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 lost, fod gosh. Here's your hosts, Jesse
sup Here and Victor Nuno Fantasy Hockey Live back once again to talk about fantasy
hockey. I am Jesse Severe of Fan Tracks, joining me across the glass.
Victor Nunio of so many things, Stopper Prospects, EP ring Side.
I think we could say, Victor, how you doing today? I'm doing
awesome, Jesse. And yeah, this is with this announcement of ep Rinkside
came out in between when we had a bunch of shows backed up, and
so this is the first time you and I are being able to talk about
it. So yeah, thanks for mentioning that. I'm very excited. By
the time this episode comes out, I think so hopefully an article or two
or three should be out then, So yeah, it's going to be a
lot coming and I definitely I'm excited about that. And if people have suggestions
of things they would like to hear or have me write about, then please
share. Well deserved, Victor, you are going to add something to that
outfit and yeah, it's must read reading anyways, Victor, Yeah, we're
back at it. Man. We can see we can see the finish line.
I once ran a half marathon and they did this thing where I got
close to the end and I thought I was at the end, and then
there were lots of little twists and it was much farther. And that's what
it feels like this morning. But we're going to press through. We got
a lot to do, and Victor, this is a fun place to listen
to us. But in addition to just listening to the show, people can
do a lot of other things to keep up with us. For example,
they could join our discord. Our discord is free. All you have to
do is hit Victor and myself up. I hear now some people are having
trouble on x dming us because our dms, as far as I'm concerned,
are open, but there's like some problem where if you're not verified, you
can't DM people anyway. If you have trouble with that, it's nothing I
did. I'm happy to get your DM. But you might just want to
try Fantasy Hockey Life at gmail dot com. And Victor and I'd be happy
to send you a link, and there's a bunch of people talking hockey,
talking fantasy hockey, talking dynasty fantasy hockey, setting up leagues for the coming
year. If you're just starting to get in that mood where you want to
do a startup, or you're thinking about your rookie drafts, anything like that,
now would be the time to come and find some like minded individuals.
Our listener leagues are set for the year. There's none of that going on,
but there are people of course matchmaking themselves and trying to get things together.
But Victor, that's not all. There's also a Patreon. Why don't
you tell people where we got going? There? Yeah, tons of great
stuff through Patreon. We just did a patron cast, which is really fun.
By request, we look back at last year's draft and try to pick
out some gems for people and guys that you can add. There's, of
course, then there's the sorry prospect ranks and so you can look at forward
goalie d you can look at the twenty twenty three guys. A lot of
people still haven't done their drafts yet or waiting that's an option. So there's
lots of good content there. You can see hits, blocks and shots tiers,
which is always difficult. We also were talking recently, I don't know,
maybe we should add face off Lens Jesse. That's something that we're always
amenable to suggestions. There's potential issues with that though, but we're always open
to suggestions and we're trying to make it as best as possible. We have
top ten lists that we record, so there's a lot of good stuff there.
Content for other shows, like I'll be doing some regular appearances on some
other shows and so you can always have the show notes for that. And
of course the tidy the tier dynasty, so that's going to be that's full
right now, but we are gonna probably add another division next year so you
can get in on that. And it's a super fun league. The guys
that have been drafting had a really great time, and we're going to be
featuring that a little bit on the show with some trades and some things that
go down there because it's a really great league. So we can check all
that out at patreon dot com, slash Fantasy Hockey Life, Premendous Victor.
That is something that people definitely should keep their eye on. Oh now I'm
trying to scoop into our dynasty dig type phrasing, Victor, we gotta talk
about the Carolina Hurricanes. It's quite a team to talk about, and we're
gonna do it. Right after this, we'd like to welcome to the show
a man named Ryan Henkle of the Hockey News. We're ready to talk some
Carolina Hurricanes with us. How you doing today, Ryan's doing good? Thanks
for having me on. That's right, that's right. We gotta talk a
little bit of Carolina. This is the really excellent team. In fact,
I would posit to you Ryan that if it weren't for the Boston Bruins last
year, we'd have to talk more about what a dominant regular season Carolina had
because they really aside from that freak season from Boston blew it up. There
were second in standings points, third in shots, the fewest shots against,
second fewest goals against, second best penalty kill, only the twelfth best say
percentage, but a league leading nine shutouts. There were a couple of amazing
runs for this team. In a sixteen game stretch from US Thanksgiving to New
Year's Day, they went fifteen oh and one, and after a short four
game losing streak, they rattled off a nine oh and one run to close
out January. In the playoffs, the Canes beat the Aisles in a tough
six game series, crushed the Devils in five, and then dropped four straight
one goal games to the miracle Florida Panthers, the first of them in quadruple
overtime, So it should count as a five game series in my mind,
the sixth longest NHL playoff game. Ever, this continues to be just a
regular season juggernaut. Are the Hurricanes in the golden age for the Canes,
even though they maybe haven't had the success they have at other points in franchise
history. Ken the Keynes win a ship this year, Ryan, I think
they have probably the best shot that they've had in the last five years of
making the playoffs. They have a deep roster, good in every facet of
the game, and like you said, defensively are one of the most stout
teams in the entire league. From penalty killed, two goals against, two
shots against. Say they say defense wins championships, but we'll see if that
can prove to be the case this year. Again, because as we all
know, hockey is just such a predictable sport. Yeah, of course,
Sebastian Ajo. Let's start with the forwards, and Aho possesses the most lucrative
contract in franchise history, so maybe he gets to go first. And it's
not even gonna kick in for a whole another year. That contract is going
to run until he's thirty five years old twenty thirty two. Who said the
Kings were cheap. If it is paid out all the way, it'll be
one hundred and twenty five million dollars totally invested in him by this franchise over
his career through that contract. Anyway, he's also very good. It's not
just about the money. And last year was this fifth straight scoring in the
neighborhood of a point per game. He had thirty six goals thirty one assists
for sixty seven points in seventy five regular season games. Those thirty six goals
came on just under three shots a game. Hosts got a fifteen percent career
shooting, and nine of those goals came in three hat tricks. If you
can believe that his seven miss games equaled the sums sum of miss games in
his first six full years, this guy's incredibly durable. The advanced possession stats
on this team for everybody or crazy. All of Carolina advanced stats for Corsy
Fenwick are crazy, but Aho standout even among that group. Watching this guy
in a nightly basis, do you see him as effectively a finished product or
is there even improvement projection left beyond this point per game? Sebastianaho, That's
a question that I feel like we asked Rod almost every year and started seasons,
Knaho get even better? And I think, honestly yes, because I
think this year, especially our last season especially, we saw he put up
thirty six goals, sixty seven points, miss seven games, and his wingers
were not super consistent. Sep Jarvis had a down year from scoring, Tavo
tery Vinen had a really down year himself. Those usually his normal two linemates,
and neither of them could really get it going. And still Aho just
on his own, was just pushing, pushing, And this is just a
guy that hates to lose. It's not that he likes to win, he
just hates to lose more than anything else. He's ultra competitive, uber competitive,
and he's just all around a complete player both special teams, all three
zones, and I think He's a player that we could see get even better.
The Canes are on a team that has super They're not going to be
the super offensive team with guys fifty sixty goals because the system they play,
But it's if Aho was let free offensively, I think he could push forty
fifty range. But I think he's a player that could turn it up another
notching get even better. Absolutely, he's super fun. And the next guy
we're going to talk about also really great, and that's Andres Fashnikoff. Of
course, we had him around. I had him around the fourteenth best four
Jesse thirty second, and he ended up around forty third, so a little
bit lower. We both him had as Tier one guys, but more as
maybe Tier two. This season, he played sixty four games. He had
the knee injury. It was really unfortunate in March, and obviously surgery that
kept him out. I'm not sure about his availability for camp. You can
fill us in with that, but that was certainly sorely missed during the playoffs.
