Welcome to Fantasy Hockey Life presented by fan Tracks. Here's Quess, your source
of information and analysis to help you win your fantasy hockey league. Block off
hats, A step hit on, stay lock. Here's your host, Jesse
Sovi here and Victor Noon you hope Fantasy Hockey Live back once again. The
season is on. I am Jesse, severa fantracks and joining me from EP
ringside, it is Victor Nunio. Victor, how you doing today? I
am doing awesome, Jesse. Yeah, it's been really interesting. First long
matchup in our dynasty leagues. Most of the dynasty matchups combined. The first
it was mostly a full week, but now it just ends up kind of
feeling like a long first matchup. Yeah, there's a lot of there's a
lot of mixed emotions because there's all up and down roller coaster. It was
like way ahead in one league and now I'm like scraping back, So it's
a that's what's fun though, Right, how's how have you been and how's
your first matchup gone? It's I'm yeah, I think I'm winning half,
I'm losing half, but I insisted on these long opening matchups victories. I
am being difficult this year in both basketball and hockey about trying to create balanced
schedules, because I think it's a fair thing to set up the schedule so
that you play every other team one time, and in fifteen and eighteen team
or sixteen and eighteen team leagues. I think it's very realistic to do.
But it does involve stretching out to some of these two week matchups, which
basically I hate two week matchups because it just takes too long to reset it.
But it's inevitable to do, and I also like getting to the playoffs
a little bit earlier. I think you lose people in the doul drums of
February otherwise as the season just drags on and then you have guys shut down
and whatnot. So yeah, it's emotionally, I'm having fun. I'm watching
a lot of hockey. But even though the Capitals are down for the count
I think the I'm feeling, maybe not completely the pain of being a Sharks
fan, but I think I see it happening right in front of me that
it's going to be a few years this and it's it's rough so far.
Man, Oh it's coming for the Caps. It's it's definitely come. It's
going to be it's gonna be rough and even Obi, Like what's going on
with Obe, like without one thing that we thought was that he was going
to continue to be great and shoot a ton and get his power play points,
and so far none of that is happening. Yeah, it's been a
couple of games, but yeah, that's really bad news because if ob suddenly
ages, then we're all doomed. It's going to be miserable. I'm going
to rely on Joe Beninatti's optimism to get me through the next couple of years.
Anyway, Victor, you don't need Joe Beninati. You don't need a
winning team to cheer for to enjoy fantasy hockey. The thing to do to
enjoy it is to join our discord, which is free, and all you
have to do is contact Victory myself on x at Fanhockey Life at Victor Nunio
twelve or email us at Fantasy Hockeylife at gmail dot com one big long word
and you can join in for free. We give you a link. That's
why you have to contact us. We're not like collecting your address and selling
it on the dark web. We just we need your link. You just
need to send you a link because otherwise you can't get into a discord.
That's how discords work. But otherwise you can have a good time there.
You also have the Patreon victor what's going on over at the Patreon right now?
Yeah, lots of good stuff at the Patreon. We are doing our
patroon cast as, and there's other great stuff like doing a lot of roster
doctors helping people out figure out what's going on with their roster one on one
personalized type attention, and there's other good things like I don't know if people
realize dming for like personal advice. That's something that is definitely a reserved for
Patreon that I'm telling people sometimes when they ask that, okay, sorry,
you have to be a patriot and for that. So a lot of times
there's other people in your leagues that you don't want to see the advice or
get get that question answered. And so that's one of the nice benefits.
Of course, the prospect ranks that are integrated forward d Goalie and look look
hit some blocks and things like that that you are really hard to find elsewhere.
So lots of good stuff there at Pature in dot COM's Last Fantasy Hockey
Life. If you want to support the show, there's a couple of different
tiers that you can pick and check it out over there, all right,
And in addition to that, we're gonna be doing a little bit it's gonna
be a little bit different. The next couple episodes may not be exactly what
you're used to, although you got a taste of it last episode. Not
all of these next couple of episodes are going to be me and Victor doing
things together. We've got some cool stuff going on over in the Tidy.
Our guy, Ryan, the Tidy Admiral, is coming with us. You're
just gonna hear all kinds of cool things. Just trust me, and we'll
bring it all back together as we get through into the month of No.
Number A lot of travel going on, a lot of travel. So right
after this we'll be coming back and I believe we're going to have of becoming
Ryan time again for another Tidy Takes where we focus on the tier dynasty and
our fantastic League. But we also make this applicable to all players in Dynasty
and Keeper format, so hopefully you find interesting. We listen to your feedback
and we are constantly trying to refine this. So let's get going with this
segment, and to do that, we have to bring in our Tidy Admiral
Ryan Downey. Ryan, how are you. I'm great, Victor. It's
good to be back. We're really making something out of this. I think
it's good to be back, and we've really been milking the trade list for
the Tidy almost dry at this point. We're going to focus on one player
this week. We're going to focus on Anton Lundell, and this is one
of my favorite young players in the league I have. I have a very
special attachment to Lundell. I owned him in my first ever Dynasty league a
couple of years back. I've been a redraft player for a long time,
but didn't play Dynasty until I discovered Fantasy Hockey Life and became hooked on this
type of fantasy hockey league. Also, like many Canadians, I'm a devout
viewer of the World Junior Championships and was first exposed to Lundell when he captained
the Finish Young Lions to a bronze medal in the Edmonton Bubble Tournament. He
would make his NHL debut the next year with a fifty six point pace in
sixty five games before regressing last season to a thirty seven point place, although
he did play more games, and we know that early in a rookies' career,
the more games you can get in the better good for the young man
to stay stable and healthy through last season. This first trade involving Londell has
a lot of juicy young pieces to discuss. In Tidy Gretzky, the Caprice
Sons, managed by Simon, acquired Alex Newhook and Anton Lundell, two great
multi eligible center wingers from Portland pirates for Klin Addison and Yuso Vallamaki. So
we have forwards for d situation here. Voted pretty favorably for the forwards here
Alex Newhook and Anton Lundell. The managers have this to say. Simon says
Lundell is a great talent on a good team that will endure injuries to start
the season and a cap crunch in the following season. Lundell should get an
expanded role as the Panthers move on from pieces like Bennett and Reinhart. In
addition to moves they've already made in the off season shipping guys liked Claire out
Montreal seems to like new Hook and will want to give him plenty of opportunity,
as they spent a lot of capital to acquire him. He lost Addison
and Vallamackie in this deal. Both players have a question mark in his view.
