. But it was not meant to be. It was not
meant to be. Sometimes at the end of the drafted there's only so many
picks out there, and somebody is going to slip through. Well Byron Worse,
You're glad you didn't slip through this draft season without talking to us,
because you bring some great insight on your projections, on the things in your
model that will help us to understand what this draft was all about. Why
don't you let people know how they can keep up with things like your model
and all the work that you have going out there in the public sphere.
Yeah. So the website is Hockey prospect dot com and that has all the
tools going back, like I said, to nineteen ninety. So it's a
thirty five dollars Canadian subscription, so I think for your American audience that's like
twenty five ish depending on the old conversion rate. And then yeah, you
can access all the player comparison tools. You can access the team prospect ranking
tools. You can look back at the last few decades or last decade of
drafting and see which teams have drafted the most stars and the most NHLs and
that type of stuff. That's all on the website. And then you can
find me on Twitter at Byron em Vader or I'll post screenshots from the model
and talk about different historical things or crazy and wild stats that I find well
digging through and do my research and different things about the drafts coming up and
that type of thing. So, yeah, that's where you can find me.
If you all learnt following Byron already and not signed up for his website,
you're doing Prospects and Dynasty wrong. So you should go do that right
now. You all know that I talk about your stuff all the time,
so definitely really encourage you to do that. Hey, before we get out
of here, this is a couple of things that you need to know.
One of them is fan tracks is the place to play all of your fantasy
leagues. That's right, you heard me the first time. Fan Tracks there's
ten different sports. You can customize all the options you would want. It's
the only place to play dynasty because every single prospect you're gonna want is in
that database, and if one's missing, just tell them they'll add it in.
There's a chat feature on the app. You can chat league by league.
Some places are scaling that type of thing back, but fan Tracks is
not, so start new leagues there. There's also I'm guessing there's going to
be some prizes for doing so when the season comes along. Just hitting fan
tracks. HQ has lots of fantasy content, articles on fantasy hockey, with
all the other fantasy sports. There's some new authors even. We've got podcasts
for fantasy baseball, basketball, and football, so you should hang around and
listen to some of those. We're also brought to you by Dabber Hockey and
Dabber Prospects. Victor covers the Detroit Red Wings and as an editor, so
check out his work there. He also on the Dauber Hockey Network, which
by the way, this podcast is also on, does something called the Dauber
Prospect Report podcast with our buddy Peter Harling, where they get into a bunch
of hockey prospects. Definitely something worth checking out if you're interested in shows like
the one you're listening to right now. There's such a thing as Dynasty Sports
Life. That's a podcast I do and it's pretty much a solo project.
I have guests on periodically and we talk about all dynasty sports. Baseball,
football, basketball also get covered there. So if you've played those sports,
if you're into all the sports, or if you're into multisport leagues, we're
into those over there. In fact, we're drafting one currently, twenty five
of us are going through a multisport draft, including Victor and including some of
the patrons from over here. It's it's really good times. Also, you
should be following us on Twitter at fan Hockey Life at Victor Nuno twelve.
Follow us and if you follow us, retweet an episode and give us a
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