Past four seasons, he's been pretty consistent around point pace around seventy seventy
five, except for the sixty three point pace in twenty twenty twenty one,
pretty decent number of hits and shots and power play points, fifty first at
bash at his position and six years left at seven point seventy five million,
and looking at his underlying they're all really good. More expected goals and actual
goals. He's really good defensively, good on the power pay. His luck
metrics were pretty in line, and so I'm guessing we can probably expect another
seventy to seventy five point pace from spash Nikov. That's the unfortunate thing with
a lot of these Carolina forwards that they don't get more time on ice,
because to me, spash Nikov is a forward who should be playing twenty one
twenty two minutes and if he was on another team he probably would, but
I don't know that he will in Carolina. So do you think he will
be in that range or do you think he can increase his point pace.
I think he can increase his point pace, And also, like you said,
he should be available started the season. He's been skating since July,
and per GM Don Wadell, he says he anticipates spashi Nikov to be ready
come training camp, which starts in about a week. But I think He's
a player that we're going to see take another step. Just he's I think
he just turned twenty three recently. He's just a young player. He'll be
playing with Martin Nachus and yes, Perry Coconami, most likely on the second
line for the Canes power play time. It's and he's just a player that's
gone better and better of a year. He's had those immature droutes where he'll
go like fifteen games about a goal and like it's just one of those ones.
He gets frustrated easily, and he can feel that and see it in
his game clinching the stick. But I think with the maturity, with the
age, he's coming around and he's just becoming a more and more consistent player
and he knows how to play in every facet of the game. And I
think it's just one of those ones. You know, you get bigger,
you get stronger, you get older, you learn how to play the game
more. And I think with him playing with somebody like Martin Chas, who
also had a breakout season last year and could potentially keep that pace, he's
gonna see his point total also bounce up. Let's talk about that guy,
Martin Nachas because the second best regular season team last year was led in points
by Martin Nachas. Did anybody have that on their bingo card? Coming into
the year. He led the team in evolving hockey goals above replacement, believe
it or not, and in the overall NHL rankings he was nestled between Patrice
Bergeron and Alexander Barkoff on the NHL leaderboard. Pretty darn good company. The
year prior, in terms of goals above replacement, he was nineteenth of twenty
three Carolina skaters. Talk about a huge jump up. Has average time on
ice increased from sixteen eleven to eighteen twenty five. More than half of that
increase came on the power play. His shots per game went from two to
three. His points, of course, the result went from forty to seventy
eight to twenty eight goals, forty three assists, seventy one points in eighty
two games. A hot start seventeen points in his first eleven games helped that
momentum for the year. Eleven point seven percent shooting was actually below his career
at twelve percent rate, so it wasn't just freak shooting. Wasn't as though
a dominant line was carrying him. He split up ice time. A lot
was spetchnikof, but also lots of kot Kanemi and stastny time. Is Nachas
going to regress this year or did we just see a star being born a
flourishing last year that's going to remain consistent into the future. That is an
excellent question, and that's another one that has me and a couple of other
people Carolina puzzle too, because we're like, we have been seeing the talent
from him for years. He's such a fast skater. He's one of the
fastest skaters edgework that I've seen, you know, in Carolina. He's got
tremendous upside offensive instincts. He can walk a blue line, he can take
the puck. He loves carrying the pock. He's a winger. He grew
up as a center playing at CESA, and he's just a puck dominant kind
of player and he loves it on his stick and he can just make these
crazy plays. But it was always, you know, he seemed his body
maybe moved a half second faster than maybe his brain would be moving. But
now we're seeing it's all moving in unison and he's got guys with him that
can compliment his speed and his smarts as well, and so it's a player
I think maybe he's reaching close to where his peak is. I don't know
if he's I don't know if over seventy will be anywhere where he's going to
flirt with. But I think seventy sixty points is a kind of guy that
we could see Nature's being consistently, especially with how you know, Rod is
becoming more are more trustworthy with him, top power play six on five situations,
things like that. He also gets penalty killed time. Now he's becoming
a more rounded player. And whenever Rod Brendamore sees you played defensively, you're
going to get a boost in every other facet of the game too. For
sure, very important part of Carolina Forward's defense. Defense is very important there.
So let's me want to the next guy, Michael Bunting. He's been
an interesting guy. He after a breakout in the Desert. Bunting played with
some of the top players that Toronto had to offer. His first season,
he had a sixty five point pace. Last season, he dipped to forty
nine. I think what's a little more concerning is his video suggests he got
more points than he deserved even in that down season in Toronto. Now he
goes to Carolina, who likes to even out their ice time, and I'm
not sure he'll have the same opportunity, so I'm worried that he might get
it a little bit lower than that forty nine point pace. He did have
a pretty decent shots and okay for hits last season tempower play points, but
really overall not great for his bash on forty six at his position three years
left at four point five million, good pay day for him, but you
know, defensively he was a little weak. According to the evolving hockey metrics
a coursie against and expectacles against was pretty low. And we know, as
you just said, that's important for Rod. So where do you think,
Ryan, that Bunting is going to play in the lineup and what do you
think we can expect from him at Carolina. I think we might see him
actually start on the top line with Spash Najo and Steph Jarvis, mostly for
the fact that of how bad of a season table Turbine and had last year.
I think he played with Mitch Martiner and Austin Matthews, and whenever you
have those complimentary players I think of Chris Kunitz and Cindney Crosby or something like
that, those guys that just can play with top end talent. It's important
to have those kind of guys slought in. So I could see him definitely
starting on that top line, especially if that's like the Pettie and what Carolina
saw with him being able to play with superstars and not granted special house of
Jarvis or Austin Matthews, but it's Carolina's comparison. Outside of that. If
not on the top line, I could see the third line joins Stall potentially
could slot in with him as a more four checking line. But it's again
it's a hard to say because Rod Brenda Moore is one of those coaches that
likes to shuffle things around. He'll make he'll move guys around anywhere, and
because like you said, the ice time gets spread out so evenly, it
almost works out in the end for a lot of guys to be similar types
of deployment. Let's set up a couple of arbitrary competitions between forwards and have
you pick which one you think will be more successful next year or any comments
you have on them toivo with Terra nen v yes Berry kot Kiami, two
guys who really are around that half point per game range. Got to give
credit to kot Kinyami. He did have a career high in points last year
forty three in eighty two games, and was playing a pretty decent role for
the team. And then tarav Einen, as you said, wasn't quite as
strong as he had been in years past. That sixty five point season the
year before was great, thirty seven and sixty eight. Last year a little
bit lesson, a little bit less ice time. Between those two, who
do you think is going to have the better year next year? That's a
good question. If I had to pick one to put my money on,
I might have to go if he's very cooking at me, simply because I
think it's a more concrete kind of position for him. I think the second
line center position is his to have. There's nobody else really threatening him for
that position, and he'll be playing with somebody likes Spetchenkov, somebody like Natus,
and we saw last season first half of the year points for him didn't
come. He was playing with those guys, and both of them were shooting
up, scoring at a credible rate, but he just wasn't getting any points.
But he's always been one of those players he makes guys around him better
by doing the little things to help them get ice time and space. But
also the second half of the Carolina season, he Sparre coconame. He was
actually one of the most dependable players on the Hurricanes during the regular season.