He feels that they will lose their top power play roles and be thirty
point d men at best. Addison we have the Addison is again a question
mark, but his shine has worn off with him not being able to secure
a consistent role last year. That's not to say he won't, but that
Simon is not as confident that he becomes the top power play goal for Minnesota
that he originally believed he could be. So his assessment is that he got
a potential sixty plus point forward in Lundell, a fifty plus point forward in
new Hook for two thirty point defenseman. Hatfield, on the other hand,
knows going into this deal that he's a little bit behind the eight ball because
somehow did not have a single D on his bench after the draft, so
he knew he would have to pay a little bit. He had added new
Hook late in the season last year, hoping for a rebound, but the
trade to Montreal only boosted his value. Hatfield is a fan of Lundell and
his hot start last year, but soured on his fading down the stretch.
There's a small chance. Hatfield feels that Samuscavage might pass him on the depth
chart. I'm not sure I agree with that. Ultimately, it comes down
to power play time. Lundell and new Hook being likely third liners with power
play two and Vallamacki and Addison both having potential for power play one. He's
willing to lose on point projection for a chance on some powerplay coquarterbacks for the
next few years. I don't think he's losing that much on power on points
projection right now, we've been taking your feedback into account, and so we're
talking more about the actual fantasy points per game here, six point five to
four points per game for the Alex Newhook Anton Londell side, six point sixty
nine points per game for the defenseman side. It's pretty even. You can't
get much more even than that, Victor. What do you think about this
forward for d swap? Yeah? I like this. This is a really
interesting one. You can always think a little bit about positional scarcity there.
These are two I would say lower end offensive defensemen who don't have that high
floor of being good all around or being good defensively to increase their time on
ice and fenwick and take away in those other stats. So you really are
relying more on the offensive production. They don't really get a lot of points
otherwise, and so that's a big concerning the Vallamachi has been showing more all
around acumen, which has been really nice to see, and he probably has
more of a chance, I would say, to be a second pairing all
around kind of guy. His defensive metrics have greatly improved since struggling in Calgary,
and that is just not the case for Addison, although some of his
underlyings aren't as bad as a lot of people seem to make a big deal
out of, but he is in no way, shape or form an all
around defenseman. He's definitely more offensive. So you have a little bit of
risk with those two. I would say you have risk on the other side
too. Is new hooks break out a small sample size or is it truly
a next progression and getting the opportunity. I'm skeptical about that. Lundell,
on the other hand, there's risk primarily I would say in the fact that
he's just too good for his own good. He's one of these players that
I think is just so good all around that Calgary or Montre Florida, let's
try that third time is more of more interested probably in having him help them
win games as more than having him get a lot of offensive stats. And
so that's a bit of the question. I do the supposition that he's going
to get a bigger role when the SAMs move on, and I do think
that is likely. I don't know what they're going to do with Ryan Hart
at the end of the season, making six point five million. With his
production, he's probably due a little bit of a raise. We'll see if
they can afford him. And Lundell is also an RFA at the end of
the season. If I were the Florida Panthers, I would hand Lundell large
bags of money for a long time to stick around, because he's going to
be that important to their future, and that might also dictate more opportunities.
So it'll be interesting to see you if you're not in a cap league,
you want Lundell to get massive dollars and get help that dictate the opportunity.
Obviously, in a cap league, you might be hoping more for a bridge,
But I do think that Lundell is so good both ways that he's going
to get more and more time on ice, and he's probably going to get
the two C if not be like a soft one seed too. He's not
overtake Barkov. He could be that high in the lineup that he could play
top line or top power play. At least I do think he's good enough
to do that. I think it's it is a bit risky, though,
because they'd also probably be happy acquiring a second line center and making him be
an awesome third line center, So I think that could also. I just
believe most in Anton Lundell, so that's probably where I would put my money
if I were deciding between these two, just because I've seen the struggles of
Addison and I don't know when that's really going to change or how much it's
going to change. And as much as I like the progression of Vallamachi,
I'm not sure how much farther he has to go. And there's Sean Dursey
and there's other players coming in Arizona that I'm not sure he'll be able to
fend off, So that concerns me a little bit. So I guess I
would side with Simon mainly for the Lundell but it's really a fascinating study in
how much does it hurt you to be that good all around? And in
Lendell's case so far, mainly because of all the other pieces around him,
it has hurt him quite a bit that he hasn't gotten as much offensive opportunity,
but that could be shifting, and I like the bet. Yeah,
I've already said how I feel about Lundell. I love the player, so
I'm going to focus on the defender side here, and I typically really like
the kind of defender that Addison and Vallamackie percheck to be fast, skilled,
great breakout pass the riverboat gambler types. Both are without the power play.
