Speaker 1: Welcome to Fantasy Hockey Life presented by fan Tracks.
Speaker 2: Here's quest.
Speaker 1: Your source of information and analysis to help you win
your fantasy hockey league.
Speaker 3: Bok Off hot a step hit on Stay Lock.
Speaker 1: Here's your hosts, Jesse souvi Here and Victor Nunior Fantasy
Hockey Live once again.
Speaker 2: It's Jesse Severe of fan Tracks at All along with
Victor Nuno. And there's a lot of all in that
it because he's a Dobberman, he's a mckeanes man, he's
a he's doing the writing all over the place. How
you doing today, Victor.
Speaker 3: I'm doing awesome. Jesse, Yeah, all the things. Thank you
for that and thanks everyone for listening. Looking forward to
getting back together just you and I've had We've had
some guests on the episode, which has been fun, but
it's nice to get back together with just us.
Speaker 1: How are you doing, my friend, I'm doing good.
Speaker 2: I'm doing good. Yeah, it's it has been fun. It's
been fun watching some World Juniors. The people know because
they listen. There's always a couple of day leg between
when the between when we record and when it comes out,
so there could there's probably gonna be interesting results. I
won't try to get into specific but victory. I no
longer get NHL network, which is a huge paint because
I can't just sit down and just watch the World Juniors.
So I was like, how am I going to do this?
I was like, should I go and try to find
some illegal stream? I'm too much of a boy scout
for that victor? But how can I do this without
paying seventy bucks for a month's worth of some big
cable package because nobody puts it on their basic I
ultimately went and paid like thirty dollars to IIHF and
got the direct stream from the International Hockey Federation people.
And then I started watching it and I realized there's
no announcers on this. So I'm just watching raw video
of the World Junior's victory. I'm taking it in its purest,
cleanest form right now.
Speaker 3: Is that what they refer to as raw dogging it?
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure I don't know exactly what that means,
but that's probably right.
Speaker 1: It must be. It couldn't mean anything else, so we'll
just go that.
Speaker 2: Lord the explicit take gets slapped on tonight. Yeah no, so, yeah,
World Juniors it is. It has been a lot of fun,
but Victor. We have more fun to come. We're gonna
talk about some glorious prospects that you've been writing up,
some prospects and some guys who are maybe a little
bit more advanced into the NHL and how they're doing
checking in. So let's let's do that Dynasty stock watch.
Speaker 4: Right after the Victor, we are going through players from
Seattle and from New Jersey today.
Speaker 2: That's I don't know how those two cities pair up.
They seem like they're rather far apart. But but we
are going to talk about players from those two. We're
gonna start with some Seattle cracking, krackings cracking, I think
it's just cracking. We're gonna talk about a few, including
our first fella, who is Shane Wright. Shane Wright of
the Seattle Crack. And he went from a guy who
was supposed to be a generational pick to a disappointing
number four in the draft to a tweener who broke
the logic of the NHL agreement by not having a
good place to play when he couldn't really thrive in
the NHL as a rookie. But now we're there. He's
a middle to depth contributor for the Kraken. You were
definitely ahead of the curve when that draft dre a
year that she and Wright was not the next coming
of Connor McDavid, and he was maybe somebody who we
even should shy away from a little bit in fantasy,
but we should all be pretty confused with the deal
is now barely appoint every three games at press time,
and sheen Wright does not seem to be thriving in
the NHL environment. Yet we've got the NHL ranking poll,
a good old NHL ranking. Nason Black put up polls,
and this time we put him up against Josh Norris,
who is finally back for the Buffalo Sabers and doing
very for the Yeah for the Buffalo Sabers and doing
very well, but the opt injured Josh Norris and versus
Shan Wright and Josh Norris, this is a slap in
the face. Josh Norris trounced sheen Wright by their current
NHL production. I get it. By Josh Norris's availability. It
surprises me. Sixty six to thirty four percent. That's where
we are here. It seems like Shane Wright is in
the lefrenier zone, not the friend zone. The Lafrenier zone
where an oft injured veteran is normal more coveted than him.
And it makes me is this like a product of
the scouting haze of COVID shutdown era player deb Nobody
could figure out what anybody was until it was too late.
Where is Sheen Wright headed? Victor, I've thrown a lot
at you tell me about Shane Wright, Josh Norris and
what the heck is going on in this world?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really good intro to this perplexing problem
that is Shane Wright. I think to answer your last question,
is it really hard to divorce yourself from early opinions.
I think that's a big part of it. And he
was so good at an early age, and these exceptional
status players, I think people sometimes misunderstand what that means.
It just means that they're ready for a higher level
of competition sooner. It doesn't necessarily mean they're going to
be generational or they're going to be that explosive. It
just means their game is more mature. And that's certainly
the case for Shane right his game has always been
more mature. But it doesn't necessarily mean it's elite or
he's going to be this elite asset and at his
transition to the NHL has been very clearly rocky. I
would say he's had some deployment limitations. He hasn't always
had the most ice time. He's still not even over
fourteen minutes average time on ice, and part of that
has been the Krack end, the way they deployed their forwards.
It's been a little different under Laanine Lambert this year,
but he still hasn't reaped the benefit of that. And overall,
his underlying analytics don't suggest that he's doing very well
at all. He's built as more of a two way guy,
and his defensive impact has been pretty underwhelming. He's only
forty eighth percentile for defense, his offense is thirty fourth percentile.
Speaker 1: It's just not great.
Speaker 3: And so the question is is he just a guy
now or does he have more upside to.
Speaker 1: Come.
Speaker 3: Maybe he's one hundred and thirty two games into his
NHL career, I would say that he probably is more
or less what he is. I think he could get
up to that fifty point pace guy. I'm not sure
that he's going to be that much more than that.
You mentioned Lafrenier that might be a realistic expectation of
what Shane Wright could be, which is certainly disappointing for
what a lot of people thought that he could be.