He was I think third and points per game well the second half of the
season, and he was really good for them, and that's where most of
his points came from. And I think that could just be a development from
him where he's learned to play the Caroline system. He's learned to play fit
his role, and that could be a thing. Where as now he's more
comfortable playing with two guys who has stocks are shooting up, that his points
will go way up as well, because when you're hit your wagon to a
couple of stallions, you're gonna get pretty far. And it's not that I
don't think table taborline is gonna do well. It's just I'm just not sure
if he's gonna play in the top line, the third line, the fourth
line. I don't know where he's going to play this year for sure.
And then another two guys that we want to talk about. You talked about
Seth Jarvis maybe having a little bit of a down year last year, thirty
nine points in eighty two games, also a half per game type guy,
as Stefan Nelson also thirty six points a seven DA games, a little bit
less time on ice out there, but he did have some good power play
time that he'd get. Which of those two you see us potentially having the
better twenty three slash twenty four, hands down, it's I think it'll be
stef Jarvis. I think even with the down year last year, I think
it was almost solely from a points perspective, because him it was all about
restructuring his game. I talked to him multiple times over the course of the
last season, and just one of the things he talked to me about was
just that how he was working with the coaching staff almost to reform at his
game is what he described it as. The way he played just because of
his size and the way he was always a point a to point by player.
Take the pluck, rush it down the ice, go hard, go
fast, straight A to B. But that doesn't work in the NHL.
That's guys are a lot bigger, a lot faster, and you have to
learn to play that way, especially when you're the smaller size guy. And
I think he learned to play in a more in a way he needs to.
And he also the defensive game came way up for him. He got
penalty killed time. He started learning to do all these little things, and
I think we saw that new play playoff time. He had a pretty good
playoff run for the Hurricanes. Good production from him, solid production, and
I think the regular season is going to be one where I believe he takes
off. I think he's putting it all together. He's getting more mature and
he's learned to change his game to fit that NHL style. I think Stephen
Nason had a career year last season, and I think tremendous player, really
good kind of role guy fits. He can play that gritty fourth line,
he can get on the powerplay, just be that NetFront presence. But I'm
not sure, especially with adding guys like Bunting and bring in even more talent
that I don't know how much more deployment time he's really going to benefit from.
Brent Burns came in last year on the blue line and just had another
great Brent Burns season at thirty seven. He led the team in time on
ice, managed a block at three shots a game, and sixty one points
in his season. Paradip defensively with the defensively solid Jacob Slaven is not a
bad place to put him, and his first year away for Norcali since twenty
eleven then was rock solid. The Keynes shaved almost three minutes off his nightly
totals from San Jose, even though as I said, he did lead the
team in time on ice, and moreover, Burns feasted on power play time
more than three minutes per game twenty two of those sixty one points, burrying
any other defenseman on the team. He was definitely given the reins for power
play one. Mind you, he led San Jose in power play time on
ice even when even with Eric Carlson, but this was definitely a better power
play lately to be a part of. Sorry, Victor, is Burn's going
to be able to do this again for the Carolina Hurricanes this year or was
it a late fun echo of an amazing career. I think call me crazy,
but he just doesn't look like he's slowing down thirty seven years old.
But I think when he came into camp, all the Hurricanes do a fitness
testing kind of benchmark to see where they're at. I believe he was second
in fitness testing coming to Carolina Hurricanes camp, a team run by Rod brenda
More and of head strength conditioning coach Bill Burnaston, who's worked with like USA
Olympic Baseball and all that, and he was second in fitness testing. This
guy is just a fitness monster, and he just doesn't look like he's slowing
down. Tremendous playoffs and I'm not betting against him until I see him break
down. I think that's where I'm at with him. Wait, Ryan,
and he's saying this coming in now or coming in last year? He last
year, he was all right, we'll be observing that. Yet again,
you got to tweet that out to us when you see that thing. Man
Tony D'Angelo, I guess would be his competition for or the other guy who
presumably will slide into some power play time. The last time Tony D'Angelo was
a King, he was second on the team and goals above replacement first in
evolving hockey War including all the forwards even strength war for the team, even
strength offensive war. How about that too, including the forwards for this team.
And so the Canes once again grab him off the free agent scrap peep
after the Flyers were thwarted from trading him by NHL rules that prohibited it.
De'angelo's offensive talents did not disappear, certainly, even in a miserable Philadelphia Flyers
season, but forty two points and seventy games last year were a step back
from fifty one in sixty four games his year in Raleigh. Last time he
wore a King's jersey, though, as we said, Brent Burns was not
in town yet. What are you expecting Tony d'angelo's role and production to be
this year? Ryan? That is an excellent question because I think the Kings
are currently carrying nine NHL defenseman on the roster, and everyone's what is the
plan here? Because they were like, are they gonna trade Bret Peschi,
They're gonna trade Brady Shay. Now nobody's getting traded. There's nine guys.
What's gonna happen? And I think a big question is where is Tony D'Angelo
gonna spit in here? They obviously wanted him. They obviously sought him out,
but then they also got Dmitri Orlov And it's like, you know,
Jalen Chatfield, who's blossoming to a rockstar player. And I'm not too certain
and where D'Angelo. The Canes need more offensive production. That's everybody knows that
they need a little more goals here and there, and de'angelo is definitely a
guy who can provide that. Yet I think fifty one points for the Hurricanes
his first season there set a new team record for points by defenseman a single
season. Brett Burns one up to him this year. But does D'Angelo get
consistent playing time on the Canes this year? And I don't know, because
the Canes are such a defense first team. They love defense, and I
don't pick D'Angelo defensively over anybody in the Carola Is top six. If he
gets to ployment time, I think they do. They staple him with Jacob
Slaven to pretty much nullify all the problem areas. Maybe does do they want
two powerlic quarterbacks so they want' angelo and Ben Burns to both playing the same
game? Do they want just one guy to play? Is D'Angelo is just
like there in case somebody gets injured. I really don't know, because I
have no idea what the Hurricanes are doing with their litany of defenseman. Yeah,
I'm very confused about that too. But I also think that you don't
have Tony D'Angelo on your team unless you have him in that offensive role.
Yeah, he's definitely not there to shut anyone else down. Everyone knows.
Let's move on to Orlov' You already mentioned him, and he had a career
year in points last season split between Washington and Boston, thirty six points and
sixty six games for forty five point pace. And that was the seven goals,
twenty nine assists, one hundred and thirty seven blocks or hits, eighty
five blocks, two hundred twenty five shots, So decent prepher roles, but
on the lower end of overall bashed just eight power play points. Signed with
Carolina just two years for a decent cap hit seven point seven five. You're
getting a really good player, but definitely paying a little much there. I
think the big question, like you said, they have so many options there,
and Orloff has always been a secondary option in terms of offense. He's
been in that thirty five to forty point range. It seems like that's where
he's going to be again, unless he just plays so many minutes and gets
more opportunity. I think it's difficult to say. With Burns and DeAngelo and
whoever else there, what do you think we're going to see from ortol Off
this season? Do you think he can get close to that forty five point
pace we saw last season? I don't know if there's just enough ice time
going around for him to get that same point pace production. I think maybe
like a twenty year thirties is what we're gonna see because I think again the
question is I think he's gonna pay play either second pair or like I said,
maybe third pair minutes. But I've had people be like, you don't
pay a guy that much money to play third pairing. But again, Carolina
rolls all three pairs similar kind of deployment times, So I could just be
an option just because you don't want to break up Brady Shay and Brett Peschi,
who are an excellent pair. But I don't see him having enough ice
time in deployment. I don't there's there. Don't He's not get a powerplay
or anything like that to warrant that's that sort of pace. Carolina's defense last
year highest scoring defense in the entire league. They love shooting from the blue
line more than anybody else. But I just don't. I just don't see
him being able to put up that sort of production, especially on a team
like Caroline with the ice time hill demand. Yeah, I'm pretty skeptical too.
