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A Back-Up Option Every GM should know about heading into the Draft
Photo Credit: https://puckpreps.com/
We see it every year: a team that is so focused on drafting a particular player that they have spent so many hours watching game tape on, sending scouts to watch their games, as well as spending time performing pre-draft workouts and interviews with, only to see their guy get selected by another team just before it’s their turn to hit the podium.
Then the panic sets in; of course, they have other names that their scouts have suggested, but they (the general manager) didn’t think that they would actually have to resort to drafting those players, and with the time clock ticking down and a decision having to be made the team ends up drafting a player that they will come to find out that they are less than impressed with not to mention could very well cost them their job.
That’s why, after I have spent the entire season talking about so many other exceptional prospects, I’ll leave you and any NHL GM who is smart enough to read this article with one last name before the draft is set to commence in less than two weeks.
And that is a guy who I believe most teams and draft experts are sleeping on, and that is Tomas Mrsic from the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers. Currently, Mrsic, who is 18 years old and stands at 5’11 & a half, has been given a third-round grade.
But I think he could prove to be worth so much more than that, considering that this season the media overshadowed him by constantly highlighting his incredible teammates, such as the towering presence and potential top-ten pick Cayden Lindstrom, first-round talent Andrew Basha, and of course the 16-year-old prodigy Gavin McKenna.
Now, not to take anything away from those players, but if you honestly watch the Tigers game tape, you’ll notice that Tomas was often the driving force behind their offense. And he did so by using his gift of incredible speed. Mrsic functions like any good muscle car does; before taking off towards the finish line, “he dips and grips.” Given his low center of gravity, Mrsic is able to create extremely powerful strides that leave his opponents in his rearview, which helps him to create the time and space needed to find his teammates for plenty of goal-scoring opportunities.
Don’t get me wrong, though, while Tomas may be a pass-first player. He is more than capable of putting the puck past the opposition’s netminder as well. Don’t believe me; just watch these videos below to pay witness to his incredible shot.
And after looking at his point totals from this season, 23 goals and 39 assists for 62 points in 63 games played. Tomas begins to remind me a lot of the Flyers Prospect Denver Barkey. Barkey, who was drafted last summer by Philadelphia, is a pass-first sub 6’0 center who, while playing for the London Knights of the OHL in his draft year, was able to put up 22 goals and 37 assists for 59 points in 61 games played. But he was able to really come alive this season when he was able to help lead his team to an OHL Championship, scoring 35 goals and 67 assists for 102 points during the regular season and another 27 points in 18 playoff appearances.
So, come draft day, if your team is the one frantically scrambling to find stat sheets and combine results on players at the last minute because their guy is now off the board, you better hope they settle on drafting a player like Tomas Mrsic, who could very well prove to be one of the steals of this draft.
The Rumor is that the Flyers are high on Defenseman Carter Yakemchuk, but should they be?
(Photo Credit: Twitter@WHLHitmen)
According to reports, the Philadelphia Flyers and their General Manager, Danny Briere, appear to be very enamored by the high-scoring Calgary Hitman defenseman Carter Yakemchuk. The only question is, should they be?
Don’t get me wrong; there is no denying that Carter, who stands at an impressive 6’3 and weighs in at 194 pounds, is an exceptional young talent with a very high ceiling—especially with him scoring 30 goals and 41 assists for 71 points in only 66 regular season games played this year.
However, as tantalizing a prospect as he might be, should the Flyers really be prioritizing drafting another offensive defenseman right now? I mean, the current roster is already filled with them, take for example, guys like Travis Sanheim, who is signed until 2031. A 23-year-old Cam York who is now considered a mainstay on the Flyers blueline, which the team took with their first-round pick back in 2019. Not to mention, they just traded for the former 6th overall pick in the 2020 draft, Jamie Drysdale. All of these players are offensive-minded and have been known to take off down the ice to join the rush.
Still, while their point production (of 293 combined career points) may be nice, does it really add any value when their shared career plus-minus average is -134? Think about that for a minute. That means while Travis, Cam, and Jamie were on the ice playing in the NHL and focusing on putting up points in the offensive zone, collectively, they were on the ice when their team allowed 427 goals!
To add to that, let’s not forget that the team also has Swedish-born 22-year-old offensive defenseman Emil Andrae in the system, which they took in the second round of the 2022 draft and had playing with the Phantoms last year. Then if that wasn’t enough they went out and utilized a 1st round pick last summer on the over a point-per-game defenseman Oliver Bonk who just won an OHL Championship with the London Knights this season.