I think that Lafurnier had that one year where okay,
maybe he put the seven point pace, but he's settled
back into the forties and that might be where Shane
right ends up being. And in terms of this poll,
I think it's pretty clear you want Josh Norris. I
think the people have it right here unless you really
believe that Shane Wright is gonna someday offensively explode, which
I just don't see it at this point. And I
watched him play in the HL. He looked too good there,
or looked head and shoulders above everyone else there. I've
seen him a lot in the NHL now and it's
hard to tell whether he looks like just a guy
because all the crack and players look like just guys,
or whether he is really that. But I think that
this is what he is and Josh Norris, when he's healthy,
that's really the only issue is if he can stay healthy.
We've seen what Josh Norris can be, and he can
be a fantastic score. He's actually better defensively than you
might think too. His defensive impact rates out at sixty
fifth percentile, So you might think Shane Writ's a better
two way guy defensive guy, I'm not according to evolving
hockey metrics, So Norris is actually better defensively than he
is offensively, at least this season. And we know that
he can be upwards of seventy plus point guy. And
right now he's rock and point per game in his
twelve games. And we just did our draft with the
Keipan Carlson guys and very easily was one of the
top players selected on his team who's head and shoulders
above the rest of the guy that are available. So yeah,
I think it's pretty clear you want Josh Norris here.
And I don't know if there's much of a market
for Shane Wright, but I think that if you could
trade him for a seventy plus point player, you might
want to just do that because I'm not sure that
Shane Wright's going to get there unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he might still have the name value to get
you something in Inner Dynasty League, gets you somebody who's
a bigger contributor. Right now, no doubt you could get
Josh Norris with him in a dynasty league, to be honest,
but you could probably get somebody who contributes pretty well
for you right now, Yeah, boy, let's move on to
the next up and comer for the Seattle Kraken, and
that would be Berkeley. Catton came into his season with
a bit less pressure than Shane Wright did, but in
a similar biographical place. Is right in the sense of
making that transition from the awkward transition from the WHL
to the NHL, though at least he was able to
stay in State for that. After three assists in his
first five games of the year, he really slump for
quite a while and then was injured just before the break,
and then the KRACK and didn't let him go to
the World Juniors, which I think was somewhat rumored that
he might. He's playing a third line role with the team. Indeed,
if he gets more time with Jared mccannon, who's back
as of our recording, now, that would be nice. I
don't know what's going on here with is this a
cat who? What do we make of what Catton's doing?
Are the krack and starting to just rush guys and
is that why? Maybe it's been a little bit more
uneven or are they just good to bring guys up
and let him play through it, or maybe it's just
injury related that he really slowed down after that really
pretty promising a hot start. He goes up against tij
Aginla in our poll. We've talked a lot about tig
in recent episodes, and surprisingly to me, although maybe not
because Catton did make sure that his hot streak was
right at the beginning of the year, and of course
everybody will remember that he had that hot start and
less so the slump. But Catton is out ahead of Aginla,
who hasn't yet played in the NHL well in the
poll sixty six to thirty three percent, Victor, who do
you got between Berkeley, Catton and Tijaginla.
Speaker 3: I also find it interesting that these two that the
it's so lopsided here. I Catten was, they were both
taken in twenty four draft, and Kin was taking two
picks after Againlas. So some people might say, oh, clearly
you want to teach more. But I think in this range,
in the six to ten eleven range, there's usually not
that much different, and there might be just team preference,
So I'm not sure you can lean into that too much.
Plus we're almost a couple of years removed from that draft,
and the lots happened Againlas's had a lot of injuries
and Catten's development has accelerated. He's in the NHL this season,
although it's not going particularly well.
Speaker 1: He just came back from an injury.
Speaker 3: But he's averaging twelve and a half minutes a night
and he's only got five points in twenty four games.
Not that exciting. His evolving hockey metrics are putrid. His
overall impact is eighth percentile offense, at nine percentile defense
at thirty three. It's still way early in his career
only as six hundred and sixty three minutes to his
name can't make big opinions. But I think the fact
that he's already in the NHL a little bit sooner,
and he's a little bit older than Againla, not a
huge difference. I think it's surprising that it's that lopsided.
But I think that I would take personally Cadden. I
think he has more offensive upside. Againla is just this
gamer though, right, and he's I think people are gonna
get excited about him over the World Juniors as he's
there and Cadden is eligible to be in this tournament,
but but he's not because he's in the NHL. So
sometimes people look at that and they make different assumptions
about that, or they might get more excited about Againla,
which might help you if you wanted to move off
of him. I don't know why you would. He's having
a great season and even though he's not playing all
the games Teja Ginla for Colonna, but he is twenty
seven points in seventeen games. Is looking pretty good. He's
got a few points in the World Juniors already. He's
looking really good. But I think Cadden has more offensive up.
I think he's the only one of the prospects in
Seattle who truly can be a one see in all situations.
And I don't think that's been Ears. I don't think
that's Shane Wright. I think it might be Cadden, or
it might just be they don't have a one see,
but if they do have one, I think it'll be him.
So I like him a little bit better again La.
It certainly more seems like a winger, which might be
easier for him to get top line deployment, but that
top six is pretty crowded in Utah, so not sure
when and if that'll happen, so I would prefer Cadden,
But I actually would like both of these guys. And
if someone was selling again La, as long as it
wasn't for a fortune, I'd probably buy. And if you
were trying to move off of him, I'd definitely be
trying to get a ton of assets back. So that's
what I think about those. So I like both of them.
