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 hit stays. Here's your hosts, Jesse Souvier and Victor Nuno Fantasy
Hockey Live back once again to talk Fantasy hockey Dynasty Fantasy Hockey thirty two,
NHL club's Fantasy Hockey. I am Jesse Severe of Fan Track's joint by my
partner Victor Nunial of Dabber Prospects of Victor. How you doing today? Yeah,
I'm doing awesome, Jesse, definitely looking forward to another team preview.
We have a really great guest on to talk Flyers, and there's there's They
had a little bit of a rough season, but there's always gold to be
mined, and so some of these guys are going to be interesting and I'm
sure he's have some great takes on what we should be expecting from them,
but we all want to know first, how you are doing? Oh yeah,
Victor. They say it's always sunny in Philadelphia, and that's the dad
joke. That's Jesse's dad joke of the intro today folks that yeah, it's
it's I'm doing good. I'm doing good. We're plugging our way through this
thing, Victor. Behind the scenes, people, you need to know,
we had the most massive recording of Fantasy Hockey life history, and Victor and
I are we're on the downside of it now, but we are doing this
because we want you to have content even when we're out of town. So
we are going to plug through all of these episodes. But I think that
the thing that people should do that would make today even a greater day would
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why don't you tell people what is in there? Yeah, if you
want to help support the show and get some extra bonus content for yourself.
The Patron Cass and the patrons are going to be participanting in the upcoming June
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block shot tiers, which is really helpful. A lot of places have a
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You might say, how does a tier dynasty work? And it does,
and it will and it does. Will do join up and you'll see
it'll be worth it just to find out how it works, because it's really
cool. But we're going into year two of that sucker and we're looking for
more people to participate. Let's take a break. We're gonna come back and
talk Philadelphia Flyers. Pleased to be joined today by a guy who writes and
speaks about Philadelphia Flyers in a lot to places, Russ Cohen of EP,
Ringside, Serious, XM, NHL and Locked on Flyers. Russ, How
you doing good, Jesse? How are you? I'm excellent? Ready to
talk some Philadelphia Flyers. It's an enigma. It's a very interesting team,
this one, and yeah, we gotta get your insights. We gotta find
out what's going on here in Philadelphia. Six teams ended up below the Flyers
in the standings by the end of the year. It was actually a jump
from the previous year. It was some level of improvement in terms of the
points, and it was an interestingly key season for this team. They started
seven three and two, they won eight of ten following in the Christmas break,
and then they had a seven game point streak in late March five and
two. The problem is the rest of the season they went eleven thirty three
and nine if you take out those three streaks. So John Tortorella, he
made his presence felt as expected, though maybe the results have not materialized yet.
Two of the three highest paid forwards missed the season, and so did
the second highest paid demand. So injuries cut the legs out from under this
team before it even started, and then we ended up with a front office
shake up after the season. There's gonna be some bright spots. There are
some really good players, some good seasons that we're going to get to as
we go through the players individually. But what is the sense of whether the
Flyers are now on the right track. What do people make of last season?
Russ. Last season, Tortorella wanted to put his stamp on the team,
and he did to some degree. They definitely played harder, but were
some things that were complete missus too, Like when he sent out the letter
and said, Hey, this is going to be a really hard camp,
but we're going to be one of the best conditioned teams. They weren't.
A matter of fact, late in the season, there were games where they
were just running out of gas at times in the third period. Yes,
they were streaky because there were moments when the goaltending was really good and they
were getting scoring. The defense was really not great. The defense has had
a lot to be desired for most of the season, so it was a
mixed bag. So he put a stamp on things. I think they realized
two months into it that the hopes that they had, those faint hopes that
Chuck Fletcher had and maybe even John did, of possibly being at least a
contending team were out the window. And that's when things started to shift and
the narrative started to shift. But there were some weird things that went on
ice time wise and otherwise. Yeah, one guy who undoubtedly was as good
last had a great season. Travis Connectney. We'll start out there, Victor
and I psawm is maybe a lower end top hundred forward in fantasy hockey.
Ended up being the twenty eighth best fantasy forward in the league, and Victor
and I both see him as a top tierctor, tier two of tier one
for this coming year, the star of this team with Jeru and the prior
generation now fully cleared out. He had thirty one goals thirty assists for sixty
one points and sixty games. That's the most scored by a Flyer since twenty
eighteen nineteen as I look back there, so Connectney had a heck of yer.
I think maybe in terms of paciently so he missed games for a couple
of stretches to upper body injuries. Offense dropped from league average to not so
great as he skated to the bench last year. They needed him on the
ice, in other words, to be good. It also marked a tie
for his career high in points and a new high, and his scoring rate
comes with three shots, a hit and over half a block. Still a
value contracted five point five million for two more years. Everything screams out,
this might be one of the most valuable players or trade pieces that the franchise
has at this point. Apparently, mister Torrella would very much like to keep
him around. We'll connect me be with the team all year, do you
think And if so, is he going to be the same type of a
point per game score again all year? I can't tell you. I don't
think he'll get traded over the summer, but I can't tell you he'll be
there all year because there may be a point where they do decide that hey,
with just a little bit of term left on him, is the best
time to trade him right now? And if he's having another good season like
he did last year, he could be a good piece. I think at
twenty five, you're talking about a guy I saw him back in the sixty
seven's days, and he's reached his potential for the kind of player he is.
For sure. Could he sneak in the top twenty five, Yeah,
he probably could. I don't know how many more points do you get?
Maybe get sixty five. I know you're look at him and you say,
well, yeah, at sixty one to sixty that means if he plays eighty
two games. Yeah, but he's not always going to play eight games.
The way he plays. I think he was back to playing his sort of
on the edge. And I know he played seventy nine the year before,
but most of the time you looked at connecting it and it's been a few
years. He gets banged up a little bit, and that's okay. I
mean that's the kind of player he is. But I think when you look
at him the way he plays on the edge, time to spend in the
penalty box, those kinds of things that maybe take away from some of his
scoring. Definitely goes on long streaks of not having scoring, but he was
struggling a bit this year. At one point, I forget how many games
I was writing it every day. It must have been liked it. Get
to ten or eleven games something like that where he didn't score. It was
something like that and still a really good season. So yeah, he'll still
be the top point guy on the team. Awesome. Yeah, that'll be
fun to watch as we As Jesse said, we move into this new era
with these new guys that are taking these prominent roles and one guy that kind
of fits that as well as Owen Tippett. Frankly, I've been waiting for
this Tippet breakout for a while. I knew that he could do it.
I didn't really think it would happen on a team that was as devoid of
talent as this Flier's team. I thought that maybe some of the Florida teams
would be a little bit better. He surprised us. Jesse and I didn't
really have him in the top one fifty. He finished seventy seventh, and
we had him as a tier three guy, and he next year. I
think he can do a little better than that up to tier two. Jesse
still has him at the tier three, but twenty seven goals and seventy seven
games is pretty awesome. Twenty two assists to go along with that fifty two
point pace. I'm sure if his teammates could have converted a few more goals
that would have helped his pdo. Being nine eighty two suggests that this was
reasonable. The Flyers being the absolute worst team in terms of goal per sixty
on the power play didn't help, but Tippet did manage twelve power play points
all the same, and you look at his evolving hockey impacts and his offensive
impacts are really strong. Defensively, he's a little bit below average, but
also really good on the power play. And his contract he was a four
point two million dollars surplus value according to Dom's model. So I guess the
question Russ is do you think Tippett can take in even bigger step next season?
Maybe get up to a sixty point pacer, maybe even higher. I
don't think he can get higher than sixty. I think we're looking like fifty
five fifty in net range. There's a couple of reasons now could if he
was going to get over sixty, he would have to be a lot better.
As far as percentage of shots on net, he does not hit the
net nearly enough. He misses on a lot of breakaways. He rushes shots
and he misses. Two years ago, I had pointed out that he's a
little bit indecisive at times on the power play when he doesn't think about it.
