HighOnHockey

Well, Canada only has a handful of their top stars. Sweden has their full roster that has already all played together for about three other tournaments this year alone. But yeah, 8-0 is pretty ridiculous.

A quick Google search tells me that FC Hockey had Myers 11th in their final rankings and Central Scouting had him 6th N.A.

Which he is. Or at least his line is with Liam Ohgren and Marcus Kruger is. He ranks 3rd on the team in corsi and near the top of the playoffs at 61.67% He may be a bit of a passenger on the line as far as in the defensive zone and winning battles in the offensive zone, but he's the one most often carrying the puck, particularly in the neutral zone. It's easy to forget just how skilled he is because compared to flashier prospects from his draft like Kemell or Ostlund, we think of Lekkerimaki as just a pure goal scorer who scores all his goals by getting into areas. And that's mostly what he'll be at the NHL level, but he's highly skilled for this level of hockey. One of the most skilled players on his team. The issue for him this year was the physicality of the league at ~170 lbs. Not that he's suddenly a lot stronger now, but he's continuing to learn how to use his linemates better, to make simple possession plays when needed, and make plays quickly to avoid contact. It's kinda funny because this is what Canucks fans have been waiting all season for from Lekkerimaki, but now a lot of them seem mad about it.

Gotcha moment lol. If you say so.

Ah. You're one of those. Never mind. Carry on.

I mean, the offensive skills are there. Nothing very dynamic but he plays a mature game and moves the puck well. Good passer and good skater but doesn't have that level of dynamic skating ability to skate the puck out of danger like Gulyayev or Minnetian, I just think a team would end up very disappointed and risk missing out on a much better player if they take him much before about 15.

Here's an outline of Columbus' projected lines going into next season. This summer we'll be looking to add at least one top four defenseman. We're pretty happy with our top six forwards but would like to add a piece or two in the bottom six. Kirill Kaprizov - Josh Norris - Andrei Svechnikov Pavel Buchnevich - Sam Reinhart - Dominik Kubalik Julian Gauthier - Shane Pinto - Brandon Dumaime Jeffrey Viel - Alex Barre-Boulet - Christian Fischer Matthieu Joseph Nic Hague - Jacob Trouba Ryan Lindgren - Jacob Brysen Jared Tinordi - Brock Faber Lassi Thomson Sergei Bobrovsky Daniil Tarasov Ivan Prosvetov

Huge goal by Lekkerimaki just now to make it 2-0 early in the third.

Looking at the final Central rankings. Honzek ahead of Barlow. Interesting. The top six or seven for North America are pretty straightforward. Zero surprises. Moore falls back down to reality a little bit. I'm betting on draft day he'll fall a little further still as NHL teams will look to those bigger bodies like Honzek and Barlow. Also zero surprises in the European top four right down to the order. Anyone here could have predicted it. Axel Sandin-Pellikka falls a ways. Very predictable. Kid was wildly over-hyped just for having a pretty good World Juniors as a U18. With ASP being slotted where he always should have been mid-to-late teens overall, and with Dragicevic the highest ranked N.A. defenseman at 18th, and the with Russian factor keeping Gulyayev at bay, I'm sorry to say @stawns but it is starting to look like a perfect storm that Reinbacher is going to be drafted very early.

But I think the point is this: what would you have thought was the absolute best-case scenario for Ohgren this year? Aside from Berglund's aberration 1.37 p/g one year, the all-time best p/g by a U19 in Allsvenskan were William Karlsson's 0.98 and Elias Pettersson's 0.95. It took Ohgren some time to get going, partly to adapt to the level of play (particularly the physical element), but mostly to work his way up the lineup. By December-January he was on the top line and has operated at roughly a p/g pace since then, including playoffs. I'm more interested in how a player has progressed and what they're doing by the end of the year than what they did at the start of the year.

Warren Foegele - Sasha Barkov - Blake Wheeler Pierre Engvall - Ryan Hartman - Jimmy Vesey Adam Beckman Devon Toews - Damon Severson Carson Soucy - Sean Durzi Sean Walker Sergei Bobrovsky

Wow I was not expecting to end up with Andrei Svechnikov. This should accelerate the retool a little bit.

Andrei Svechnikov.