Speaker 1: Jesse, which isn't going to be the case for all
of these.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, these are definitely two guys that wanted my roster,
but yeah, can his performance this year actually has slipped
a little under my radar because I did still remember
that hot start and I have been fooled by that,
but then that in the injury. Moving on to the
next crack and prospect, it's Yanni Neeman, the second leading
scorer for Coachella Valley last year. And by the way
you think of I think of Coachella Valley as like
a dynasty AHL team. They weren't as good last year
when Nieman was there, but still reasonable. He seems to
be Nieman that is in the NHL. Now he is
in the NHL, he's getting scratched more than my dog
behind her ears. He's not in Coachella Valley. He is
playing in the NHL. But now Mason Marchman has gone,
more opportunities are freeing up in Seattle for prospects to
play in. And the NHL ranking pole is going to
put Nieman up against Trek Parasak of the Washington Capitals,
who was taken two years later and one round earlier
than Neiman and Parasac a little earlier in the funnel,
and he is a little bit higher in this poll
fifty seven to forty three percent. Victor, is that the
right way to rack and staf these two?
Speaker 1: There's such different players.
Speaker 3: I think this is a really interesting one because we
have someone who's in the NHL, though not necessarily getting
the best deployment or the best time on ice or
anything like that. We're seeing a couple of different options
here with Newman, and then we have Parasak, who is
clearly a huge offensive talent, but the questions about his
translatability of his skills has always.
Speaker 1: Been an issue.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's debatable that Washington has been one
of the best drafters in the last several years, and
so anytime they commit to someone. It seems like it's
been working out, so the fact that they drafted Parasac,
I think it puts an extra feather in his cap
in my mind. It is a little bit concerning, though,
that his point per game pace has been basically slipping,
and even though he's over a point and a half
per game in the WHL and he can't be in
the AHL, no fault of his own, but he's just
not age eligible. I think that the fact that his
point pacing the WHL has slowed a little bit makes
it a little bit hard to say. And I really
want to see him in the AHL. We just haven't
had the opportunity yet. So there are different stages.
Speaker 1: Newman.
Speaker 3: You watch him play and his feet are heavy. He's
a really big guy and he doesn't move super well.
But he's got a canon of a shot, and so
it will they use him more? Will he get that opportunity,
I'm not so sure. I think if you're more in
a more win now situation, you might take Newman, but
I think I would go Parasack just because he's got
more upside, even though I have some questions still about
how translatable his skills are. It makes me a little
bit worried, but I do think that he's got a
little bit more upside, and his hockey prospecting has always
been a little higher than Newman's. So all of that
to say, I think there's a little bit more have
a little bit more faith in Parasak, and looking at
Newman's underlying numbers, they're not so good either. Forty fifth
percentile for defense, thirty percentile for offense. He's only playing
just over ten minutes a night, so it's not like
there's a huge sample size, but I'm.
Speaker 1: Leaning Parasac here. I think I think your Washington Capitals
are good drafters, Jesse.
Speaker 2: They've done more with less in the draft than a
lot of teams have in the recent years. Anyway, moving
on Ty Nelson, next up for the Kraken. He is
actually a Coachella Valley still and drafted around after Newman.
Nelson's still developing at his level. He's a physical, hard
working guy. His size is not necessarily an asset. He
has had reasonable number of points in the AHL, but
that probably makes sense because he's almost twenty two and
we're going to stack this defenseman up against Ryan Ufko
of the Nashville Predators, who also is stranded at the
AHL level, but he was a college graduate, so he
got there a little bit later. And UFCO wins this
poll pretty significantly, sixty seven to thirty three percent. Is
the guy who's been rostering enough Coo in a couple
of Dynasty leagues this year, frustrated that he can't get
a crack at the NHL, especially with kind of a
poor Nashville team. I guess maybe they're not quite as
poor as they have been. But maybe I'm not the
guy to ask on what to think of Upgo because
I've been watching him more closely and waiting for him
than I have Nelson. But what do you think of
this comparison between the two? And is UPco really the
superior prospect to Ty Nelson of the Kraken.
Speaker 3: I have to say, I've been so frustrated that Nashville
hasn't given him more of an opportunity. And sometimes you
see this and you're just like, there must be something
that I'm missing. There must be something happening at the
team level, or some personality issue perhaps, or I'm just speculating,
but it seems like there's something clearly that we're not
aware of that, the teams are seeing and hearing, and
maybe it's just as simple as the eye test is
not matching when you're up close or something like that,
because it just seems to me like Ufko is doing
way better and deserves more of an opportunity and he's
just not getting it.
Speaker 1: It's really frustrating.
Speaker 3: He did get a one game last season, and that's
not a huge sample size, but it seemed like it
was decent. This season, he's got twenty four points in
twenty seven games, and it's okay, let's give Hi an opportunity.
Although you mentioned Nashville is doing a lot better, so
maybe they don't want to mess with that, but I
was hoping they'd get an opportunity. Looking at these guys
in the AHL. This is one of the things I
love about these Fantasy Hockey Life skater cars. But you
can see how they're doing, and Ryan Ufko is doing
way better than ty Nelson in the AHL right now.
His transition data, his shot generation, his expected goals, his takeaways,
his puck battles, all that is a lot better than
what ty Nelson is doing. Some of the play driving
is a little bit weak for both, but still better.
For UFCO, so I definitely taking UFCO here. Nelson has
been someone that I've liked, even though he's a bit
on the smaller side. He's a real tough, thick defenseman
who's very strong and doesn't get pushed around even though
he's slightly undersized. But that hasn't really translated so well
to the HL, and he has struggled a bit, even
though he's still hitting everything in sight in the AHL.
But sometimes that's always not always a good sign of
good possession numbers. You look at the Hockey Prospecting data
and UFCO is way higher than Nelson. But no, they
both graduated the model from now, so that means a
little bit less, but I think the upside was always
more for UFKO.
Speaker 1: I'm sticking with UFKO.
Speaker 3: And I am just banging the drum for him to
get an opportunity in the NHL because I think he's
at least as good as one of those bottom bear
like he should at least be a six to seven
kind of guy and get into the line up here
and there, and hoping he gets a little bit more
of that opportunity. It's still at some point they I
was just thinking about this with Another player that I
did for the Dabber midseason report Sean Ferrell, who's a forward.
