Welcome to Fantasy Hockey Life, presented by fan Tracks, your source of information
and analysis to help you win your fantasy hockey league. Fuck up, that's
a step hat, stay lost, blush. Here's your hosts, Jesse Severe
and Victor Nuno. Fantasy Hockey Applied back once again. Jesse Severe from fan
Tracks with Victor Nuno from diver Prospects. How you doing today, Victor?
Mom doing great. Jesse. It's definitely a little bit hot over here,
but that's cool. We're managing just fine. How about you? I'm doing
great. There is a special place. I think We've talked about it a
lot, but I'm just gonna keep talking about it. You visited a very
special city this summer, right and you saw it up close. Had you
been to Nashville before? No, I had not been in Nashville I hadn't
even had a lay over there anything. So it was my first time and
some people I know warned me that it was going to be insanely hot,
and they were not wrong. It's the Midwest, so east of the humidity
is going to be in full effect, and it was a lot. The
worst part is that, as some of you saw on Twitter and whatnot,
I had to like look nice for the drafts up, so I had to
like dress up. So I'm walking around downtown Nashville and like my suit and
just everyone's sweating and just so hot. But on the days where I didn't
have to do that, I was still hot, but I didn't have to
wear its whny clothes. Yeah. No, we don't wear suits in Nashville.
Man, maybe somebody does. But I lived there for several years,
and boy is it miserable there in the summer victory. Did you just call
Nashville the Midwest? And then I pivoted to say East because it's okay,
okay, okay, because otherwise the show was going to be canceled and I
wasn't gonna be able to tolerate that because as a Midwesterner, that is the
least Midwest place I've ever lived, by a long shot. But they do
love hockey down there. People make fun of the sun Belt, but let
me tell you something, people recognize that when they hosted the Stanley Cup Finals,
obviously, and they've hosted a number of different NHL events now, including
the Draft this year. But Nashville is a hockey crazy town. When I
lived there, they cared for the Predators more than they did the NFL team,
the Tennessee Titans, and both of them were good at the time.
Actually the Titans, I think we're a little better than the Predators. But
we're going to talk Nashville today, Victor. But before we get to that,
before we get to the product on the ice and how it is changing
for the coming year, a couple of things we want to mention to people.
We are going to talk about several things today. We're going to have
a guest who can talk to us about the pro team. We're gonna have
Kat's Instincts, Kat Silverman, our great friend and goalie expert, who's going
to talk about some of the prospect goalies. And then we'll do the Dynasty
dig talk about a couple of Victor's prospects that he wants to talk about in
this system and get a little bit deeper into them. You can hanging out
with us and with all kinds of hockey crazies and discord. It is a
nice community. It is a place you can talk about hockey and people are
generally civil to one another, and all you have to do to be a
part of that. We have several hundred who joined it. You're interacted with
each other. It's a big friendly forum on Discord is to email us Fantasy
Hockey Life at gmail dot com, or you can hit up Victor or myself.
You can hit us up on Twitter at fan Hockey Life is me at
Victor Newno. Twelve VIIC t O R and U n O one two is
Victor ask questions and not only that Victor, but there are additional things they
can do in there, and additional things we're doing as a podcast right now.
What is going on? Yeah, one of the big things that we're
taken up is the average draft position that Tyler Matson started and he's unable to
continue that. So if you're unfamiliar with that, he collected a whole bunch
of draft information from people's leagues and collated so that you can use that information
to decide if you know, when you want to take a certain player or
how you want to approach your draft, and just good information for how guys
are going and fantasy draft. So we're going to do that and we've got
some great patrons that are helping out with that. So if you want to
help, all you got to do is download your draft results. Just go
into fantracks draft and download the CSV, send it to us emails probably the
easiest Viktor at gmail dot com or Fantasy Hockey Life at gmail dot com.
And if you can include information about how big your league is, what the
settings are, categories, points, and if there's a cap or whatever,
that would be useful information. So yeah, definitely contribute to that and we'll
be referencing on the show and we'll be talking about it. It'll be great
stuff for sure. And we also have a Patreon victor why don't you tell
people about that? So much goodness at the Patreon. So one of the
big things now is the tidy, the tier dynasty we have. I started
that last year and it's been going strong. So we created a couple of
new divisions, Top Division that people got promoted to and bottom Division where people
can work their way up to the top. So we have a few positions
still open. Definitely reach out if you're interested. It's one of the patron
perks. It's a really fun league and that's one of the good things.
The ranking sheet is the other one where we should have at this point early
started to migrate over the twenty twenty three guys integrated into the forward, D
and goalie ranks, So that's going to be a good thing. It's always
nice to be able to compare these guys across years, and that's something that
we start doing and constantly updating it. And we're going to be starting with
the way to early twenty twenty four guys pretty soon here too, so great
stuff there. You also get patron Cast, patron Priority channels, top ten
lists from the team, preview stuff, so a lot of goodness. Patreon
dot com, slash Fantasy Hockey Life. Let's talk about Nashville. We're going
down to Music City. Put on your hats because here it comes. Right
after this. We'd like to welcome to the show a guy who knows his
Nashville Predators from the on the four check website, the newly independent on the
four check website, or at least independent site. It is Brian Baston.
How you knowing? Brian? I am doing fantastic. I appreciate you guys
having me on. Yeah, it's a slick looking website. I've read it
for years, but yeah, I've gone back in a couple of months and
it's it's nice. Yeah, we're nice. We had our we've relaunched it,
but I think we're going to be doing some different stuff. There's some
business in the background that's going on with a lot of the former Vox sites
that we may be pushing something some new things out here soon. But it's
nice. It's we are independent, which it felt like we were for a
while anyways. But it's good. We've got control over what we want to
say and things like that, and it works out really well. So it's
been fun. It wasn't fun probably immediately when we found out about it at
all, but it's gotten there. Speaking of things that probably weren't as fun
as we would have, let's talk about the Nashville Predators season last year.
The transition has finally come from the Preds. Their eight year streak of playoff
appearances because I am going to count the fake bubble playoffs has come to an
end. The Hits have come fast and furious over the past six months.
In management, John Hines out, Andrew Burnett in as coach, and most
significantly, David Poyle, the only GM of their twenty four years, is
out replaced by the only icon who could have surpassed him in Pred's history,
Barry Trots, longtime stalwarts Ryan Johansson, Mattias at Home and fairly recent ads
Nino Nita Writer and Michael Granland and promising youngster Tanner Jano even were traded away
and Dushane bought out. Of the seven skaters who locked the most ice time
in the twenty one twenty two season, five are gone. It's almost irrelevant
to figure out this coming year's preads based on last year's preads because of all
the turnover. But our next year's preds playing for Celebrini, for Pride or
for a surprise playoff run. Bryan, I think that they are. We're
gonna be playing for figuring out what their new identity is. You had mentioned
that Mattia sack Holme had been traded away to Edmonton, and this you look
at the defense corps or what's left of it now, this doesn't seem like
maybe the first year in a while that Nashville is not going to be the
team with the good defense. Not that they were good last year either,
but just the star powered on the blue line. And so it's gonna be
it's gonna be telling a lot for what Andrew Brunette is going to come in
and do to change the change just the whole structure of how this team works
out, and I'm pretty excited for it. Probably all this happened, maybe
I would say probably three years too late, but at least it's happening now.
Philip Forsberg the star of this team, the returning star, certainly one
of them. There are others I guess we'll get to, but the forward.
The contract drama ended since last year's season preview, but the first year
of Forresburg's eight year contract ended sadly early with an apparent concussion that entered his
season in February. He was skating later the same month. But probably better
thoughts prevailed for this team. They went ahead and shut him down as they
sold. And we all want to see Forrestburg play many more years at a
high level. Good for him to get that recovery time. Well, his
performance was not quite as the same pace as his just sizzling twenty one twenty
two. He still put up forty two points in fifty games, took ten
point eight shots per sixty, tops on the team ninety six percent time in
the league. Foresburg likes to shoot. Whisburgh stepped back into his normal near
point per game pace again or will health and the loss of playmaking teammates set
him back. Brian, Yeah, I think you raised an excellent point.
It's been let's see. I think it was. The last time was the
twenty sixteen season, the year before the Cup run. Was last time he
played a full season without missing games, And it's you don't want to judge
anybody if they can't make the full eighty two, because barely anybody does anymore.
But it's been a while since he's been able to be there for not
miss a week or two in a season, and we've seen that he's really
come into his own. You mentioned last year going over a point per game
and forty two points in fifty games last season, and considering the makeup of
the offense was still pretty good. So I know, I believe that he
still is a pretty elite player. I just I worry about the combination of
just being healthy and as well as I have no idea who his linemates are
going to be this season. Michail Granland. You need a rider, Guys
that really work, Johansson, Duchane, they're all gone, and so it's
going to be Forsberg on the wing, of young guys like Philip Thomasino,
Luke Evangelisa, things like that. But he's always he's always succeeded pretty well
despite who his linemates are. We've seen some we've seen some odd choices for
his linemates over the last couple of years, and he still manages to produce.