If you got him Pucket just shoots it, it'll go right in or
right on net. If he's got a quarter of a second to think about
it, then he misses the net. And that's something that he still has
to work on. He's definitely improved defensively, But I agree with you on
your assessment. I think he also have to look he had an inordinate amount
of ice time and some of these games, some of these games Tortorella was
given him. There was a game I think he played twenty five minutes as
a forward, so you have to look at that too, because he was
just looking for any kind of offense and he didn't care if he wore tip
it out. He was getting offense out of him. So it was a
really good year for him. I think the reason it didn't work in Florida.
I mean I was high on tip It back in his draft year and
I had him pretty highly ranked. The issue was I think they never found
a spot for him in the top six because it was a talented team,
and so then after that, Florida was never that great with the guys,
with them flyers. You know, he could find a spot in the top
six and at least play with more talented players. So I think he could
hit the thirty goal mark. That's possible. He's not a tremendous assist guy,
but there are times where he could be okay with that, And that's
why I say sixty is probably the limit you would see for him, But
I could see fifty five next year, and to me, that's a good
year and a good value. I really don't expect that much more out of
him. I think there's a lot of hyperbole about him. But again,
I've got to see the improvement on the shooting percentage, because that's key.
I looked it up at points in the year, and among the worst of
the league for the amount of ice time he had. Even though he has
twenty seven goals, his most common linemate last year and vice versa was Morgan
Frost, and Morgan Frost had really a huge jump over his career rates.
He had nineteen goals twenty seven assists for forty six points in eighty one games.
That was forty six points in eighty one games in his first three years
he played seventy seven games combined, it only had twenty three points, a
big jump. He's good for a hit in two shots per game in just
sixteen twenty one average time on ice. Fourth on the team in power play
time on ice was Morgan Frost, though again that might not be something to
break about with the league's worth worst power play points, but Frost has been
cheap so far in his career evolving Hockey's projecting a raise in restrictive free agency
from eight hundred k about two and a half million. This summer scenario is
more likely. Yeah, it is Philly going to you know, are gonna
get maybe sixty points second line Morgan Frost as time goes forward, or is
he going to be like a steady forty point third or fourth liner? What
should we really think that Morgan Frost is going to turn out to be.
He really had a good year. Again, everybody went nuts over Tippet and
we're forgetting that. Really, for a lot of the season, Frost was
ahead of them points. Frost is really good on faceoffs. Now he has
turned into at least a second line center, so it depends on his linemates
a little bit. His vision was really good. He was really smart through
the neutral zone this year. He was good on the power play for sure,
but he also was His vision showed up. I feel like him five
on five situations too. His shot is better. He always had a good
shot. Now I think he's got a little more behind it because he's gotten
stronger over the last two years. I see him in the locker room all
the time. He's physically stronger, for sure. He's another guy I've followed
for a very long time, So I think fifty five points is the max
you'll see from him. I think if you've got a fifty point season out
of him, you're doing good, because again, he has to He's not
going to play with true top talent if he were able to if they had
a little bit more. Let's say if Forrester were like good enough to make
the team and he played with him that year, Yeah he could do a
little better because then that would work out, but that might be a year
away. So I think fifty points is reasonable for him. As I look
at Flyer's Twitter, as I look at Flyer's pools, Kevin Hayes is the
man who everybody thinks is getting traded this summer. They're hoping he's getting trade.
I think those are different. Yeah, maybe wishful thinking due to that
contract. Anyway, he was the second leading scorer in the team last year
fifty four points in eighty one games, and yet he's been the defensive liability,
and Tortorella has been focused on improving that. There's a nice article about
putting him on the wing a little bit, and maybe that helped his defensive
numbers. But he said, the kicker here is twenty million dollars over the
next three years, which is a lot of money to pay for what Kevin
Hayes will give you these days. If the Flyers are in flux, is
this a guy that the team would look to move, even if it means
retaining salary or attaching some sort of an asset, just to reset the roster
and acquire more players to the coach's liking. Or could Hayes just come back
and have a sixty five point season as he continues to bounce back from those
core surgeries that really sidetracked him for a while in his career. Yeah,
he was healthy last year. There was nothing like holding him back offensively,
for sure. He did his own thing out there, and much to the
chagrin of John Torto, you know, there was times where Kevin Hayes was
just floating out there and towards didn't like it. But again, what can
you really do. He is your highest paid guy. He did come through
point wise, but he didn't come through team wise, and so that's the
struggle here now, So do you want him to be your third line center
at the money he's making, I don't think so. So I think he's
still going to end up on the wing. I think he did start the
pla him at center again, hoping that he could rebuild his value in that
second half of the season, and it didn't happen at the deadline, right,
So I just think he'll end up back on the wing and then he's
a little free or to score points. I think what you're seeing right there
point wise is what he is. And I think that's because again I remember
that Kevin Hayes on the Rangers was like always showing that he could do this
point wise, and I think the problem here is they got Kevin Hayes and
gave him that contract to work with Lane Vigo. He player. He worked
really well for Vinyo because Vigno didn't mind some of those other things in his
game. Then you switch coaches. It's John Tortorella. Now that coach is
harping on those things in his game. So you're never going to see the
maximum amount of offensive output that you can get from him, because there's always
going to be that problem with he and Towards, and Towards will tell you
there's no problem, but there is. And Haze will say everything's okay,
but it's not. He's just gonna play, that's it. He's gonna soldier
on. He's getting paid handsomely, and so I think right now, I
think he'll be back. I don't think they will attach an asset to him
to trade him. I think that was a bad look after the last time,
and they can't really afford to do that now they need their assets.
Would they take back a bad contract, sure, but again, if you're
a rebuilding team taking back a bad contract, the only way that's worthwhile is
if you're saving a year of term or something like that, where you can
get out of his deal a year earlier. You can do that, then
it's worth it to take it back. So again, that's a slippery slope.
I know there's a lot of hope because it's like, hey, look
he scored fifty points, but teams know what he is, and I know
everybody's trying to think that, hey, he'll go to Columbus because it grew
drow. But Yarmour doesn't like paying top of the market value, and this
value is way over what Kevin Hayes is. The Flyers would have to eat
a couple million for probably the length of his contract. And at first I
was told there's no way that's going to happen. No team's doing that from
a lot of different sources. Now I hear it's possible. So if they
ate two million a year off his salary, could he go in a trade
to Columbus and get something in return. Sure, but then you're still saddled
with that two million every year. It's not like I worry about the cap.
I'm going to just go into the world economics a bit and just say
I know everybody thinks in another year it's going to go up to ninety million.
But if the economy has a problem after this dead sailing problem, it's
going to affect the NHL too, because then people's secondary that flexible flex income
that they have may not be all spent on tickets, and the NHL needs
it at the gate. So I can't tell you the CAP's going to go
up to ninety and two years. I'm a little dubious about that until I
see what happens with the economy. So I think teams are going to be
very careful about how they handle Cain't getting a big contrack like this, and
even if the Flyers have to eat two million, that's again two million against
your cap every year for no player. So that's something where you have to
decide the pluses and minuses and look at the tea leaves and yes, it
would help their cap situation for sure, But the Flyer's history has been now
that we've cleared the cap, we'll just go sign somebody else, and they
can't go and do that this time. If they do, you better do
it for a lot less and for a lot better reasons, and really just
for the time that you're rebuilding. That's my recommendation. Let's talk about just
because we only got so much time, but a couple other forwards that we
got to mention, who are some of the reasons why they can't just go
out and do that. You got your Scott Latton, you got your Joel
Ferraby, you got your shun Couturier Alton at forty three points in seventy eight
games and all captain, fifth on the team at points. Ferraby also about
a half point per game guy, and the youngest of this crowd at twenty
three. The team's got a long term commitment to Ferraby with five million per
for the next five years, but neither of those compares to the Sean Cochurier
commitment. He's got another what another seven years coming on his contract of seven
point seven five million per that, right is it? Yeah, it's seven
more years and he missed the whole year, right, so there are Yeah,
Oh gosh, it's been a while since we've seen Cchuri arguably would be
the best player if he sat on the ice in terms of the forwards or
have you seen him on the practice size? And that's it. And yeah,
worry is back injuries with NHL players is tough. You can go back
to the Tim curR days and see that when he went to the Rangers that
back injury affected him. It's going to affect Courier the rest of his career.
