Speaker 1: Welcome to Fantasy Hockey Life, presented by fan Tracks. Here Shitques,
your source of information and analysis to help you win
your fantasy hockey league.
Speaker 2: Block off hot a step hit on, stay lock.
Speaker 1: Here's your hosts, Jesse Sovier and Victor nuno Be goanna see.
Speaker 3: Hockey live once again. Jesse Severe fan Tracks, Victor Nunio,
the Fantasy Hockey Doctor. How you doing today, Victor?
Speaker 2: I'm good, Jesse. I am talking to you all through
my brand new computer. Last week I was traveling and
got to the airport, opened up my computer and the
screen was dead, and so took it in and it
was going to be a lot to fix that. Sign
up just getting a new one. So that's good, But
a lot of a lot of downloading new things and
figuring out this this new machine has been. That's what
I've been going through. How you what have you been
going through?
Speaker 1: Jesse?
Speaker 3: No? I do you got the good new AI on there? Victor?
Is the AI? Can you just put in what your
fantasy team is into that fancy new computer and it
tells you what to do.
Speaker 2: Actually, I think this whole experience is AI. I think
it's probably generating you just for my convenience is what
I'm assuming.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, they've gotten that good at this point. But
if you want to try to talk to people who
are still humans, you could go to our discord and
just emails Fantasy Hockey Life at gmail dot com. We'll
get you a link. You can pop in tons of
people there and it's free. You might want to be
there for the Stanley Cup playoffs or the draft, or
starting to think about planning for startup drafts this summer.
Might be some people in there who make common cause
with you, because that's a good place for finding Dynasty
folks like us who are just hanging out. But Victor
better even than AI are the things that you provide
to the people on Patreon, tell them what they are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, lots of great stuff over at Patreon. This is
the time where it's really good to look at your team,
especially in Dynasty, figure out where you're going on, what's
going on. Personalized help through the Roster Doctor feature is
a great way to do that. Also, now that I
have my new computer, it's gonna got delayed with updating
my rank, so that's gonna happen soon and all the
twenty twenty fives and then after the draft will be
integrating them into the regular ranks. So a lot of
updates there that will help you with your entry drafts
and just all your player movement and decisions to be made.
So check that out over at Fantasy Hockey Life, patreon
dot COM's last Fantasy Hockey Life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely should. And right after this more that we're
going to check out is interview with our special guests.
We'd like to welcome to the show, Broken Houston of
the Desertent News, ready to talk to us about the
And this is the first time I think I've uttered
the words on this show. You Tom Mammoth, Broken, How
you do it today?
Speaker 4: I'm doing well. I'm skeptical. If you've never talked about
the Utah Mammoth, are you real? NHL guys?
Speaker 5: Come on, Oh, I've talked about the team, but not
as the Mammoth. It's only been a few weeks and
we haven't covered them on the show, I think since
the big change. But they're certainly worthy of covering and
I'm excited to have a chance to talk about them today.
My theory is in either it's because of the change venue,
the better vibes.
Speaker 3: Utah was just so much more fun than covering Arizona
or following Arizona in the recent past. Those guys, it
was a fun team, but they were always carrying so
much baggage. But Utah was darling this year and was
a really fun watch to have. They were the first
team out in the Central Division this year. They're buried
under five really strong teams, so you can't hardly blame
them for that. But I think there were some people
who thought this might be a team. It might have
been a popular cinderella team to sneak into the playoffs
before the season, and viewed in the context of overall
team stats, they work in the middle. It wasn't like
their stats outperformed their overall position, and now here at
the end of the season, there's still been that position.
We're not quite good enough for the playoffs. But they
did move up a little bit in the draft, so
that should help them out. What if folks think of
the now Mammoth Utah team out there, and what are
you expecting for the coming year?
Speaker 4: Broken, Yeah, as far as the team name goes, if
that's what you're asking about, I think the feedback has
been pretty positive so far. Everybody obviously will have negative, like,
there will be negative opinions, that's how social media goes.
But generally everybody's pretty hyped about it. They all love
the tusks up thing and all the hand gestures they
can do with it. And yeah, so I think people
are pretty hyped about that. But that's the minor part
of this equation that you have to be hyped about.
The major thing is Utah has some really bright future
guys coming up here, some really bright prospects. Logan Cooley
took a really good step this year, as did Dylan Gunther.
And you've got Dimitri Simashev and Boot coming over from
the KHL this year. They look like they should be
able to play some NHL games this year. Maverick len
we might be able to come up from the liners.
And so that's just that wave of players right now.
And then you got the fourth overall pick this year.
You got TJ. Gamla that you took six overall last year.
Blobo Dwain is a horse. We were watching that guy
in training camp and we were wondering if he was
somehow going to make the team out of camp that year.
That's how good that guy looked. And that's just that's
the top of the prospect pool, right It just goes
down from there, and there's so many it's one of
the deepest prospect pools in the National Hockey League right now. Yeah,
things are looking up for Utah and I would expect
at least a good playoff push this coming season from him.
Speaker 3: For sure. So let's break down some of the players
that are making Utah as cool as they are. Clayton
Keller first and foremost among them. He had a career
year last year ninety one points in eighty one games.
That is obviously the Utah record, but if you spi
Utah all the Arizona years too, it would have been
the Arizona record, unless you try to go back to
the Winnipeg Jet stats, which at that point, come on, guys,
let's just cut that out. It's the Arizona Utah record.
It would have been Clayton Keller's, which pretty impressive. It
came from a big jump and assists from a prior
career high forty nine to sixty this year, and that
seven million dollar contract per year three more years. I
imagine the twenty six year old would be looking for
a pretty good raise when that one expires because he
has really raised his game. By the way, I didn't
know this until I started researching this episode, but apparently
the Mammoth went over and pretty much were the USA
team at the World Hockey Championships this year. Keller, Josh Stone, Logan,
Keilly Cooley, and Michael kessel Ring all brought back gold.
So I guess these guys first the World Championship and
then the Central Division. That's the order they're going to
take it in. But quite an accomplishment. But anyway, it
sounds like Keller actually brought a lot of leadership to
that team, so that's also a very good sign. So
Keller ninety one points eighty one games. Is there another
gear coming for him? Or is there regression? Store? What
did you make of Clayton Keller's great season?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I definitely think that he could go up a
little bit or down a little bit, but this is
about probably the level that he will be at. He's
in his prime now, he's twenty six years old, just
about to turn twenty seven, I believe, and he's probably
getting into that range where this is the best he's
he's going to be and so Utah really has to
make sure that as this prime window opens for him,
that they can build around him and give him a
chance to go deep in the playoffs and maybe even
bring the Stanley Cup back to Utah. I don't expect
him to ever be an art Ross Trophy winner or
anything like that, but he was what eleventh or twelfth
this year in league scoring, and that's probably as good
as you're going to get from a seventh overall pick,
no matter when he was drafted. And yeah, it's things
are looking up for him for sure. He leadership wise,
he definitely took a huge step this year. I asked
him earlier in the year, I said, when was the
last time that you wore a CEA at any level
other than obviously now in the NHL. And he thought
for a second and he's he's I think I was
probably like ten. This guy had never been a team
captain since he was a child, and he took that
mantle this year ran with it. He was a great
voice for the community, did tons of like community outreach events.