I would honestly think that he's still a really solid selection to have on
your team. I think he's going to be producing, especially in those leagues
where you're counting things like just the amount of shots taken, blocks, things
like that. He's not a huge on blocks and hits. But what he
does do is that he drives that offense. The offense kind of revolves around
him when he's on the ice, and when you have a guy like Roman
Yosi on the backing him up, he still can be dangerous. No matter
what the makeup of this team is. He's a guy that you wouldn't find
me passing on him. You just have to worry about having some coverage just
in case of injury, because more off more likely than not, he's probably
gonna get hurt and missed probably ten plus games at some point. I'm as
Novak boy I did not see this coming, Brian, not to speak for
quote everyone else, but I doubt many others did either what he did this
year. Novak was a bit of a miners journeyman who had a few games
in the NHL the prior season, but he played his way to fourth and
scoring in only fifty one games this past year forty three points. His season
took off in the final months of the season when he was paired with former
Milwaukee Admiral teammates Key for Sherwood, Sherwood and Luke of Angelista. Novac doesn't
do much by way of black shots and hits what we call bash, and
his defense didn't rate out all that great. But was this a case of
a late bloomer who's maybe going to show up and be a top sixer for
the rebuilding Preds while they need people in those roles, or was this a
career season that won't repeat. But we can all be very happy about yea,
yeah, you said it. I mean, and I've been a big
Tommy Novak fan for the past few years with his time in Milwaukee, but
even I did not expect out scored Philip Forsberg and just one more game last
season. He's a guy that is Again you talked about his defense. I
think you were fairly generous. I been talking about his defense and saying it's
not that good. But I think that he is an excellent play driver.
He has no problem playing from the perimeter or getting deep, getting up right
up on the net and attacking in the crease. And he didn't seem to
slow down at any point in the season. I kept waiting for, Okay,
he's having such a great run of a last couple of weeks and he's
scoring really well. He's got to come back down to earth, and he
never really did that. And again you talk about him playing with key for
Sherwood, who is another guy a little bit older, probably got the most
time in the NHL that he may have in the next few years. But
he has managed to fit in with pretty much any linemate they put him with
last season, and he's not going to He will be top six purely because
he's playing for Nashville, I think, just because the depth is completely gone
at this point. But he's a guy that I don't see him putting on
a Rolls Blue next season. I think he's gonna be an integral part.
He'll probably get seventy seventy games or so if he's given his health. But
I think he's gonna be a guy who's going to be a consistent points scorer.
He's not going to blow anyway blow people away with his goal scoring ability,
but he's a guy that you want, and he's a guy who's going
to get in there and hit guys. He's going he's gonna get down there
on the ice and make those blocks. And so he's somebody that he's not
going to pop out to a lot of people as far as looking at how
valuable he might be. But he's somebody that's gonna be a probably a pretty
consistent points scorer that for years for Nashville, that kind of guy that's gonna
get you points fantasy at least with like a role like Colton Sistans or somebody
like that at Craig Smith for in a different form. But he's gonna be
a guy he'll be very consistent, and I think he'll be someone that should
be you're probably gonna keep him in your line line up because you just know
you're gonna get a certain amount of points for him every week. So again,
I've been a huge fan of his but nobody including myself, saw this
last season coming. So he's he's up and comer, and I'm really excited
to see what he can do over the next year or two. Yeah.
I go to Admiral's games living up here in Milwaukee. My daughter's band played
an Admiral's game this year, so may get down here once in a while.
Yeah, and he definitely. I did not quite realize what Novak was
going to do when he went up to or we went down to Nashville.
Anyway, Ryan O'Riley, Wow, Ryan O'Reilly's on this team. His brief
sojourn is over. And when the dust settled, that is, his sojourn
in Toronto is over. And when the dust settled, the Preds landed this
sulky slash con smythe winner of four years ago. He got less time on
ice after the move to Toronto, but scored very well twenty points in twenty
three games, including playoffs. Trots has apparently been aiming for character guys,
and Roar has been one of them that he aimed for. He's already talking
Stanley Cup o'reiley. I guess that maybe that's what you say when you come
in. You don't say, yeah, I don't know, guys, We're
just gonna try to get this turned around. We don't know what's going to
happen. O'reiley has always been a bit more exciting in real hockey than for
us fantasy geeks. But he's stepping into a situation and where the top centiment
on the team are going. I'm wondering if O'Reilly going to step in right
away and be the first center, and could he be something like a sixty
five point guy playing with Forresburg maybe next year. I think that's well within
the realm of possibility for him. This is a guy who's come from some
very strong teams. He's got the experience. I've always said, I think
coaches over rate or bringing in this veteran because he's a winner. He's been
on winning teams. But Ryan O'Reilly's had the exception to that. Yeah,
he's a guy that has continued to produce. He's extremely dangerous. I don't
think there's any doubt that he's going to start this season on the first line
with Philip Forsberg, just again just because of depth and the departures, but
I think he probably would have made a strong case for it anyways, seeing
if they've kept Touchane or Ryan Johansen, and so yeah, I think that's
going to be a killer combination to see him and Forresburg up there, depending
on who's who else is out there with him. But yeah, sixty five
points I think would be an excellent season for him, and considering the team
and the status of the team right now, I really like everything about him.
I initially was looking at the contract. It's a four and a half
of four years. It seems like a whole lot, But this is a
guy that you can get. He's a little bit, he's a little bit
older, but here in three years, if Nashville feels like they can compete
again, he's going to be a pretty important part to that. And so
I was really thrilled with the signing after I looked into it and looked at
his numbers and how he's been performing. And he's the kind of guy that
Nashville probably could have used on the team three four years ago, starting back
then, because he's exactly that type of player that you want there to create
a lot of points out of nothing and take Nashville loves Romaniosi especially loves to
take those shots from the blue line, and I think a guy like Ryan
O'Riley is the perfect kind of player to be in there to help clean that
up, and he's going to score I think a lot of points that way
for sure. A couple other guys we want to get your take on in
terms of how many points are gonna scores. We'll give you a pickum here,
Luke Evangelista, Philip Thomasino. Evangelista played twenty four games for the Prez
had fifteen points, which was a fifty one point pace. He got sixteen
thirty four time when I was pretty decent power play deploy him in two and
then Thomasino, on the other hand, played most of the year in the
HL where he was really good, I mean, thirty one games for the
Preds for a forty eight point pace. His time on ice was a little
bit lower than Evangelista's at fifteen thirty six, but similar point paces right around
fifty for both of them. If you look at the underlyings, Evangelista looked
much better offensively. Actually, his expected goals were pretty decently above NHL average,
which was nice. His defensive impacts, actually, both these guys were
defensively not great, which is interesting. Because I when I watched Tomisino,
I get the impression anyways he's a little bit better two way, but not
according to these underlying So maybe that's not true. I don't know what you'll
tell me, But what do you think between these two if you had to
pick between Evangelista and Tomasino, who gets more points next season on the preads?
So yeah, I mean it's a little bit of a difficult question just
because these are guys that kind of have a similar profile. These are guys
who excelled in June years before being selected by the Predators. I think Philip
Thomasino and I said this last season, but I still believe it. But
I think Philip Thomasino is really, I think a little bit further along in
term of being a mainstay in the NHL. But I think it's just the
raw the offensive ability that Luke Evangelista has. Again, young kid, but
he still managed to do pretty well both expected goals and actual goals. His
impact on offense is really good. And there's a guy, a young guy
like that is these are two players that are going to be competing to be
a top six player for the National Predators for the next four to five years,
and I think Evangelista is that guy who is going to go out there
and he's going to get his place set after this season. Not to say
that Thomasino won't do that as well, because again I know the past two
coaching staffs have been really in love with what Thomasino brings, and I do
think talking about being a two way player, I think Thomasino will improve on
that because he is a little bit better defensively than the metrics have given him
credit for. But I think just straight up on points, I would take
Evangelista nice, all right, got to see how that goes. We've got
one more pick them for you here, and this is an old guy versus
a rookie or a young guy, and that's you so part and Gus Nyquist
Parsonon had twenty five points in forty five games, playing pretty low time on
ice fourteen twenty and not too much in terms of power play time on ice.
Most of those assists, though, it's an even number between a ones
and a two, so that's always good to see when you're assist heavy,
so not bad. And then ni Quist comes over from CBJ at the trade
deadline, where he was a trade deadline deal to Minnesota and then signs in
Nashville. Last season, he had a forty five point pace, playing nearly
eighteen minutes of time on ice. I don't know that he's going to play
that much, and Nashville will see. But it does seem like Niquist has
the time on ice advantage, so that might give him the upper hand here.