Now, will he be a number one center? I don't know.
I'll just set the over under at fifty games. Will he play fifty games
at a high level nextual? Like? That's I would like to see them.
That's that's for me. That's the top of the bar for me.
And I don't expect him to be a first line center talent now, I
expect them to be a second or third line center talent, maybe a second,
So it'd be still a big deal if he could play. And there's
gonna be probably times where he's going to miss games because of whatever you want
to call it, load management, whatever you want to say. Like I
said, if they can get fifty games out of him, I think that
would be a really good season. And if they did, that would help
their overall situation, would help the penalty kill, would help their points and
all that. Can I count on that as a coaching staff and a team,
No, I can't counter it because he got hurt non contact last comeback.
So even though he's skating now, it doesn't matter. What matters is
when he starts getting into and even if he's practicing with contact doesn't matter.
What matters is when he's getting into the games in real situations and getting hit.
And we're not going to know that for a while. Yeah, for
sure. So let's move over to the blue line. Out of these guys,
we got Tony D'Angelo preseason victor and I he wasteth best defender in terms
of fantasy, but it looks like it'll be one of our top picks next
year. Didn't have quite the season he had in his last two campaigns and
excluding that COVID year when he was in exile from the New York Rangers.
But it was certainly a successful year relative to the team context and circumstances.
Forty two points and seventy games, good for two and a half shots in
a block of game. I may not care that his plus minus was negative
twenty seven, five below Kevin Hayes did last on the team, but I
wonder if Torts cares or if he's noticed that. Yeah, not the best
metric, but at some point it might mean something. After all, he
was getting healthy scratched in April, if I saw that right, and the
rest of the defensive minutes on the team distributed similar to the prior year.
If anything, it seemed like Deangelos stepped into maybe thirty five year old Justin
Bronze gig, which was an upgrade just in terms of the minutes in the
way that they were dispersed last year. And he's owed five million more for
one more year. I'm sure the baggage is not forgotten, but this seems
like an inflection point on this guy who's on his fifth NHL franchise. Is
he a long term part of the Philly plant and should we expect a fifty
to sixty point year. I hear your answer is no, It's definitely no.
It's a big resounding note. By the end of the year, Towards
was finally admitting, yeah, this guy's a third pairing defense so he's a
third pairing power play guy, which in fantasy is fine, right, nobody's
going to care about that. He could have done better on the power play
though, like his eleven goals could have been a lot better. There were
a lot of times where he was just passing the puck and not even trying
to get good shots on net, or at least wasn't seeing them. So
I felt he could easily improve that to fifteen goals if things went better on
the power play. Things are going to be rocky with him and towards the
rest of the way. It's just the way it is because he's gonna do
things that Towards likes, he's gonna do things that annoys him. You can
see the amount of penalty minutes. If you're a league that counts pims,
that's great for him being in the penalty box. Being one of their better
power play guys that doesn't help the team. So in the end, I
think right around what he got last year is right around would have get this
year, and I think he'll get traded at the deadline. I think that's
the plan here. I don't think anybody's gonna take him over the summer at
the full rate, and I don't think they'll discount him, so I think
they'll use him and then eventually trade him. Gotcha the guy who I don't
know. You're gonna have to talk me into. This guy one or the
other. Yvon Probroff, the other big defenseman here. Not long ago,
I thought of him as a low end, solid but unspectacular franchise d one,
one of the low end guys. His number one Matching Hockey Reference in
point cheers per year came up as Ryan Poolock from recent years, and I
felt like that, like the guy who maybe he's not going to be a
big power play guy, but he's going to soak up the minutes and be
decent. He's also not really taken on that big offensive role at least in
the box score point every three games, shot in a half, two blocks
and a hit every night, holding down twenty three minutes that's tops on the
club. That's good and a poll in the athletic of professed flyers fans him
want to trade Pearl Broth this summer, second only to Kevin Ay's. So
does Ivan stay in Philly in this new regime and does he keep up the
top minutes on the blue line. If he does, he's going to be
talked about in trades. But the problem is when they trade him. If
they trade him, they have nobody to put there. What are they gonna
do. They're gonna put Ristalline in there. York's not ready to be there
in that spot, so's it'll be really ugly if they do it. They
might do it. I don't think they should because I still think if you
want to develop players, you still need this guy in your lineup. He's
the best condition of the lone of the team. I think a lot of
fans may be mad about him about the other circumstances with the you can play
stuff and Pride night, and I was mad at him about that too,
But as far as a player, he gave his all. And it's interesting
you brought up Poolock. I don't think the Islanders have used Poolock right considering
the type of shot he has. Pro Brow doesn't have that kind of cannon
that Poolock has, and so it would overalls getting points. It's because his
shot just hits the net and others are able to take advantage. And then
he is really good at pension. He's really super smart and that's where he's
getting some of his other points from when he does come in that way.
So he can improve on this to maybe thirty points, maybe even thirty five
if things were better, If Cam York gets better like that, I could
see pro rops points going up a bit. His hits could go up a
little bit more. I think maybe under Towards they will Towards does not dislike
him. There's no issue with the teammates and him other than when he just
upset the team that night. So I think the Flyers fans want to get
rid of him because they're like, oh, look, he's not like in
the top ten of number one defenseman and hey, I saw this guy play
in Hacketsack, New Jersey before he was in the league, and I was
really taken with him. I thought he was the right guy to draft.
He's been a really good player. Yeah, is he like the twentieth number
one in the league. Maybe sure, but again they're hard to find.
Go find one where you know, where are you getting one? Unless he's
thirty five years old or thirty two years old? Where are you getting one
right now? I think it's a big conundrum because he is twenty five.
There's a couple of years left I believe on his deal. So for this
year, I don't think they should trade him. I think they could entertain
talks. That's great, but I still think they need him for the developing
other defenseman. They have him on a team. You want to trade him
next summer, fine, that's then you'll be in a different situation. But
I don't think they can afforward you yet. And then point wise, yeah,
he can improve, but you mentioned him. Could you give all those
minutes to Rasmus Rista Line and you're better now. Rasmus Rista Line used to
have a lot of minutes for Buffalo on some not so good teams. Now,
look, in fantasy, we're never going to stop loving this guy.
Rista Linon is gold and fantasy because shots, hits blocks, he does all
the in in the old days. He get some power play time too.
Actually evolving Hockey said he had a nice bounce back year. They said that
five million dollar contract that he's got still going actually was about appropriate for some
of the advanced stats. But these days he's not quite the minutes eater he
used to be. He's down to nineteen oh one. He's going to turn
twenty nine at the beginning of the season, and the Flyers have him in
a contract for four more years. And I guess I'm curious what the take
is on how thinks of him, just generally. Is he going to survive
this regime change and will risk the line and get an increased role next year
or kind of about the same as he's been used. No, he'll survive.
Towarts liked him by the end of the year. What's interesting is,
I think people in Buffalo and those fantasy people that think about the Buffalo Risto
have to wipe that from their memory. I do. He's never going to
get those kinds of minutes on the top power play and anything else like that.