He was a great guy to be the face of
the franchise. And then all of a sudden, like you said,
he's the captain of Team USA on a team with
lots of good NHL leaders too, lots of guys that
wear letters on their sweaters, but he's the clear guy
there just because of how much he grew this year.
A cool story. I got the chance to go to
one of their children's hospital visits this year and I
was just standing there, wallflower kind of thing, just observing,
just seeing what's going on, and I noticed Clayton was
going around the room just getting all of his teammates
to sign this hat, and I was like, Oh, that's interesting.
And I was thinking, like, Oh, it's when you pass
a birthday card around the office, right and everybody signs it.
And I thought it was that kind of thing where
it's like a thank you gift to the hospital itself
or something like that. And then as I'm observing, I realized, no,
that was just he wanted to do something nice for
the little child that he was hanging out with and
her mother. And that's that leadership that he has is
he's not this loud, boisterous guy, but he sees opportunities
where something needs to be done, somebody needs help, somebody
needs encouragement, whatever it is, and he goes and fills that.
And that's what I've seen from him both on and
off the ice this year.
Speaker 2: Speaking of another one of those gold USA World Cup
Hockey members, we got a low and Cooley next that
we're going to talk about. And he had sixty five
points in say the seventy five games, so that was
a seventy one point pace in his second season. Eighty
two games last year, seventy five this year. So that
was just a few games, but it was a great
step up in his sophomore year. No slump there. He's
starting to look like that top line center Arizona hope
he would when they draft him third overall back in
twenty twenty two. This year, he started playing primarily with
Jack McBain and Dylan Gunther. By the end of the season,
he was centering the top line with Keller and Gunther.
He had a pretty nice stat line with goals, twenty
power play points, sixty three hits, one hundred and fifty
six shots. We have a league called the Tidy. He
ranked one hundreds that setup. Although the block, shots and
hits wasn't great, he did end up just over three
per game and all of those one more year on
an entry level with Koley, it's gonna be really great
value for that nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars cap hit.
He's able to sign extension as early as July first,
I wonder if you have thoughts on that. I think
maybe it'd be wise to lock him up for a
long time, someone like why Johnston maybe a good comparable,
or maybe Gunther's contract which is eight years at seven
point one four maybe something along those lines. Broken what
do you think of Koley season? And what do you
think we're gonna expect from him next season? Another big step?
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, he's definitely on the up and up. I've
said this on pretty much every podcast I've been on
this entire year. The top tier of young centerman in
the NHL right now is Connor Bodard, It's mac Vin Celebrini,
and it's Logan Cooley. Those are the elite tier, and
I put them all on the same tier. That's how
good this guy's going to be. He's everything that he
did this year. You just watched him and you're like, wow,
Like this guy is good. And it's not just the
offensive stuff. All these young guys can do the middin
and whatever, it's not that kind of stuff. It's that
combined with his defensive responsibility, and he's never out of place.
He kills penalties like he's a trusted guy. And he's
only just turned twenty one years old this month or
I guess last month. Now, he's a young guy and
he's already doing everything the right way. He plays with
his heart on his sleeve. He's a great guy that
way that he's You never have to motivate him. He's
always that guy that will motivate himself, motivate his teammates,
and it shows like when they're down a goal, he's
the guy that's on the ice even though he was
twenty years old this season, He's the guy that's on
the ice when you're down a goal and you need one.
And so I yeah, I definitely think he's only getting better.
And as far as an extension goes, I think the
gun through extension, if the team could get a gun
through extension out of him, I think the team would
be should be locked up in jail for robbery like
that is how good that that deal would be. I
don't think Cooley would do that. I think it's going
to be north of ten million dollars or maybe in
that nine to ten million dollar range if they do
a long term deal just because of how good this
player is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good point, and centers often costs a
little bit more. He might ask for a little bit more.
But let's talk about the afore mentioned Dylan Gunther. We've
been alluding to him quite a bit. He completed his
first full season with the Mammoth previously had thirty three games,
but the Arizona in twenty two to twenty three and
then forty five last season with another twenty nine and Ahl.
He had sixty points in seventy games, seventy point pace,
really nice. Twenty seven goals was a big step up
from his eighteen the previous season, and like Koley, he
had a great sophomore year breakout year, really becoming a
true legitimate NHL goal scorer. Played pretty much all season
with Kooley, as I mentioned in the Kooli discussion. By
the end of the year he was part of that
really incredible top line, which was definitely in the top
ten twenty. If you look at top producing lines in
terms of expected goals and play driving, they were really great.
He was the ninetieth rank player in our tidy and
one hundred and fifty sevens with Bash he ends up
with four point three block shots and hits per game,
and entering the first year of that eight million dollar
contract I mentioned seven point one four million cap hit.
That's going to look really good for years to come,
I can tell you. And we're excited about Gunther for
years to come. Brogan, what do you think of his
season this past year and you're thinking kit thirty five
goals or what do you think he's gonna end up?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's a pretty fair number to guess,
that thirty five mark. Maybe if it's not this year,
it's going to be soon for sure, just because of
how good his shot is. And then you combine him
with those playmakers in Clayton Keller and Logan Cooley, like
those guys are elite playmakers and they just have this
way of finding him, especially in that that Obechkin power
play spot there. That's Gunther's home as well on the
power play And no matter where you put it, he'll
get it, and he'll put it in the back of
the net like you don't have to put it right
on his tape. He will open up and he'll put
that thing in the net no matter where it comes
to him at if that makes sense, and he's a
he's got a good enough shot to be able to
score thirty five goals alone on his shot, and then
all the other parts of his game are also very good,
and I definitely think that he's he's going to be
one of those guys that eventually will be in the
rotation for Team Canada at all these international events and
that kind of thing. We saw how good he was
on a line with Connor Bodard at the World Juniors
a couple of years ago, and I think that's a
good representation of what he could become one of those
one of those elite wingers in the league.
Speaker 3: On to Nick Schmaltz. After two years of missing time
but maintaining a mid seventies scoring pace, Schmaltz has now
had two healthy seasons in a row, with points more
in the low sixties sixty three This year. That said,
he did play all eighty two games and that led
to him setting personal highs in actual points and assists.