And yes, they do love shooting from the bland, which is why
I love the Burns edition last season, because he was so good in San
Jose when he did that, and then they changed how their offense ran,
and Burns love just flinging the puck from anywhere it works. Well, all
right, let's move over to the goalies, and the Hurricanes had the number
one expected goals against per sixty according to Evolve these Evolving Hockeys metrics. They
conceded this second actual goals, so a slight downtick but not really too significant.
Of course, they have this three headed monster heading into the season.
And I'm sure you're well aware, but they have obviously Freddy Anderson, who's
their starter, and he's only signed for two more seasons three point four million,
and then they signed Kachekov to two million for four seasons. And then
Ronta is still there for just this one season and he's just at one point
five millions, So Kachekov now making more, but he is still minors eligible
or waivers exam so that's a bit of a complicating issue. So it seems
Anderson as a starter, and he did well, obviously, but Anderson and
Ronto both injury prone, and we've seen some of Chekov. It just seems
like a bit of a complicating picture. And in fantasy it seems hard.
You want the guy that's going to just play a lot. It doesn't seem
like any of these guys are going to play fifty to sixty games, which
is a bit of a concern for me. But do you want to just
let us know what you think the splits will be for these goalies and how
do you think they'll perform. Yeah, I think Anderson's definitely gonna be your
one a goaltender. I think probably a little like thirty forty games. Essentially,
you'd said Ronto probably like twenty to thirty ish and Katchkock filling in ten
to fifteen barring an injury. Because especially having watched both these goaltenders over this
course of their careers, and especially last year in Carolina. Health is a
major concern with them. That's why you have Kotchkov here even in the first
place. Both goaltenders are great when healthy. Anderson had a tremendous playoffs,
just an absolutely insane run, overshadowed by Sergey Robowski, just because and Anti
Ronta is no slouch either. He's a stream athletic goaltender. Just every time
he stretches out, he's pulling that groin. Unfortunately, he had a good
run against Islanders in the playoffs two. He was nearly perfect at PNC Arena.
At home last season, he had I think one overtime loss or something.
But these both both goaltenders that can produce when needed. Sometimes some goals
go in here there. Their numbers never looked tremendous because the knes will only
allow twenty shots. But if three goals get by head here, your numbers
are gonna look too pretty because of it. But yeah, I see,
I foresee Anderson's gonna get the bulk of the starts. Rants is gonna fill
in. They're gonna want to get Kotchkov maybe some games here and there,
just to give the other two guys some rest. But the odds that one
of them gets injured and misses a stretch of ten to fifteen games is I
think very high. Yeah, definitely difficult to say. And what I just
wanted to know about what you think about Kotchekov in the future, because he
sure seems like the goalie of the future, right it seems like he is
going to be the starter. I love just personally the way they handle this
in the way in the sense that if Kotchekov is their starter and he's locked
up for three more seasons after this one, you're talking about a two million
dollars starter. Who that's an amazing value, which is of course the Carolina
way, right. They love to get great value out of these guys.
But is that sort of the plan or are they thinking maybe after will they
resign Anderson or will they go get someone to compete with Kotchekov. What do
you think the plan is long term there? I think they definitely foresee kotchkovs
the start of the future. And I think Don Woodell himself has said that
he's been like, Kotchkov is right now our goaltender of the future, and
they, for all intense purposes view him as that that he's he's really good
in spurts. I think he's his tremendous athleticism and really good anticipation. If
you watch his highlights, he's got like these crazy saves he'll make. He'll
like diving poke checks, kind of hashagesque, just crazy. He just goes
for the pock. He's got these crazy little spurts. I think it's about
refining it. Can he become more stable in his play thinks a lot of
times his five hole especially is kind of a little iffy glove sometimes can be
a spotty spot. But I think overall he's got the athleticism and the anticipation
in the smarts to be an nitil goaltender. It's just about can you clean
up the rest of his game to be a consistent initial goaltender. They see
him as that, they want him to be that future, but it's just
that you can't ever predict the goaltender. And I think right now they want
him to be and they'll just keep playing it safe, give him some playing
time, see how it goes, and we'll see how it plays out.
Tremendous, Ryan, These are some great insights on the Hurricanes. You're watching
them very up close all year. Why don't you let us know how we
can keep up with your work. You can find me on the Hockey News
Carolina Hurricanes team website. I think there's a little drop down over there if
you feels the Hockey News website for the team sites Caryl on Hurricanes. You
can follow me on x formulaly known as Twitter at r y n h E
n k e L underscore. That's where I'm most active. You can find
me on Reddit sometimes the Canes subreddit r slash Canes or r slash Ryan Henkle
same name. Those where I'll post works or if you have questions about the
Hurricanes, you can always shoot me dms or comments on my posts and stuff
like that, and I'll always feel free to talk to people about it.
Tremendous. Thanks so much for being on today, No worry, Thanks for
having me, Wilson. That's good fired passed up. Oh my goodness.
Grab Now is your weekly goalie talk with Cats Silverman Cats Instincts. Time for
another Kat's Instincts with Kat Silverman in Gold mag and Carolina. Addition, of
course, we have to start with Pietr Kchekov, who is obviously well known
in the NHL already. He's played for a number of games, especially this
past season, and looking at his equivalency man he has some really great comps.
Sergei Bobrovski is someone who looks really similar to Frederick Anderson, which is
funny because it's his teammate now Andrey Vassilevski. So he's done really well,
but unfortunately he has the roadblock there of Anderson and Ronta two more years of
Anderson at three point four million and one more of Ronte at one point five
which is actually less than Kotchekov is making this season two million. That wasn't
true last season, but Kotchekov is still miners exempt, so that might be
an issue for his playing time. Looking at the evolving hockey rampam charts,
he has pretty consistently outperformed the protection offered him, which is great. The
stats are always a little want in Carolina because they don't really allow too many
difficult shots. But Kat, I'm curious what you think of the ceiling for
Kochekov, and this might be the last chance for fantasy gms to buy low,
especially if he has a bob Vassilevski type upside. So what do your
instincts tell you about Peter Kochekov. Yeah, I think he's an interesting one
because he got overlooked. I remember correctly, he got overlooked at the draft
a couple of years in a row because he wasn't particularly big. But he's
just like a really solid, technically sound, just structured goaltender who likes to
have fun. He's not one of he's almost of the error where we saw
some of those goaltenders really struggling with not being willing to get creative when tricky
shots did come their way. And I thought he looked like just a really
well rounded goaltender who looked mature up to get drafted, and then he didn't
for a while, and Carolina took a flyer on him there, and at
the time I wasn't really sure what their plan was because they had obviously an
Adolkovich at the time, and I assumed that was their heir apparent. And
then they surprised all of us by booting him to Detroit and I believe now
Philadelphia, so maybe that worked out in their favor. I do think that
he's going to get more playing time than the current lineup suggests he would just
because both Frederick Anderson and on Ti Ronto struggle so much with their health.
I respect that Anti Ronta is never willing to play a game where his physical
status is anything less than one hundred percent. If he has any sort of
a tweak, bump, bruise, he'll sit out the game. And I
think that's why he's looked so consistent over the years, because he really doesn't
play. He doesn't pull the Pilcastle and Warrior through it, but he really
does sit out almost a frustrated number of games for a GM and for a
head coach really, So I don't think we have to worry as much about
Kotchekov not getting the starts that he needs because Anderson's been getting a little bumped
and bruised along the way too. I think both of them ended up having
to sit out a chunk of last year. But yeah, I assume that's
his net to take. If I remember correctly you said that Ronto only has
one year left on that deal, I would assume they aren't going to renew
that that. I would be shocked in Florida if Carolina said, no,
after this, you keep getting injured, go ahead and come back for another
year or two. We want to ride this train as far as it'll go.