However, the Flyers did start to use them on the power play again,
and they did start to get more points out of him this year compared
to last year because they saw that once he was more confident with his defensive
game. His offensive game did start to come around. So could I see
Risto getting thirty points? I could because if his power play time increases,
he does have a good shot and he is a good passer, And you've
got to figure they're not going to be the worst power play in the league
second year running. Even if they're the move up four spots, that's going
to be more points for him. He's gonna get twenty minutes a game.
So I do think there's more offensive opportunity for Risto lane. And make sure
you leave a spot where we can talk about Farraby because I do need to
mention Farraby as well. At some point. We've never got to him.
Oh yeah, sorry, we mentioned Ferraby and we mentioned who was the other
one. I think Lawton's where he's going to be, like, I think
that was his career year. I don't know if he can get much more
that. Maybe he gets forty five points. Faraby will get much more than
what he did this year. He just he rushed back with the neck injury.
He's not Jack Eichel. Jack Eichel is a freak of a human being,
and you could see that now and just how his recovery has been Faraby
was a little more immoral, but and he's never going to be the talent
Jack Echo was, but he's better than what showed and he was frustrated,
really frustrated with his play. So I think next year, and we don't
know what this version two point l of Joe Fierby will be right after that
injury. But I think if he got fifty points, I wouldn't be surprised
because he has a much better shot and he could get twenty something goals for
sure. And if he's with the right linemates, if he gets any kind
of power play time, I think those numbers will go up. He was
getting power play time last year, so that's something. And just on a
side with Kates, if Kates isn't the center, he'll get more points.
If he's a center, he's going to be right where he is for points.
All right, let's talk about you mentioned him already, one of the
younger defenseman Cam York. Last year, we didn't really rank tier him because
he was really sure how much he was going to do, but he did
really well in the AHL this past season. Thirteen points in twenty games was
pretty good. He played fifty four for the Flyers. He had thirty games
last season, so building up. He had twenty points in his fifty four
games played. Twelve of them were primary, so that was nice. He
had a little sprinkling of power play time on ice, and actually his defensive
metrics were really good. And I know the issue with him has always been
that he's a little bit smaller five eleven one seventy five, but he really
jove play pretty well and had some pretty good offensive contributions too in a little
bit of power play time he got. And so looking into next year,
I know some of us are really jonesing for him to take that big step
next year. You think he can play over twenty minutes. He was at
nineteen thirty nine this year. Can he get over that hump and then maybe
get up to the forty five point pace. He could definitely get to the
twenty minute point. His defense was better. He his thing is he still
loses some puck battles for lack of physical strength. Even though he took that
picture a couple of years ago showing that he was more pumped up than he's
been, He's still a work in progress as far as winning physical puck battles.
So as far as if he's going to be a pairing defenseman, I'm
still not sure that's where he's going to land his career. He might be
better off as a second pair, but right now on this team, that's
where they have him, and he's playing the off side. He did that
very well. The issue with Cam York though, is his shot is not
he doesn't get it on net at all. Like his shooting percentage was awful,
really awful, And if that improves even slightly, then yes, he'll
get to the thirty point mark. The problem was when I used to watch
him with the NTVP, there are a lot of other guys that could score
on that powerplay, so he didn't always have to shoot with the flyers.
Now when he is on the power play, they're expected in the shoot a
little more and there's some hesitancy there and that's probably because of his age.
So that's the part that you know, and he's twenty one. I know
some people will say he's a veteran, he should do it now, and
it's sometimes defensemen take until twenty four to twenty five to really get to their
peak. But he needs to hit the net. If Cam York could hit
the net more, then you're looking at maybe eight goals and maybe thirty something
points. I think that's more realistic for next year. Provov helped him a
lot, and Krovorov liked him as a pairing so a pairing mate, So
I think that could still happen. But I don't know if you're getting any
more than that this year, unless all of a sudden, like I said,
all of a sudden, his shot is hitting the net like Gosti spirit
used to. Yeah, good points there. I wanted to ask you just
briefly. I know this probably isn't very likely, but mL Andre is someone
who is someone that we've been pretty excited about as a prospect. He's also
a smaller defenseman, even smaller at five to nine, but he's been playing
pretty big roles in the SHL for HP seventy one. How kaols fence In
came over and did some HL time, and he was really excellent at the
last year twenty World Championships. Just wondering if there's any chance that he makes
the team, plays a role for the Flyers this season, or is at
HL time for him all right? So one thing to add on York.
So just to give you the actual shooting percentage, it was four point eight.
It was nine point one the year before. He's got to get back
to at least that. That's what I was talking about. So Andre is
a really good guy on the power play and actually even though he's smaller,
he's feisty. He will hit you, he'll do all those things. But
I did see at a little hesitancy as far as being the same guy over
here in North America that he was in the SHL, probably because of the
change of ring size and everything else. I think he needs more time in
the A. He may not need another full season because he got some time
at the end of the year there, but he's going to need probably half
the season in the AHL before you could really see what he's going to do.
So I wouldn't power the Flyers. I wouldn't rush him in there because
he can end up being like a number two power play guy for them down
the line because he's really good at that. Plus give you really good minutes.
But I don't think he's quite there yet. Sounds good, Yeah,
So that's the defense. Let's move over to the goalies. Now, the
Flyers had eighteenth expected goals against for sixty two point seventy three, but conceded
the twenty third number of actual goals and they were quite a bit below expectation.
But that wasn't on Carter Hart. He was quite a bit above that.
The other guys let the team down, I guess you would say,
but let's start with Heart. Super solid season for him, especially considering the
team in front of him. Fifty five games played, almost eleven goals save
above expected delta. Fenwick was point five six, really good there, and
he had a surplus value according to Dom's model in terms of contracts, just
a little bit over the four million he's getting. And this is his last
year at three point nine million for Heart before becoming an RFA. So I
guess he's had a little bit of up and down in his career. I
think he maybe had the starting role earlier than maybe he was ready for,
had a couple of down years. Of course there was COVID, but he
seems to be back or I guess that's the question. Is this what we
should Is this type of production from Heart what we should expect moving forward?
Yeah? I think it is the confidence as they have the maturity he's physically
stronger. He was mentally locked in on a lot of games that boy it
looked really bad with the Flyers and he was keeping him in it. So
the numbers are good. He's got extraneous circumstances right now. I don't know
if they'll offer him a contract or even see where he's at contract wise in
the summer until the stuff with Hockey Canadas squared away. It's not fully squared
away yet, so that's something where that might roll into the season now,
and so then they may not know where he's going to be in contract wise
until maybe deep into this season. If he's willing to negotiate during the season,
I think they would bring him back for four or five years for sure.
But I think all those other things have to happen. As far as
his play, his play is really good. I don't think he could do
much better, though, just because of what's in front of him and what
will be in front of him. I think their defense can improve a little
bit. Sure. Again, I know it was like a lost leader when
it was mentioned, and it's true. It's a fact that they improved,
like when Jesse said they improved point wise, they did, but some of
that has to do with how the other teams in the league played too,
and how hard they were playing. And sometimes the Flyers beat some teams just
by showing up, just by playing hard, and so that part I think
is going to play into this with Carter Hart. Two. I think they
overplayed them, and you saw at the end of the year they started arresting
them a little bit more because I feel like they thought they overplayed him too.
So I think you want to play him about fifty fifty games, that's
it. I don't know if I want to play Carter hard anymore because you're
talking about I don't have the stats. That's your guy's job. But he
was as far as like high leverage chances against, he had to be probably
one of the three or top three guys in the league as far as facing
that and high danger shots. That's what you're worry about with Carter Hart.
But as far as actual fantasy production, he'll get it. Is he going
to get enough wins for somebody? I don't know, Like, you probably
want to have another good goalie even if you have Carter Hart. Yeah,
it certainly depends on what kind of league you're in. If you need volume
and saves like he's going to be good for that, but in terms of
wins, yeah, maybe maybe not. And in terms of the other guys,
Felix Sandstrom Samuel Erson, these are two guys that you have been in
the system for a while. They Sanstram is a bit older at twenty six.