Assist was thirty three. Madison Boy, he said it is
a year end, closing that he was going to be
back on the lakes on the Isthmus There in Madison, Wisconsin,
so maybe I should stop down and see if he's
up for an interview. But he largely played with Clayton
Keller this year. He had big doses of Barret hate
and at different times too. Schmaltz started his year very cold,
forty nine shots not going into the net, and I
actually looked at the November thirtieth game, but that was
the first time he scored in His first two shots
went in against the Vagan gold Vegas Golden Knights, So
finally got his season going. What do you make of
Nick Schmaltz's season? Is this kind of what he is
going to be? Able to remain a key member of
this top six with all the youth you're talking about
coming up, and what do you think he will be
going forward?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I do think it's remarkable that he got
to twenty goals, even though he didn't score a single
one for the first two months of the season. There
was also a week or two before that first goal
that he had he scored and then it got disallowed
for I think it was an offside or a goalie
interference or something, and he was definitely feeling that pressure
a little bit. He didn't really want to talk about
it at all, and he's not the guy that's ever
going to talk to the media unless he absolutely has to.
He seemed like he was bummed out in that first
little bit, but once he got that monkey off his
back and he scored those two goals and just kept
going and going, he found his rhythm, and like he said,
he broke his career high end points. And like Keller,
I think he's about in that prime window right now.
I think he's twenty eight years old somewhere around there,
and he'll probably have another three to five good years
out of him that he's consistently producing a good enough
amount of points to stay in the top six. So
I don't anticipate them moving on from him unless there's
greener pastors that they can fill that spot with, or
that they can get a better player if they trade
him away. But I do think he's a part of
the franchise's long term future if that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Tremendous and then on to bart Hayton. He set a
new personal high for scoring as well, with twenty goals,
twenty six assists, and forty six points in his second
ever eighty two game season. Turns twenty five, just before
this episode is going to air, and he's got one
more year in a cheap deal before he hits restricted
free agency. He had his first career hat trick back
in February, by the way, in a five to three
loss to la It seems it's been stopping start. We've
been waiting bart Hayton showed a lot of promise a
couple of times, but he's getting into that age range
you're talking about, where he's maybe in prime age range
for production, and so it might be difficult to expect
a giant leap in production. But and there's also talk
and unfortunately we're recording this fairly early in the offseason,
but Utah is one of the teams they're talking about
maybe making a big splash and free agency and bringing
somebody in which could impact guys like Barrett Hayton, who
were a little bit on the fringe maybe of that
top six. So yeah, because they got twenty percent of
their cap space available and there are only two players,
two roster players short of the full twenty three contracts,
so they could spend big on who they got left. Anyway,
that's not got anything to do with Barrett Hayden except
what might happen to Barrett Hayden. So what do you
make of that season of his and what do you
expect next?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so if you look at the pace that he
was on previous to, not this past season, but the
one before that, So I guess now two years ago
or I don't know if you count that as two
years ago, three years ago, whatever it is, that last
season that he played the full year, it was almost
the exact same offensive numbers as it was this year.
The one year in between those, he only played thirty
some odd games because he was injured, and I think
that that injury hurt his confidence, and when he eventually
came back from that, he just wasn't.
Speaker 2: In it.
Speaker 4: From what I gather, I didn't cover the team that year.
The Utah was where I started, and so I don't
know the first end, but that's the story that I've
gathered by talking to people, And so I do think
that he's very much have to be confident kind of guy.
Like when he's confident, he scores a lot scores in bunches.
If you go and look at his game log, there's
a lot of times where he scored two goals one game, won,
the next game, won, the next game, and then zero
for ten games. So he scores in bunches like that,
and that's a confidence thing.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: If they can get him to the point where he
doesn't have to be a top six center, then I
think that's where he will drive. Like we've been saying
all year long, I think he's a third line center
on a Stanley Cup winning team, like kind of that
Scott Latin kind of guy. If you guys know the
main police or the players at all, he's that guy
that will contribute a little bit offensively, he'll play really
well defensively, he'll kill penalties, he'll drag the guys into
the fight. I think he had one or two fighting
Majors this year. He's that kind of guy that kind
of does everything, doesn't necessarily do one thing the best
out of anybody. Line center is where he would probably
fit on a Stanley Cup contender. And if you talk
and go in and get a top six center in
free agency this year, then I think they'd be in
a good position.
Speaker 2: Indeed, we'll talk about the next guy. Josh Doane thirty
one point pace he had this past season, playing fifty
one games wasn't the biggest scorer, but was a big
step up from the eleven games he played for Arizona
back in twenty three twenty four, where he had nine
points and eleven games. I think a lot of us
saw that point total in such a short amount of
games and knew that it probably wouldn't continue at that pace,
and it did not typical feel out season that he
had in his first, more more full season. Anyways, one
thing that we were really excited about with Doan early
on was his massive hit numbers. That hasn't been quite
as big, but he was roughly a hit per game.
He did get a couple of blocks and actually won
some face offs, which was cool. He doesn't shoot a
whole lot, though, so his bash right now is under
three per game, and his ice time actually went up
just a little bit a little over so he's still
let thirteen thirty one. This is the last year of
his entry level deal, and looking at his underlying numbers,
it certainly seems like he deserves more ice time. A
lot of his expected goals and expected of course he
against and goals against looks really solid. It's broken. What
did you think of Don't season? And do you think
he'll get a bigger role next season.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I don't know if he'll get a bigger role yet,
just because of all the guys that are coming up.
But I do think that he had it made in
the last part of the season there. He was playing
on the line for the last maybe twenty games or
so with Lawson Kraus and Jack McBain. And if you've
ever stood in the locker room with those three guys,
you're going to be the smallest guy no matter what.
Those guys are mountains of men, mammoth, I guess you
could say. And they played that solid game there, that
Rockham Sockham type of hockey. They'd run around, hitting everybody,
They're intimidating, they moved the puck pretty quickly. None of
them are overly great skaters, but the pace of play
made up for it. And so I think that Josh
Shon is probably more of that player than the player
that scored what like nine points in eleven games or
whatever his first little season there in Arizona. But he's
more of that rock Him Sockham kind of guy. He'll
probably put the puck in a little bit, but nowhere
near what his dad was I don't think. But one
thing that I do want to point out with Josh
is that he is just as intelligent as his dad,
as far as I can tell, at least, I haven't
spent it down the time with his dad, but I
do know that he's a chip off the old block
in that sense. He's very respectful, he's very smart, he's
very intelligent. He thinks the game at a high level,
and so there's nothing saying that he couldn't become a
top six winger in the league. But at this point,
I don't think he is that. I think he is
trying to get there.