But who would you take between parsonon and Niquist. With ni Quist,
he's a guy that I'm still not entirely sure why Nashville went out and got
him. I think that right now Nashville is in that place where they also
just need warm bodies and as opposed to going out and getting the best guy,
I don't I think he Some Nashville fans might be a little bit too
harsh on the signing. I think he will be fine. But this is
also where I'm going to gush about us Parson and I got all credit to
one of the other Nashville writer as a former writer with US at OTF,
Eric Daney, who had called Usa a Parson and out from the moment that
he was drafted. And he's just a He's an everything guy and it's so
fun to watch him play, because one game he's going to be out there
and looking like he's trying to snipe every shot he takes, and then after
that he's making moves, driving from the blue line all the way in shaking
a guy or two. And he's young, but he's a young guy that's
got plenty more time to develop. But I don't think i'd be more confident
in any one of these picks so far than saying that USA Parson and will
outscore Gustav Quist and use A. Parson is going to be another mainstay on
this Nashville Predators team. I think Tommy Novak has been producing well and I
think he's hit where he's going to be, what his skill level's going to
be. But USA Parson, don't be surprised if you see him up there
playing with Forsberg or somebody like that, because he's got a lot of talent
and I think his development is just getting started. So I think he has
a pretty easy pick for me. I don't want to be snarky, but
I've felt the last three times that somebody's signed Gustav nice Quist, why did
they sign him again? Sorry, sorry mister and missus ni Quist about your
son. I'm sorry, I'm picking on him. I we'll move on Yakov
training. He is a forward for the Nashville Predators. He was very high
in block shots and hits are bash metric. He's sent spent a second straight
year with consistent minutes for this team, played in a checking role, had
twenty four points for the second straight year, two hits, two shots per
game. He's already twenty six, having played the bulk of three seasons in
the NHL. He even got some power play time late in the year after
the loss of a lot of players. In terms of goals about replacement thirteenth
percentile, Yeah, not so much. He's good on the penal to kill.
Let's give him that. We'll training move into any kind of a larger
role. I'm grasping here a little bit, Brian, I know. But
just because he gets all those hits, we love him. Is he a
guy who expected just fade as the young guys coming around him. I wouldn't
say fade, but he's going again. I mentioned Colton Systems before. I
think that's where you're going to see him for as long as he's a Nashville
Pretor, he's going to be a third line guy. I love him.
I remember him getting into fight I think was the fight he got into with
Oh Gosha cannot the who's the real guy? Who? Just who retired?
A real big dude? You just played for Boston Chara and Chara. Yeah,
yeah, gotten a real good fight with him and staggered him, which
was great. It made him a fan favorite immediately. But yeah, twenty
four points or I think that's what he had you see here, Yeah,
twenty four points, that's probably what you're gonna expect. And I don't see
him. You're gonna see him penalty kill a lot. I think power play.
I wouldn't expect to see him on the power play. I think I
think we were maybe one or two injuries away from them asking me to play
on the power play at the end of last season, so I wouldn't reach
too much into his time there. But he's a guy I do like him.
But he's a checking guy. I think you'll get your points with blocks
and hits and things like that, but I wouldn't expect him to produce for
you with points or goals anytime soon. That's just not the game that he
plays. Sure, probably another guy in the same boat Colton sisms, but
you know what respect on coldcisms name because aside from a certain stud defenseman that
we'll be talking about in just a bit, I believe Sistens is the longest
tenured Predator entering his tenth season with this pro squad. Plays a depth centerman
role. Even strength defense looks like his most positive attribute according to some of
the metric sign reading the statute showed thirty points two hits a game last year.
Pretty nice? Is that pretty much which we should expect again from Sistens.
Yeah, Ciszens is what system you look at him, most people can
get a kind of a read on him and what he plays, and that's
exactly what he's done pretty much every year. He's going to hover between eighteen
thirty thirty points a season. He's going to make the most of his impact
defensively on the penalty kill. Excellent penalty killer. But again, he's the
same type of guy. He's not going to score a ton. I think
what his twelve goals last season with the second highest in his career. You
can't really I wouldn't expect him to do too much. But then again,
last season was he tied his career high in points. With the way that
the team is built right now, you'd sit there and say that this is
a guy's a third liner. He's thirty points is probably his ceiling. But
give in the holes, in the depth and the youth on this team now
might as we might very well see him in a second line role in producing
a little bit more. But I wouldn't feel confident in saying that, yeah,
exactly what he's gonna do. I think you know what Colton A Systems
is. He's been this guy for ten years now. That's the former first
line center in the Stanley Cup finals, Colton as systems, which I still
think is hilarious. But he's a guy that is valuable. He's coaches love
him. I think any coach that would coach a guy like him love him.
He's going to do everything for you. He has taken on a revolving
door of young line mates for the last six six seven years and he's a
great guy, a great player. But you're not gonna He's not gonna produce
a whole bunch in there. I think if you're going especially if you're looking
at blocks and hits and things like that, I think a guy like Trenton
might be able to give you a little bit more there, but he's a
deep round kind of pickup if that's what you're looking for. Yeah, definitely
a better IRL guy than a Fantasy that's right. Great job on the forwards.
We're gonna shift over to the defense, and I wonder who we're gonna
talk about. Oh, that's right, it's Roman, yo. See what
a stud of a down year maybe for him, but I'm still incredible only
play at sixty seven games, still managed to be the fifth best Fantasy rank
defenseman at his position, first if you adjust for eighty two game pace.
If people are wondering, ek sixty five ranked out third in the metrics that
we were looking at, so that's interesting. Though his seventy point pace a
bit of a regression from ninety eight last season, which I think we could
all agree that everything went well and perfectly for him last year. Eighteen goals,
forty one assists for YOC, fifty one hits, one hundred and forty
six blocks. Definitely more of a blocker than a hitter, but the two
hundred and sixty nine shots is pretty fantastic. Twenty four power play points.
He makes his money there sixth and Bash. I think people might be a
little surprised to hear that, but yoc is really good for block shots and
hits. Yeah, he's again not the biggest hitter, but between the shots
and the blocks, it's really good. And five million, and I think
more players should do this, Brian, nine point oh five nine million.
You gotta get the number in there, right, your rising number? Why
not? Who cares at that point when you're talking pennies for NHL teams exactly?
But yeah, you'll see interesting. His metrics last year rated out a
little bit subpar defensively, but he's pretty close to average, probably negligible,
especially since his offensive contributions are so high. Again, what are we talking
about next year? Here are we talking seventy plus point? Roman? Yo?
See with amazing Bash? What do you think, Brian? Yeah,
he's a guy just even I mean, his contributions on the power play are
just outrageous. He is a guy that again is taking a ton of shots.
And if you look, and especially if you're looking to find that centerpiece
defenseman for your team, especially if like you're in something like a keeper league
or something, this is a guy that you grab immediately. You don't hesitate,
even if I wasn't a Nashville fan or are covering the Predators. He's
a guy that you rush and you make do whatever you can do. I
said it when he signed the deal. I was like, he's probably being
underpaid at nine point almost nine point one million dollars, probably by a couple
million. I think he's that important, and I think that he is the
type of player that just say, like, we've just we're one piece away
from contending. Roman Yosi is nine nine percent of the time going to be
that one piece for you. A guy that plays like that. He I
worry a little bit about his health history, just for the fact that and
they've not publicizes it a lot. A lot of the times he's gone out
as injured had looked like concussions, and I think an unofficial count that I
saw seems like over the course of his career like seven or eight. So
that's always something to worry about. I'm not that worried about it, just
for the fact that he's a hard working guy. He is the captain,
He's going to be here probably until he retires, and he's probably going seventy
points. Seems if I said, like a seventy point season. I think
people would be very disappointed. I think he'd be disappointed in me for saying
that, because I think that's something he can do in his sleep. I
don't see him regressing at all. He's gotten better. I didn't know that
guys that skate like him could be get better over a year or two.
That's skating. But I think one of the Chris Mason, former goaltender for
the Preads and a bunch of other teams, he calls him Nightcrawler because it
seems like Roman Yosi will be on one end of the ice poof disappear and
he's in the offensive zone just that quick. And one of the things I
like, and I've told him this kind of in the locker room after game
before a media session. I was like, and I was like, you're
whatever percentage shooter when you shoot from your normal areas, but when he drives
in and gets within like between the circles, I mean, he's got an
outrageous, like twenty plus percent shooting percentage. Because he's a guy that if
you're one of those people who's an advocate of positionless hockey, Roman yo c
I'd put him it forward if you'd let me. He's just that good.