They he had twenty games, Orson had twelve. He's twenty three,
so he's just a year younger than Heart. They both but both of them
not so good in terms of like their raw numbers below nine hundred, say
percentage, but Sandstrom struggled a lot more. His goal save above expected were
negative ten Erson was pretty neutral at point one seven and Sanstrom's delta Fenwick was
way negative compared to Urson's neutral. Part of this is wondering what, as
you said, they're gonna they can or should limit hearts starts a little bit,
so then who gets the rest of the starts there in terms of the
backups. And we have Sanstrom another year before he's in RFA, and then
we also have Urson in the same boat and I mentioned a bit younger,
So what do you think is going to happen in terms of the rest of
the starts there? For the Flyers. Yeah, the problem with Sandstrom is
he's out of options, right, So he's one of those guys. If
you start calling him up and down, somebody's going to claim him at some
point. That's why they ended up having three goalies for a while. Person's
the favorite of John Tortorella. So Urson's going to get most of the starts.
You could look at the win loss. Obviously Urson did much better,
but I also think sometimes Sanstra was thrown in there and brutal circumstances against tough
teams while the team was on a big time losing streak just to give Carter
Hart a blow, and I don't think that helped him numbers wise. So
Erson will be their backup. He'll get the lion's share of the backup.
He had a good winning percentage with the team, but that sort of was
just one of those, I think situations where he came in played right.
They won some games, I want to say, won five in a row
something like that, and it wasn't going to be sustainable for the type of
team that they are. But Urson will definitely be their backup. Nice and
I know that I saw an update from you and I just want to hear
if you have more, but I haven't fed. At top is the guy
that you know has a lot of potential, has a lot of upside.
I know that he's he was in Russia and stuck and they were penalizing him
for trying to get out of there. What is the update on him in
terms of his long term future. Yeah, he's there to play. I
don't think he's gonna ever come unless there's a regime change in Russia. So
you can, as a Flyers fan, really hope to see him because he's
gonna be there, and he's gonna be there. He's back in the league,
so that means he fulfilled his commitment to the military. But that's it.
He's not going anywhere. So yeah, it's a shame. Some of
those problems were his own problem that he caused, and then some of them
just because it's horrible the way things are there. So if you're a Flyers
fan or a Fantasy fan, if you have him, don't hold on to
him. A shame, it's a shame. Yeah, this has been great
information us on the Philadelphia Flyers. Why don't you let people know all the
different places that they can keep up with your work. Sure, Like you
said, ep rank side right now. I've been doing lots of draft articles
over the year, and I just put one up on the Fisher so that
one just went live this morning so people could check that out. It's unlocked.
That's good. Sportshology dot Com is my website. There's also a fair
amount of draft info on there. That's where my mom not my mock.
I almost said it because I'm doing a mock in a week. I don't
like mocks, but that's where my rankings have been. So I have five
different versions so you can see how the metamorphosis of that is. So,
yeah, the rankings are up there. Five point zero is up there.
We have a show call off the Post that's once a week usually Sunday mornings.
Do the buzzcast every day and then sprinkle in locked on flyers every day,
and yeah, I stay busy, and then full Press Coverage. I'll
be doing more draft stuff for them as well. Full Press Hockey is actually
that I do. Full press coverage is actually baseball. You don't want to
hear about baseball in the show, but I do that too. I want
to hear about baseball, but victory victory would drop off, so we can't
do that, all right. Thanks, thanks Ross, this has been great
stuff. Thanks for coming on the show. Okay, see you guys.
Wilson. That's good fire. Oh my goodness, go without cat quick grab.
Now it's your weekly goalie Talk with Cats Silverman Cat's Instincts and time for
another Cat's Instincts with Cats Silverman Ben goldmag and we are gonna talk, of
course, Philadelphia Flyer prospect goalies now. And I want to start with probably
the most confusing, and that is Ivan fedatof And yeah, he's also the
most exciting, I think, perhaps but also risky, scary, who knows
what the adjective is. But if for those of you who haven't been following
the news, he was trying to leave last year to come over to North
America and he was basically thrown in military jail and didn't play all of last
season, and it came out this recently that he was gonna play again,
but in Russia, potentially for the rest of his career. So I don't
know if you have any more insight on any of this cat, but he
is a when he plays, he's a pretty great goalie. But I think
it's pretty unclear that he'll ever come to North America. What do your instincts
tell us on Ivan Fedatov. That's I so at the top of my notes
for Philadelphia, just as Philadelphia, Boy, do they need it, because
this is a team that's so desperately needs goaltending. And it's too bad because
Ian is, I would say, their most clear cut NHL ready. Like
every game I've watched him play, he looks stellar. He looked like he
was he looked like he was NHL ready when he made the announcement that he
was going to come over to North America. And he had smart reads,
he was patient, good depths, plays well on the power, play on
the penalty kill. He looked like their best bet last year. And I
think that they hoped that he was their best bet last year because they didn't
sign anyone else. And then, like he said, he got thrown in
military prison, and he got thrown in a prison camp. At one point,
there were rumors that he had been hospitalized, that he'd fallen ill while
he was there. I'm always really hesitant to speculate too much on that stuff
because I don't want to cause any has any damage to any players livelihood or
well being by speculating that, oh, he's going to make it to North
America or oh he's not. But if he makes it over, I think
he and Carter Hart would be just an absolutely dynamic well. But there is
no guarantee. He plays for CSKA Moscow when he is in Russia, and
that's a team that, putting it very loosely, hand picks their players to
do well, and they have a lot of good resources and a lot of
good goaltending coaching, and it's a great place to succeed if you're a goaltender
if they let you come to North America. If he wants to come over
to North America and they let him, that'd be awesome. If it seems
like he's going to have to continue playing over there, it's Philadelphia's loss.
I truly have no idea if he's going to make it over. I feel
like last year it's still very stubbornly showed under the twenty two twenty three season.
Philadelphia Flyers for his name for the longest time and then finally they took
it away. And right now it says that's where he's projected to be for
this year. But I just don't know. So if he makes it over,
I think that's a huge pickup for Philadelphia, But obviously there's no guarantee
that he can do that, so I think they probably need to look at
him almost as a backup option at this point. Yeah, who knows with
him. He is someone though that I think if he does come to North
America and he's available in your league, you want him because he has all
the potential to be a starter. Yeah, I think, I truly think
that the best chance for success in Philadelphia is a one B situation where they
give carter Hart and whoever is his one B ample rest to play behind that
defense. But I would assume unless carter Hart really rebounds that if the autop
comes over, he would be there one A. That would be my guess.
Yeah, we'll have to wait and see. I think if you go
look at a lead prospects and it says that he's playing for the Flyers this
year, but yeah, or last year, but obviously that did not happen.
So just monitor the situation. If you get confirmation and it seems very
clear that it's happening, been and go at him. Otherwise, just watch
and the next guy we're going to talk about Alexei Kolosov Phillies twenty twenty one
third round pick. He is six feet tall, so a little bit under
size for a goalie. He's he's Belo Russian and he is now twenty one
years old to mention that, and he's been playing in the KHL for Dina
Moominsk the last couple of seasons. This year he played more than he had
before, forty two games, nine to twelve s a percentage two point five
five ga. If you look at his hockey prospecting equivalency, it is a
linear straight ascension up to eighty four percent likelihood of being an NHLOR, which
is incredible. These are equivalences of guys like Simon marmalav Nikolai Habibullin, and
some guy named Andrey Vasilevski. So, yeah, I never heard of him.