They're thirty point pace offense first defenders. Vallamackie, as you mentioned, has
that edge defensively and the trust of his coach, which Addison seems very much
not to have. And while I do this kind of defenseman, I really
love Lundell. I really prefer that side for this deal. I agree that
he should be getting that two seed deployment. I actually think when it comes
to Florida they're trying to do that thing that some of the top teams are
doing where they have two top lines instead of having a top one line and
then a top two line. I really think that if you've got Kachuk on
your second line, that's really your first line, and if you've got Barkov
on your first line, that's also your first line. So you know,
I think that Lundell there's a real potential for him very soon to be on
that line with to be on that line with Kachuk, then it should probably
stay a sixty ish point guy with good pariffs, but he's a band aid
boy. To use some Dauber terminology here. Lundell is twenty two coming out
of that sophomore slump, but he had a huge dip in shooting percentage last
year and an increase in shots. So you got to think that's going to
normalize and we're gonna have something closer to his first impressive rookie campaign. I
think this season he can bounce back to a round a fifty five point pace
guy, and then we have a competition between these two guys, and I
want to go on that ride. I also feel like I should say,
just in case there's any newfoundlandhers listening, I might be expatriated if I don't
take the side of the trade involving Alex Newhook. We're both from Saint John's,
Newfoundland, the same town in Newfoundland, and so I think it's possible
I might hear from people if I don't take this side of the trade that
they might be a little displeased with me. So I think I'm going to
take the centers on this side of the deal. Yeah, that's fair,
and I like how you put that especially. I was hinting at that,
but you made it more clear, and I agree. I do think that
Florida is going to have two top lines basically if they have Barkoff and whoever
he plays with, and Lundell and Kuchuck, especially if they play together.
But I do think that Lundell can be good enough, not unlike, although
slightly different than Matthews and John Tavares, who are basically both first line centers
on two different lines, different skill set, different ways that they play.
And I think Lundell and Barkoff are probably more similar in terms of the fact
that they're both good two way players. Maybe more offense for Barkhof is sure
seems to be the case right now, but I do think in that similar
vein to the Toronto centers. You're gonna have two top line centers and you're
just gonna be so super happy about that. And I do think that Lundell
will eventually be the fourth forward on top power play, and so you're gonna
like that. Move forward over to the other deal that focuses on Anton Lundell
here, this is just this is the one for one. This is like
a haul for Larsen kind of thing. We have mcnaults managed by Sean mcnolts
on our discord acquiring Anton Lundell from Sea Bass for Noah Hannafan, and so
we have a very exciting conversation here between kind of the emergent rookie and the
safe, steady defenseman. Sean had this to say, I just thought I
had a lot of defensemen and have Edvonson, who hopefully will be up most
of this year, and he needed better forwards, so he wanted Sea Bass
wanted a d man. Hopefully it works out for both of us. I'm
hoping Lundell can pick up the production a little because Hanifan does have score him
on points per game. I'm hoping Lundell can take a step up. Sea
Bass had this to say, my reasoning for the trade was that I needed
to improve my decoor and I have a surplus of forwards. Lundell is young
and probably has a bright future, but not sure he breaks out this year,
and I'm in a win now mood Sea. Bass also took over one
of the teams that got promoted, and so he feels that his team is
pretty well set to be promoted himself, and so he wants to win now,
and so that's why he's making the deal. Victor, what do you
think about this deal where we have the young forward and Anton Lundell and the
experience d in Noah Hannafan. I think I like the way that see Bass
put it. I don't prefer Hannafin in general, but I do worry that
most of the evolution of Lundel is going to happen beyond this season. I
think that he might be a little roster blocked right now and there just might
not be the opportunity on the power play. So even though we just heap
so much praise on Lundell and I love him and I think he's going to
be great long term this season, it probably does make more sense, especially
if you have a positional need to go with Hanna fan even though I don't
think he's anything special, but I do think Calgary will be better this year,
so that should improve his fenwick and he's already pretty decent in terms of
his peripheral coverage. They will hopefully score more. If he taps a puck
to huber Dough, then maybe they him and Lenholm and some of the other
forwards can score a little bit more and that is all going to help him.
So I think, although I think this is pretty even, and if
we're just looking beyond this year, I would definitely take Lundell. But based
on what Sebas said and I agree that he probably has a pretty good chance
to get promoted based on his situation, that I probably would lean his side
just for this year, and then makes sense also for Sean, who I
think is realistically looking beyond this year that it's goin, I would say,
yeah. Showing these two deals side by side gives you a real sense of
how this league works, I think, and it also shows that we don't
have a bias towards a particular player. We're not just going to pick Londell
every time for these kinds of deals. I think we have a very different
deal here, the first deal being we have Vallamacki and Addison, these young
defenders. They don't have much runway so far, they might be something in
the future. We know what Noah Hanafin is and we know what to expect
from him. This year. Noah Hanafan last season in the Tidy got five
point two to nine Fantasy points per game, which is not nothing. He's
a multi caat contributor, he does a lot, and he is probably a
more projectable piece. If you're only planning on being in this league for one
year, maybe two years, and I know we're all hoping that happens for
our teams, right I'm hoping we stay up in Lord Stanley, but anything
can happen. I would lean to Hanafin. If you're a contending team,
it's closer to a wash, and if I was one of these managers,
I would be very happy. Looking at the voting results on the Tidy Trades
poll that we ran about this deal, pretty even across the board. We
have fifty six percent of our managers voting for the even option, meaning that
they feel that this is an even swap, and we have five votes for
the Sea Bass Side and six votes for the mcnult's side. I don't think
you can get much more even than that. Certainly, this is a fantasy
hockey prospects fan discord, and so we do have the lean towards Anton Lundel.