So I assume he's done after this year with Carolina at least maybe a
minor deal at like a very short term, low cost deal after that,
but pretty much done after that. And yeah, I know, would assume
that's going to be Kotchekov and Anderson until Anderson's deal's done, and then we'll
see them essentially usher someone else in at that point. So we're getting close
to this being Kachekov's net, I would say, primarily and seeing more of
a supporting staff from everyone else on the roster. Yeah, and do you
think that he has that kind of super high end upside where he could be
like a top five goalie in fantasy like Bob and Vassimore Vassilevski. Bob is
a little inconsistent, but does he have that kind of talent? It's tricky
because I think he I don't think he'll be given the same opportunity that Basilovski
is, and not necessarily in a bad way. But I do think that
Tampa has a really alarming tendency to almost ride their goaltender too much, and
it works for Vassilovski. He manages to play seventy five games year and then
still play twenty five games in the playoffs. But for most goaltenders that doesn't
work out quite as well, and I would assume that we just we're not
going to see many teams doing that anymore. So I don't think we're going
to see that per se. But I do think that we're going to see
cut chet Kava as a clear cut starter, and the way that he's performed
up to this point, i'd say he's, if not top five in terms
of consistency, maybe we'll see him as a top ten in terms of a
guy that you'll want to snack because you know he'll get the starts, you
know he'll get the wins. He hasn't really shown that he's going to have
any kind of major regression, and that's big. We don't really see any
anything about his game that suggests that once the adrenaline wore off, he'd start
to start to have exploitable holes, and that's that's huge. So yeah,
I'd like to see that, So it definitely might be a good opportunity for
him. All right, let's move on to the next guy. They have
a few not nearly as exciting, I would say, but Ruslan Kajayev is
the next one. Kha z h e y Ev, and he's Russian if
you couldn't tell by me trying to pronounce that name. And he was a
twenty twenty three fifth round pick, six four two hundred and one pounds.
He is in. He was in the MHL this past year and so put
up really nice numbers nine twenty three save percentage two point three j which helps
his equivalence. He looks super good right now, according to Hockey Prospecting,
fifty nine percent chance of being a NHLer, which is super high for a
d season. Some may say that MHL equivalence he is overblown, but he's
got some pretty nice comps now to guys like Braskalov lettin In. But he's
a long way off. He still has to play professionally, which he still
hasn't this the Russian season has started, he's still in the MHL, so
maybe he'll get some VHL time this year, or maybe he'll just stay in
the MHL. The MTEL is a weird league though, because they have really
a discrepancy in talent, and sometimes that goes both ways. Getting scored on
and scoring, so he looks good in that league. But what do your
instincts tell us about Kasayev Kat. It's hilarious that he's starting the season in
the MHL because he's putting up like stupid numbers. So far, he has
a nine forty three save percentage in his first two games played. He just
continually keeps putting up better numbers every year. I'd assume we'll get to see
him in the VHL at some point this year. He's an interesting one because
when he does play, he's a big guy, but he plays like a
smaller goaltender, which at the very least makes him exciting. I don't know
how well it will translate to North America. I want to see him play
in the pros overseas first before I really give a vote of confidence to what
he'll look like when he comes over, if he comes over, obviously,
but it's almost like when we see some of these guys that are a collegiate
goaltender playing against the USHL teams, like when the National Development Program has seventeen
and eighteen year olds playing against twenty four and twenty five year olds. He's
a big guy with fast reflexes and a lot of speed to his skating,
and he's playing against some kids that are like fifteen sixteen, so it looks
funny. I think that we will get a better gauge for just how quick
those reflexes are and how good his read is when he's having to read trickier
shots, because right now he's having to read some good shots, but not
on a consistent night by night basis. Yeah, for sure, that's hopefully
we get to see him very soon in a higher level league. Let's move
on to the next guy, yanev. Peretty. He is Canadian, so
I don't think you pronounced the t, but it's p r e t S
and he was No, I'm not drafted. He's twenty three years old,
six foot one hundred and eighty one pounds, and he is the reigning national
champ with Quinnipiac. So that team was basically all old men for college stakes,
right, they were all like they stacked their team with I think it
was five super seniors. Anyways, had a really old team. They were
really good and he kudos to him, he won. He did it with
a really good team in front of him. If you look at the equivalency,
though, it's awful. He has one of the lowest I've seen here.
He's been consistently under ten percent chance of being an NHLer. The only
equivalent guy that even really played in the NHL that I found as someone named
Frederick Narena, who was a backup for Tampa and I almost made cats bit
her water out on accident, but he was He's so anyways, it doesn't
look very good for him being exciting, but people are asking about him because
he did just win the national championship at the nc DOUBLEA, which is no
small feed. So what do your instincts tell us about JANEV. Perette.
I love when a good, a super senior team manages to just run roughshot
over everyone else in the NCUBA. It's funny to watch, especially in the
last couple of years here, just because obviously guys were given a next year
of eligibility after COVID, we saw some teams that had nobody play for an
entire year, especially up in the Northeast, because the Ivys didn't play for
that entire COVID year. Quinnipiac I believe was one of the teams that did,
though, so they had a little bit of extra playing time and then
still got that extra year of eligibility anyway, So it's almost like seeing a
guy who's in his pre draft year playing up against draft plus two guys.
So obviously I take that with a little grain of salt. But that being
said, there were some really good players in the NC DOUBA this last year,
and I don't think we can discount the fact that he managed to win.
I do think that Quinnipiac has some weird goaltending past. They have some
really good collegiate goaltenders who don't quite look like NHLs to me. Keith Petrizli
was one of them for me that I think was really good, but not
quite better than college for me. Yeah, I don't know. I enjoyed
watching the championship this year. I didn't get to watch a ton of it.
I thought he looked fine. I thought it looked like a team of
adults playing against children. Yeah. I think he at the very least gives
them some depths in the miners, which teams need. It prevents them from
needing to put prospects down at the HL level just to get appearances. So
we'll see that might just be a filler there. Since obviously Katchakov has no
business being in the miners right now. He does not. I think her
is therefore, but we'll see. Oh, which, by the way,
reminds me. I think earlier you said Nadelkovich went to Philly. He went
to Pittsburgh. I'm sure no Pittsburgh or Philly fan would there would never be
mad about that, that isn't so I just figured i'd clear that up for
everybody. So yeah, next we have one more, and that's Nikita Quop
and he is so they have have a few goalies, but yeah, it's
basically a Checkov. But we should mention these other guys. So Qua was
actually drafted in twenty twenty one six round. He's six foot four, two
hundred and three pounds and he's German. He has been in the second division
in Germany. He did play at the U twenty World Juniors and looked pretty
good in that tournament for a very overwhelmed German team. And of course I
like to look at comparisons to other German goalies, so too much Gryce as
someone he actually looks a little bit like in this model. Of course,
his equivalency beforehand before this season looks better than Gryce's and right now in the
D plus two season, they actually looked the same in terms of their equivalency,
which has interesting. So Grice, you know, ended up being a
average starter and he had some good seasons on Long Island when they protected him
really well. But what do your instincts, Kat tell us about Nikita up?