He just finished his most productive KHL season. As I mentioned, Should
we be excited about Alexei Kolosov kat what your instincts tell you? I think
so. He's a really fun one to watch. He's got a super smooth,
fluid game. He is a small guy. I love me a good
small goaltender. I always want to root for the underdog, quite literally,
but he is the best goaltender in the Belarusian system too. I believe he
played their last game at Worlds. It was split between him and Danny Taylor,
who is either an American Belarusian or a Canadian Belarusian goaltender who the two
of them are the two best options, and I think that Alexei Kolosov did
better of the two, and he's a lot of fun to watch. I
think he needs a little more structure and needs to clean up some of his
decision making, but a lot of that comes from the fact that he's been
playing in the KHL, is essentially a very young player, and not playing
for one of the two Russian powerhouses. He's been playing for the Belarusian team
in the KHL, which has fewer resources than sk or CSK. So I
think he's done a really good job with what we've seen so far. I
think, obviously his height will be considered a concern until he wins a Besni.
That's one of those things that when you see a guy listed at six
feet tall, you have to assume he's probably closer to five ten, and
people always get a little nervous about those quote unquote smaller goaltenders. But I
watched a bunch of his highlights, and I watched a bunch of his games,
and did he I felt calm watching him. He was a goaltender who
just seemed like he was keeping himself in the pace of the game. He
was making good decisions, he wasn't sending rebounds into really risky areas. He
was just like a lot of fun to watch. And if he makes it
over to North America, which I think it's super fascinating that Philadelphia is seemingly
only picking up prospects that are playing in Europe and may or may not come
over to North America. They're rolling the dice on everyone, it seems.
If he comes over to North America, I think he's a really fun option
for them. Yeah, it seems like you want a nice blend of North
America and Europeans so you can have some options nearby, so you have some
Yeah, it's going to be a fun one. Literally, go look at
his charts if you're a patron, it's incredible. He looks amazing. But
we'll have to see Belarussian obviously involved with the Russia Ukraine conflict too, so
there may be some extra issues there. But we have two more to talk
about, and that's Felix sans fer him Samuel Erson. We saw a little
bit of sans Ferm and Ersim in the HL. They it's nice to have
two NHL ready goalies. I'm not sure how excited we should be about either
of them, though, and certainly they are more available than the other two
Russian and Belaruessians we talked about since they played some NHL games. But Felix
sans for one had negative eleven point two two goals save above expected. Erson
was two point two nine above, so that was good, and Heart just
for context, was almost thirteen goals save above expected, so that was pretty
incredible. Just looking at raw numbers, Erson was an eight ninety nine percentage,
Sanstrom eight eighty and Sanstrom though played twenty games, Erson twelve and had
in those twelve games he had three more wins and Sandstrom had in his twenty,
so an interesting mixed bag there. If you look at their hockey prospecting,
they both graduated that model with roughly thirty percent chance of being an NHLer
and so with some spikes and valleys here and there, What can you tell
us about these two cat What do your instincts tell us between Felix Sanstrm Samuel
Erson is the one we should be more excited about than the other. I
don't know. I so for the longest time, those were the two outside
of Carter Heart, those were the two. Oh, if they make it
over to North America, those are the guys that will watch. And I
assumed that they had both of them so that if one of them didn't choose
to come over to North America, they had the other one. And then
both of them came over and neither one seemed like they really hit their full
potential. To me, even back when they were still prospects, I wasn't
ever super in love with either of their games. There wasn't anything wrong with
their games, just nothing super remarkable for me. Herson's interesting to me because
I think he is absolutely in the wrong team system because he has some really
good skating instincts, really good tracking, but when he panics his technique,
King slip and Philadelphia is a team where goaltenders panic, and it's always frustrating
watching a goaltender who really doesn't do well when faced with just like an absolute
dismantling of the defense in front of them playing for Philadelphia, because I feel
like everyone on Oil they have a season where they play eight or nine goaltenders
in a season and we get to see just the whole run of the gambit.
I don't think Felix Sandstrom has the same ceiling that Samuelaarson does, but
I do think that he stays a little bit calmer, and so I'm interested
to see how that goes. I don't really know how to evaluate Philadelphia for
next year, because I think that they were supposed to be a team that
took a step forward last year, and instead they finished somewhere on par with
Arizona. If I remember correctly, they were a team that for sure was
not looking at the playoffs. And I don't know if next year they're expecting
to continue rebuilding or if they're a team that hopes that they'll take that step
forward once again. I guess we'll see, now that they have an overhaul
in the front office, what they're really what their team roster looks like.
But yeah, I think both guys are fine. I don't think either ones
necessarily start our material though, which obviously Philadelphia doesn't eat it. Because they
do have Carter Hart who struggled for the Flyers, but the Flyers struggled for
the Flyers, so that's okay. Yeah, I'd say maybe Arson's slightly higher
for me than Stanstrom, but neither one for me is like a must have,
and I don't think Philadelphia considers either one of must have necessarily either.
Good to know. Thanks for your instincts on the Philadelphia Flyer goalies. Will
be back right after this. Dig Dynasty, Dig Philadelphia Flyers, Philadelphia Freedom.
Ready to talk a little bit of Philadelphia Flyers. The Philly Flyers have
the number seven pick in the upcoming NHL Entry Draft. They have their own
picks except for the second and the third round pick. They have the Rangers
in Florida's third round picks. They have Edmonton's fourth, they have Ottawa sixth,
and Victor has this system ranked tied for fifth. So let's start out
with the top of the system, Victor, and it's the no brain or
prospect of the Philadelphia Flyers. Who is it, Cutter Gautier. To be
honest, I didn't really expect this to be the case. When after the
draft, I was wondering whether they reached a little bit. I know that
last year's USN TB wasn't the strongest group, but I was not really sure
that Cutter Gautier was the guy. You look at some other guys on that
team, laid Hunton certainly doing things and looking really good. We also,
of course have the Jimmy snuggerud going off. Cooley wasn't available. There's other
guys like McGroarty and Howard, who Yeah, it seems like Gautier it was
better than those. So it was interesting though that he went so high and
I was a little bit not so sure. But man, he really did
awesome college this year. And just to mention six foot two left wing slash
center, I know Philly really wants him to be a center, and he
did play in the middle quite a bit this year, and he was over
a point per game for Boston College this season, thirty seven points in thirty
two games. He took a break in the middle to represent USA at the
World Junior Championships and he had ten points in seven games en route to a
bronze medal. I know that many people mentioned that after that he came back
and had a little bit more confidence and was a little bit better in college.
He is now playing at the World Championships. As we're recording this,
this will be over by the time you hear it. And we just watched
Germany defeat Us in this semis and overtime. That was disappointing. Lane Hudson
with a really terrible play defensively on that one who were talking about. But
Gautier did pretty awesome in that tournament nine points in nine games. He actually
had nine points in eight games before that, seven goals, and the coaches
had been asking him to shoot more and he delivered. He was shooting up
a store and so that was really good. That seems to be something that
he is going to be good at, getting a lot of shots. On
his expectant, we're pretty high. And for a little bit more about what
makes Cutter Gautier so special, let's hear from our FHL scout. That's right,
Victor, Mister Gaudier was somebody that FHL scout Brandon used to know and
skating for this guy, powerful high torque, linear stride with the midlow motor
overall uses the momentum he gathers to surf on the edges efficiently. When maneuvering
on the attack or if evading tackers covers a lot of ice would benefit from
a transition rush style of team play. In terms of puck handling, calm
and smooth puck handling Deeks with little to no wasted movement can be very quick
to move the puck once it's on his stick, not so good on the
face offs. Only thirty five point seven percent effective on the drop fifteen out
of forty two. Didn't look all that natural. We'll see if he can
develop that skill, but Brandon kind of wonders whether that means an ultimate move
to the wing. The shot assertive and confident shooter, a hard shot,
especially in the one timor almost a violent release on his wrist shot at times.
The iq high level of poise stem from his adaptability and having numerous solutions
to obstacles presented. Sees the ice in the plays before they develop, orchestrates
the power play from the right circle, directing puck flow by pointing with a
stick. Defense has an eye for providing support on the deep, but not
a prime play stopper will fly the zone early at times as he has seen
a potential offensive play develop while his team has yet to fully control the puck.