Speaker 3: All right, let's slip over to the blue line here,
and Mikhail Sergachev has to be first. And eyes widened
at the draft when Utah grabbed Sergachev from the Caps
trapped lightning, that was a great move. He delivered fifty
three points, which is the second highest total of Sergachev's
career and the best for a Utah Slash Arizona d
man since Oliver Ekman Larson back in twenty fifteen and sixty.
It's been a while in the evolving hockey era, back
to two thousand and seven minutes, there have been ninety
six seasons of a de man in that combined franchise history,
playing at least one thousand minutes, and Sergachev's on ice
goals for per sixty of three point seven eight was
second overall among all those seasons. And the guy who
was in first place is still coming up on the show.
By the way, he had the top expected goals of
ub replacement on the team. Did Sergachev, it would appear
the team as the franchise offensive defenseman it needs. What
were your observations of year one of Sergachev in Utah
Blue and what do you expect going forward?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we were a little bit hesitant to believe that
he was going to be that number one defenseman, that
superstar kind of number one defenceman this year, just because
of the injuries that he dealt with last year. He
fractured his leg. In his words, he had to learn
he had to relearn how to walk. That's how bad
this break was. Came back in the playoffs last year,
he said he was only eighty percent when he came
back from the came back into the playoffs with the
Lightning that last that first round series against Florida. There
he said he was only eighty percent, and so we
were thinking, Okay, like this guy might kind of take
a little bit to come back, and he might miss
some games this year, and he might maybe even be
the kind of guy that goes on a Shay Weber
long term injury reserve and never comes back. That's the
thought that was going through my head right at the
beginning there, and boy, he proved me wrong. He was
dialed in this entire year. He was trying to proof
to everybody that he is that number one defenseman because
he was always under Victor Headman and often under Ryan
McDonough as well in Tampa there at best he was
a second defenseman there and sometimes even the third. And
so this was his time to prove that he was
a number one defenseman and he really showed that he is.
And I think he still got a lot more to give.
And when the year started, he wasn't in the Captaincy rotation,
and then about a month and a half into the
season they put he they put him into the captain
Si rotation. I think that says a lot about kind
of the role that he plays, the way that he
the respect that he commands in the locker room, even
though he's only twenty six years old, and I do
think that if, like knowing then what they know now,
I wonder if they would have given him the sea
right from the get go. Nothing against Clayton Keller, but
that's how much of a leader Mikhail Sergachev is. For example,
there was one time that we were in there after practice,
just doing interviews and stuff, and somebody came in and
was like, hey, we got a meeting in five, let's go,
let's we got a head up, and nobody really moved.
I don't remember who it was that said that. Nobody
really moved. And then a couple of minutes later, Mikale
Sergachev came in the room and he's like, guys, team
meeting in five. He didn't say it very loud, he
was just like, team meeting in five. And all of
a sudden, everybody's sorry, guys, we gotta go, and they
racked up their interviews and they all went upstairs for
their team meeting. That's the kind of respect that this
guy has in the locker room. It's a really good
thing to have on a team that has a lot
of young players and is trying to make that next step.
But become a good team.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that good. You get a little bit of respect.
The other defenseman who Shaun Jersey I mentioned about the
highest expected goals per sixty season that Sergi Chef had.
Actually Sean Jersey's prior season was the high of all
of the past whatever I said dozen years or so. Unfortunately,
this season went off the rails before it even started.
He went out in Game four with a shoulder injury,
didn't come back until February. Still, when he came back,
he was still pretty decent. The with or withoalue numbers
showed he pretty much dragged almost every teammate in the
correct event the direction, offensively and defensively, even though his
most common deep partner, Oli Mada, was quite an offensive sink,
to put it charitably, this year. So you didn't necessarily
see the Jersey minutes involving a whole lot of points.
He had eleven points in thirty games, not a whole
lot of bash over twenty minutes. That's not what you
would expect to see from Shondersey typically. Do you see
the time he played last year as a struggle or
do you think you know where he's just going to
improve one year removed from the shoulder entry. What's your
take on the status of Sean Jersey.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so when he first went out, like when he
was first those first four games that he played, he
was playing top minutes. I believe he was on a
pairing with Mikhail Sergachev, that's an offensive pairing. He was
already scoring, he already had a fight, that kind of stuff, like,
he was doing quite well and then he gets hurt.
John Marino was also out, and then Maverick Lamaru went
out and Robert Bortuzo went out. So at one point
they had what is that four or five right shot
defenseman that we're all out at the same time. Michael
kessel Ring, who hadn't even played a full season in
the NHL at that point, was all of a sudden
their top right shot d man. So that's when they
go in and they acquire Olimada. Even though he's a
left shot, he can play the right side. They acquire Olimda,
they pick up Nick de Simon on waivers there and
then all of a sudden they've got some guys that
can play good hockey on that right side. And then
Shondersey comes back and I don't think he necessarily had
the role anymore open for him that he had when
he started, And so I think those first four games
were a lot more of the shondersey that we expected
than the last thirty some games were. But I do
think that as he goes on, he'll get that opportunity back.
And and the other thing I should say is when
he came back, John Marino was already back as well,
so that's a big presence on the right side as well.
And so I think when he comes back next year,
he'll probably have a better idea of what his role
is on the team and be able to come in
and probably chip in a little more than he did this.
Speaker 2: Year, as you, I'm sure know, and some of our
lists probably do as well. There are a couple of
big signings of the Russians the past couple of weeks here,
and one of them we want to ask you about
is Dmitri Simashev. He spent that twenty four to twenty
five season in the KHL for Locomotive Yardslav, who won
the Gargain Cup. He along with Daniel Boot were on
that team, so congratulations to them. Apparently just all the
Mammoth players are winning championships around overseas and stuff, So
I guess that bodes well. So that's a good thing.
Speaker 4: But I say that tongue in cheek, but that's true.
Bill Armstrong famously goes after guys that have won at
different levels and that can win at different levels. You
look at their roster accounted the other day of the
guys of the twenty something guys that played games for
Utah last year, I think it was fifteen or sixteen
of them, one in juniors, one championships in juniors. Just
to put it into perspectives, that's intentional, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Definitely, and I only say that I wasn't meaning that
in any tongue in cheek way other than it hasn't
translated to the NHL yet and that's the thing that
we're all waiting for. But certainly, yes, that's a good
thing to look for, and he was pretty good in
that in the KHL season. Although points are a thing
that don't seem to be coming super well for Simachev.
He had six points in those fifty six games and
ten in his previous sixty three games, so not a
whole lot there, but he does give a fair amount
of hits and blocks and a decent number of shots.
Signing that into level deal makes us wonder broken do
you think Simashev will be with the Mammoth this season
or maybe in the AHL? And when do you think
he'll be a full time in NHLer.