Different situation, but he's the kind of guy where he's
been in the AHL so long that you just think
like he's never gonna translate. Ufco isn't quite to that
point yet. He's had one full seat, he played a
partial nine games two years ago, and this season is
his basically second full season in the AHL, so it's
not to the point where he's past time. But he
really needs the opportunity soon show what he can do. Otherwise,
if he spends another season and a half in the AHL,
we're gonna start saying the same things about him.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's ever gonna happen, and.
Speaker 3: I hope we don't get to that point because I
think he deserves an opportunity and I still have the
faith Jesse and Ryan Lufko.
Speaker 2: The old boys back in. I always said it's not
dark yet, but it's getting there. That's what the old
Farmers would say. Anyway. The next guy up on our
list Jake O'Brien, who was the number eight pick last
year and he's burning it up. He's the captain of
the top team in the Ontario Hockey League top ten
pick last year. He is the leading scorer on the
Brainford Bulldogs. He is just a generally excellent offensive player.
Goals are down a little bit this year from almost
rather unsustainable rate or a very high rate last year,
but the assists picked up and he's supposed to be
more of a playmaker anyway. He is a very good player.
But in our poll we put him up against Anton Frondell,
the Chicago Blackhawks pick who went five earlier in is
burning it up in the World Juniors to date for Sweden,
and Frondell wins over Jake O'Brien in rather a route here.
Maybe I don't know. I guess I would take Frondell
over O'Brien, but I don't know that the disparities as
wide as seventy nine to twenty one percent as it
is here a big blowout. What do you think of
these two victor I think Jacobrien is that this is
where he's being considered with people. Maybe it's time to
go target him somewhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a good point. And if you
just based it on the World Junior performance, Frendelle is
going to walk away with this because Jacobrien didn't even
make the team, which is crazy maybe to some people,
but when you think about this and when you look
into it, it really makes a lot of sense. And
let's been talking about on some other podcasts, But the
thing about Jacobrien is that he really needs to play
a very specific style. He is definitely more of a playmaker.
He's also not someone who seeks out contact. He's not
someone who is necessarily driving to the inside as much
or winning board battles. He has a very specific type
of situation that he excels in and right now the
situation in Branford is just perfect for him and he's
killing it, putting up tons of points, and that's something
he can do. But he's first of all, he's not
someone for fantasy that's going to put up priffs at all.
His bash is just awful, thirty fifth percentile for bash,
but he does he is going to get a lot
of assists. Someone who's not going to shoot a lot.
He's not going to score a lot of goals, but
he should be racking up the assists in some ways,
probably a bit like our Timmy Panaren. I don't know
that he quite has that points up side, but that's
the kind of guy you're looking at. But as a center,
you really want him to do more, and the Canadians
are so stacked at stenter they want guys that could
do other things. On the one hand, you don't necessarily
want to take his World Junior snub as a sign
that he's going to be awful or anything. But on
the other hand, it does point to his lack of
versatility and the fact that he needs a very specific
role to excel. The nice thing about the team, the
NHL team that he's on, the Krakend, they have a
lot of wingers and guys that could compliment him pretty well.
I don't think they have the high end finishers that
he would need, but maybe they can get some of those,
and those are easier to acquire. All in all, in
my article, I did talk about selling Jacobrian, mainly because
I don't think his stock will ever be higher than
right now. He's leading the OHL in points, he's doing,
is on one of the best teams. They're an absolute wagon.
They might win the Memorial Cup. His stock is going
to be high, so that's a good time to sell
him because I'm not sure that his real life fantasy
potential in the NHL will live up to what he's
selling or what he's projected as right now. Not that
you should sell him for nothing, you should get an
absolute haul for him, but I think that I would
rather do that then wait and see because I'm a
little skeptical to see exactly how it would work out.
I still think he could work out. I still see
his upside is maybe like a Matt Barzil kind of type,
maybe a little bit on the low end. There's not
his dynamic of a skater, but similar kind of playmaker
with lack of shots, lack of bash, and for me,
in a lot of my leagues, Matt Barzil is extremely
frustrating player to roster. So he's not necessarily the type
that I like to roster, but he could depending on
your format, if he's a good one to roster, that
could work. Frondell, on the other hand, has been great
at the World Juniors. I wanted to shout out Ryan
mah who's the one of the scouts for Dabber Prospects,
and he and a few of the other guys have
put together some tracking data for the World Juniors, and
one of the players with the biggest impact is Anton Frondella.
He is eighth right now in terms of all around
impact on the game of all the players in this tournament,
and he's got a wicked shot. One of the things
you can see from my Fantasy Hockey Life player card
is that Frondell doesn't excel at a lot of things,
like he's not the best play driver, he's not the
best at winning puck battles, he's not the best at transition.
But his shot is elite, and I think if he
can round out some of those other things a little
bit better, which I think he can, he could be
a more impactful player. But he's mainly going to be
a light on for his shot, and they got some
pretty good playmakers there in Chicago, so I think when
he arrives he could work out pretty well. And I
would definitely rather have Frondell between these two. So I
like that there's also a bit more bash there, although
Frondell is not the bashiest guy, but he does shoot
a lot, so you got that going for you. But yeah,
this one I think is pretty accurate, and some people
might be surprised based on what they know about Jacobrian,
but I think when you step back and look at
the context on what they're going to be in the NHL.
I think it's pretty clear you want Frondell here.
Speaker 2: Next up, we got Blake Fiddler of the Seattle Kraken.
He is a big defenseman. He'll be plenty big enough
to play. And then, like some other fellas, he has
the advantage of being drafted by the current regime instead
of last one because he was taken in twenty twenty five.
That's always a danger for prospects when you were when
you were drafted by the last regime. Scoring is up
this year on my favorite WHL team so far, the
Edmonton Oil Kings, as we know, and Fiddler was born
in Nashville to a Predators player. He's got the jeans,
the bloodlines, so to speak, and he is going to
go up in our poll against Sawyer Minio of the
Vancouver Canucks, who was taken two years earlier. Fiddler was
taken in the early second, Minio was taken in the
late third. But Fidler comes out ahead in this poll
sixty one to thirty nine percent. Victor, what do you
think of this comparison?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Vernon Fidler one of the one of the favorites there.
