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Red Wings Prospects
Al The Octopus reacted to stephen-gregory-yzerman for a post in a topic
My top 3 are pretty well locked my debate was between 4,5,6. With so many having ASP as top 2 its not easy to have him 5 or lower but I might have Kasper/Mazur ahead of him. Hot maybe dumb take. -
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The Griffins
stephen-gregory-yzerman reacted to kipwinger for a post in a topic
Agreed. And this is exactly what I think most fans are missing when they view Marco Kasper's stat line. The dude is an absolute beast at even strength, and wins almost every shift he takes. You absolutely HAVE to ice a lot of these type guys to win the depth game. Look at the clip below. This is more or less what killed Edmonton in the finals. With Draisaitl injured McDavid had to win games more or less by himself. And to his credit he did win three of them. But anytime he wasn't on the ice Florida controlled the play, and guys like Evan Rodriquez absolutely killed them because they won every puck battle and therefore dominated possession. That's why shot based "possession" metrics are so misleading. Guys that do nothing to gain possession of the puck can still grade out very well assuming they get easy zone starts and fire the puck a lot. A better metric for "puck possession" would be to look at 50/50 pucks and board battles and see how often players or teams come away with possession. Of course, that would be way harder to measure than counting shots so analytics types don't bother. -
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Red Wings Prospects
stephen-gregory-yzerman reacted to kipwinger for a post in a topic
Scott Wheeler has a pretty well known bias toward flashy, east-west forwards, high scoring defensemen, and goalies with draft pedigree. He's almost never willing to change his mind about a prospect once he's pegged them as something he doesn't like. For example, he's been head over heels about Buffalo's drafting since forever and seems completely unwilling to acknowledge that A) Buffalo sucks, and B) all the best parts of their team were acquired by trade (minus Dahlin). So I'm not surprised that he doesn't like our prospects. Forwards: In the last ten years the only high scoring center to win a Cup was MacKinnon. Otherwise pretty much every Cup champion's 1C is an 80-90 point guy that plays excellent defense. I think Danielson should get there so I'd rate him a lot higher than any "offense only" center on Wheeler's list. Likewise, Stanley Cup winners are full of guys who fit the MBN profile and very few who fit the small, flashy, and skilled profile. So I'd probably rank MBN higher than most of the little high scoring guys that Wheeler no doubt ranked above him. Defense: In the last ten years no team has won the Cup while giving "offensive minded" defensemen top pair minutes...except Cale Makar. However every Cup winner has a defense full of big, two-way, workhorses that eat a lot of minutes. So I'd rank Edvinsson above all the Zeev Buiums and Zane Pareks of the world. My guess is that Wheeler did not. Goalies: Here Wheeler tends to favor draft position, despite on-ice results. I think you could make the argument that Wallstedt, Askarov, and Cossa are all pretty much in the same tier. Wheeler has given Wallstedt a pass because he's on a bad team, but seem oblivious to the fact that Grand Rapids was terrible until Cossa took over the net. Askarov's team beat GR in the Calder playoffs, but Askarov didn't play most of that series and Milwaukee was loaded with older, first round, forwards that GR couldn't contain. So the win was hardly to do with Askarov's play, and the loss was hardly to do with Cossa's play. Also...Trey Augustine might be better than all three considering his NCAA and world championship play. -
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The Griffins
kipwinger reacted to Scott R Lucidi for a post in a topic
Great Takes. One thing I'm always looking for in these "highlight" videos are plays outside of the power play. Watching that Copp video in the other thread, he says something that absolutely rings true - if you're not logging 1st unit power play time, you're missing 15-25 points a season that would be there if you were. So when you see these prospects, and every single highlight is of them on the power play, you need to take it with a grain of salt. What you want to look for is the guy that beat a defender 5 on 5 and made the defender take the penalty that put the team on the power play. That's why I'm such a HUGE BROBERG FAN (if you haven't noticed). While his draft was happening, I watched his highlight film, and half of his highlights were him making great plays in his own end and then making quick transitions to get his team from defense to offense. That's what you want to see. Do you need a power play guy that can rip 98 mph shots from the point and QB great passes to the wings? Sure. Not saying you don't want one guy on your bench like Bouchard. But you also want 5 other defensemen on your bench like Nurse and Broberg. For forwards, you want to see highlights that showcase forechecking/winning one on one battles/hitting/great skating. If all the highlights are of a guy tapping in rebounds on the power play (Michael Rasmussen, Filip Zadina, Joe Veleno), then that prospect is going to bust out hard at the pro level as a goal scorer and need to recreate himself. Sometimes that can be a real good thing 6-7 years down the road with a lot of hard work, but better to look for the guy that already knows he has to play hard 5 on 5 and knows how to grind. The SCAM has excelled on draft day in selecting players that fit the mold of just needing size and not mentality. Outside of Larkin, Holland didn't fare too well with his selections in the 2010's in this regard. -
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The Griffins
stephen-gregory-yzerman reacted to kipwinger for a post in a topic
The Griffs let Czarnik walk, which I think suggests one of Danielson or Kasper will be the 1C. But I don't think Nate is the guy this year. My take is that many fans don't realize how hard the AHL is, especially at center. Those are HARD minutes and Nate isn't ready for them yet. At least, he's not ready to play those minutes CORRECTLY yet. Kasper is. He was an absolute force in the Calder Cup playoffs and I fully expect him to be the 1C with Danielson and Lombardi as the 2nd and 3rd line centers (in whichever order). Obviously this changes if one of these guys has an insane training camp and preseason. On a similar note, check out these highlight packages for Danielson and our new prospect Ondrej Becher. Obviously highlight packages only show the good stuff, so all caveats are applicable here, but what I really like is how they both excel at things that are transferable. Nate's passing is sneaky good and his wrister is super accurate. Becher's one timer (especially on the powerplay) is wicked and his skating and effort are excellent. The fact that both these guys can play defense as well shouldn't be a knock on their offensive abilities. I'm excited about both players quite a bit. -
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The Power Play
Al The Octopus reacted to Scott R Lucidi for a post in a topic
Had a good run with Jonas -
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2024-25 Bold Predictions
Akakabuto reacted to Scott R Lucidi for a post in a topic
1) Edvinsson outshines Mo 2) Raymond not only doesn't regress, he scores 100+ points. 3) Veleno and Berggren are dealt at the deadline 4) Danielson and Kasper are brought up at the deadline 5) We beat Toronto in 6, then lose to Florida in 5