Speaker 4: Yeah. In the press conference right after they signed both
Simachevan Boot, Bill Armstrong was saying that he kind of
wants those guys to make the team out of camp.
They'll still have to battle for a spot. They do
have European assignment clauses in their contracts, both of them do,
and so if they aren't playing in the NHL, then
that forces them to go back to Europe. But Bill
said that there's a clause in that European assignment clause
that gives them a year and a half to play
in the AHL. So they could play in the AHL
exclusively this year if that's where they wanted them, and
as well for half of the season next year, and
after that they have to either be in the NHL
or back in Europe. And so I think that their
timeline is probably going to be more accelerated than say
Maverick Lamarus was when he was playing games this year.
But he kept getting sent up and down and that
kind of thing. I think that those guys will probably
get a real shot to make the team out of camp,
and I'd be surprised if they didn't. I wouldn't be
surprised necessarily if they were the first guys to get
sent down, if they needed a roster space just because
they're on entry level deals.
Speaker 2: Awesome. Yeah, I think I remember when they drafted both
these Russians that year and we were all wondering how
that was going to work. When they would arrive and
with the Euro out clauses, it's always a bit of
a different timeframe for those individuals. So that's great to hear.
Thank you. Let's go ahead and transition over to the goalies.
Utah was ranked fifteenth and expected goals against per sixty,
but conceded the seventeenth I ranked actual goals and a
big part of that, of course curl Vmelka, who was
the volume starter. He really cared the load for Utah,
especially after conoring them went into the NHLPA assistance program
in March. He was awesome for all. Melka twenty one
straight games to starts to end the season. I was
the longest streak since back in twenty nineteen, and he
said it.
Speaker 4: Was I think it was twenty three and the longest
since Braden Boltby in twenty fifteen. I think it was,
oh yes, as remarkable as what it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he was really leaned up there at the end.
He actually saved twenty point seventy five goals save above expected.
His delta. Fenwick was really strong. He signed that five
year contract four point seventy five million starting this upcoming season,
and overall was just really great. I wanted to touch
on Ingram real quick. He had a bit of a
tough season, culminating in that re entry into the program.
He lost his mother to breast cancer early in the
season and just really didn't look like himself a lot
of the season. And we're just wondering, what do you
think is gonna happen with the Mammoth goalies next season.
It seems like Vemelca is going to carry the load
and get fifty to sixty starts, and I'm wondering if
you think they'll bring someone in to back him up,
or if you know anything about Ingram's update.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we asked her about Ingram in a recent
breast conference. I think it was the locker clean out day.
We asked about him, and Bill Armstrong's response was, we
don't even know, like the team is indeed allowed to
have contact with him, so I don't know how he's
doing or anything like that. I hope that he's doing
as well as he can, but I do think that
the team probably will come back with contingency plan just
in case he isn't good to go next year, unless
they have any intel that says that he will be
good to go. So it's really it's a sticky situation.
It's hard to tell. He still is a solid NHL goalie.
He was dealing with some stuff this year which probably
affected his numbers, as they would with any of us
in our day job. If your mother passed away, he
probably wouldn't do as well in your job as you
would before or after. And hopefully he can come back
and get back into that rhythm that he was in before.
But I wouldn't be surprised to see the team go
out and get maybe like an Alex Lyon type of
guy in in free agency that you can rotate in
with Garrel and malcol There one a one B kind
of thing, probably a cheap deal for not that many years.
Speaker 3: All right, this has been some great talk on the
Utah Mammoth Brogan. How can people keep up with all
your writing about the team?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Follow me on Twitter at Houston Underscore Brogan and
then Deseret dot com for my articles. We've got a
comprehensive Utah Mammoth page on our website there, so come
and check it out.
Speaker 3: Awesome, everybody go do that. Thank you for coming on today, Brogan.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Thanks Will Since then, well that's good fer patsp oh,
my goodness.
Speaker 2: Long goal with a Cat cram.
Speaker 3: Let's now it's your weekly goalie talk with Kat Silverman.
Speaker 2: Kat's instance once again for Kat's instincts. With Kat Silverman
and ingld Mag, we're talking Utah, we're talking the Mammoth goalies,
and we're gonna start with Michael Horrabel, who is now
twenty years old. He's pretty big, six seven, two hundred
and sixteen pounds. Drafted back in twenty twenty three in
the second round by the then Arizona Coyotes. I would
say he had a pretty successful second year at UMass.
He went from a nine to twelve SAB percentage to
a nine to twenty four and he increased his win
total by three. Overall pretty successful. He also did pretty
well for a check yet the U twenty World Junior Championships,
not a whole lot to complain about. Looking at his
progression and the hockey prospecting model, that looks pretty nice.
I think it compares pretty favorably to another giant goalie,
mag Soguard, who has seen some time in the NHL.
I think the maybe the jury is still a little
out on him, but overall things are looking okay for
Horabble and his progression. But Kat, we want to know
what do your instincts tell you about Michael Krabbel. I
like him.
Speaker 6: I think he's a lot of fun. Med Soilguard's such
a fun comp for me because he's such a fascinating
goaltender to watch because he uses every inch of his reach,
sometimes with cartwheels. He does a lot of He has
a lot of I would say, excess movement, and that's
not really something I see from Hrable, which is interesting
to see from number one a really big goaltender and
number two a check goaltender. A lot of those goaltenders
that come out of check you tend to really enjoy
utilizing as much physical space as they possibly can. They
tend to be a little bit more aggressive with their positioning,
and it could just be because he's playing NCAA where
he can't really afford to get super overactive, but it
looks like he's confident playing more in the blue paint.
He does a good job using his hands when he
needs to, does a good job making those pad saves,
skating around a little bit, doesn't seem to play the
puck too often, but he seems like he enjoys being
a little bit more positionally sound, and like he's a
little bit more consistent with his technical structure, which I
love seeing from a guy that's that big without seeing
him look diff and almost immobile, because we do sometimes
see that from those bigger goaltenders as well. We see
two ends of the spectrum. We see the guys who
flip themselves onto their heads and do their scorpion saves,
and we see the ones who stay right on the
blue line on the goal line Mike Smith, and then
come all the way out only to play the puck.
And I would say Robble's great in the middle. There's
nothing about his game that I saw that was.
Speaker 3: Overly exciting.
Speaker 6: But the fact that he looked so positionally sound and
looked so comfortable playing North American collegiate hockey in itself,
to me, is something to be excited about.
Speaker 2: All right, that's pretty exciting. We'll look forward to see
how he continues to progress. I think it looks like
he'll be back at UMass another year. We'll see. I
don't think it's decided yet, but let's move on to
the other goalie. They have a couple other options, but
I think the one we're going to focus on is
Jackson's stobber. And some people might remember that he was
in the Chicago Blackhawks organization. He was someone who was
not drafted, but he did really well at Providence College
and the NCAA after the USHL and ended up getting
signing with the Blackhawks and it was pretty decent with
the Rockford Iceogs. Played six games back in twenty twenty
two twenty three for the Blackhawks, and then last season
was entirely with the AHL organization and did pretty well.