He was a I remember watching him in the NHL,
and this is his son, so that that's a that's
the bloodlines there are strong, and Blake is someone who
I'm not sure is ever going to be as good
in fantasy as he is in real life. He's a
really good skaters. I think he'll be a good defensive defenseman.
This season, he's gotten more power play time and he's
been able to put up a few more points, but
I still don't think he's ever going to be the
guy in the NHL who commands his power play time
and gets a lot of points. I think he might
just be a good transition guy who gets some decent
points off the rush and can play an effective middle
pair middle to bottom pair, which is not super exciting,
but I think that might be a little bit more
exciting than Sorry, MINEO. I think both of these guys
are probably and I would lean Fiddler, but I don't
think either of them are like super exciting, and I'm
not sure we should even talk about them more so
tike Fiddler, but frankly, if you could get anything for
both of them, I would probably do that.
Speaker 2: H dear, that's disappointing. Victor, let's take a break and
recover and come back to talk some more prospects are
selfish ho right, selfish fucking break it.
Speaker 3: Down, skate you fuck don't got head that it's still
gonna be there when you've got jumped on.
Speaker 2: Taking coast to coast.
Speaker 1: I'm talking for angles, but still shock bad bounce. That's
a good breakaway.
Speaker 3: Gotta get the bounced boys.
Speaker 2: Back moving from Seattle to New Jersey. But before we do, Victor.
In addition to the Fantasy Hockey Life discord that people
can get a free link to by email and Fantasy
Hockey Life at gmail dot com, there are other things
that we like to let people know about. What are they.
Speaker 3: Yeah, lots of good things that you can get access to,
bonus content and extra great stuff. You can do that
at our website at Fantasy Hockey Life dot com. And
there's some hidden bonus content if you want through Patreon
that you can get access to. The ranks, the tiers,
the list. I'm updating all of them right now. At
the end of the year and after the World Juniors
there'll be a big update for a lot of the players.
I like to take into context things that are happening,
but I don't want to overreact too much to just
one or two weeks worth of data, so I like
to look at a longer span, and after a few
months of the season is typically enough to make some decisions.
And so that's all happening right now. You can get
access to patron Cast, you can get access to playing
in the Tidy, the Tier Dynasty, so lots of great stuff.
Go over to patreon dot com slash Fantasy Hockey Life.
You want to check that out for sure.
Speaker 2: Goalie fight time. We've got a devil's goalie up in
this business, Mikhil Yagorov. He is the Boston University's goalie.
A performance there isn't quite what it was last year.
Boston University, of course, is a pretty stacked team in
the NCAA. But this year you Goorov has dropped thirty
five points of save percentage in about the same number
of games with the same number shot totals. That is
a little bit misleading, though, because last year he split
starts about fifty to fifty. This year he's starting pretty
much every game. He's been worked a lot harder, basically,
but you Goov is still only twenty years old or
just turning twenty years old. So it's pretty impressive to
be doing what he's doing at the NCAA but basically
playing very well for a good team. The NCAA are
the NHL ranking poll is going to put him up
against Canada's goalie for the World Juniors, Carter George, who
is basically the same age, was drafted basically in the
same place in the draft the second half of the
second round in twenty twenty four, and he's playing up
in the OHL regularly, maybe a little bit more name
value there on the LA Kings, and he wins the
matchup here against you Goorov fifty eight to forty two percent.
Impressive to me that you Goov is going to stick
this close to the guy who's got such a prominent
role is the Canada World Juniors goalie in a public vote?
Is the competition between these two close? Or is there
any way to know because they get their goalies.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure who actually knows the answer to this question,
but I'm sure there are plenty of people who think
they know the answer to that question. I think that
it's probably more unclear to most of us, but I
have some opinions, and I do think that it's a
good feather in the cap. Obviously for George to be
in the World Juniors, and obviously you go Off in
the Russian situation isn't going to be there. But he
is someone who I have a little bit higher. Just
looking at my goalie ranks, I have him sixteenth and
I have Carter George in thirty fourth, so I have
quite a.
Speaker 1: Bit more faith in you go Off. And actually I am.
Speaker 3: Due to graduate a few of these prospects because I'm
looking at the top top ones. Here a scar off
the style Wolf Falstead could check off night. These guys
need to be moved out because they're all in the
NHL now, so probably going to look at be looking
at a top ten Mikhel you go Off closer to
the ten spot. But I like him more even though
he has, as you said, progressed a little bit with
Boston University this year. But his goals expected goals above
goal conceded, which is like expected goals for goalies, is
still really good for Boston University. They're just not as
quite as good of an overall team as they have
been in the past, so there's that. But I do
like him a little bit more. Not that I don't
like Carter George. I think that he's fine. He's not
on the best OHL team, so that's been a little bit.
Speaker 1: Down for him.
Speaker 3: And even though his numbers don't look great at the
World Juniors, yet they were really good last year even
though the team was bad. This year the team is
good and he's winning, but his numbers are bad. But
I still think he's a competitive goalie and I think
he's going to be there at the end and provide
them with enough support to win the gold medal. That's
the prediction that I have. You'll probably know close to
be closer to knowing that by the time this comes out,
But I have faith that he'll get them there. But
between these two, I would actually like you go Off
a little bit better. And I wonder how much of
that bias of the chl Rs and Canadians are here
on this, but I think that they're pretty close and
the pull isn't too far off, so I think that
is probably reasonable. But yeah, give me Mikhail you go Off.
Jesse not to be confused with Igor yougor Off, who
is a Calgary Flames goalie prospect and has a cooler name,
but isn't as good of a.
Speaker 2: Goalie Igor, son of Igor. All right, Yeah, Victor's that's
good to know, and you go off is taller. He
does have that going for him and that matters for goalies.