Best asset was that poise translated and made evident by his skating and puck
handling. The biggest concern inconsistent intensity. Needs to turn up the dial on
pace, throwing his body at the opponent, using his frame to protect the
puck, and bully his way toward the goal. One wonders if the scouting
before and after the World Juniors that you were just talking about Victor could impact
the scouting on that element. What's the upside for Brandon on his performance?
The top tier would be a thirty fifty eighty power winger, power point trigger
man, especially a plane with more dynamic skaters that can get to open eyes
and benefit from This guy's passing. Should be able to put up a points
and keep the shot volume up odd to hits odd to remain, and he
might get a bump in the pros, especially if he's breaking into the league
in a third or fourth line checking role, but not probably much of a
shot blocker, not that many guys are from the forward position most likely tier.
Brandon thinks maybe a fifty point middle sixth forward with some power playtime decent
shot volume hits are going to depend if he can get his motor up a
bit to where he needs to be to finish the check at the pro level
and stylistic comparison. Oh boy, you better change your impact on the hits
here, because we've got Tomash hurdle with a shade of Matthew Kitchuck that is
more calm and poised than has smoother edgework. I'm excited. All I need
to hear is my up on the back of my neck, all right,
Cutter Gotier NHL Rankking comparison from Mason Black is Matthew Nie and wow, that's
a guy whose name you can't get out of your ears lately. And the
PNHL E similarity score good old Christian Fisher. He's come up recently on some
shows. Luke cunnan and Bobby Ryan he another guy who our guy Nate picked.
Yeah, he picked Bobby Ryan as one of the guys that you might
be able to compare him to in terms of early career trajectory. Of course,
Gotier went through the NCAA, Bobby Ryan went through the Ohl, and
the Gotier versus Niece it is Gotier by a landslide. According to Mason Black's
Twitter poll, you all voted and you said sixty three percent of you that
Gotier was better than Niece and thirty seven percent of course for Nice. So,
Victor, is that the same way you would go with this comparison.
First of all, don't hold it against Jesse. He mispronounced nye several times.
But it's okay. It's not like he hasn't heard it a dozen times
or anything. I know that too, Victor. How many times do people
talk about this guy? What is okay? People? We are six hours
into recording today, Just give me a break. Yeah, so this is
interesting. I really like the progression of Gautier. I like that he's earlier
in the funnel, as we like to say, and Nys just being another
year down the funnel. And I think that his development has gone well.
But I think because he's a Toronto prospect and because he's gotten some games already,
people are like anointing him the next high scoring power forward, but the
reality is that he's probably a middle six winger and so he's not going to
get the biggest opportunity on Toronto. I think that he's a good, complimentary
player. He's a very strong puck retriever and grinder that kind. I don't
know that he has the scoring that a guy like Cutter Gautier has, And
I think that what Gautier did at the NCA this season was really incredible and
certainly not anywhere near what Nys did in his first season. So I think
it's definitely a Gautier. I think it's not even really close. I find
the comparison interesting. I think that Gautier does have some snarl. I think
Bobby Ryan could be a little bit like that. And one of the most
fun things that happened to me this week actually was Bobby Ryan himself responded to
one of my tweets. It blew my mind a little bit. I didn't
really know what to do with myself. Yeah, yeah, tell me this.
It was pretty fun. And then so anyways, it was not really
a huge deal. It was just him responding to something. And then I
was like, okay, after I realized it was cool. And so anyways,
he had a good career, and I think that if Gautier could be
close to that, which I think he can be, then it's a no
brainer and we're taking Goutier all the way over Nys. I still think Nys
is someone who you could sell to your neighborhood friendly Leafs fan. I think
that they probably value him more than he's going to be worth, and so
that's what I would do, trade nys acquire. What do you think?
I'm not even sure it's so much. I think there's a lot of people.
The problem is that all here long you hear the media talking about Toronto
trades they should make and who is the person that they would have to trade
every time to get X star player and the other team. They always have
to name Toronto's best prospect, right, so it's Nice that's who is going
to come up now. I will say that he looked good in the playoffs
when I saw him out there, considering that he's just stepping into this role.
But Cutter got a definitely impressed this year. What we saw from the
World Junior is what we saw from the NCA right now, I probably in
a vacuum would take him, But in terms of arbitrage, I think Nice
probably would have. I would have said he would have better value on the
market. But it looks like Twitter disagrees with me and that Gautier is currently
the higher rated feller. They need to know prospect Victor is who our need
to know is Alex Gendron. He is twenty twenty two seventh round pick by
the Flyers. So just great that we're even talking about this guy five foot
nine hundred and seventy four pounds. Well, now you know why he felt
that the seventh round last year in his draft here, he put up forty
six points in sixty six games for the Blaineville brought Rob broon bab Brion Armada.
This season, he had thirty four points in twenty nine games for the
Armada before he was traded to the gat to Know Olympeaks, and he had
another forty seven points in thirty four games for the Olympeaks and another nineteen and
thirteen playoff games and that's pretty awesome. Yeah, they felt just a little
bit short of Memorial Cup, but he still looks pretty good and good progression
anyways for him. He's got some interesting advanced numbers like his shot generation and
expected goals assists. Primary sists are not that great. Neither is this transition
zone a game, especially for a young a smaller kid, that's not so
reassuring. But he did had some pretty good controlled entry so that was nice.
In terms of his defense was actually some of it was actually really good.
His on ice puck recovery corsi against Dumpin's forest all that looked pretty good,
and his shooting was actually a pretty decent. So that's all nice to
hear, but we need to hear a little bit more. So let's hear
from our FHL scout about Alex skin Dron, our FHL scout, our producer,
our general all around FHL Fantasy MVP Nate has this to say about Gendron.
Skating is average some above average straight line speed, but when he has
to change directions or use his edges, he lacks the ability to beat even
the most average of skaters. Skating problems also affected shooting and puck handling abilities,
so it's something that he really needs to improve. Puck handling his average.
It's hard to comment on it since he doesn't have the puck too often,
does most of his work away from the puck, and relies on his
teammates to do the handling. When he does get the puck around the perimeter,
he has a tendency to force passes to the middle of the ice.
His shot is average. Shot isn't the harder, isn't the most accurate,
so it's hard to give gen Drown a good rating on it, but there
must be some deception to it, as more often than not it finds the
back of the net when he gets a quality chance. However, don't mistake
this is shot being elite. It's probably more due to his ability to find
the soft spots IQ above average. His greatest strength is his offensive IQ.
He has the ability to read where the next pass is goin getting great positions
to score, and Nate would say the offensive IQ side of his game borders
on elite defense average defensive abilities won't hurt you, but they're not going to
stand out. Offensive IQ again was the top asset. The biggest concern is
the puck possession game. When he has the puck, he's around the perimeter,
forcing passes in the middle without any real scrategy. And so noted during
the games that he was invisible sometimes in the power play, but upon rewatch
it was because his teammates weren't getting him the puck and it isn't in his
game to go get the puck himself. To your potential, what would be
the top outcome for this guy, second line scorer and if the skannerd improves,
and everything else follows. The sky's the limit. But assuming not that
there isn't much that Nate sought, his suggests will be anything more than a
high IQ winger who can put the puck in the neck. More likely,
what will it be? A bottom six winger reliable defensively so he can be
trusted to play an average amount of minutes, will pitch in with timely goals,
playing the lineup for short bursts, stylistic comparable Frank the tank of a
Toronto. Maybe not the player you want to see Gendron compared to, but
if you're a Flyers fan, he's been a reliable nhiller for a while.