This season, he signed with Utah and was mostly in
the AHL. Didn't have quite as good as numbers, but
did get into six NHL games and they weren't great,
but he was there, I guess you could say. And
I think with the uncertainty of Connor Ingram, who's back
in the player assistance program, I think people are wondering
what's going on. Are they going to give Stabur a
little bit more of a role with Phil Melka? Is
Stabur going to play ten, fifteen to twenty plus games
or do you think they'll go out and fill that
need externally? So what are your instincts, Kat tell us
about Jackson Stauber.
Speaker 6: That's a really tough one. I think that Utah's obviously
still in a little bit of a transitionary period there.
We've mentioned in the past that those teams that have
really easy access to their AHL program where it's just
right up the road. Anaheim's team is just a couple
hours away. Team is, depending on traffic, just a couple
hours away. When Utah was still in Arizona, the drive
from the rink for the Coyotes and the rink for
the Tucson Roadrunners was pretty easy, and sometimes the Roadrunners
were even able to play up in Phoenix for their practices,
So that made things a little bit easier, a little
more flexible for them. They don't have that luxury right now,
so my guess is that they're going to have to
bring someone else in, especially if they think that Stubber
looks like a quality prospect for them long term, because
they don't really want to be Essentially, they don't want
to ruin his development by rushing him into a team that,
for all intents and purpose, is the nicest possible thing
to say about the Utah Hockey Club Utah Mamma is
that they are not deep playoff run ready, and they
still have some pretty substantial growing pains, I would say,
at all positions, and if they want Stubber to be
a long term prospect for them, it does them no
good to bring him up long term because he doesn't
necessarily look ready with his adaptability. He looks like he's
got really good positioning, good tracking, His movement seems like
it's fairly fluid, but it does seem like he doesn't
quite have the read on the game speed that he
needs to be a full time NHLer, and I think
that would really damage them to bring him up, even
if it's not full time for the year, to bring
him up for a large stretch. I think that will
depend on if someone is willing to give up someone
like dan Vloadar, and if they want to bring in
a dan Vlodar type goaltender for the long haul. Calgary
is lucky enough that they don't necessarily need to keep him,
but there are some teams that would be able to
dangle karts at a little bit of a pricier price.
Then I think Utah will have to decide if they
want to pay that, But I do think that they
need someone else. Stubber looks good, but I don't think
he looks like he is ready to take over for Conoring.
Groom is the other half of their tandem, unfortunately.
Speaker 2: All right, that's good to know. And there are a
couple other goalies we could have talked about in the system,
and you could take this as your indication to just
move on from them in the nicest possible way. But
thanks so much, Kad forgiving us your instincts on the
Utah Mammoth goalies.
Speaker 3: We'll be back right after this dig the Dynasty dig
you saw Mammoth edition, Victor. We have a very interesting
system to discuss. You've already heard about some of these
guys earlier in the episode, but we're going to start
out with the no brainer tell me about.
Speaker 2: Him no brainer for the Mammoth is going to be
teach again La Againla twenty twenty four, one sixth overall pick,
six foot er, one hundred ninety four pounds. He actually
was injured almost all of this season. It was really unfortunate.
He didn't play all but twenty one games for the
Colonal Rockets. When he did play, he was great, thirty
two points in twenty one games, but that was unfortunate.
He had hip surgery which kept him out a lot
of the time. He had a femlo femero acetabular hip
and pingement, which is something that should be taken care
of once you actually have that surgically altered. So hopefully
that won't bother him moving forward. Mitch Brown actually did
track the games that he did play this year, and
he was awesome, Like literally one hundred percentile for offense
transition and ninety seventh for defense. There really weren't a
whole lot of things that were bad other than maybe
a couple of his offensive zone retrievals, maybe some of
his off puck assists and slot pass success rate, but
other than that, it's pretty much all outstanding for AGAINLA.
Looking at his Fantasy Hockey Life Player card, I have
him at a seven point one seven, so seventeen percent
chance of being a seven out of ten and seven
is a really high number. So he's got a pretty
high potential still, and I didn't really knock him for
being out a lot of this season, but we definitely
want to see a big step from him next year,
so we'll be really important to see how he does there.
It is important to remember that he's a really late birthdate.
He's an August birthdate, so he was eighteen all this season.
He'll be nineteen all next season and still will not
be eligible for the AHL, so he will most likely
be back in the WHL, and he'll be good because
he hasn't really had a full season to show us
what he can do other than that draft season where
he played sixty four games, so we'll look forward to that.
Looking at his BASH, he's a high volume shooter, but
not so much for the hits and blocks, so he's
closer to average for those two. But overall, the BASH
should be really good, mostly driven by the hits. That's
a little snippet of again Love, but let's get a
little bit bigger picture from our FHL scout.
Speaker 3: That's right, Victor scout. Patrick today comes to us for
the Tidge again the look skating average. According to Patrick,
doesn't have elite speed, but skates hard, is good with
the crossovers. Passing and handling a plus skill. Does well
transporting the puck up the ice. Handles well in tight spaces, However,
sometimes tries to do too much and Againla can get
the puck stolen. He's accurate when passing, shooting hard shot
for titch, but most dangerous in close with those soft hands.
Againla has a high hockey IQ, good at reading the
play and being in the right places in the right times.
He doesn't panic, and he plays with confidence for checking.
High energy player who tries to press defenders as much
as possible and goes hard when for checking. His aggressiveness
and good hands help with puck battles defense, a defensively
responsible player who skates back hard to help in the
defensive zone. And the best asset then is the passing
and handling. Biggest concern Patrick thinks it's nitpicking is so
he doesn't know there's a big concern. But the defensive
consistency maybe could still use some work. The top tier
outcome Patrick can foresee first line winger on Powerplay one.
That's because he has a strong, if not elite, overall toolkit.
The median outcome middle six winger on power Play two
was sometime on Powerplay one. That's if the development stalls
a little bit, he could be limited to a high
and third liner, with time on the second line when possible.
Comparable Patrick has is Lucas Raymond and final thoughts of note.
Iggy missed most of the season after getting hip surgery.
Around early December, the NHL Rank King and Lord Stanley
Tidy champion Mason Black put out the poll for US
Titchigan Love versus Beckett Seneke, and Seneke won the vote
for fifty four to forty six percent. Victor, Is that
how our no brainer Utah Man of the Prospect is
going to go down here?