Next up Victor a guy who I'm pretty sure. I'm
pretty sure you drafted him in our draft. It went
up last week. Shimonemech, defenceman. My first thought on this
guy is he's still a prospect, but by the standards
of the one hundred game criteria, he is, and after
some slow starts in prior seasons, he's been relatively a
scoring fool this year, but recently was injured out a while,
hopefully coming back pretty soon here as we're recording. This
a tough competition in that blue line, tough competition to
be a lead defenseman on the New Jersey Devils, but
as the number two overall pick in the past, he's
going to get the opportunity. He is moving up. He's
was up to the second pair plane there, even starting
to get reasonable power play Tom and Ice, which on
a team with Luke Cues and Dougie Hamilton is some
pretty good stuff. And the question is the awaited Nemach
breakthrough upon us. In our poll, he went up against
our Tom Levshunoff, who maybe has a little less encumbrance
to the role of top defenseman for the Chicago Blackhawks.
He was also drafted number two two years after an
Emach was and as it turns out, left Shunoff wins
the poll that NHL ranking put up fifty five to
forty five percent. Is this funnel bias that we've seen
more of Nemech? Is it is Leb Shunoff the long
term nance? What do you think about this comparison? What
do you think is somemone Nemach?
Speaker 3: I think you're gonna make the phrase funnel bias a thing,
and I'm gonna know it because I love that phrase. Yeah,
I think that this is interesting looking at the numbers here.
Remember there was some crazy podcaster that took Sam Marenzell
and a billion drafts this year and that hasn't worked
out quite so well.
Speaker 1: He's back in the minors now.
Speaker 3: All signs pointed towards Samrazello maybe having the inside track there,
and he did have some pretty good metrics at the
end of the last season. It just didn't quite go
so well for him this season. And they gave him
every opportunity it seemed like to figure it out, and
it just did. And of course this environment in Chicago
is pretty rough. All that to say, I think the
inside track for top power play and top role in
Chicago is certainly back for ARTMLI Schoonoff, but he hasn't
necessarily been great either, and quite frankly, he could be
in a similar situation. But at least he's getting a
few more points, he's getting the top power play times,
got non power play points, and he's got a thirty
nine point pace, so all that's looking a little bit better.
But if you look under the hood, his impact metrics
are just terrible. He's second percentile for even strength defense,
which means that they're maybe a handful of players who
are worse than him in the entire NHL, which is
not great. I don't know how much of that is
the Chicago factor and how bad they've been, especially with
Badard out, But his offensive impacts are closer to neutral
fifty to fifty, and Nemitch has had certainly some up
and down time he's been back in the minors and
then now has had more NHL time, But his metrics
at least offensively have been incredible, even though defensively he
seems to struggle a bit, not quite as much as Liftschuenoff,
but the Devils are a better team. I think that
I'm still gonna I'll stick with the people here, and
I think lift Schuenoff does have more upside. I think
he's who I would take, but I think that it's
actually probably closer than people might think. And I think
Nemich is coming around and figuring it out. But I
still like the upside more for Liftschoonoff. I think he
has the inside track there. As you mentioned, there's less
blocking him in Chicago, whereas Nemich, I'm just not sure
that he's ever really going to get the top deployment
with Hughes there, and I don't see going anywhere unless
all the Hughes brothers decide to go to the Red
Wings or something crazy like that to be closer to
home once the once their deals are all up at
the same time. But I think that they're sticking in
New Jersey for a while, and so Nemach's path is
going to be pretty pretty limited, though I think he
is getting a little bit better than some I think
so maybe the advice here is to try to buy
on simoemch before the rise really comes. That might be
the best advice here.
Speaker 2: That's a good point. Next up are Sinny Gritzchik of
the New Jersey Devils. I think he actually also was
picked in our Keeping Carlson Crossover draft that was this
past week. It was a long wait for this right
werner to come over from the KHL, six years after
he was. It feels like when I pull my winter
coat out of the closet and I haven't worn it
all year and there's like a ten dollars bill in
there and it's oh Man, free money, and it's just
Ben in there all year. I just didn't know it
was there. I feel like the Devil's probably thought the
same thing. We drafted this guy in the fifth rown
in twenty nineteen. Now he shows up all these shirts
later and he's pretty good for us. He actually, if
you look at some of the advanced stats on Hockey Viz,
he's second on the team in finishing danger at only
five on five, he's taking basically close up shots behind
only Dougie Hamilton. Playing at a second line skill level.
Was gritzchuk the defense is also decent for him. It's
positive he's getting third line minutes. Maybe if the Quinn
Hughes thing had happened and relieved New Jersey of some
of their forward depth, it might have cleared up some
space for Gritzik to get up further in the lineup.
But that didn't happen. And also he's missed some time
to injury. So are Timmy Gritzchuk and are Sendi Gritzchuk?
And he goes up against a guy who, again you drafted,
and you went on your way to draft in the
Keeping Carlson Draft, Emmitt Finnie of the Detroit Red Wings.
I was ready to say, what do you what is this, Victor?
Why would we want? But Finny's sick, kicking butt for
Detroit a seventh round pick back in twenty twenty three.
But he's he's doing well for himself in the NHL.
The people voted, and our Senny Gritzik does win this
poll sixty two to thirty eight percent. Phinny's probably a
nice story this year, but because you got to hand
it to him, but the people are right that Gritzik
is basically better for the long term victor.
Speaker 3: I think so it's funny how maybe a year or
two ago we wouldn't have thought anything about either of
these guys. Certainly, Finny came out of nowhere. It's also
funny that as we're recording this, both players have exactly
thirty nine point paces, so they're both the same. But
if you look at the underlying metrics for the two,
there's a very different story. As you alluded to, Sidny
Gritzik is seventy one percentile overall and seventy three for
offense and seventy two for offense for defense, his impacts
on both sides of the puck are pretty great, and
I don't think that's just the team he plays for
who's doing pretty well. They went through a real struggle
this season which acques out and they were not always
so good, but he has been very effective. He also
has a longer track record of being effective because he
was really good in the KHL for five seasons before
coming four seasons before coming over, so it's not like
that came out of nowhere for Finny. It definitely was
a sharper rise, and he certainly was good in the
WHL after being drafted and raised his stock, and his
last season he was really good, but it's a shorter
track record, I guess, I would say, and his underlying
metrics are quite a bit worse. He's thirty seven percent
HELE for offense and thirty six percent HELE for defense.