We can't really get that. We can't really lose that element, but
certainly I think I would prefer Hannafin if I'm trying to win now, which
it sounds like Sea Bass is trying to do. That's it for this week,
Victor. It was a quick hit for all you Tidy fans out there.
One of the topics we're looking to highlight on the next time we'll speak
is some draft outliers players who were only slimon are twenty twenty three prospect drafts,
including one player who Victor is really high on. Tune in next time
to find out who that might be. Thanks so much, Ryan, and
thanks soon for listening to Tidy takes. And if you're interested in a certain
topic or player, or if you want to make a trade that we can
highlight, then go ahead and do that and give us your feedback as a
weapon that you talk of. Victors X guys over at ep ring side Victor
X gamers is your new beat talking about some of the stuff like our hundred
gamers fifty game. Why do you introduce what is the x gamers concept?
Sir? Yeah, for sure, the x gamers. The idea came from
this idea that when a prospect graduates from being able to be held in the
minors, that's a really important decision time, right, because when you can
flex them up and down, there's no consequence. You could have guys that
have really no future in the NHL, but they're getting some games and you
move them up and down from minors to your pro roster, and that flexing
or streaming from the farm is really valuable even if they're not that good.
But when they hit that limit, now, all of a sudden your face
with an important decision because if they're really not that good the bottom of the
roster droppable replacement level, or if they are really worth holding, then you
might tough it out as they have to stay on your main roster. That
happens at different thresholds in different leagues, and that was the genesis of sort
of the one hundred gamers idea. And some leagues are longer, I know,
some leagues are two NHL seasons, so one hundred and sixty four games.
Some are closer to two hundred, and so that was the idea to
hit different kind of specific marks for these players. And so one hundred gamers
is pretty common. Two hundred gamers is another one. And these also represent
breakout thresholds for players, right, So two hundred games is something that a
lot of people holds. Okay, that's the threshold by which you've broken out.
And then some people will say four hundred gamers for bigger players, kind
of power forward types. So there's different checkpoints that we want to, like
see what's going on with these players, and that's the idea. And so
for these X gamers, we're talking about guys around one hundred games, and
so that's where we're checking in. And we have two for this first one
that we're going to discuss that I wrote up at EP Ringside and is Poj
and Jad Peer, Olivier Joseph and Jarrett Anderson Dolans. And sometimes we'll combine
these and they don't really necessarily have anything to do with each other. But
Poj is someone that has been interesting and he's someone that we've been following for
a while because he did have some really high upside in his draft season.
It's been trending down down ever since. But he is an offensive defenseman.
He's a six to two left handed d's now twenty four years old, and
he has played at the time of this recording exactly ninety nine NHL games.
So he's right on that cusp. And of course things have happened around him
and Pittsburgh Letang was there obviously for a long time, and now there's Eric
Carlson. There was other pieces that potentially look like they might be blocking him,
and that's always been a bit of a question too. But the other
thing to consider is just how good that player is and how the cream rises
to the crop. Is the cream rise at the top, as I like
to say, So the question is if he's good enough, he'll just rise
on his own, and that hasn't really happened with Poj, and so that's
been something that we're concerned with. And the question now is what's left.
What's the upside? Is he going to reach that full potential? And so
far to this point, obviously he has not. He has POJ has looked
really good when given offensive deployment, his expected goal and offensive contributions on the
power play are really high. The problem is that he's always struggled defensively,
and so when you trying to hold your own head above water, defensively is
been an important deal for a defenceman. And one of the things that I
did in the article is I compared him a little bit to Evan Bouchard,
and Bouchard had some similarities in terms of he was a really high end offensive
defenceman that we had thought that maybe he was struggling defensively, and Bouchard was
actually drafted the year after Poj. He was drafted in twenty eighteen and Poj
in twenty seventeen. Obviously, at this point, Bouchard has evolved into a
pretty close to all around top pairing defenceman, But the big key difference is
that his defensive impacts are a little bit above average close you could say close
to average or above average, which is really good, and Poj is a
still well below average. So in order for him to get to that sort
of height, he's going to need obviously time on ice, and the deployment
with guys like Carlson and Tang ahead of him is going to be tricky.
But he also needs to get his head a little bit more above water,
and there's some signs that's improving, and I still think that can happen,
but he really is going to have to shape that up. I also find
it interesting that there's other guys that are similar to Poj but not quite as
good like ty Smith, and they just traded for Jack Rathbone. So it's
like the Penguins are loading up on these poor defensively but offensively gifted defenceman that
might struggle at even strength. I don't know what the reasoning is behind that.
This seems like that prototype has not worked out and they still continue to
crew more, which I find interesting. Well, before I talk a little
bit about j D, why don't you tell me what you think about Poj
a Jesse and what you think his roster ability is in leagues that where he
might be having to roster and the miners. Yeah, of course Poj was
a meme stock in our Common League. The friends at keeping Carlson, the
Common League people adored Poj before he debuted. He's been a dud since you've
been up there. I guess you can at least say that with Tys.