And he's a guy that I didn't even realize you talked about him being sixth
and bash. I wouldn't have guessed that at all. And I look at
his stats and stuff all the time. He's Roman yo C. I can't
gush enough about him because he's earned it all. He's an excellent player,
i'd say personally, and I'll probably get people come back and mute this,
but I think he is maybe a top ten if not maybe top five,
like just player overall and in professional hockey because of just everything that he can
do, how smart he is on the ice he has played. He's been
paired with guys running from Mattia Sack home some years, Ryan Ellis before that,
but then other younger guys like he managed to help Dante Fabro come along
quite a way as too. And so yeah, he's just if he's available,
it doesn't matter if you've got another big, great defenseman, I'd take
him every single time. Don't have any problem gussion about Roman Yos. This
is a Yos friendly zone. On this podcast, Tyson Barry, the defenseman
who came back in the trade with Edmonton that sent Mattia sat home north of
the border and netted Nashville the pick that turned into Tayner Mullendik in the draft.
Barry's entering his thirteenth NHL year. He had fifty five points last year
in a league high eighty five games. That's what happens when you're traded and
no play the same schedule on the same nights. He led the NHL as
a pread he played twenty one twenty four and night twelve points in twenty four
games, was dead last of the team on goals above replacement. Actually this
was because of how rough things were at five on five on defense after he
came, and he fit in very well after Yose's lost as a power play
specialist because they needed one then. But that's not exactly what he's going to
be able to do. He's certainly not going to quarterback a team with Roman
Yosi on the power of play. So what are they going to do with
him in the final year of his deal? Is this a guy who they're
trying to flip it or are they going to find a role that fits well
with his game? What's the deal with Barry? I would have said the
moment that they traded for him. I was absolutely certain that they were going
to be flipping him again, whether it would be shortly after they traded or
in this offseason and preparation for the draft. But like you said, he
came in and fit in. Now again, looking at the landscape of what
the team looked like in the second the last like quarter of the season,
fitting in wouldn't be entirely difficult. But he's a guy that is a He's
good. He was parely decent on the power play, and I know a
lot of his power play numbers and his metrics are influenced from coming to that
from that Edmonton power play. But I think he'll be a pretty important piece.
But I don't see him being on the team by the end of the
season. And I still don't think that's really anything against what he brings.
It's just a that's not a thirteen year veteran, is not what Andrew Burnett
probably was hoping to build around. Unless it's a guy like a Roman yos
or or Mattias at Calm, somebody like that. I don't see him creating
a ton of points or preventing them, to be honest, but he is
He's a band aid, I think, and I think he's very good at
that for what Nashville will need out of him next season. I like his
game a lot more than I thought I would after looking at Edmonton film and
things like that. But it's gonna be rough. I think defensively is gonna
be a really rough season next year, and that's gonna be reflected on a
lot of these guys. I think Romanosi's numbers will probably take a little bit
of a hit defensively in that same vein. So yeah, I like Tyson
Barry a lot. I think it's hilarious that guys in the locker room call
him mom or mother. I still can't remember exactly why that is, but
it's what a nickname. It's not something that ends in why. But apparently
somebody in the locker room just called him that once and it stuck and he's
yeah, I like it, Okay, it's whatever they want to call me.
Nice, super nice guy. But I just don't see him being a
guy that was going to produce for anybody fantasy wise, unless it's just you've
got a bunch of guys that aren't playing, so you need to rotate him
in. I wouldn't count too much on that. Wow, that's actually Victor
his nickname on the podcast because he's always keeping me in line. I just
call him Mom. Yeah, so it goes all right. Ryan mcdonnaugh,
that was a random shot. Ryan mcdonnaugh is the next defenseman to talk about
this first year in Nashville. Saw consistent minutes with the time he had in
Tampa Bay. Twenty points in the seventy one games. He played a shot,
two blocks in a hit per game, didn't really have much luck with
scoring even when he was with Roman Yo C. Should we expect mcdonnah to
pair again with yos this year and log a bunch of minutes and mentor some
young guys or you think that mcdonnah will have a different role with this changing
team. Yeah, so I think he will be a type of guy that.
Yeah, we did see him a lot with Yo C. I think
he does make a lot more sense as a second pair guy. I think
when playing with guys like Alex Carry a who Ox Kerry I can't say enough
about. I think that's where you're gonna see Dante Fabreau Alex Carry as your
other two defenseman. I think you're gonna have mcdonnah as a second pair,
you're gonna have YOC on the first and I think based on the way that
they play, I think we'll see a little bit more of Yo C and
FABROA and then mcdonnah area because I think they compliment each other's games pretty well.
But as far as points go, you know, mcdun is not producing
a ton of shots either. Seventy eight I think in seventy one games not
gonna really produce a whole lot there for you. He's I think he had
over like a hundred misses and block shots based on think his course, he
was like one seventy eight and hit seventy eight shots. He's not hitting the
net are coming close too often, and his assists numbers aren't suggesting that he's
people are cleaning up a lot of his shots. But he's just a he's
a steadfast guy. I think a lot of you know what I Alaly said
about Tyson Barry. I think that mcdonnough was a player that any other year
for Nashville, he would be a guy that is there to kill a spot
until they can flip him. But he's going to be a mainstay. He's
probably gonna be a very important part of the team. I just don't see
him producing much offensively. I don't think that there's really anybody on the defense
except for Roman Yosi that's going to produce a whole lot points wise. Yep.
And with that note, we will move on to the goalies, because
that's what time it is. And the Predators had the fifth rank expected goals
against for sixty pretty decent but ranked twenty first and actual goals you look at
the underlying numbers, they were really good. Sarrows was awesome AVESNA caliber season
fourth and votes and thirty three twenty three and seven. In terms of what
he had to deal with, I think it was pretty incredible and might have
deserved a little more consideration. He had forty five and a half goals save
above inspected. These numbers are absurd. One point five to five delta Fenwick
is one of the highest numbers you'll ever seen. That means in terms of
his save percentage, he outperformed in terms of what was expected and what he
actually did, so Sarrows was amazing. He has two years left at five
million, which is incredible value for where the Preds are, and it almost
makes me wonder that maybe they move him because he's so good and the Preds
aren't in that competitive window. I think he could. He would fetch an
outrageous return. In fact, that the draft they were talking about trying to
land the Meetschkoff pick, and they were talking about it sounded like they were
considering Sorrows or a scaroff. Seems I guess if you're landing a forward like
that, it seems pretty good. But anyways, what do you think about
our short king goalie? Is Are you going to continue to be amazing?
Do you think they consider trading him? What's going on there? From a
business standpoint, there is an obvious upside to trading UC Sorrows. I don't
like it. That's a personal and kind of a professional opinion, just for
the fact that he has he spent a ton of time in the backup role
to Peccorina, and he spent a ton of time developing. He plays a
very He's just very different from Peccorina in almost every way. Rene was this
big guy. Sorrows is maybe the most complete, like complete, technically sound
goalie in the NHL, And you are right that he deserved a lot more
Vesnic consideration. I wouldn't have voted him first, but he was second for
me behind Elias Sorkin who was also robbed. And he he's a guy that's
going to get better. I think his biggest flow in his game about two
or three seasons ago was he really struggled in rebound control, and now I
believe he's one of the top three goaltenders as far as rebound control goes.
He found that one spot of his game that was really lacking and just said,
all right, let's fix that and what's next. What else you guys
got. He had that incredible game against Carolina last season with seventy shots and
he saved sixty seven of them. Just he was like, what third all
time in history, And it's just he's an incredible player who has didn't seem
to slow down or slump at any point last season, and any other team
in front of him, he would have. He almost got them to the
playoffs just off his effort alone, and Nashville did wasn't eliminated from the playoffs
until the last week of the season, surprisingly, and it all had to
do almost one hundred percent with us sorrows. And you talk about the skill
of a guy coming up behind him like Yiaroslavaskarov, who is a generational talent
for goaltenders, and he's great, and he's maybe one of my favorite Milwaukee
admirals currently. He's just an incredible dude. But you can look at Chel
and then okay, here's this guy who has played like a Vesna caliber goalie
for the last two and a half three seasons and doesn't look like he's slowing
down. In fact, he feels like he's getting better. I'm taking the
guaranteed I've got the next four year, two or three years of him being
that good, and he's still going to be it. He regresses a little
bit, he's still a guy that you want in net if you're trying to
make a run at the Stanley Cup finals. I wouldn't do it just because
Pecorina had been here for a very long time. He put in time through
some of the bad years here in Nashville and came out on the other side
pretty well. And I think that's what you do with a guy like Ucy
Sarrows at five million dollars was a deal back when he signed it, and
you don't want to rush a guy like a scar Off. He is a
guy a scar off, that natural ability, but he has a lot of
things that he's got to work on as far as just learning what to do,
what not to do, what chances you want to take a scar off
is. He's just a wonderful dude to watch, but he will give me
heart palpitations when he gets to the NHL because there's so many times you watch
and he's like, what is he doing? And he manages to come out
on the other side okay with it. But that was partial the reason why
we saw him get benched for Devin Cooley for Milwaukee during the playoffs in the
Caller Cup playoffs last season. So if it was me, you make him
us sorrows, you make Romanos, you make Philip Borsburg. Those are your
centerpieces, and those are guys that will be there that will continue to produce,
and we'll be ready and available to you when this team is ready to
start contending. And like Ryan O'Reilly said, this team could I don't know
if I believe it, but this team could be back and competitive within a
couple of years. And you don't want to go in with a goalie tandem
of somebody and a scaroff. You want that guy that veteran, because there's
I don't see any if you know, any reason for sorrows to want to
leave leave Nashville. And so I think that sticking with him at a key,
he'll probably be consistent for a long time, and so I would keep
him on there. And I still think next season you're going to see his
name. He should be at the NHL Awards as if as the finals again
next year and probably the year after that. Yeah, and it's really interesting.