Call me crazy, but I would go ahead and say we are good as far as that type of player goes.
Instead, I would think they would try to replace the kind of prospect that they lost when their 2022 fifth-overall pick, forward Cutter Gauthier, requested a trade. Because as of right now, the forward with the highest point totals this year was Travis Konecny. Who even with his 33 goals scored this year, he only averaged out to be the 27th highest-ranked player in that category, making him 36 goals off the pace of the league leader Austen Matthews’ total of 69. And if we look at points, Konecny only scored 68 points on the season, ranking him 59th in the league, which fails in comparison once again to the league leader Nikita Kucherov’s 144 points, which means in this category, he was a mere 76 points off the pace.
This harsh dose of reality is why I feel the team needs to focus on drafting an elite-level talent to pair with Matvei Michkov, who they took with their seventh overall pick in last year’s draft.
An example of a player who could meet this requirement would be a guy like Berkly Catton, who scored 54 goals and 116 points for the Spokane Chiefs this season.
Or how about Cole Eiserman, who broke Cole Caufield’s all-time goal record for the USA Hockey National Team Development Program by finishing his career with 127 lamplighters?
Both of these prospects are elite performers who would make a proper partner for Michkov for years to come, not to mention the fact that they would make an immediate impact on the team’s league-worst power play unit with Berkly Catton racking up 13 PPG this season and Cole scoring 25 goals this year while on the man advantage.
So, in saying that, the Flyers should draft with a mindset of need over want early in the draft. And wait until the second or third round to pick a still-quality defenseman.
If they should come to their senses, I would suggest a more stay-at-home type guy who could prove to one day pair well with the likes of either Sanheim, York, Drysdale, or Bonk.
Charlie Elick
Early in the second round, a blueliner the Flyers could look to nab would be Charlie Elick from the WHL’s Brandon Wheat Kings. Charlie, in my mind, is one of the most underrated defenders of this draft class. At 6’3, 198 pounds, he already possesses the size and strength he would need to compete at the NHL level. To go with that Elick has shown that he has a physical edge to his game as well.
And while his point production won’t necessarily blow you away, with him netting just 27 points in 65 games played this year. This plus players skating will! Charlie is THE BEST backward skater of any defenseman in this draft. His ability to transition from a forward motion on the rush to a full-on retreat appears effortless as the pure strength in his legs allows him to match stride for stride with some of the best players in the world as they come rushing into his zone only, he is doing it in reverse.
Don’t believe me? Well, to prove his worth, all you have to do is check his family’s mantel, where I’m sure both the Gold Medals he won while playing for Team Canada currently sit. One was the one he earned from playing in the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, and the other was the one he won while playing in the U-18 World Junior Championships this year.
Stian Solberg
If they, by chance, are looking for a clear-the-porch type of guy, then they should look to draft Norwegian-born defenseman Stian Solberg. Stian is an absolute defensive force. The joy he gets out of playing the body is unmatched by anyone else who is available in this draft class. So much so that this 6’2 201-pound blueline will even stop what he’s doing with the puck just to repel opposing players off of him that dare try to attempt to knock him off balance. In doing so, he is able to totally take them out of the play and then resume what he was doing in the first place.
The most surprising thing teams have found out about him, though, is the fact that this behemoth of a man-child can skate. So well, in fact, that he frequently is able to bring up the puck from well within his own zone to the point where he sometimes will have to wait for his forwards to catch up to him before they can begin to cycle the puck in the offensive zone.
Ben Danford
A traditional old-school defenseman who could prove worth their wild in the third round would be Ben Danford from the OHL’s Oshawa Generals. Ben will not light up the stat sheet; hell, if he’s playing his game, you might not even notice him on the telecast at all, and that’s ok with him because that just means he is doing his job!
Danford is a shutdown defender. A stay-at-home guy who is a leader both on and off the ice and whose only contribution to the offensive will be a well-thought outlet pass that sends a winger off to the races.
Now, while Ben may not have the kind of offensive skill some other so-called “defensive prospects” have in this draft, he does have the ability to outthink them. And seeing that Danford is always playing two steps ahead of everyone on the ice, you would think that this player, who was able to retain a +27 average this season, would have been regarded as one of the best defenders in this draft class. However, despite his reminding me of a young Ryan McDonagh, he will find himself falling to the middle rounds just because he is loyal to his first responsibility of stopping the opposition from scoring. Sad, isn’t it?