Smiths buried back down in the miners, whereas Poj is actually on the team
now, so at least he's got that going for him. But yeah,
if he's going to be offense first, adding Narrick Carlson to this team just
buries him further and further. It's really hard to see how Poj is going
to end up a terribly relevant player for your fantasy teams if he's going to
be in that role on this team. And just looking at his bash metrics
for this year, in a total of four games, he's got three blocks
and no hits and five shots. So no, sir, I don't think
so. In eleven fifty two, Tim and Ice versus basically is Tom and
Ice going down every season. On top of that, unless that's just going
to change is that season goes along. So Pog we're off to a rough
start here, Victor, or maybe we're helping people rule people out. But
next down the alphabet soup of the guys that you talked about in that first
article, Jad Jarrett Anderson Dolan only in one game so far this year,
only played like a couple of minutes, and they've cleared they've sent him down
cleared waivers getting him to the NHL or the AHL, so he's gone up
and down. I read something that he might be called back up today,
but who knows whether that will be the case. Victor Jarrett Anderson Dolan,
Do we have a better case for this guy succeeding. Probably not. But
actually I just wanted to circle back to Poj real quick, and that is
to say that he definitely is someone who probably is going to You're gonna have
a hard time rostering him in terms of being effective right now. But I
do think if it's someone if it's a league where you can if you're rebuilding,
or if you're in the middle, maybe it would be worth buying him
and being if you could hold him for a year, you know, I
think once Le Tang slows down a little bit, they may be able to
give him more role and more opportunity. And I still think that there's some
upside there. He's obviously a bit blocked, so that would be a long
term play if you could be patient, which might be hard. But if
you're competitive or semi competitive, and you are he's going to expire his minor
eligibility, then Poj is probably a drop in a shallower dynasty league. But
if you could, I think that I would be interested in holding on and
seeing what happens in the next year or two. I still think that there's
some hope for him to be a pretty valuable piece, but yeah, I'm
not holding my breath if I'm ready to do something now. Jared Anderson Dolan,
on the other hand, Yeah, he's an interesting guy in that he
was I think a really strong draft pick by the Kings. They've had so
many good draft picks, and I think one of the things about the Kings
that has happened over the years, there's so many good draft picks, and
I think they've mismanaged their assets. They had so many high end assets that
they waited for some of them to expire now, and they didn't get the
best value for him. One notable exception is getting Kevin Fiala for brock Favor
was pretty awesome. That was exactly the kind of thing that you should do.
Brock Favor is awesome, But they also got a top line forward for
him, who's ready now and he has had a couple of seasons already there,
so that was really nice. But Anderson Dolan didn't really have the opportunity,
didn't really have as much time to break in to the NHL, and
that was a little bit hard, based partially on what was happening with the
team. But he had a couple of really strong HL seasons. This past
one twenty one to twenty two was really good with nearly a point per game.
The thing to consider the he is already twenty four, and he's a
bit older, and he's had a hard time breaking into the NHL. He's
at ninety seven games played NHL games played, and he's also trying to down
with his hockey prospecting over years. And I think the biggest thing with him.
I looked in I dug into some of his numbers at Hockey Viz,
and he just he has a pretty negative to neutral offensive impact, but defensively
he's pretty good. So my sense is that if Anderson Dolan does break in
and stay stick in the NHL long term with a more regular role, it's
probably going to be in a more defensive assignment. His defensive impacts are neutral
to slightly positive, and his offense just doesn't seem like it's there at the
NHL level. Yeah, and I think it's important, As you mentioned,
Jesse, these are some of these times. Some of these guys is just
important to know when to let go, right. Some guys you want to
grab and some guys you want to let go. And I think that JD
is probably someone that I'd just be pretty happy to let go if he was
on my team. Wait, what do you think you hanging on? No,
sir, I don't believe that I am LA has changed. They've cleared
out some of that depth in their forward ranks. Nonetheless, I don't really
see Jared Anderson Dolan being the guy who I'm going to carry through this.
Victor. Let's move on to your next article, and it was about Dylan
Cousins. I think we can get a little more excited here. He's only
got three points in four games so far this year for the Buffalo Sabers as
a centerman, but I guess at least it leads forwards on the team because
Buffalo is off to a rough start. His minutes are not top line right
now, but his power play deployment is He's out there playing with Jay Paterca,
and some of the time it's been Victory Olifs, some of the time
it's been Peyton Krebs as his other primary line partners. So Dylan Cousins on
a team where waiting for him to flourish a little bit this year, but
he is a guy who definitely proves this whole X gamers concept by he wasn't
relevant, he wasn't relevant, and then he had that breakout, right,
yeah, absolutely, And this is why you know, you can't really give
up on you know, you got to put into context what's happening. There
was obviously the team situation, and there was there's a lot of things that
were interesting with cousins development. I mean, he was drafted in twenty nineteen
pretty highly and that was, you know, important to think about that twenty
nineteen and then in the WHL he had a really strong season. He came
back and had a really dominant second season there with Lethbridge, and then things
went a little sideways in his development with COVID and that kind of was a
little bit difficult. His first year in Buffalo was affected by COVID, and
then his second year things were also a little wonky just with the team,
although he played the whole season pretty much in twenty one twenty two, but
there were a lot of things happening with that Buffalo team and that they were
the mess. They did that thing where they started strong and then they started
to get completely caved in and outplayed, and so that was a bit challenging.