The listeners are going to hear from our prospect goalie expert in a little
bit in the next part of the show Cats Silverman, and she talks a
lot about a scar off and similarly, just it's an adventure every shift and
he's going out and poke checking people like twenty feet outside the crease and just
all kinds of crazy antics. But he believes in himself. He's a very
confident dude, and maybe he doesn't have some of the inside in terms of
like when he shouldn't do some of those things though, but he's got all
the skill and talent in the world. So I do want to say,
if listeners are sitting here trying to consider things about a scar off and you're
trying to decide between what my opinion was and what Cat's opinion was. You
listen to Cat Silverman every single time. Just ignore me because I've watched him
quite a bit, but an expert. But I'm glad that they agree just
for the fact that, yeah, I mean we watched him get into a
goalie fight. He begged, practically begged the other goaltender in that AHL game
to get into the fight since everybody else was, and it's it's cool,
it's great to see those types of players. He's not a distraction. His
teammates absolutely adore him. It's just gonna take some time. And you don't
want to rush a guy like this, because a guy with that type of
talent but still has kne that time to develop. Rushing him is how you
ruin a player like that. How you put them in before they're ready.
You put the entire team on their back and say, hey, you're our
first goaltender now without good defense. You don't want to end up in a
situation where we asked, what if they spent that pick on him, passing
on some other guys that I think Nashville really could have used at forward and
things like that. You don't want to rush him. And I think that's
another argument against trading UC Sorrows is give it time. UC Sorrows had a
lot of time, probably more time than maybe he would have liked. But
now look at what whether that's come out, and if there's one thing,
coaching or otherwise, the development that Nashville does not mess around with, it's
goaltending. And so again I love Yarrow a lot. He's an excellent player,
but you don't want to rush a guy like him. He's going to
give you a heart attack a lot of the time. But he does have
the makings of being a truly elite goaltender, just probably not for another three
or four years at the very minimum. Yeah, No, no rushing the
Russian. Just chill everyone, all right. So the other guy we got
to talking about Kevin Lincoln and had a bit of a bounceback season. I
would say nine and eight record to seven five GAA, nine to sixteen seven
save percentage, also saved over eight goals above expected. His delta Fenwick was
one point o two pretty pretty incredible numbers actually, and one year left a
two million. I was listening to Kevin Woodley on the pdocast and he was
talking about how Lankolin basically rehab his game and fixed a lot of the issues
that he had and that he really expects. I think DIM asked him something
about do you believe like this bounce back season. He was like, yeah,
but he really did the work. He looks great. That's pretty good
a vote of confidence there. His underlying numbers all look good, including on
the power play, which sometimes that can swing wildly in either direction. But
that was good to see that come back. So what do you think we
can expect from Lincoln this year? Is you're gonna get a few more starts
similar role? What do you think I think? I think he had what
nineteen starts last season, nineteen twenty. I think that's probably exactly where he
needs to be. I worried a little bit that they were going to ride
sorrows into the ground a little maybe you might want to see twenty five.
But I was really impressed. And I joked before last Sea, before last
season that one I didn't wasn't quite sure why they'd signed him, but I
imagined that when they approached Lankolnin about it, and he was just like I
played, I was the team I was playing with the year before, I
can be able to deal with anything now, and he did. And I
think that again to credit to the goaltending coaching. I think that he looked
so much better as far as his lateral movement from the beginning of the season
to the end of the season. Last year, I was a big advocate
for Connor Ingraham, who they eventually let go to go over to Arizona,
and he's just that's been a journey for him, that player. But I
Lancolin was a surprise. He was one of those players that I had said
a few weeks ago that was like, yeah, I'm going to mit that
I was one hundred percent wrong about this guy, and I don't. I
think that a good year, a strong year in Nashville playing behind was probably
going to be a subpart defense again, should put him on the radar for
teams that are looking for a guy to be a one B type goaltender for
them. And I liked what I've seen. He's just he improved about the
season. I liked his ability on the penalty kill. I think he did
extremely well. C Sarrows was buying far away the best penalty killing goaltender in
the league last year by a lot of metrics, and so I think that
playing with a guy like UC Sorrows, you get that mentorship a little bit
at Greene's I think officially or unofficially just an offensive advisor or a goaltending advisor,
coach something like that, And so that's going to be good for him,
and I think that he this year will be probably he's going to take
that role an important role for Nashville. They may split games more his direction,
but I think for him personally, it's probably going to be an important
year for him to tell other teams that this last year wasn't a fluke.
He's turned his game around, and he's going to be probably performing really well
next season. So I would expect probably about the same as what we saw
from him last season. Premendous Brian, you always bring the heat. Appreciated
having you back again to talk about these Nashville Predators. Why don't you let
everybody know where they could find your work and keep up with everything? Brian
Baston, Yeah, I appreciate. I always love coming on here and the
prep and the stuff that you guys send me. I always really appreciate that
I've got my note here, which I usually don't take a ton of notes,
but I did for you guys because it was important stuff. And but
you can find me at on the four check obviously, that's who are doing
the majority of my work. I also do a game day videos with a
group of running gads of Puck where we several of us, will do videos
probably thirty to forty minutes after every single game. Most of the time I'm
recording from bridgetone after the game and hoping that they don't bring out the Zambonis
with their loud beeps while I'm trying to record. But that's a fun thing
that we've done. It's I asked Charlie Sonier, who's been doing this for
years and years, who's the host of it, and he says that I've
been like I'm approaching like my three hundredth episode, which is crazy to me
to think that I've done anything three hundred times, let alone anybody wanting me
to be on video that many times. But you can find me there.
We're gonna take a little bit of a hiatus because it's the finally the duldrums
of the off season, but as well, you should be able to see
me on Twitter, which as long as that website still continues to exist,
I'll be there at Brian Baston and lots of other places. Hopefully we've got
I've got a couple other things in the pipeline. The draft and the awards
were I debuted the fact that I'm a multi tool. Now I think for
the site doing some photography works, you might be able to see some of
that in the future. We'll see how far that goes. But yeah,
I'm sure that if you're looking, if you're looking up anything or trying to
find anything out about Nashville Predators, whether you want to or not, you're
going to end up seeing my name there somewhere. All right, thanks a
lot for coming on, Brian. I appreciate it. Thank you, Wilson.
Then that's good. Fire passed off. Oh my goodness, go with
a cat quick grab. Now it's your weekly goalie talk with Cats Silberman Cats
Instincts. Time to talk Nashville a Predator goalies. Time to get your instincts,
cat and we're gonna start. Of course, we have to start with
yarslav A scar Off, one of the best prospect goalies. I have to
say I was in the draft for Nashville. I was in Nashville for the
draft, and I was a bit surprised to hear that they were willing to
include a scar off a deal to land Matvey Mitchkoff, which he's a great
talent, and I think that you could say that it's maybe worth it,
but a scaroff seems pretty great. The twenty twenty eleventh overall pick just finished
his first full season the HL for the Milwaukee Admirals and had two point six
nine gain eleven say percentage and at twenty six sixteen and five record. And
when if people aren't used to looking at the equivalency charts on hockey prospecting,
they probably feel like some of these numbers are a little low, but he
had He hasn't had lower than a fifty nine percent equivalency his entire career.
He's gone up to eighty nine, and right now he sits at seventy two.
That's way higher than just about any goalie. So you're talking about pretty
much he would be. It would be such an outlier if he didn't become
at least an average NHL starter. Has a ton of comps of guys that
were star starters, and if people are wondering how he compares to their current
starter. Ascaroff was quite a bit better like nearly double, if not triple,
the equivalency of ut Sorrows in every season in his development. So that's
some pretty high praise. What do your instincts tell us about a scar Off?