Just pay attention to the bigger picture is all I'm saying. Context is important. The more you know about different league qualities and such the better you'll be able to assess and predict prospects. It takes some time. Doesn't happen overnight.

Well, I have Ohgren in fantasy league so I've watched them a lot, and I will say that I have been blown away by the year Ohgren is having. His defensive play, physicality, play off the puck are all pro level. Gonna be a good one. As for your last line, I'm sorry but you're still vastly over-estimating the impact of teenagers on pro teams. You should start paying more attention to European leagues and over time you will start to notice that most top young players don't put up points in pro leagues until close to 20 or later, and quite often the ones who do fizzle out at the NHL level anyway.

Woah. You completely misunderstood me here. I said nothing about the future success of players. What I'm saying is you can't compare a late birthday player directly to a player of a younger birth year. You also can't really compare them directly to players of the same birth year. I know there's been plenty of research done on this, which I haven't looked at in years, but my recollection is the research seemed to indicate a closer relation statistically to players of the same birth year than the same draft year for late birthday players. Of course it is actually somewhere in between, but I remember a few weeks ago, I can't remember who we were talking about but I mentioned the late birthday player was older and you said "only by three months". But the data seems to suggest that up until a certain point, the number of months difference is less prevalent than the fact that by their draft year the late birthday kid has an extra season of organized hockey under his belt.

Not 2023 draft-related but I just wanted to push back on this idea of Liam Ohgrem struggling in Allsvenskan. He got off to a slow start of course, trying to learn the pro game, earn the coach's trust and work his way up the lineup. After he was moved to the top line more or less full-time around Christmas, he scored at around a p/g clip for the rest of the season. His 60.73% corsi ranked him second overall on his team (only behind NHL veteran and Stanley Cup winner Marcus Kruger), and first overall in the league among rookies. Now through two playoff series Ohgren has led his team to victory with six goals and 11 points in ten games, currently sitting first on his team and tied for second in the league in both goals and points. By the way, not that it's relevant to anything, but Asplund did have two full Allsvenskan seasons under his belt before this year. That's an important factor to consider in addition to age alone. Also, Pettersson and Dahlen are both late birthdays, so it's not a direct comparison to Dvorsky's draft year. You'd almost be better off to compare him to their D-1 years, in which case Dvorsky soundly out-produced them both.

You're the only person I hear this from. Have any evidence to support this claim? Stats? Video? Scouting reports?

Yeah I think it is mostly just this year. Bedard, Cristall, Benson, Heidt. But far as I can tell it's just an abnormally strong WHL draft class. Similar to the OHL in 2020 with Byfield, Rossi, Perfetti, Quinn. I'm with you on Barlow though. Big fan and according to most sources would be ranked easily ahead of Honzek. But that said, there does seem to be whispers among circles of people in the know that Honzek could end up going a lot earlier than expected. Sportsnet now has him at 13.

Yeah I'm not sure but calling Perreault a two-way forward sounds off to me.

I'd be curious to see some data on this but I highly doubt there's any truth to this claim. See the Strome brothers, Marner, DeBrincat, Perfetti, Byfield.

Among the most purely skilled offensive forwards in the draft, but also one of the most troublesome. Plenty of flash and pizzazz, could benefit from picking his spots and using his teammates better, and knowing when to make the simple play.

Here.

Cool to see Lekkerimaki finally start to get going. Shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's paid attention that he's producing now that it's playoffs. As I've said from early in his draft year, with the style of game he plays, as the level of competition increases he's just going to get better and better. Makes short area plays in tight spaces down low as well as anyone in the 2022 draft class, except for Cooley and maybe a couple others. I've said it many times, but once again, he supports the puck exceptionally well, uses his teammates, makes short and quick passes low in the zone, works give-and-goes out of the corners, finds open space around the net. Kid is built for playoffs. The argument that he needs to produce gaudy numbers at lower levels to have a chance in the NHL shows both a fundamental misunderstanding of the prospect, as well as a painful over-simplification of prospect statistical assessment in general. Too many fans look at stats in complete isolation and forget to take any kind of context into account. Stats need to be read in context along with scouting assessments in order to be properly interpreted.

Disagree with what exactly? That you'd take Moore over Reinbacher I don't doubt. But what are we talking here, 7? 8?