So all that to say, I think that Finny could
still be decent. And I did take him in that draft,
but that was and I did take him first on
the team, but that was because they were very few
good options left at that point in terms of strong
teams to choose from. But I think that he has
some staying power. I don't think he's completely a flash
in the pan. I think he he might not always
hit the highs that he has, like at the beginning
of this season. But I think Finny is a bit
more for real than maybe some people are giving him
credit for. But I think our Senny Gritzik has a
much longer track record, and I think he doesn't necessarily
need to be with top line players in order to
be productive, so long term, I would actually take Arseny Gritzik.
Speaker 2: Yep, for sure. Let's move on to the next fella,
Seamus Casey. He is next up, another yet another defenseman.
We're rounding up all the usual defensive prospects for New Jersey,
and he's a forgotten middle child. I feel like he's
who's the middle one? Was a jan Jan was the
middle one?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: He going back? He was very good at Michigan. He
didn't watch the Brady Bunch, Victor come on man. He
was very good at Michigan. Marcia and Marsha very good
at Michigan and in the World Juniors for the USA.
But the last two years he's alternated between the AHL
and NHL. Now he's dealing with some lower body injuries,
hasn't made as much of an impact, although he scores
reasonably well when he's done in Utica. In the AHL,
he is going up against Tristan Luno, who was drafted
just a couple of picks after him in the same draft.
They're roughly the same age and Luno of course being
the Ducks runner up and actually not the same scoring
base this year. He was a very good scorer last year,
but not scoring particularly well this year. But Tristan Luno
versus Seamus Casey in the poll fifty three to forty
seven percent in favor of Casey. Is it a mid
off between Casey and Luno here? Victor or which one
of these guys you.
Speaker 1: Like actually definitely know better of these two?
Speaker 3: Casey is this is a problem, I think, in my opinion,
when you draft players like this who are offensive specialist
in terms of their skill set, and he's someone who's
never really been that effective at even strength. He's always
been this power play guy, and in college he had
this specialist role.
Speaker 1: It was really good at it.
Speaker 3: But you have to be good enough at even strength
to get that time and to get that responsibility, and
I don't think that he ever has been, and I'm
not sure that he ever will be, quite frankly, so
that's the issue. He has been decent at the AHL,
and we have seen a couple of instances, especially at
the beginning of last season, where he was came out
on fire and had a few points in the first
game or two or whatever, but he ended up with
only eight points all season in fourteen games. And I
know some people look at that and say, wow, I
look at that potential, but the reality is that away
from the puck and in his own zone, he's definitely
more of a struggle and you can see that a
bit with some of his HL numbers. And I did
get to see Tristan Luno live when I went to
a San Diego goals game, and he definitely looked solid.
He looked like, not necessarily like he was way too
good for that league, but he looked like he was
really good in that game, and he looked like he
knew what he was doing, look like he could handle
himself at a higher level. He's also had some injury issues,
and so that's part of I think the reason why
maybe he hasn't gotten the opportunity. But also now the
Ducks are good, so is he gonna actually get it?
Who knows? It definitely seemed with Ryan similar to Ryan Ufgo.
It's like, why hasn't this guy gotten more of an opportunity?
You wonder that maybe there's a little bit more to that.
He did get seven games two years ago, in six
games last year in the NHL, hasn't gotten any this
year so far and hasn't had a particularly productive season.
But I think that he's someone who I could see
finding a more regular role than Seamus Casey. Shamus Casey
just needs to be like a Shane Gossis Bear third pairing,
top power play kind of guy, and a kind of
an insulated role, and not a lot of teams want
to do that for someone who's not great at even strength.
And I think that's the kind of situation Seamus Casey needs,
and New Jersey definitely doesn't need that from him. They
need different types of players, So I feel like they
need to move him, and maybe in a different situation
he could be okay, But I just not really sure
that Seamus Casey is a full time regular NHLer quite frankly,
and so for that reason, I'll take Luno.
Speaker 2: Yeah. To continue my analogy, You've got Simon Nimitch, the
guy who's been there longer. He's the He's the jan Or,
he's the Marsha Brady. We got jan who's the middle child,
who is a Seamous Casey. And then we have the
youngest little Cindy, Anton Salaiev, which that fits perfectly, the
little tiny girl versus the giant man child that is
Anton Salaiev of the New Jersey Devil's defensive court, big fella.
He continues to simmer over in the KHL. The fighting
Torpedoes don't give him big ice time. Over in the KHL.
He does not getting much ice time this year and
definitely not scoring, but his contract ends this year, so
he'll probably come to the US after that. That's one
of those things that will suppress your playing time, the
cagel of they know you're on the way out now.
The thing with Salaia is he's never had a scoring role.
This is not a guy who's scored a whole lot.
He's real big, he might be real good at defense,
but you're not really looking for him to score a
whole bunch. So it's hard to see a non bash
way that he's going to be relevant and fantasy hockey
for US in the future. We're going to put him
up in this poll with a guy who was drafted
very highly as well, but two years earlier, in David Yuricek.
Of course, we've talked a ton about Eurracheck over the years.
He's now with the Minnesota wild and he really hasn't
been putting up numbers with the wild Eather. In fact,
the first fifteen games this year no points, so that's
not a great sign. And not even scoring when he's
down in Iowa in the AHL. This is going up
to the pole, does it? It feels like guys who
have very good name recognition probably not as much fantasy impact.
So I have does win this poll fifty one to
forty nine percent, just barely the post hype sleeper who
is irreparably buried under Quinn Hughes in the power play
ranks versus the the as yet not seen giant sleigh
of the New Jersey Devils.