And so that was basically his first one hundred games, and then last
season he basically was passed at and now he's just over two hundred and he
had that breakout. But I think it's important to put in context where and
what happened with the breakout and what his role is going to be shifting to,
because it's easy to assume that everything's going to be the same. Someone's
going to take a next step and they're going to get more time on ice
and they're going to score more points, and that isn't always necessarily true.
One thing that's interesting about Cousins is he had about seven more expected goals or
seven more actual goals and expected goals. So is he going to continue that?
I don't know. That seems like a big gap to fill. Maybe
he was getting a little lucky, you might say. I do also like
to look at where did these goals and points come from, and if they're
a little bit more on the periphery, that makes you wonder if you can
continue to score from that far away, and he did have quite a few
goals from the reverse OVI side the right dot, and so that's interesting,
especially as a right handed shot. And so does that continue, I don't
know. Some of them are were from far away, so I don't know
the context about all of them, but it seems reasonable that he might be
losing a few goals. The other thing to notice that he's pretty poor defensively,
and if you look at the center depth that they have there in Buffalos,
there's some questions there. There's obviously Tage is the huge breakout star and
he looks amazing like he can handle just about anything. But then you have
some other guys coming up right. You have Casey Middlestat who had a really
awesome breakout himself last season. Peyton Krebs, who, yeah, who knows
exactly what's happening with him. He seems like he's meddling in the NHL.
He might be a good subject for a different article. Tyson Jost has been
serviceable at times, Jury Kulik is coming, and then you also have guys
like Matthew Savoy and Noah Oastland who look like they're going to be pretty competent.
Middle to bottom sixers, So you have a lot of people coming for
this potential time on ice that Cousins is getting, and so the question is
can he handle the center second center assignment. I think that's questionable based on
his defensive impacts. He might need to be more and maybe in the wing,
or maybe he loses some of that time on ice to some of the
other players, and so I think you can't necessarily assume that he's going to
keep that same role. And so far this season, it's interesting. We
have a small sample size, but he's lost basically that minute that he gained
from the previous season, and so's his time on ice is down, his
power play time, power play time on ice is up, so he kind
of being deployed more in an offensive and power play role, which is good.
You like that obviously, but you don't like losing all that even strength
time on ice because obviously that's just more opportunity to score. So far,
it is a little bit concerning. The question really for me is just how
much higher can Cousins go or can he even repeat that seventy point season.
And I'm a little skeptical that happens. I think he'll continue to be the
fourth best player in terms of time on ice, but I think middle Sat
is a legitimate threat, and I also wonder what else is coming after him,
and maybe he I don't know that he takes another step forward. As
my concern, I think that he could continue to be around a sixty five
to seventy point player. But I don't think that Cousins is a point per
game plus kind of guy. And if you look at the cat Friendly page,
he's basically being paid similar to Tage Thompson, And I made this point
before that I think that Tage contract is going to age extremely well because I
think he's a certified point per game plus kind of player going forward, even
though he struggled a little bit to start this season. But I believe in
tred In Tage, most of his metrics are off the charts and he's awesome,
and that is not true for Cousins. There definitely seems to be a
little bit more luck in his seventy point seasons, So his contract, I'm
not so sure is going to look as pretty and a few years Jesse,
what do you think am I off the mark there with with Cousins. I
think that Cousins is going to be part of this corps, but they don't
necessarily need him to be the offensive superstar of it. They certainly have found
a lot of talent to go around it, and there seems to be more
on the way. Everybody can have different roles, and I'm excited. I'm
excited that Cousins at least is successful. I was depressed that middle stat and
then Cousins and all these guys had sort of washed up on the rocks.
It seems like for a while, it's nice to see that he is breaking
through. Victor, we have. The next guy on your list is a
guy who has not broken through. Another one that's been disappointing because I made
a big deal out of him being Wisconsin Badger. Dylan Holloway was a mid
first round draft pick by the Edmonton Oilers. No point so far in four
games for the Oilers, eleven thirty four average time on ice, So he's
not getting out there that much. And when he is with Ryan McLeod and
the beloved Connor Brown, who is catching all the heat so far this year
with them, is Dylan Holloway showing anything? Er? Why did you tell
us about old Dylan in what you found when you looked into him deeper from
one Dylan to another, right cousins to Holloway. Yeah, Halloway, he's
someone I remember. We definitely have talked about him a bit ever since his
days at Wisconsin. He has definitely been an interesting prospect to follow. He
had a different interesting trajectory there with being drafted, and he initially played in
the AJHL, which is a very low equivalency league, and he was awesome
in that league, and then went straight to the University of Wisconsin, which
is a massive jump. Like people don't understand, like how big of a
difference that is, Like it would be a big jump for him to go
to the AJHL and then the WHL, and he went like several steps above
that to the NCAA. And he was pretty awesome in that first year half
point per game or so. And then he followed that up with a sophomore
season that was even more impressive with thirty five points in twenty three games.
So he's one of these guys who increased his star potential from draft to d
plus one year, which is really hard to do. And then he went
straight from there to the AHL, which is another really massive jump we always
talk We often talk about how that's actually the bigger jump going from junior or
NCAA to the HL, and not from the HL to the NC to the
NHL, because that's actually not as big of a difference, even though it
is hard. So when he did that, though, when he went professional,
he took quite a step back. He was close to half or so.
But he still had a pretty strong season with Bakersfield in the AHL twenty
two points in thirty three games, so it wasn't like terrible or anything.