First off, elite name, absolutely incredible name. You could have given
me twenty guesses as to what nationality he was and I would have gotten it
completely wrong. It's interesting because the German League is almost like to finish league
in like the Czech League, where you get this huge variance in quality of
competition, but almost on steroids because you get some German teams that I remember
very notably Tobias Reader, who played for the Coyotes and the Buffalo Sabers and
the Oilers, telling me that his dad was the team's bus driver. He
was from like a really small town outside Munich and played for his hometown team,
the I believe the lunch At Tigers, and that was a top tier
like that was a d L team and he played for them as a teenager
and then made the NHL. I always want to see some of those younger
guys that are playing in the German League get loaned somewhere else before we really
know what they're going to look like. Nicholas Treuler was a really good German
goaltender who was still pretty young, signed in North America and then just got
absolutely lit up when he was here. I think for German goaltenders, we
have to see them play somewhere else first. It's a fun league, though.
There's some really fun guys that when they're finished with their North American crews,
go play over there because it's a really gorgeous area to play and the
teams treat them really well. I looked it up and the team that Nikki
da Kapp plays for has Zach Boycheck of the Carolina Hurricanes and most notably of
the Twitter fame. I followed everyone on hockey Twitter for a while there.
He's currently on that team, so maybe that's how Carolina found this kid.
But yeah, I'd love to see him get loaned somewhere else. Just I
don't love The German League is a development league for goaltenders, so we'll see
how that goes for him. Awesome, Thanks so much, Kat for giving
us your instincts on the Carolina Hurricane goalies. We'll be back right after this
the Dynasty Dig the Carolina Hurricanes edition. It's just not fair, Victor,
It's just not fair. The Hurricanes are good, but they draft good.
We like their draft every year, and they are ranked ninth in your rankings.
They've just got too much posse on this year. This year Dynasty Prospect
System, and it starts out with your no brainer, Victor, who is
it? The no brainer for the Hurricanes is Alexander nikishin twenty twenty third round
pick, he was sixty ninth overall. He's six foot four, two hundred
and sixteen pound left handed, d very old for his draft season. He
almost could have been drafted the previous year, which is always interesting, and
so maybe some of his equivalency he is a little overstated, but he's a
marinating over in Russia. He's now twenty when he's about to be twenty two,
so he's a little bit on the older side, as mentioned, and
so when he was drafted, he hadn't really done much. He played some
KHL games, but real points. He followed the next season up with a
lot of KHL games and no points, and same with the D plus two
season. But then the last season, which was D plus three, he
exploded fifty five points in sixty five games, massive production for a defenseman.
And this year, the season has already started with SKA and he has six
points in six games. And yeah, I should mention those first few seasons
where he didn't have a lot of points were with a different team, and
then he moved to SKA and he had a lot of points. We've seen
this, We've seen this movie before, Jesse, this tends to happen.
I'm a little skeptical that all of these, all this production is with a
very dominant KHL team. That doesn't that also doesn't mean that he's bad and
overrated. I think that maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. It
is also true that in August twenty twenty two he signed a three year extension
to stay in Russia through the twenty twenty five season, so twenty four twenty
five seasons, so that means two more seasons this one and one more where
he will not be in the NHL, and then possibly after that will be
The indications are that he is interested in coming over just when his deals up,
so we'll have to see if that's true. Anyways, we need to
learn a little bit more about Alexander Nikishan, and from that we go to
our FHL scout and our good buddy Brandon is responsible for this one past the
guest on the patron cast, I believe Brandon the skating Nikishan is a workhorse
of a skater, powerful stride, deceptive acceleration. When in stride, he
maintains nearly as sturdy as he is at lower speeds or a standstill passing and
handling. His passes can carry a fair amount of force behind them, though
he tends to default to finding simple passes to complete, very poised and comfortable
holding onto the puck and making the right pass. When scoping out targets with
time and space, he deploys an interesting way of shifting his weight between skates
is off using his feet to fake pass attempts. Brandon's unsure if this is
a conscious and effective trader, a trick of sorts that could be cleaned up
anyway, he is very good in that area. Shooting. Nikishan can unleach
a howitzer of a one timer that almost seems to pick up force and speed
the longer the puck travels. His slapshot is strong, but he's usually tempering
the amount of force put behind it, as it seems he is using it
to generate rebounds and deflection attempts rather than beat the goaltender. Also could be
said about his wrist and snapshot. Although they appear to be firm attempts,
seems like they're released a little bit below one hundred percent effort that he could
be put into them. IQ intelligence stalwart that is often in the perfect place
at the perfect time. Poison unwavering sense of calm is evident during the vast
majority of his shifts. For checking in a rare currency may activate to be
one of the first thing the fore check, but this is usually tied to
generating a turnover. Defense often in motion swoops into the right position with impeccable
timing allows him to effortlessly intercept a pass with a conveniently placed stick, or
to remind the puck carrier that he is in fact made of bricks and will
explode a man in open eyes. Nice phrasing, brand and I like that
best asset. Then overall, the powerful stride mixed with an extremely solid and
punishing physical foundation. Biggest concern higher end passing and playmaking complexity. The top
tier role is a top four two way defender in the thirty five to forty
five point range, with a role on special teams above mid range shots and
plenty of hits fiftieth percentile more likely outcome. Bottom four shutdown d assignment with
the ability to chew up minutes and the stylistic comparable hybrid between Johnny Boychuck and
Alex Petranngelo. Let's talk about the NHL rank King and what he has to
say here. The NHL Rank Kings p NHL E here is off the charts.
It's gone way above superstar potential. Poor Mason had to draw brand new
lines to get him in here based on that production last year. He's that
high up. And some of the guys in the mix there, Matt Donovan,
Justin Falk, Dion fan Enough as similarity guys. And so we're going
to compare Alexander Nikishan to Kayden Gooley of the Montreal Canadian and Edmonton Oil King.
And who would you rather have on your team Alexander Nikishan in a walk
seventy to thirty over Ghoul Victor. Is this how you see it? No?
I don't know that it's that discrepant, right as you canto Dad with
your intonation there. I think that Nikishin what he did last year was ridiculous
and people are falling all over themselves to get him wherever they can, which
I understand because he's a third round pick and explode it out of nowhere and
looks awesome. As Brandon said, he looks like it could be a really
great asset, lots of bash, decent points. Sounds like a really great
prospect and guy that you want on your team. But it's also possible that
some of this kind came out of nowhere and there's more of the environment,
and you have to wait two years, so you factor all that in.
I'm not sure it is so clear. I'm in a couple of leagues where
you want to win, we want to be competitive. Now. I would
take Kaden Gouli in those leagues any day, because I get two years of
Guli and by the time Nikishan comes over, will I be a little bit
sad? Yeah? Maybe, But you got two years of great production out
of Guli, who I think is no slouch. I think he's a really
good player. He also has great bash he's been effective at the NHL level.
Last season, he was really great in his forty four games, decent
number of points, almost half point per game, with lots of bash,
and I think that he's going to settle into at least a top four,
if not a top pairing role with the Canadian So you really like to see
that. The other thing about Nikishan and the Carolina Hurricanes as a whole,
while they do draft really we also know that they don't seem to be particularly
loyal to a lot of their players, and you know, we'll let guys
go if they're too expensive or difficult. So that may mean that his role
may be a little bit muted when he gets to that point. I don't
know. We'll have to see about that, but we have seen that with
the Carolina that even guys as good as Seth Jarvis have a little bit of
a tough time breaking in like he finally has, and he's got a decent
role, but even with their deployment, it's been a little bit, it's
been a little bit muted, right, So I really like Guli. I
don't think it should be this far off. I think if you're a team
that's not ready to compete for a couple of years, then I think it's
I would take Nikishan, yes, but if you're want to be competitive sooner
than I think Guli makes a whole lot of sense. And I think that
in the end they might end up being similar, And I don't think it's
going to be so discrepant that you're going to say, Wow, this is
a no brainer, I'm taking Nikishan. I think it's a little bit closer
than that. If you look at the hockey prospecting between these two, it's
actually really even. And that's partly because Nikishan was so black his first few
seasons. He had basically the minimal star potential five percent, five percent,
four percent, and then jumped up to nine percent this year. And I
know that may seem like so little based on his NHL E went from twenty
one to seventy one, but I note that Byron also regresses that hard if
they haven't shown a progression year to year, that's why his star potential looks
so muted. And for Guli, you know, he missed a year in
the middle. Yeah, basically from the WHL the COVID year, he didn't
have enough games to really qualify, and so that made his numbers look a
little wonky, and that's why it went down for him a little bit.