That’s why I think that any one of the three prospects I mentioned above would be a better choice for the Flyers this summer. I have nothing against Yakemchuk because he is a fantastic player in his own right. But I think it’s high time the team starts to be able to rely on their offense to score goals and their defense to be able to prevent them! And that just won’t happen if they add yet another guy who managed to score 1.07 points per game this season from the back end and still somehow managed to be a minus player.
The Flyers are Rumored to be doing their Due Diligence This Off Season
Photo Credit: Philadelphia Flyers
Despite Philadelphia not making it into the Stanley Cup playoffs this season, the team’s General Manager Danny Briere has not let that deter him from continuing to try to return this once great franchise to its rightful place alongside the league’s other perennial playoff contenders.
To do so, it has been rumored that the team has been doing their due diligence this off-season by checking in on what it would take to acquire the services of some very productive NHL players from around the league. The latest being the 25-year-old Czech-born Martin Necas from the Carolina Hurricanes. But while trading for this former 2017 first-round pick who has previously been able to set career highs of 28 goals and 71 points would be nice. It might prove harder than some may think, given the fact that the Flyers will hold the highest dead cap space of any team in the league next season, thanks to them being forced to wait to place Ryan Ellis on LTIR every year, agreeing to pay Kevin Hayes $3.5 million a season not to play for them. Them having $1.6 Million already allocated to Anthony DeAngelo’s buyout. On top of figuring out what to do with the four million dollars in retained salary, they are inclined to pay for Ryan Johansen and most likely another $3.85 million in buried cap penalties so they can hide Cal Petersen back down in Lehigh Valley again next season.
So, when you factor all that in, the chances of the team being able to bring in a player like the aforementioned impending free agent Martin Necas, who may seem like a bargain at just three million for next season, might be easier said than done.
Unless this workup is meant to be a backup plan in case the team cannot come to terms with their own impending free agent, Travis Konecny, who has been rumored to be seeking upwards of nine to ten million dollars a season for the duration of his next contract. A price that the Flyers just cannot afford to pay out at this time and would likely then be forced to have to move Konecny out of town in order to get something for him before he is a free agent.
But with the team still seeming optimistic about possibly re-signing Travis, a less flashy but more cap-friendly acquisition that I would suggest for this upcoming season is the potential pickup of the Los Angeles Kings forward Arthur Kaliyev.
Kaliyev, who was taken in the second round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft and who still is just 22 years old, would cost the team fewer of their stockpiled assets to acquire than Necas. Given that he is much younger, still unproven, and has become frustrated with his lack of playing time in LA which in turn made him recently ask the Kings for a trade.
Now, I get it: Kaliyev is nowhere near as good a player as Necas is, but he could soon be! Because, like Owen Tippett was before Philly brought him in, Arthur is a virtually untapped offensive threat with an elite-level shot which is buried on the Kings’ depth chart and in need of a fresh start.
If you don’t remember him, before being drafted, Arthur played three seasons for the Hamilton Bulldogs of the OHL, where during that time, he was able to compile 126 goals and 122 assists for a total of 248 points.
But since being drafted, he has had to battle for ice time and has never really been given a fair shot with any sort of consistent line-mates at the NHL level with which to build chemistry. However, despite being forced to deal with those irregularity’s, Kaliyev has still been able to produce, reaching the teens in goals in back-to-back seasons prior to this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeohA87K72E
Arthur is signed through next season with a cap hit of just $894,167. Making him, at least in my mind, a low-risk-high reward type guy who could prove to make an immediate impact once brought in to be a part of this team’s young nucleus that they are currently building.
As for what it would take to land him, I don’t know about you, but I would be willing to offer up center Morgan Frost and his $2.1 million cap hit, being that the team has already re-signed Ryan Poehling and have centers Sean Couturier, Scott Laughton, and Noah Cates all still under contract.
You may disagree with me, but Frost (who was often in Tort’s doghouse this season) could prove to be a much-needed upgrade for the Kings over the under-performing center Blake Lizotte, who tallied just 15 points in 62 games played this season for LA.
As always, I appreciate the read and hope you enjoyed the little food for thought on what the Flyers are up to this off-season.