Do you think he's NHL ready and how high do you think his upside
is. I think he thinks he's NHL ready, which is both a blessing
and a curse. I love him. I think he's great. It was
fun watching because we had that one two punch right of Spencer Knight and Askarov
who it was that which one is better? Sort of battle there and ask
is Spencer Knight was a goaltender who was so structured and so just regimented and
how he plays and really sneaky fun when handling the puck. But other than
that, very by the book when it came to his technique and his flow
and just his depth management, and a Scarve is the complete opposite he.
I don't think anyone is Dominicashek, but he has been drawing comparisons to Hashek
during his view appearances at the NHL level and at the HL level, just
because he's wild I don't know if you got to see when he won a
game and did the bench press with the net after winning, where he flipped
it upside down and instead of hiding himself in it, he decided to bench
press it to celebrate. He's just he's super confident in his game. He's
super confident in his decision making. He has a really wide arsenal of tools
in his toolkit. He can play a structured game when he needs to.
And I remember his draft year. I think it was during one of the
international tournaments. It may have been the ivan Planka tournament. He looked much
more controlled than in most of the games that I watched him play in Russia,
where I thought he looked a little more like a Elia Samsonov, but
just one of those guys who plays with a really wide, low stance,
loves to come out and challenge the pocklumps to skate around the outside perimeter of
his crease just to have fun with it. And then when he played on
a slightly smaller ice surface, he really calmed it down and pulled his game
back in from a depth perspective, and that was really fun to watch because
he has so much that he can do with his game to adapt to both
his opponents and the team that he's playing for in the ice surface he's playing
on. Really, the only thing that I worry about with him is that
he'll get almost a little too confident in certain areas. He does still have
a little bit of a learning curve to go. He's still young enough that
he needs some work on his decision making, and I get a little worried
that he's going to hurt himself. There were a couple shootout moves that he
performed that I was a little had a little too antsy watching. He had
a diving poke check against the Toronto Marley's where the shooter was coming in fast
and quick and trying to throw him off his game so that he didn't have
time to get set and be patient, and so instead of trying to guess
where the shooter was going to go, he just came all the way out
of his crease and did a diving poke check like the Johnny Bauer poke check
style, and just knocked the puck right out of the shooters right off the
blade of his stick and ended up tripping him up. And that's the kind
of thing that I watch and think Wow, this guy's electrifying to watch.
Fans are going to have so much fun with this. He's going to be
like a Mike Smith type character on the ice. But if he's too much
of that, he's going to concuss himself and we're gonna lose out on watching
him for what could be the majority of his career because he'll hurt himself.
So that's really my only concern with watching his game. I think he's brought
at this point from a skill level. I think he believes he reads the
game well enough to play at the NHL, so might as well have him
up there see how he does. I don't think he's ready to take over
ninety percent of the starts, but he could prove us wrong. He's got
the attitude to prove us wrong there. So that's Nashville has a wealth of
talent right there between him and UC Sorrows, who is also just incredibly fun
to watch. That's I find it unfair when teams it's like what the New
York Rangers did. They shifted from lung twist right into having Durkin, and
we have the same thing going on in Nashville. We're shifting from Pekerina to
UC Sorrows and a Scarov, so I need to know their secret. Some
teams have all the goalies and some teams have no goalies, so it's just
the circle of goalies, I think absolutely. So that's interesting and a little
bit worrisome in terms of like fantasy asset management. If he's going to potentially
hurt himself, that's that's something to keep in mind, and how aggressive he
is. But I love the entertain and value. That's going to be fun
to watch. And we do have one more Nashville guy to talk about,
even though, as we've talked about in other instances, some people think there's
no one else worth talking about because no one's else going to get a chance,
But you never know it's possible. And this is Ethan Hayter h a
I d R. He's six foot four, twenty nineteen fifth round pick.
It'll be twenty one this season. He was at Clarkson the last three seasons,
but he's transferring to Connecticut and for his senior year, and he looked
decent at Clarkson. He was a little bit better in his first season,
playing less, but as he played more, his safe percentage went down a
little bit. He's got some pretty decent equivalences. He's in the twenty seven
twenty seven percent chance of being a starter range, so most of these are
average NHL ers NHL starters. So what do you think about what your instincts
tell us about Haitier. He's been a lot of fun to watch. He's
a guy who when he was playing in college, I liked watching his highlight
reels because every year it seems like he picked one aspect of his game and
he said, I'm going to focus on improving this. Some of those little
inconsistencies with his technique, mostly from a decision making standpoint, from a speed
standpoint, especially in the NC double A, you'll see some of those guys
fall behind when it comes to their decision making against bigger and stronger and sometimes
substantially older opponents. They can have guys that are as much as five or
six years older than them playing against them. He took little aspects of his
game, his tracking, his depth management, and then his decision making speed,
and he seems like he addressed those each season. I was a little
surprised when I saw that he was going to transfer to Yukon, but I
think realistically, we're going to start seeing more of that from goaltenders in the
future, just as they have the affordability to do. I think that one
of the drawbacks of the NC double is sometimes when a guy didn't have a
good fit in a system, they were stuck there and in order to transfer,
they'd have to sit time out, they'd have to look for a team
that was willing to take them on. It sometimes raised a red flag,
and the COVID rule tweaks that teams made kind of afforded players the opportunity to
normalize that a little bit. More So, I'm interested to see how his
game shifts as he plays for Yukon, just to see if he's able to
put it all together this year idea that you mentioned. You said it was
about twenty five to twenty seven percent equivalency success rate there, which I think
is less of a knock on him and more of highlighting just how good a
scarves numbers are, just when you look at overall, how what a good
potential NHL player, what his equivalency rate could look like there, and then
what a scarves is. So I do think that there's a map tier gap
there, but that's less of a knock on Hayter and more of just a
almost like a a compliment to just how promising it is. I think it
would be the upset of the Predators, like it would be the biggest upset
in franchise history if a Scarve doesn't become a star starter for them, so
everyone else after that unfortunately looks like an afterthought, even if, like in
Hayter's case, they're a pretty decent prospect for any other team. Yeah,
there are certainly tiers of first round picks as far as goalies go, and
we could have a whole dissertation about first round picks that didn't work out,
but very few of them have ever looked as promising as scar Off. So
that's definitely one way of putting it out. Would say, thanks so much
for giving us your instincts on the Nashville Predator goalies. Will be back right
after this the Dynasty Dig. It's time to talk about Nashville's prospect system.
Victor has it ranked twenty third overall. They had a couple of first round
picks this year, one of them Matthew would and another one of them was
Tannermolin Dyke, So they put on a little bit more than normal. We're
not going to talk about all those guys because we have had a little bit
of talk about first round picks, but we are going to talk about a
couple of the prospects already in the system, and it's going to start out
with the no brainer victor. Our no brainer for the Nashville Predators is Ryan
Ufko, twenty twenty one fourth round pick by Nashville. Five eleven right handed
D. Twenty four points in thirty two games this season for U Mass of
the NC double A. That's some pretty strong production in the ncable A for
him. He had thirty one points in thirty seven games last year, also
in the NC Double and he represented the USA in the World Juniors ten points
in seven games. I think probably that World Juniors was a little bit of
a coming out for Ryan Nufko. I've been tooting his horn for a while,
but a lot of people didn't really know about him, and I think
seeing him on that big stage, and of course the US had other really
great offensive defenseman you had your Luke Hughes, of course, and so he
was definitely a bit overshadowed. But that's really great production and the US leaned
on him pretty heavily in that tournament, so it was great to see him
perform. He's returning to UMass for his junior season where he's still unsigned,
but I would imagine he signs after this season. I think some people are
saying, like, oh, maybe they're always nervous when a college player doesn't
sign an anything their junior season. But I don't know that he's tracking like
one of these guys that's gonna test free agency. We'll see. I guess
anything's possible. I'm really excited about this player, and I wouldn't really be
deterred about how low he was drafted one hundred and fifteenth overall. That's twenty
twenty one, thinking, Jesse, and we're not going to fall into that
trap. Why don't you tell us what our scout has to say about Ryan
Ufko and Nashville has been burned by those non signing college guys a couple times
before. But regardless, Tony, our NHL scout had a few things to
say about Uko. Skating is good, but maybe the weakest part of his
game not fast, but with the stick play gets to where he needs to
be. The puck Handlin's good, very good with the stickplay smart knows where
and when to be good shot, finds openings goal on the blue line to
get it when it needs to. The IQ good vision high IQ. He
has good anticipation, so rarely out of position and not a lot of panic
in his game. In the defensive side, not fast, not too much
rushing, but good passing to start a rush important for a demand. Good
stickplay and IQ helps him to be good in his own zone. Best asset.