But he basically graduated eight percent of the model. But we've also already seen
him in the NHL, and so that makes it a little bit easier to
stomach. And then Nikishin if you just look at his comps, he's got
a lot of kind of comps in the Hockey Prospect the model. Travis Sanheim
is one that's there now, Marketwood Vlastic is another, Johnny Oduya. These
are not super exciting names, and so if you look at the entirety of
the picture, it looks a lot more muted in terms of what your excitement
level should be. So I just want to caution people. I've seen people
trading for Nikishan and giving up massive guys that are really competent, good players
now like Ghoulie, and I would just I would be a little hesitant about
that because it's nice to have that security of the guy who's already in the
league doing really good stuff, or guys that are closer. And also,
if you look at the Jay Fresh card from top down Hockey, Nikishan has
just two percent chance of being a star and ninety five percent chance of being
an NHLer. So as usual, the top down hockey model is just a
bucket of cold water. Jesse, Yeah, it seems like a trap to
me. We're talking about good bash, but is the guy going to end
up with the top power play role. I don't know. It feels like
trapped to me. It really is going to come down, as you said
to do you believe last year or do you not? Because if you don't
believe last year, it's a world of hurt mixed up victor, who is
your need to know prospect? Need to know is Cruise Lucius twenty twenty two
fourth round pick by Carolina, six foot, one hundred and seventy nine pound,
drafted out of the USNTDP, where he was definitely more of a role
player than his brother Chazz, as Jesse has called him the evil villain Chazz
Lucius and he's the one gay prospect. This was Chazz. I'm sorry.
Cruises first season at the University of Wisconsin eleven goals, twenty three assists for
three to four points and thirty four games point per game. And it should
also be noted that the Wisconsin program wasn't a bit of a disarray this season
they had. They really struggled a lot of guys that really didn't do well.
The team didn't do well, and they got the Minnesota state head coach
who took them was it all the way to the final or They've been a
really good program for the last couple of years. So it seems like Wisconsin
will be better this upcoming season. We'll have to wait and see about that,
but it seems like they'll be better. And he already seemed like he
had a pretty good season. And we're talking about a fourth round pick here
who went point per game in his D plus one, So that's pretty fantastic.
But we need to know a little bit more about Cruise Lucius, and
so we need to talk to our FHL scout and our FHL scout this time
is William Speed is not an issue as far as skating, but he's not
necessarily a great skater. When trying to go full speed, he swings his
arms to gain momentum, hands appear to be faster than his feet, and
he often stopped skating to perform a dec puck handling. He's got good hands
that can make a great pass shot, not a shot first guy, decent
shot, but it's nothing that William really would say stands out or he would
say anything special about the IQ. The panic level is either super high or
way too low, and to me that's a little unpredictable. He tries to
make too much when it's not the time, sometimes just get rid of the
puck when he could just hold it in delay. During a game against Michigan,
William has example, with two forty nine left in the game in a
tie game, he tried to throw a pass while exiting the zone on his
back end, led to a massive turnover and to go ahead goal. Against
defense, he's not involved in defensive play. During the Michigan game, he
was on Luke Hughes's side and he was able to do anything he wanted in
the zone because Lucius couldn't keep up that his Hughes was able to do anything
he wanted, but Luke Hughes that that's a tough matchup. Best asset his
hands. Biggest concern probably won't be able to translate his play at the next
level. He's not a play driver. Compete level, not great top tier
potential. In a perfect world, he could make it to the top six
role as a playmaker, but would still be a low tier three player because
as an NCA player, he's already not shooting, hitting or blocking shots.
Most likely tier oh no, william says, doesn't even reach the NHL.
So Cruz Lucia's getting panned a little bit here in our scouting report. The
NHL rank King echoes that sentiment. He's he is technically somewhere between the first
and second line potential, but his top similarity score is Christian Fisher. And
then we got Nick Shore and Joel Ferraby in terms of our comparison, and
Mason Black put out there on ex Cruz Lucius versus Philip Mechar. It's all
Kenes versus Canadians. Today we know that is a rivalry. Those two franchises
really do hate each other a little bit. And in terms of that comparison,
Philip Mischar wins fifty nine to forty one percent over Cruz Lucius. Victor
Lucius the lesser. Is he really going down that heartened flames? I love
that. That's a good one. Yeah, I don't know about this one.
He's, you know, interesting, He's one of those players that was
drafted. He was drafted in twenty twenty two, several of the Slovakians there
with obviously the number one overall picks Lefkowski and then Ms and there was there
was another one too. I can't remember if the top of my head,
Rangers pick anyways, So Meshar he's always felt more of a middle six kind
of a player two. And it's going to be really hard to track his
trajectory because he went from the Silakian Pro League into the OHL and so,
yeah, he looked great. There's that's a bit of a step down in
terms of equivalency. He did have a bit of a lower p and HL
E than Cruise. I think part of this might have just been also people
looking at draft pedigree and Meshar being a first round pick and Lucius being a
fourth round pick, So I could understand that. But I think that even
though there's all these concerns that we heard, I think that was a big
step for Lucius and he could even build on that next year and round out
some of those inconsistencies in his game and effort issues and you know, turn
out to be a decent player. And he's definitely more like Cruz. Lucius
is more of the type of player that you're going to want to give offensive
minutes too, as opposed to Meshar, who would be just fine in a
bottom six role. And so that's one reason why I don't think I would
want Meshar, just because, yeah, I think he's more likely to be
an NHL or, but he's also more likely to be in the bottom six
and not a point score. So I would take Lucia's here, and but
also knowing that I'm probably not relying on either of these guys on my prospect
pool to do much. They're definitely more I always think of my prospect pool
in terms of tiers, like the guys that I have high confidence they're going
to be great, and then maybe the guys that I know we're going to
play but maybe don't have a high upside. And then there's like the variable
tier that's like there's maybe upside there, but who knows. So they would
be in that last category, both these guys. If you look at hockey
prospecting, it's a tale of two trends. Lucius trending up from fourteen to
nineteen percent, mesh Are trending down from thirty to fifteen percent, and that's
mainly because, as I mentioned, going from the Slaki League to the OHL,
his NHL E basically was the same. And so when you don't improve
your point production or your equivalent lency, then Byron kicks you down. So
that's going down about half less than half of the star potential, So that
definitely points to Lucious. And then if you just look at Lucious comps,
a lot of them, as in the ranking app are boring, but Dave
Boland is maybe the most exciting one who was not very exciting at all in
fantasy. There's Adam Deadmarsh, There's some other guys that were turned out to
be starsh but took a while and didn't really look like it until they were.
So there's a chance for Lucious, but most of them the most likely
outcome is replacement the ravage level producer, or just as William mentioned, not
even an HLLER. And if you look at the bucket of cold water over
at j Fresh, it is pretty pessimistic. Three percent chance of being a
star, twenty four percent chance of being an NHLer. And yeah, I
think that this is a big wild card. But the reason I wanted to
bring him up is that, Yeah, he's a very late pick, and
he's got some family pedigree and all of these things make him interesting and it's
worth grabbing him and throwing him on the on the roster if if you have
space. I shall also mention that Cruzlucius is pretty young for his draft year.