Speaker 3: Who you got, Victor, Yeah, I've been such a David
Yearchech believer over the years. He has really struggled in
the NHL to pivot, to turn to backskate and defend basically,
and his offense just hasn't really been that good to
make up for all of that. So he has really
struggled to translate to the NHL. And it's been no
different in Minnesota, even on a really good team as
it was in Columbus. So it definitely makes you think
it's more the player than the situation. And as you said,
going down to Iowa and the AHL hasn't really accelerated
his development as much as you would hope. And except
for that first season in the AHL in Columbus or
in Cleveland for the Columbus organization where he had a
ton of points, he hasn't really followed that up in
the AHL, and so it's starting to look more and
more like he might just be a tweener or like
a guy who can't quite hack it in the NHL.
So it seems like he's gonna need some skating work.
He might need some off season work to figure that out.
On the other hand, Anton Sealif has never been a
guy who has gotten any points.
Speaker 1: So if you're in a league that rewards.
Speaker 3: Like other things, just being out there time on ice
kind of thing, then Anti Saliv may be your guy.
But otherwise I'm not sure he's going to be that
helpful either, and I think he might be the kind
of guy who you sell. In fact, I think that
was my advice in the article is I would probably
sell slive and see what you can get, because he's
someone who for sure is going to be an NHL
or he's a great skater, he's a good defender, he
just doesn't do anything out there. Reminds me a little
bit of pick your guy who's out there who's really
good at cardio sessions and doesn't really do much. Brendan
Carlo might be an example. Plays a lot of minutes,
good defender, but doesn't really do anything. In fantasy so
unless you're getting rewarded. I do have a couple of
leagues where time on ice is rewarded. Okay, he'll get
you some of that. They'll get you maybe a shot
here or there, head or a block, but he's not
going to be very good for bash, and he's certainly
not going to be so good for points. Actually he
wasn't very good for bash, but for some reason this
year his bash has actually improved.
Speaker 1: So there is a little bit.
Speaker 3: More hope for Anti Salaiev to give you some bash.
But I don't think that the points are really gonna come.
He's never really been a scorer. In fact, every time
I talk about Salai If I look up his KHL
stats just to see and he has played one hundred
and sixty five KHL games and has twenty five points.
That is not the track record of someone who scores.
And so between these two it's a really tough choice.
I probably would take Salaiev just because he will be
in nhlor and you can probably get something for that,
and maybe someone will keep believing that he can score points.
And unfortunately it just doesn't seem like it's gonna work
out for David yirchek. But while we're talking about ear check,
I just wanted to mention that his brother Adam had
an incredible goal at the Wold Juniors and if you
didn't see it, go look at it. He took a pass,
put it between his legs and scored for the game
winner and overtime.
Speaker 1: It was awesome. So maybe there's hope for your check.
Speaker 2: The lesser, it's always the lesser, it's the younger brother.
How about Lenny Hamanajo his first year in North America,
he's acquitting himself pretty well. Ten points in his last
ten games at press time, tremendous score in legal, reasonably sized,
smart right winger. Feels like he got deployment with some
very skilled line mates, or if he got some deployment
with skilled line mates, he could blow up. And I
should say haman Naho. He's doing that at the AHL.
He's not doing that at the NHL level, but he
he's doing reallysmably a lot for himself. We put him
up against Jesse keiskan In because it's got to be
finished on finished violence in our Mason Black NHL ranking poll,
and it's a dead heat. Keiskanen versus Hami Naho is
fifty to fifty guy. The guys went in basically the
same part of the twenty twenty three draft Keiskan into
scoring well in Liga this year. But again, Amin Naho
of the Devils has come over to North America. Who
you got here, Victor? Who? Which these guys are? A
spider Man meme? If you just look at some of
these surface stats, but I know you'll know something under
the surface.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I always think it's funny when it ends in a
dead even fifty to fifty like that. It's okay, Come on,
someone just make the deciding vote. If you saw a
poll like that, wouldn't you put in a vote?
Speaker 1: Come on, people, let's get.
Speaker 2: Some more lit for none of the above. Just show
up and just Victor Nunio is superior to both of
these guys.
Speaker 1: That is something you would do. Huh.
Speaker 3: Just just vote for a third party just so it
stays like that. Come on, yes, let's pick a winner. Yeah,
between these two. I do Ho a little bit better.
I have liked him a little bit better. I think
his upside, at least some of his track record is
a little bit better. Right now, it's looking a little
bit more like Kiskanen is having a little bit better
season in Liga. It'd be nice if we could compare
more apples to apples. I think that they're pretty similar.
I'm not sure that there's too much difference between the two.
I do think that I like the situation there for
Hamanahu a little bit better. I saw him in Gritzchak
being having similar tunity. Clearly get Chick won that battle
and is doing a lot better in the NHL. I
still think Hamanaho can get there, at least to some extent,
so I would probably would lean him, even though as
this poll suggests, they're pretty similar, and probably want to
just look elsewhere for some big offensive production. I like
that Hamanahu is here and doing a little bit more
in the AHL. We'll see if Kissinen comes over and
what he can do. But I'm not sure that either
one of them are ever going to be like super
valuable in fantasy, but as decent depth options, you could
do worse.
Speaker 2: Victor. That is our full run through the prospects that
we've highlighted from the New Jersey Devils and the Seattle Crack,
and any last wise words for people before we get
out of here today.
Speaker 3: No Hopefully by the time you're hearing this, you've enjoyed
the World Juniors and looking forward to some new year content.
If you have some ideas of things you want us
to cover, then let us know. But we're excited to
keep doing this in at twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Six, absolutely, and you'll probably be hearing something soon from
us in the near future on more on the World Juniors.
So thank you for listening. We'll be right back to um.
A couple of things to remind you of this show
sprout to you by fan tracks. You can play all
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We can't make trades because we have to wait until
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Fan tracks HQ has lots of fantasy content, including articles
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