Speaker 2: I think it's hard. I mean, we did see a
lot more from Beckett this year, so it's a little
bit easier to project him moving forward. He was a
little bit of a higher pick, but I think those
guys were in the same range. Seneca just has those
unique physical traits, being so long and lanky, and he
did have another super strong OHL season, so you know
he's building, whereas TZ didn't really have that opportunity. I
probably would lean Seneca at this point. I do think
that he is probably a more a safer guy to
hit a pretty high upside. I have him at a
seven point five too, so I have the percentage a
little bit higher than Againla, and the bash is probably
a little bit better because Seneca hits a little bit more.
The shots are equally good and the blocks are equally
average to poor, So I do think i'd probably lean Seneca,
although I will say though that in terms of pure upside,
I do think that Againla's is higher, so there's just
a little bit more volatility there. And I think it's
pretty close, as you can see by the poll, fifty
four to forty six is pretty close, but I would
lean Seneca as the votes as the voters have here,
and looking at the hockey prospecting between these two, it's
actually pretty similar. They both trended down this year Againla
from twenty one to thirteen percent in Seneca from fifteen
to nine. They're both pretty likely to make the NHL,
and if I look at some other comps here for Againla,
there's some pretty good ones like Evander Kaine is probably
not an unreasonable one. There's also a pretty reasonable one
as James Van Riemsdyke. I think he's someone who's going
to be fantasy relevant, but maybe not as exciting as
we all hope they would be. So that's maybe a
realistic projection of where Againla could be. And looking at
the j freshcard, he's a fourteen percent chance of being
a star, sixty seven percent chance of being an NHL
or so all in all, looking pretty good for Aginla,
but we definitely need to see more and he will
hopefully give us that opportunity to have a full strong
season next season. In the WHL.
Speaker 3: Mixed up victor the need to know prospect.
Speaker 2: The need to know is Artam Duda. Drafted twenty twenty two,
second round, thirty six overall. He's sixty one hundred and
eighty seven pounds. He had twenty nine points in seventy
games for Tucson of the AHL this past season, so
that was that was really good production for the defenseman,
and his FHL player card has him at a five
point two five so twenty five percent chance of being
an average roster player. The AHL isn't known for supporting
really lofty numbers in terms of BASH, but he was
able to hit seventy eight percentile for shots they hit.
Some blocks are pretty low for Duda though, so overall
you're looking at probably not the highest bash. But let's
find out a little bit more about Duda from our
NHL from our FHL scout.
Speaker 3: Patrick has this to say for skating, it's average. It's
not a plus skill or a liability. He's decent at
walking the blue line. At times. The passing from Archim
Dudah is passing and handley look good, but at other
times it looks shaky. They look best when he has
time and at the point in the offensive zone, shooting
pretty hard shot from the point. A lot of times
he shot them into defenders or missed the net though
IQ average hockey IQ times when he panics in the
defensive zone, but is able to read and react well
some other times, especially in the offensive zone. It looked
like this improved as he got further into the season.
For checking, good job of staying at the point, but
activating further into the offensive zone when it's appropriate to
maintain cycling of the puck defense. In Patrick's viewings, the
defense looked somewhat bad, but looked better further into the season. However,
the aggressiveness, stick work, and timing could use some skill building.
He often lost board battles or threw pucks away rather
than making smart plays. The best asset then passing and
handling in the offensive zone. Biggest concern it is the defense.
The top tier outcome Patrick can foresee for Doudai is
a third pair defenseman on power play two. That's because
he's relatively young, showed signs of improvement in his first
full season in professional hockey. If he can build on
all those aspects of his game, he's still got a
chance to be a solid NHL defenseman. But the median
outcome solid AHL defenseman who gets some time in the
NHL as a sixth or seventh defenseman. That's because there's
nothing about Duda's game Patrick finds especially remarkable. If he
can't improve his defense's offense doesn't stand out enough to
be the only thing that propels him to the NHL
stylistic comparable, perhaps a lesser she and Gostis Bear or
John Klingberg and the final thoughts before the season he
played limited games in the last two seasons. Two seasons ago,
Duda played thirty one games between the NHL, VHL and KHL.
Last season, he attempted to play for Maine, but ended
up playing about twenty one games for Toronto Metro U
in the U Sports League. At twenty one, He's still
young and next season will be an important one to
watch to get a better read on his NHL potential
and Mason Black. The NHL rank King put Maxim Sturback
versus Archim. Duda and Stirback won this one fifty seven
to forty three percent. Victor. How do you rank them?
Speaker 2: I think the reality is that I'm not sure that
I would want either of these super highly in my league.
I think that they're fine for a good depth defenseman.
I think both these guys are pretty likely to play
in the NHL. I'm just not sure how either how
likely either is going to be an impact player. One
of the comps for Duda in the ranking app is
Philip Myers, who's someone who had some promise and played
some games, but it wasn't necessarily super impactful, and that
might end up being what Duda is like. I have
hoped that there's more there, but I'm not sure. Stirback
is someone who certainly seems will play in the NHL.
A couple of his comps are guys like Dennis Gilbert
or Alec Martinez, and I think he's a guy who's
going to play. But I'm just not sure how much
fantasy impact there is going to be for Stirback. I
have him at a four point two three twenty three
percent chance of being a four, so I have him
a little bit lower, but overall, I don't think either
of these are going to be hugely impactful. Stir Back
did actually have some pretty strong bash numbers in terms
of his hits. He was hitting a lot and overall
his bash should be is in the one hundredth percentile,
So that's pretty great and there should be a pretty
high floor there. But I'm just not sure if there's
going to be a lot of points to translate. So
that's I think the biggest concern there. But he has
had some pretty decent production nineteen points in thirty three
games at Michigan State. He did have six points in
five U twenty World Junior Championships games for Slovakia. This
is Sturback, so there is some hope that maybe there's
a little bit more offense there. I would probably lean
Stirback in this pole ahead of Duda. I think that
there are both guys that you're looking at as a
more depth option, and hopefully you're not relying on them
as one as your COP prospects, because he might be
a little bit disappointed looking at these two. In the
Hockey prospecting model, Duda has some really insanely large numbers.
He graduated them all at fifty three percent chance of
being a star. I think that's pretty overblown based on
some of his numbers in Russia, particular in the MHL,
which we've talked about being a very difficult league to evaluate,
and he had a couple of really strong MHL seasons
that might have inflated his numbers there. Stirback, on the
other hand, was the opposite. I think some of his
numbers are a little bit underestimated because of his time
playing in the twenty League in Finland and then the USHL,
which he didn't have a lot of scoring for, and
his first season in the NCAA. So his past season
where he popped off, didn't really reward him that much.