He's in April birthday, so he's basically played every season he's played to
date as younger than most of his peers. So while April isn't super super
late, that's it's definitely significant compared to a lot of the guys that are
born for five six months earlier, like that can be a big difference at
that age. So maybe there's a little bit more room to grow still here,
Jesse or sure. And finally, we've got to keep your eye on
prospect Victor. Who is that? Scott Morrow is our keep your eye on
twenty twenty one second round pick by Carolina six foot two hundred, ninety four
pound right handed d drafted out of the Shattuck St. Mary's High school system
there and that's a really prominent high school system that develops a lot of NHL
ers. And then he was also in the USHL and his draft year,
so it was hard to evaluate those guys with high school equivalences, but he
was obviously dominant there and looked not terribly out of place in his USHL time.
He only played six playoff games with the Fargo Four, so it wasn't
like he played a significant amount. But then he went back to back thirty
plus point seasons at UMass, which is pretty phenomenal. That's pretty good.
And nine goals and twenty two assists for thirty one points in thirty five games
last season, which was a slight improvement on his previous season. Looks like
he's headed back to UMass for his junior season, and I have to say
that's an impressive transition going from high school to the nc double. A.
I know that a lot of us did that, Jesse, I went from
high school to college, but not playing that level of hockey. That's a
big difference. So that's a massive increase in the quality of competition, like
even guys that go from the OHL CHL to SHL to the nc Double as
a big transition high school to NCUBA is crazy and he did fantastically. But
let's hear a little bit more about Scott Morrow from FHL Scout. Yeah,
I definitely had difficulty translating from high school to college. I just turned up
my bash. I just hit everybody in my college classes. That's how I
survived. FHL scout Wade is our man on the street for this prospect.
Mister Morrow skating good foot speed, uses it nicely to generate offense when carrying
the puck out of his own end. Good use of crossovers to laterally create
space for himself for the IQ, very intelligent the offensive zone, sees the
ice well, generally in good position, rarely puts himself in a position to
get burned by opposing forwards. That said, his defensive game is considerably further
behind normally. Having any panic meter isn't a good thing, but Morrow might
benefit from exhibiting some sense of urgency in his own end, especially after losing
a puck battle. For checking, does a good job supporting the ford check
as a secondary attacker from the back end, but it's surprisingly useful when pinching
and acting more as a winger. He doesn't lose pucks very easily when pinching,
and acts as a sneaky offensive outlet from the blue line following an initial
rush in defense. Somewhat passive defensively, both off the rush and end zone.
Would ideally like to see him use his larger frame to angle opponents off
of pucks as well as keep a more active stick. Doesn't have a very
high sense of urgency. Again, and finally, the biggest concern from way
defense is the biggest glaring hole that could be a problem, which concerning to
do that have that problem even at the NCAA level. There's one hope of
the Canes developing him into a bona fide NHL defenseman, even offensively minded one.
He needs to improve his defensive game leaps and bounds the NHL rank King
Mason Black compares Scott Morrow in terms of his equivalency. He's still tracking on
first line potential in terms of this production and his comparables shathid Or ty Smith,
Tyson, Barry Boy. I'd like to have those comparables in terms of
if I were a prospect, And he's going to compare Morrow to Denton Mettay
Chuck in terms of a cop Matay Chuck, of course was taken a year
later and around higher than mister Marrow was, but he also trounced mister Morrow
in the Mason Black ex Pull Matay Chuck sixty eight, Morrow thirty two Victor.
Is this how you see it breaking down between these two choices? This
is hard because I do absolutely love both of these players, and so that
makes it a little bit hard to choose, like asking to choose your favorite
child. Sometimes Jesse's really hard. But I think that when you look at
the progression of the two prospects, it actually leans a little bit Morrow,
So I don't think that this should be so astronomically different. I think that
they're closer, and then it becomes a little bit a question of preference,
and since both of them are maybe a couple of years away, it's a
little bit hard to take into account the team effect. So that's something sometimes
you use as a tiebreaker, but I don't necessarily like doing that when it's
so far away. When they're both farther away, if they're a year apart,
I think you could look at that a little bit more closely. But
anyways, let me just talk about these before I say who I would take.
But if you look at Moro, he his equivalency at a high school
was not terribly impressive, and then really good the last two seasons in the
NC DOUBLEA, so his star potential has been like a upward trajectory to thirty
nine percent, nine twenty and then thirty nine, so that you love that
progression year of a year. Mateychuk started at fifty three percent and maintained,
which is also hard to do because usually it goes really down after the first
season, especially if it's that high. So even though his second season or
his D plus one season at Mousta didn't look that much different, he's basically
just over a point per game and he was just under a point per game
this season. Before you look at that and say, oh, he didn't
increase by that much, but it's still really impressive what he's done, and
he's still a really an impressive player. They're a little bit different, and
Metaichuk, being a little bit undersized, might have a little bit of trouble,
but he's such a great skater and such. So smart Morrow has a
little bit more of the physical tools with the height and the skating. But
I think that for me, I personally do Mataichuk better, so I would
take him, but I don't think it should be sixty eight to thirty two.
I think if you think about value though I think Morow represents probably a
better value because as a mid second round pick, he's probably not on as
many people's radar as Mataichuk, who went twelve foot for all to Columbus,
and so that you have that to think about. I also, if you
think a little bit about the team and who's there, obviously Columbus has some
pretty stacked players there with Wrenski and obviously your Check who's looking great. So
they have some decent guys potentially blocking him. I don't like to think that
far in advance, but it is something to consider. Whereas more on the
other hand, Yess Carolina has some really great defenders and the Keishaan we just
talked about, but when is he going to come over? Morow might beat
him to the NHL, and then you know you have the inside track and
then you know, maybe a little bit more offensive chops and then you're running
the powerplay. So I really like Morow for that potential upside. If you
just look at some of other of Morrow's comparisons, some of them are not
terribly exciting, but Mike Green is someone who he looks a fair amount like,
and that would be obviously a really great outcome. If you look at
the Jay Fresh card, one percent chance of being a star from Morrow sixty
one percent chance of being an NHLer, though it was pretty high NHL or
probability. Maybe a little bit lower star potential. Yeah, but Morow is
definitely someone who I think you should have your eye on. I was one
who when they drafted him. Who's this guy at a high school? I
don't really know anything about him, but his transition to the NC DOUBAA and
what he's done since has been super impressive. School. I'll get yourself some
Scott Morrow if you can. And that's about it for this Jesse. There's
more guys we could talk about, especially on the Caroline Hurricanes. I should
also just say that I definitely want to listen to the top ten on lists
on this one if you're a patron, because they have so many players,
and that's one thing that, yes, for a team that's great, but
also they have a lot of guys, but none of most of them don't
really stand out again amongst the pack. So it's one of these things where
they have a lot of good guys but not a lot of great guys.
And so some pools are actually a little bit more exciting because they have three
four excellent prospects and then maybe overall the averages in his high But that's always
been the case for Carolina. They just have a lot of guys and so
they end up replenishing their you know, their coffers really well. So anyways,
listen to that top ten list if you're interested, if you want to
become a patron, you can check that out. If you're interesting to do
some scouting, shoot me a DM on Twitter, Discord, or email us.
Very good. We'll come right back close up the show. Hey everybody,
as we get out of here today, just a couple things to remind
you of. One of them is fantracks dot com. It is the place
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