Stickplay is the second best asset, with a high IQ being his best
asset and biggest concern. He's not got the size quite and he's not necessarily
the fastest. The top tier role, Tony says it could even be a
tier one if you improve skating. It plays a little bit more physical game.
He will probably end up on the power play, should be able to
block shots with his stick play in the IQ will keep him in the right
spot. But if he ends up in sort of his middle potential role,
he could have a high BASH, maybe be an offensive third depair guy.
Stylistic comparable a Dougie Hamilton. Interesting comp from Tony. Let's talk about Ryan
Uko's comparisons in the NHL Rank King model. Ufko comps out to dominic fence
or that is the comparison that Mason Black put out on Twitter, Ufko crushed
Fence or in that comparison the Carolina Hurricanes draftee. And when you look at
Ufko's PNHL, it has really crested in twenty one twenty two, it nears
superstar our potential at UMass last year it went down to maybe a little bit
between first and second line potential or first pair second pair potential. We will
see what happens with this year and whether he ends up finishing it off in
the state of Tennessee, Victor. Is that how you would put those two
guys in order? Yeah, for sure, I absolutely would take Ryan Ufko
here. I love me some Mufko, As you mentioned, cressing as a
superstar and not really doing too much cresting a superstar last season and not really
doing too much this season to change those opinions in a negative way. Fensor
has some pretty incredible equivalences and points production in the NC double A at Boston.
You but he's five foot seven, and I know we like to think
that size doesn't matter, but it does, and he's I think gonna have
a really hard time transitioning that to the NCUBLEA. He There's also he's not
the only small, undersized defenceman there on the Boston University Terriers. He got
some Lane Hudson there now too, and so that's going to be really interesting
to see those two. And he's certainly gotten all the top minutes there,
and so fence Or has been has change his role a little bit when they've
got Tom Vilander coming there next season. They got some really good defensive corps.
But fence Or I think is going to have a early high time translating
that. I don't think he switches positions and he might have a better chance
at a Ford, but the guy's twenty one. He's still five foot seven.
They're just aren't defenceman like that in the NHL. So even though I
like his game and I think that he has some nice upside, I just
I'm not sure that how likely his teacher is. But oof Goo's demand.
I really like him. I think the Predators have been amazing talent here and
I hope they continue to develop him and give him some really good opportunity.
So definitely would go Oufko. When you look at the hockey prospecting and some
Shane Ufko has maintained his start potential after that big breakout last season that we
mentioned, still forty two percent chance of being a star. He's another one
who after his USHL days, raised his equivalency from fifteen to forty two percent
and then kept it steady this year, which is also really hard to do,
so him pretty incredible stuff there. He's seventy one percent chance of being
an NHLer, so that's pretty great if you look at fence or he's at
he graduated at twenty seven percent chance of being a star and fifty nine percent
chance of being an NHLer, So still pretty decent numbers. But I think
his size is just going to be so limiting for him. Five seven one
fifty two so really tiny. And Ufko has some other interesting comps. If
you look at his hockey prospecting, Ed Jovanovsky is a comp me or high
Skinnin is a comp. But I think the guy he actually looks the most
like is Henry Joki Haru, who is a NHLer. Maybe not the most
exciting guy, but his statistical profile actually looks exactly like Ufkos, which is
pretty interesting. I think Ufko has a little bit more mobility and two way
game. I think you was a little bit more offensive, and he's a
little bit bigger, and they're both right shot d so I could see the
trajectory going a little bit better. I think if the situation might have been
a little bit different for Yoki Haru in Chicago and Buffalo, he might have
turned out a little bit better. But he's still an NHL caliber defenseman,
and so that's still pretty good. Ufko looks a lot less exciting, and
the hockey and the top down hockey model six percent chance of being a star
and fifty one percent chance of being an NHL, so a little less optimistic.
But overall, based on the ranking data and the hockey prospecting data,
you should be pretty excited about Ufcoe, don't you think Jesse I would say
so, Yeah, this is a guy who really Yeah, he's jumped into
that no brainer status and I would be very happy to have him on my
team. And yeah, the outcome is Henry Yoki Haru. That's not something
that's going at reality for the long term in terms of my dynasty hockey team.
But we'll just see it's not yet baked in the oven. Let's move
on to the need to know prospect Victor. Who is it for Nashville.
Yeah, this is Yoakim Kimmel, who was drafted recently in twenty twenty two,
seventeenth overall and he's five eleven right wing. He only had fifteen points
in forty three games in the Liga with JYP YEP. Came to North America
and had thirteen points in fourteen games over there by you Jesse in the HL
Milwaukee of the regular season, and then he had ten games in fourteen playoff
games, looking pretty good there in North America. Sometimes it takes these younger
players a really hard time to adjust to the North American game. I would
say his adjustment period was incredibly good. So yeah, Kimmel certainly looking really
good there. He also represented Finland at the U twenty World Junior Championships,
where they did not look very good overall as a team, I would say,
but Kimel whenever he was on the ice looked pretty dangerous and had four
points in five games. He should be back in the HL this season.
I guess it's possible he gets to look with the Presidcamptics really changed their roster,
buying out trading Johansson Duchane changing their forward core there a little bit,
so there's definitely some opportunities. But they also, as we heard in the
main show, there's some young guys that are knocking at the door a much
much closer to being ready. So I think those are some interesting guys to
bet on as well for making a team. But let's hear a little bit
more about Kimel from our FHL scout. That's right, Victor. Our scout
in this case was Brandon, and here's what he had to say about the
skating. A crisp stride with range of execution that's dynamic through the use of
his edgework and tempo flashes of explosiveness at slower speeds as lower by malleability and
adaptability allows for greater dexterity and quick range like here and all that passing and
handling. A very confident puck carrier and leans quite heavily on this. He
has a predisposition to hold onto the puck if attempting to gain the zone and
bait a defender into a one on one battle. His puck control when decking
both defender and goaltender is incredibly smooth. He's a competent and accurate passer,
even from the back hand. In terms of shooting, Kimmel deploys two styles
of shots from observation. He's got a one timer and a subtle wrist shot.
The one timer usually comes from the top of the left circle, and
he benefits from having the power play unit built around feeding the puck to this
weapon. Let's see if that stands into the pros. The release on the
one timer is fast and firm. The puck slaps off the blade. Doesn't
need much timer space to unleash his one timer, as the stick stays close
to the body. Kimmel's wrist shot seems like he can be released at any
moment with very little telegraph movement. It's not over faster, hefty, but
the surprise of it heading to the net is going to catch goaltenders off guard
or produce some juicy rebounds. IQ poised carrying the puck and even under pressure
or threat of physical contact, Kimmel reads the ice well, has the sense
for how the play is flowing and when to inject himself into it. Covers
a lot of ice and gets himself situated to capitalize on a loose puck or
pass for for checking, Kimmel can be spatially pesky, gets into passing lanes,
encroaching on the puck carrier, uses opportunistic bursts of speed. Rarely will
you see a fly by with a freebee poke at the puck. Likes to
make sure the opponent knows he's there. On defense, rarely on the front
lines defended against the rush, but when he is, he falls back to
around the same depth of coverage as his defenders. He's much more passive and
stationary in the defensive zone. When the read is right, we see sparks
of his for check come out and he will pressure the opponent towards the boards.
Offensive mind is highlighted in the D zone. He seems more keen on
fishing out pucks in transition or breaking out. So the biggest asset is the
shot. The motor and positional play also deserves some credit as the backbone that
get that shot off. Biggest concern he might be a little too confident in
his puck possession game could stand to take better advantage of passing plays. Maybe
this gets established with more talented linemates at higher levels of play. His top
level outcome. He could plan a top line and push the point per game
pace fueled by a greater proportion of goals than assists, especially if granted heavy
power play one deployment fiftieth middle percentile role middle six forty to fifty points twenty
five ish goals could get formed into a checking winger with goal scoring threat,
even developed into a penalty killer stylistic comparable Paul Korea mixed with Elias Petterson with
less playmaking and more grit and Kimmel. We have compared in the NHL ranking
Mason blacks Pool to Maverick Bork of the Dallas Stars, a twenty twenty first
round pick, versus Kimmel, the twenty twenty two first round pick who also
moved to the HL. In fact, the team that the Milwaukee Admiral's knocked
out in the playoffs the Texas Stars. So Kimmel in terms of that comparison,
not only did his team, the Predator the Admiral's knockout the Texas Stars,
but Kimmel knocked out Bork in this comparison sixty two to thirty eight percent.