And then the other thing that's interrupted his development a little bit is he's been
hanging out basically getting some NHL time, which is good but also maybe a
little hard for some consistency. So he's at fifty five NHL games as Dylan
Holloway, And yeah, the thing is that where does his upside lie is
really the big question because he's been okay, I mean in terms of his
in terms of his impacts, he's neutral to slightly negative in terms of his
offense, but his defensive game has been pretty good and that's something that Edmonton
needs because they have a lot of they have a few obviously really strong offensive
forwards. But he's needing to play a little bit more defensively, and that's
way basically what's been asked to him, and he's so far this season he's
been driving, he's been helping drive play for his line. That hasn't translated
to points. But this is my worry, is that he's going to be
asked to help support a line a little bit more than he's going to be
asked to be the offensive leader. Now, of course, there's always the
chance that he gets up with mcdriye, McDavid and Drycidle and that's obviously the
boon that people would want and what people have been talking about forever, and
a lot of that is just going to really boil down, obviously to what's
going on with the team and if there's an opportunity for that. People thought,
I thought that that might be Connor Brown's spot, and he has in
that role, but he's also not really done much with it. They still
have Hyman and Kin who also tend to fill that role pretty nicely, and
we've also seen some more focal and Ryan McLeod, so we've seen a revolving
door there. It's still possible that he really clicks with one of those and
just stays for a long time, and I think there's still a really decent
chance that that happens. He still shows like he has some pretty good upside,
and at fifty five games, there's still plenty of time for him to
realize that offensive potential. So I still think that he can be a top
six power play point producer. Getting the opportunity is obviously key, and a
couple of the models still show him as a pretty good chance of having more
offensive upside. I think I like him so much more than someone like Jared
Anderson Dolan because there is a little bit more offense showing, and he's not
just defensively, but he's shown enough defensive acumen that that's not like a concern
for him as it is with poj or someone like that. So I still
have hope for Halloway. I'm not saying that he's going to be He's not
going to be one of my top prospects that I'm banging the table for,
but I'd be happy to hold him until he gets to his miners limits.
Like one of my leagues, we have one season, and so if he's
like in eighty games and then you got to make a decision that might be
a little tight because for this season, I'm not sure that he gets the
full opportunity Dylan Holloway, but if you have a little bit longer, I
think it might be worth it because depending on what happens with the Oilers in
the offseason and how he develops, he might be in for a much bigger
role as early as next season. Jesse, are you down with that plan?
Hey, I'm down with it. If it can happen, It's I
still have to see it before I can believe it. But yeah, Dylan
holloways, it's a slow burn with this guy, and if he can prove
that he can succeed where he is right now, he all you need to
do is win the lottery on this team and get up there with some of
those elite centermen and you have yourself a chance, Victor. Everything's bigger in
Texas except Maverick Bork, who's only five to ten and nonetheless, he has
been a nice little breakthrough with the Dallas Stars. He started out with four
points and three games with the Texas Stars down in the AHL, and he
is poised to make a impact yet again. The Dallas Stars have all kinds
of guys but you brought up in another article on Maverick Bork that it's going
to take a little bit. What's the story on Maverick Bork and how do
you see his development coming. I think you can talk about Bork without acknowledging
the ridiculous, amazing season that Why Johnson had. And I think a lot
of people thought that Bork could be that guy. He was a year older,
it seemed like he was ready. He had already had a strong season
HL season, or he had the opportunity to have a strong AHL season.
He was coming from the queue, but he was a year older, he
played a little bit longer, and it seemed like he was ready, but
instead he got put in the AHL. And we know what happened with why
Johnson. He hit it out of the park. And it's interesting to look
the look between the two and wonder, what's you know. Was that really
Bork not taking the opportunity or was it why Johnston seizing it and just impressing
everybody. I think it's probably a little bit of both, and I don't
think it necessarily reflects badly that Johnston did so well. I think that if
Bork could have won that job or been a little bit more prepared, maybe
he would have been there. But what he showed in the AHL last season
was extremely impressive. He showed some fantastic scoring, he showed more maturity in
his two way game, So I think that that really shows a lot.
He's pretty ready. I was a little surprised that he didn't make the roster,
but then they brought in Matt du Shane, Craig Smith, Sam Steele,
so they have a lot of those middle bottom six guys that are definitely
Nhler's So it made it a little bit harder for Borke to be able to
show everything that he can s show. But I do think that that Bork
can be whether it's partially through this season or next season. He's right on
the cusp of breaking in and being a really important impact player. Right now,
you look at what the stars are doing, and but it's great that
they still have Tyler Segan doing some reasonable things. Matt Dushane is hanging out
I think eventually, and Marchman playing like second line minutes along with sometimes Jamie
Benn. But I think we have a clear top duo of Hintson, Robertson,
and I think in the future that's going to be probably why Johnson,
Maverick Bork, and maybe Logan Stankovin is going to be in there. So
those guys, along with Joe Pavelski, who's probably going to play till he's
one hundred. But between those young guys, I think that they're going to
take more of a role than Second and Ben, and they'll have a really
strong kind of bottom six there with Marchman and those guys. So I do
think that Bork has the maturity to play a strong, stronger two way game
and that what they've been wanting him to do. And I think that he
still has a ton of upside and he's already showing it in the AHL.
So you love that his equivalencies are still reasonable enough to suggest the equivalents are
similar to where Jason Robinson's ended up and he ended up being a superstar.
So it's not like it's a for sure thing, but it is something where
you still look at his progression and you think, yeah, this is still
going. Really, I don't really have concerns. It's not like he really
blew it or anything like that. I think that there's still I think there
should be plenty of excitement for Bork, and I don't think you should hold
what Johnson did away from him. And I don't think you should worry so
much about Logan stankovin coming, because I think that they can be complimentary.