You could do worse similar sizes, but Gendron would have to add to his
frame to be a direct comparison. So even Gendron's bursts of street line speed
to generate breakaway and rush opportunities reminded Nate of a Toronto. So let's compare
Gendron to Matthew Magiao, who is the pick of the New York Islanders last
year. Actually similarly, light Gendron was in the seventh round and Meggio was
in the fifth. And as we look at the p NHLI similarity scores.
We got Max Reinhardt, Mattu, Joseph and Cameron Hebig, so Matt Megio
Mason Raymond is another guy who gets pulled out there by Nate overall Gendron versus
Meggio, and we see Maggio as the sixty five thirty five winner over Gendron.
Victor. Is this another nice situation where I'm mispronouncing this name and who
do you want? I don't think you're misspronouncing this one, so that's good.
It is I think not tilted the right way. I would say Maggio.
He's a year older. He's also a little bit smaller at five to
eleven, not quite as small as Gendron, but is his production has been
pretty poor up until this season, Maggio, And I guess you could say
the same for Dendren, but he's a year younger. So I tend to
take the guys who are farther away and haven't proven so much that they lack
upside. And I think it depends for Gendron whether you believe his Get to
Know Phili or his Armada p Chile, which was a little bit different,
not terribly, but about ten points pH Chill different. I think that I
would take Gendron. There's a little bit more upside there. He's a little
bit younger in his draft here too, so I think that there's some reasons
to like him a little bit more. But these are both bottom of the
barrel kind of guys. I don't think that's going to make a huge difference
either way. But I'll take Gendron Jesse. Yeah, I'm because I'm not
the guy who I'm hoping turns into Frank Petrano. I don't know, and
he's playing in a que right now. Neither one of these guys is really
getting my interest. Maybe you can tilt, maybe you can get my eye
on the next prospect. That is, to keep your eye on prospect Victor.
I hope you can have some interest in mL Andre. He's the Flyer
twenty twenty second round pick, and he was over a half pain per game
for HV seventy one and the SHL this season. After the conclusion of the
SHL season, he came over to North America and suited up for the Lehigh
Valley Phantom, so the HL six points in ten games. We already heard
a little bit from Russ what he thinks about Andre for next season. I
think he's pretty NHL ready. I definitely like Andrea. I think he's proven
he can play against man even though he's five to nine. He is stocky
and sturdy, and he really doesn't mess around with that with the physicality.
So I think that he might see him in a flyer's uniform, especially if
things go haywire with injuries and stuff. But I also think that he might
earn it after playing in the NHL a little bit. Yeah, he's a
pretty volume shooter. It's the main thing you can take away from his underlying
analytics at support contract. But we need to know a little bit more about
him, So let's hear from RFHL scout. If HL scout Tony doesn't mess
around with his scouting reports, and here's what he had to say about it.
Skating and puck handling both very good. He used to puck handling with
his skating to open the passing and the shooting lanes. Both the wrist and
the snapshot are good. High IQ player low panic meter both very positive.
Defense good. Willing to play defense and turn it into offense is best asset.
All those things we're talking about. The skating puck handling, passing,
able to get his own shot or dished teammate, willing to play defense,
take or give a hit. Sounds like an all around type of game.
Biggest concern size and he's not really expected to block a lot of shots there,
So what's the highest outcome? What's the ninety percent on that Tony would
see? Maybe a tier two offense like a sixty point guy, a top
forty power play time, The skills are above average, above average bash,
but mostly just with the hits. But more likely, more likely Tony season
is maybe settling into tier three roll thirty to forty points, working on his
skating, being willing to keep up with the defensive side of the play.
Stylistic comparable, whoa, Tony, You're throwing me a loop here? A
Roman Yosi type. I'm not sure what to do with that. It doesn't
sound like he's scoring Roman Yosi points. But summary a good, very good
player, top for good skating, puck handling and passing, above average skills,
And let's look at the NHL rank King Mason Black's data in poll.
One of Victor's new favorites, the man who wasn't so popular in New Jersey
but now he's a shark Shakier Muhammadulin compared to Emil Andre, and that is
an interesting comparison. Indeed, the PNHLI similarity scores for Andre Hampa's Lindholm,
Matt Hunwick, Oliver Shillington, and again Shakir Muhammadulin are He's coming from khl
Land compared to Emil Andre, who's playing more in Sweden. There, but
there's some similarities. And Nate also pulled out Thomas Shabat because that's one of
the names that came up in the comparison list. So mel Andre versus Shakier
Mukamadulan the head to head the grudge match here quite a few votes in Mukamadulan
won fairly decisively. How about you, Victor, do you side with the
Shark or is Emil Andre being underrated here? I think Amlandre is definitely underrated,
and it's funny that Tony pulled out Roman Yosi. I would pick one
of his former teammates, Ryan Ellis, who's a smaller, very physical,
good all around defenseman with offensive upside. Also currently if flyer, although I'm
not sure it's injury history, has his career in Jeopardy, but I think
he's that's a pretty interesting comp I think Andre, when you watch him play,
he does not play small. He does you know. He's very physical,
he's very engaged, he's very active. And mccamadoulan is huge. He's
a big dude six two. I guess it's not super heavy, one seventy,
but he is. He's a good skater and he's got that all around
defenseman type profile. He's got that nice frame. So I think in terms
of terms of NHL or probability, that mccamah dulan seems more secure. Although
if you look at Hockey prospecting, Andre has a seventy four percent NHLA probability
at mukama Dulan only forty five percent, and that's based on his KHL numbers,
so that's interesting. I do think that both these guys are going to
play in the NHL, and I think for offensive upside, I like Andre
better. I think that he has more to give. I think that Mukamahdulan
is more like, you're safe, number three, number four kind of guy
that I don't know that you really want him running your power play like he
probably could, but he's not very dynamic. He's got a good shot when
he can get it through, which he's done better at since his draft.
But I just don't know that he's going to demand those offensive minutes. And
I think that Andre maybe he's more of a power play too kind of guy.
But I do think he has a little bit more upse. So yeah,
I'm going against the people here. And I wanted to point out one
other comp. There's a there's currently a guy. I didn't realize he was
five foot nine and playing in the NHL because we always look for these smaller
guys. Everyone wants to say Tory Kruge, but he's such a unicorn.
But Jacob Bryson, who's a Buffalo player, and he's he's the same size,
five foot nine and he's played a number of NHL games. But if
you look at the if you look at the comps, Emma, Andre is
way more likely to be both a NHL and a star. So I think
that's probably a very low outcome Jacob Bryson. I think that Andrea has a
lot more to give. Jesse, what do you think about Mukama Dulan versus
Andrea. Yeah, famously, these models seem to like correct me, Victor.
They like the KHL stats. That's one of the areas where they get
juiced a little bit. And the KHL guys part of that is they tend
to not get the playing time over there when they're this stage. And twenty
five points in sixty seven games we're sell about ula of UFA is pretty good.
Pretty good haul for a guy like that in the up in the Barracouta
you at ten points in twelve games. But yeah, it could go either
way. I don't know the emeal Andre talk. Maybe he is a bit
underrated, but I check here, Muhamma dueling a bit more all along,
so I guess I'll steer with him here. All right, that's fair,
and there's a lot more that we could talk about, but there's no time.
You can listen to my top ten prospect recap on Patreon if you're a
Patreon If not, you can check that out at patreon dot com s Last
Fantasy Hockey Life And if you're interested in helping out with some of the scouting
we could always use more, you can get access to sport Contract, which
has amazing videos. You can One of the new things I love about this
that the Instat didn't have jesse Is. You can watch these videos of these
prospects on your phone. Couldn't do that on instat. You can be anywhere,
you can wait an in line, wherever, taking your kid somewhere,
and you're hanging out, you can you can pop open the app and start
watching some prospect videos. So if you're in doing that and contributing to these
team previews, shoot me a DM on Twitter, hit me up on Discord,
or email us at Fantasy Hockey Life at gmail dot com. Be right
back to close out the show. A couple of things to remind everybody of
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