And what is Kimmel's comparable in terms of the p NHL E model for
Mason It is slipped from first line potential last year, slid down to the
second line potential again, just starting out in North America. So we'll give
him some time, and he's already hit the ground running. Similarity scores top
one. Yes, Verry KOTKINIEMI that's his boy. I don't know what to
make of that one. Nick Murkley and Nathan Horton are coming in right after
that. So Victor Joachim Cammell versus Maverick Bork, who do you like?
Yeah, this is interesting. I really like Maverick Bork. I think that
he is a bit underrated in terms of what he can provide. I think
he was really close to making the team last year, but because they could
send him down, they did, and they allowed and Why Johnston also earned
his role on the team. That was a bit surprising. I thought I
thought it might go that way because of just who was available. But I
didn't really see why Johnson taking such a huge step. But I think Maverick
Borke could take a similar step to Why Johnston this year. And we've all
seen what he did in Dallas. I think there's a role for Bork.
He is a center though, so I think he has a little bit more
heavy lifting to do. They could they just make him a third line center.
I think that's very reasonable. And there's also Tylet Delandria there who's doing
some decent things. Anyways, all to say that, I like Bork,
but I also think he's good enough in other ways that he could get pushed
down the lineup a little bit. And I think Kamel with that shot and
with the offense, and I think that he might command more of a top
six role. So I think I probably would lead in Kimel. I think
that it's interesting when you can I just have to think about that in terms
of how you want to structure your team. Do you want a guy who's
a little bit more likely to play, or a guy who you know might
and he might get pushed down the lineup a little bit, or do you
want the guy who's going to get those top opportunities. So I think this
one it exploits a little bit about how you think about fantasy and how you
want your players to be. And because you have, especially with Kamel being
a right winger, which is often a very scarce position, that could be
something that pushes me over the top. And I would probably just take Kamel
unless they're all just straight up forward. So interesting things to think about there.
But Kamel in terms of the hockey prospecting, he went down a big
part this year. But I know that Byron used his lega equivalency. I
think if he I think if he redid this based on his HL time,
I think his equivalence he shoots back up. So right now, he went
from thirty two to nine percent chance of being a star. And again if
you redo that based on his HL time, I think he's much much higher.
So Bork started the model at thirty two percent, so they were similar,
and then he trended down to where he graduated at fifteen percent this past
year, So still okay, like not terrible, but certainly not as exciting
as he could have been his QMJHL time it was much higher. But he's
all the way up to seventy seven percent chance of being an NHL, and
I think that is legit. He has a much He looks much more likely
to be a regular NHL or does Maverickpork than Kamel. In terms of the
straight up comps for Kamel, most of them aren't that exciting. He's got
some interesting ones. Lekamaki is one. We don't really know how that's going
to work out towards vote Terravinen, who actually looks much much better in this
model. But again if you switch up the equivalency and make it HL instead,
I think he's more similar to Terravinen. But I think the guy he
looks the most like is Magnus Parvi, who some of you may remember as
a disappointing I guess in terms of how he turned out. He was a
tenth overall pick by the Oilers, played for a couple of different teams,
and he ended up being just a replacement level producer. That's kind of who
Kamel looks like right now, but again that might change. So interesting and
the top down hockey model is a little bit more optimistic on Kamel. I
think that they did use the HL data and he's up to nineteen percent chance
of being started seventy one percent Tangip being an NHL or so. Interesting stuff
here, and I just wanted to add another couple of things on kamel is
that are my other show with Peter Harling Dabbert Prospects Report. We had Jacobs
oller on of The Hockey News, really great interview That was the report number
five that we did about a month or two ago, and he had really
good things to say about Joakim Kamel on that show. He's the HL kind
of insider there for the Hockey News. He talked about his compete level,
how he earned ice time on a really good Milwaukee Admirals team, and how
he really showed well in the playoffs. So Jacob Stoller really high on Kamel.
Asked him for like comparables, and he thought that Victor Arvidson and Ellie
Tolvanen, a mix between those two was probably where Kamel ends up. So
those are pretty relevant players. Twenty to twenty five goals, and how he
really likes to get to the middle of the ice. So all good stuff
for Kamel. We'll have to see how he does with a full HL year
under his belt. Jesse, I expect some scouting reports directly from you since
he'll be in Milwaukee. I gotta get down there check out Kimmel again.
Victor. Next, we had to keep your eye on prospect. Who is
it? Yeah, they keep your eye on prospect is Jack Mattier. He
is a twenty twenty one fourth round pick by Nashville. We're talking about all
these later picks. Heres I guess it's a kudos to Nashville twenty one fourth
round pick six foot five, two hundred pound right handed d forty nine points
in fifteen eight games in the HL for the outawas sixty seven's. He was
on Canada's World Junior championship team. He was more in the shutdown role,
so one point in seven games shouldn't be too much of a turn off because
he again had a different role there. But twenty point increase and eight fewer
games from the previous season that's pretty substantial. Should be in the HL next
season. He's already twenty and he's already signed by the pred so Jack maytier
good for that. His defense rates out at ninety two, ninety second percentile
in the HL, so again, he was a shutdown specialist on that World
Junior team. Really good defense. His offense is pretty good though, especially
his expected primary assists, his slot pass success, which is a really good
indicator of whether they try and complete successfully difficult passes that are dangerous for offensive
chances. His expected goals are above average, but not great. It's really
the defense that is good for him. Although Mattire doesn't really have strong transition
game. It's actually pretty weak, only thirty fifth percentile. So overall he
ranks out at a seventy seven, which is good, but again maybe more
defensive. But we got to hear from our scout FHL scout about this.
Jesse, shan't you let us know what they have to think? I see
Jack Matier. Scouting report was done by Jacob Skating average much is a better
skater than most of them. His size but very smooth strides while moving up
the ice. Can work on his explosiveness so we can generate more speed,
good cuts and edges. Puck handling, good patient with puck. He isn't
afraid to move the puck up the ice himself for controlled entries into the zone,
and his size allows him to fight off defenders and find open space for
scoring chances. The shot great, quick wrist shot, booming slapshot. Likes
to get pucks off his stick quickly and through traffic to catch goaltenders off guard.
Isn't afraid to jump into the play himself to make himself a scoring option.
The IQ. The panic meter is low, not much panic in his
game. He's very poised on both ends of the ice handles pressure well.
Defense great size gives him a huge advantage. He's able to cover more ground
with the body and his stick, isn't afraid to step in front of shots,
plays hard along the Board's good at extracting loose pucks. So overall,
the biggest asset was the defense. The biggest concern is the skating. He's
smooth, but he needs to implement more power to generate more speed. Top
Tierential is a top four defenseman. Believe Mitiers defensive and puck manage game will
translate well to the next level. If he can translate his offensive game and
make some improvements to the skating, most likely tier he'll be a top six
defenseman, an NHL defenseman, and it could be a steady, lower pairer
defenseman who can kill penalties. At least stylistic comparison comparison, he went with
Matthias Eckholm, a smooth skating punk movie defenseman six five frame. So that
is what Jacob has to say about Jack Matier. And here's the comparison that
Mason King the NHL rank King offers us and Mason Black says Jack Matier versus
Tyson Hines of the Anaheim Docks a third round pick the same year that Mateer
went in the fourth, and putting that out on Twitter, we find that
Tyson Hines actually finished ahead fifty six to forty four. So that's our guy
getting knocked off in this comparison, and his equivalency came out to about about
a second line potential it's moving up to. So that's pretty nice for his
improvement along those lines, Victor, what do you think? I actually don't
agree with the voters here. I would take Matt Tire. I know that
there's it's interesting, there's some decent parts of the two. Hines. I
think he's probably a more projectable NHL defenser men, they're both they both have
good size. We know that Nashville drafts really good defenseman. They have an
amazing track record of doing this. So I think he's more likely to play,
or at least it seems like it. But I'm Matt here a little
bit better just in terms of his upside, a little bit less less certainty
there perhaps, But both of these guys look look pretty questionable just in terms
of their star potential. They actually look pretty even on hockey prospecting and trying
to find like a high comp for matt Here. It's been it's pretty slim
pickens. The only guy that really looks decent is Radical Buddhas, who looks
awful in this model but has turned out to be a pretty pretty serviceable fantasy
defenseman. But most of the guys are guys you've never heard of and on
hockey. On Top Down Hockey, they gave matt Here a zero percent chance
of being a star and only seven percent chance of being in NAHL, so
that's pretty terrible. So yeah, pretty slim pickings there. But matt Here
is a guy in a deeper league to maybe have some interest in. And
that's all we have time for Jesse that if people want to hear a little
bit more, they can sign up on Patreon and read the reports from our
scouts. They can watch video clips, they can listen to my top ten
lists, and if you're interested in doing any scouting with a shoot us a
shoot me a DM on Twitter, discord, or give me an email.
Let's come back and close out the show. Hey, everybody, let me
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Nashville Predators episode, and until next time, keep living that fantasy hockey a life.