They're not going to play the exact same role. I do think that Bork
is going to be more of a two way guy just because they're going to
need him to. But he's good enough to play in a top six role
with some of those exciting forwards that they have coming. Yeah, I'm still
excited about him. I still think he can reach pretty high heights. The
question is how high? But I think that he's still I would buy him.
I still think I would buy him as like a seventy plus point player.
What do you think about that? For Bork? Everick work Jessin.
That would be awesome. That's what we've been waiting for. Like you said,
the question is how are you going to fiddle these guys in? They've
brought in such a generation. Really, Dallas has just brought in a generation
of amazing forwards, hints Robertson. And along with Bork, then why Johnson?
And then you got Bork and stank Coben I guess you got tied to
Landry who's been developed there, probably not on that kind of a par How
do you see Bork comparing in that group? Is he last in that elite
group as far as what you're expecting with future production at that seventy point marker.
I think Logan Stankovin has the highest upside of all these guys, but
it's also a little bit more questionable just in terms of his translatability and how
many I don't have. I don't have questions about whether he can score in
the NHL, because I definitely think that he can. He's such a His
motor is amazing, his playmaking is amazing. He has lots of ways that
he can leverage his skill at the next level. What I'm more concerned about
is are you going to play Logan stankovi in twenty minutes a night. I
don't know about that. I don't know how good of a matchup he's going
to be, but I think he's still good enough to play fifteen to sixteen
maybe minutes. And whether that's more offensive or maybe he's on the power kill
or something like that, I'm not sure. But Bork should be more of
a two to three C getting decent amount of even strength minutes, and so
I think that's really important. And Johnson, I think is the real wildcard
here because they have had him in a more offensive, complimentary role, but
I think he could slide to the middle potentially and take over that two C
role or something like that. Sank Ovin has the highest upside, and I
think it's actually pretty close with Pork and Johnson. It's just Johnson has shown
it already, so obviously you got to lean him. So I would probably
put Pork at the end, with a little bit more security of making it
and sticking, but less upside, just a little bit more certainty with Pork.
But yeah, I would have them Stank Covid Johnston. Actually, I
think I would have Johnston first, just because he's already played a full season,
and then stank Covin and then Pork. Yeah, that's fair. One
has proven it, the others seem to have explosive upside. Victor moving on,
There was one more question that we got on David Edstrom Tanner Mullendyke.
This was from why didn't you tell us? We got this question from a
patron, right, I believe, So it was in the it was in
the question of episode discussion guys that people wanted to hear about. I will
do a little bit. I will preface this with saying Tanner Mullendyke and David
Edstrom. It's I tend not to like to overreact to early season production.
There's some guys that are just killing it and some guys that are not doing
so well. But when you have such a small sample size of games,
you don't want to overreact. There's plenty of examples of guys that have completely
turned their seasons around, but it is important to note or I guess it's
interesting to note that Tanner Mullendyke, who was taken twenty fourth overall by Nashville,
and he was definitely talked about as one of the best skaters in the
draft and already has mobility that's NHL level. There were questions about how he
would translate his offense and whether he was more than just a kind of bottom
pairing or middle pairing two way guy. But so far this season eleven points
in seven games for the Saskatoon Blades, and he's a defenseman in case that
wasn't clear, So he's definitely leveraging that offensive acumen that he maybe didn't show
as much, and he was pretty close to under half point per game last
season, so this is looking like a massive points explosion. Tanner Mollendyke has
so far of his at assist, which isn't that many, but he definitely
has more secondary assist than primary cists. So his primary point production is if
you just look at it that way, is a little less impressive. It's
closer to point per game as opposed to eleven points in seven games, So
it's possible that some of that extra point production is just noise, So we
need to be we need to be careful to not overestimate. But he's definitely
a really interesting prospect, Tenner Mullendyke, and he's definitely someone who in terms
of just will he play in the NHL, I think definitely, just the
question is what his upside will be. The other guy, David Edstroum.
Yet he's another one who was just drafted thirty second overall by Vegas, and
that one was a little bit surprising. I think some people didn't know that
much about him, or weren't that he wasn't on too many people's radar.
But he did play mostly in the J twenty in Sweden last year point per
game, and then he got eleven SHL games where he had four points.
So far this season, he's already past the point total from last season in
the SHL six points in twelve games, so half point per game in the
SHL is looking pretty nice. And so far this season you can also say
that he's been driving play really well. His Fenwick in for for Loanda is
sixty one percent and so that's looking pretty good. Although he also has more
secondary assists than primary assists. That's also a really small sample size. You're
talking about four asists, so three of them are secondary, one was primary.
So anyways, that doesn't necessarily mean too much. But Edstrom is someone
who probably could have a pretty decent breakout season. He's got good size,
good mobility, and if he can increase his scoring then he'll be more exciting.
And yeah, so Vegas possibly got a good one. So that's what
I would say about those two Jesse great increased production so far in their D
plus one season, but it's a little early to tell, and you always
have to be careful of that noise with secondary assist which is something that we
can look into. If you want to hear about someone on the show,
what do you think about those Jesse, Yeah, yeah, I think that's
a fair earlier. Actually, really is too early to say a whole lot
about guys who were just drafted last year. And that's why we bring continuing
coverage throughout the year looking at some of these guys down in various junior leagues.
Victor, We're gonna take a break, come back, and a couple
of things to remind you of before we get out of here today. First
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