All in all, I'm not sure that these Hockey prospecting numbers,
which at stirback is just two percent chance of being
a star. I think that the answer is probably flipped
and somewhere in the middle for both of them. But anyways,
looking at Duda, there's some comms here that I think
are un realistic, like Oliver Ekman, Larsen, Brian McCabe, Dougie Hamilton.
I don't think that he's going to be like any
of those guys. Even Kevin Korchinski is there which we
still don't know about. But I think those are all
lofty goals for Artem Duda, unfortunately, and his realistic outcome
is probably a bit lower than that. Looking at the
j first model, Duda has two percent chance of being
a star on twenty eight percent chance of being an
NHL or. I think that nhller probability is a little low,
but other than that, it's it is probably a little
bit more realistic for his chance of being a star.
So someone that is good to have in terms of
can probably get you some games, but I'm not sure
you should be too excited about him in terms of
getting points.
Speaker 3: Victor, the keep your Eye prospect came up earlier in
this show is somebody who might be coming sooner than later.
Who is it?
Speaker 2: The nail Boot. The nail Boot was twelfth overall back
in twenty twenty three when they took Simachev and Boot
in that same first round. Six foot six, two hundred
and sixteen pounds. He was also on that Championship Gargain
Cup championship team for Locomotive Yaroslav. He had twenty eight
points and fifty four KHL games, and he also had
a really strong playoff with actually he had one point
in those thirteen playoff games. Was an important part of
the team that helped win that championship. He did sign
his entry level deal on May twenty eighth, along with Simashev,
and looking at his FHL player card have him at
a six point four or five. It's interesting because he's
such a big guy and a lot of people assume
he's a big hitter, but he is not. His hits
are thirtieth percentile. His shots and blocks are actually really good,
both eightieth percentile, but the hits are not bad. So overall,
you might assume that Daniel Boot is pretty strong in bash,
and it's true. He is a seventieth percentile for bash,
but it's not because of the hits, which is what
you might think. So just to find that kind of interesting,
let's find some more interesting things out about Daniel Boot
by listening to our FHL scout Jesse.
Speaker 3: And this time its FHL co lead scout Tony, who
comes in, says that Daniel Boot is a good skeeter
but needs to work on his acceleration, very good passer,
can handle the puck well for his size. Daniel can
shoot the puck effectively with his size. He gets a
shot off quite easily, and he has a good hockey
IQ with positive vision anticipation. He seems to be poised
while I'm playing in the offensive zone, though Tony did
see some panic in the defensive zone for checking, Daniel
used his long reach to get the puck off the
opponent's stick, and on defense, Boot uses his size to
keep the puck away from defenseman. While in the offensive zone.
The best asset then the puck handling, using his size
to get shots away. The biggest concern is whether he'll
be able to keep up with the speed of the
National Hockey League. The top tier role or potential for Boots,
according to According to Tony, middle six winger. If he
can work on his acceleration and keep his puck in
lit at a high level, he could be top six
forward with some power play time the median outcome third
tier or bottom six player. He needs to become a
better skater and be more physical while not losing his
gifts stylistic comparable. This is interesting, Tony says, like Patrick Lyoney,
except without as good of a shot, Daniel could be
a middle six forward. Ultimately, says Tony, if he improves
on his skating to keep up with the NHL game
and Mason Black in order to torture me to the
optimal degree, puts Daniel Boot against Michael brand Segnieguard the
Norwegian Terror and Boot wins this one. It is fifty
seven to forty three percent Boot victor. Is that is
that accurate?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think so, Although I find that really funny what
Tony said about like Patrick Loney without a good shot,
I don't know what Patrick Leney is without a good shot.
The rest of his game is awful. So if you
don't have a good shot, he's just like a junior
league player or something. I don't know. Beer leaguer. Maybe
that's too much, too harsh on Patrick Laney, but yeah,
I don't know, that's interesting description. I do think that
I would take Boot over Bransick Nightguard. I just think
if BNJIC Nightguard is going to be weird, stereotypical bottom sixer,
and so that would make me a little bit worried
about the scoring. He had eleven points and forty two
games for Schleftia AIK this season did Brandick night Guard,
and his bash is really not as exciting, although he
does hit a lot and so you get a little
bit more hits, but overall the bash is closer to
average because his shots and blocks are not very good.
So I think you have a higher floor for Boot,
and I think that there's some hope that he can
translate a little bit of that offense. And he's already
been playing in a really challenging league though so as
Brendickneggart in the SHL. But I think Boot has a
little bit longer track record doing it, So I'll do
see how this one can be close, But I would
be more confident and taking Boot and looking at the
p andoche lead between these two, it's pretty similar, but
it does favor Boot. Some of the comps here aren't
super exciting for either of these players. You're looking at
a high of Raphael Harvey Pinard for Danial Boot and
just an abdicator for Brensick Nightguard, neither of which are
super inspiring. There is some likelihood of being in NHLer,
which is nice for both of these guys, just not
sure what the upside is. Looking at the hockey prospecting
model between the two, Boot did increase his chance of
being a star this season with his KHL production, which
is really difficult to do in your Draft plus two season.
He went up to eleven percent of being a star.
Brensick Nightguard went down from fifteen to four percent chance
of being a star and lowered his NHLer probability at
the same time. So this hockey prospecting is definitely leaning Boot.
Looking at some other comps for Boot, there's a pretty
good one here, which is t Joshi. I think that's
probably a would be a great outcome for Boot. There's
some other name here with the ch aren't super likely,
like Luke Robertie. I don't think that's very likely. Be
hoping for that really big guy who can have some
nice scoring touch as well, and not just be a
bang or bottom six guy, which is also fairly likely.
Looking at the Jfresh card for Boot, he's thirty percent
chance of being a start in ninety seven percent chance
of being an NHL or. That's really strong from Jfresh
and overall pretty heartwarming there. So we'll be interesting to
see what we can find out about Boot as he
comes to North America. As you heard from our guests
Brogan that there is a pretty good likelihood that both
he and sim Chef get a really good shot of
making the team out of camp, but we might actually
have to wait a little bit longer, maybe he goes
the AHL or back to Russia. We'll have this late
and sy, but the timeline for him should be really
short in terms of when he could be in the NHL,
which God is really nice to hear. That's it for
our Mammoth dig. If you're a patron, you can listen
to my top ten list, which I'll start after the draft,
and if you're interested in doing some scouting with us,
to shoot me a DM on Twitter, Discord or email.
Speaker 3: Us Mason Black if you're listening. The real poll here
should have been whether there will be more puns on
Boot's name based on the word booty or based on
the preposition about in a Canadian accent in coming years.
I'm sorry, mister boot that's going to do it for
this and let's come right back after this sticles on
the show. We've got to get out of here. But
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episode of a Utah Mammoth Preview episode four hundred and one.
Until next time, keep living that fantasy hockey life.