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Prospect Watch: Berkly Catton
(Photo courtesy Larry Brunt/Spokane Chiefs)
At this point in the season, you usually can start to see the elite prospects begin to separate themselves from the pack. And one player who has done just that this season is Berkly Catton of the Western Hockey League’s Spokane Chiefs.
Over the last couple of seasons, this versatile 17-year-old forward has showcased that he can excel at playing center and wing. While he currently stands at just 5’11 and roughly 163 pounds, he most certainly does not let the fact that he is not the NHL’s ideal size hinder his point production.
Case in point: in his draft minus one year, Catton was able to post an impressive 55 points for the Chiefs as a 16-year-old.
How does he do this, you may be asking? Well, to start, Berkly is blessed with the kind of breakaway speed that allows him to create separation from the opposition. But better still is the fact that once he enters the offensive zone, Catton has shown that he also possesses both the stick-handling ability and mental wherewithal to be able to slow the play down and analyze what will be his next, best course of action. This is important because Berkly is a dual threat. For example, If no one is open, you can expect this relentless young talent to take matters into his own hands by showcasing his tremendous puck protection skills as he proceeds to drive that piece of vulcanized rubber right to the front of the net by using any means necessary. Once there, Catton frequently manages to finish off the play with no less than two defenders on his back by effortlessly elevating the puck over the (out of position) overzealous goalie’s shoulder.
But like I said, Catton is no one trick pony. When it’s in the team’s best interest or all other measures seem to break down, Berkly will not hesitate to dish the puck off to awaiting teammate like Connor Roulette, who has managed to put more than his fair share of pucks in the back of the net over the years. Catton does so by showing extreme patience. Relaxed as if he is in a state of nirvana, Berkly calmly lets the play develop around him, waiting until the precise moment when his teammate is in an ideal scoring position before saucering a perfectly placed pass to their awaiting stick blade.
What’s exciting is Catton’s talents are proving to be ever-growing. Even before this season started, he was able to have scouts sit up and take notice when he was able to lead Team Canada to a Gold Medal in the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, where he led all participants in both goals scored with eight as well as total points with ten.
That pre-season success, mind you, has only managed to emulate to the regular season with the Chiefs, where Berkly has thrived, complying an unbelievable 19 goals and 22 assists for 41 points in only 27 games played. Now, folks, let me inform you that his 1.51 points per game average currently projects Catton to finish the season, scoring 48 goals and 55 assists for 103 points!
To date, the only knock on Berkly’s game would be his previous lack of defensive responsibility. But although his career WHL plus-minus average before the season started was a horrendous -43. Catton must have focused on the defensive side of the game this past off-season because he has been able to remain even this year when most of his teammates continue to struggle in that category, seeing that they play against some of the most dynamic scorers in the game today on a nightly basis.
That’s why, with all those previously mentioned skill sets in place and Catton still appearing to get better with each and every shift he takes, I could easily see this young man one day becoming a top-line center for whichever lottery team so chooses to draft him this summer.
Should the Overachieving Flyers be Buyers or Sellers Come the Trade Deadline?
Heading into tonight’s game against the Avalanche, Philadelphia was riding a three-game winning streak. In addition, this overachieving team has managed to vault itself into second place in the Metropolitan Division. But while their unexpected success up to this point has been a welcome change for their fans, the question now is, does management think that their club is going to be able to sustain this kind of production throughout the rest of the season and force them to ignore potential buyers calling in about their players?
Let’s analyze this, shall we? To their credit, I don’t think there is one of us out here who would have thought through 26 games into the season that this team would find themselves second in their division. But let’s be honest with ourselves: while Tortorella may have his team staying competitive, they are still rebuilding and have no real shot at contending for a Stanley Cup. Case in point, while the Flyers may be sitting pretty in the Metro, they are sixth in the Eastern Conference, with the Caps, Hurricanes, Lightning, and Islanders all only one point behind them right now. This means that if the Flyers were to be dealt even one loss, they could easily see themselves go from sixth to eighth or ninth in the standings.
So, the newly appointed general manager, Danny Briere, is going to have to ask himself is it worth passing up on a bunch of potential draft capital that could be gained by trading away a couple of expendable players at the deadline so his team could maybe make it back to a state of mediocrity just to get booted out of the first round of the playoffs by a team like the Bruins or Rangers who are both winning close to 75% of their games right now?
The correct answer should be NO! This team’s best chance of winning is still a couple of years away when Cutter Gauthier and Matvei Michkov are suiting up for the Orange and Black.
That said, if teams come calling for any of the Flyers’ current roster players in the coming months, they should at least be willing to listen to what the potential buyers have to offer.
By now, you might be asking who these prospecting teams might want to acquire from the Flyers. And I would have to say the one with the most rumors surrounding him currently is Carter Hart. But I would be hard-pressed to believe that a trade of this magnitude would be able to come to fruition in the middle of the season. Instead, if such a trade were to happen, I would perceive it to occur later, on the draft floor this summer.
Rasmus Ristolainen
So, let’s instead discuss some players who the team is more likely to move leading up to the trade deadline. One player who may fit that bill and has begun to garner some interest in the past few days is the Flyers towering defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen. And for good reason, it’s not often that a 6’4, 208-pound defender (who is under 30) and playing the best hockey of his career is made available for a playoff push. But if the rumor of the Toronto Maple Leafs wanting him is true, then I’m wondering why Briere hasn’t already jumped at the chance to rid himself of a player who is a career -176 and is signed for three more years at over five million dollars.
Remember that while Ristolainen’s play has been good as of late, it has been for only a short duration, seeing that he has been limited to just six games this season. He is only just returning from the Injury Reserve list. Surprisingly, though, in his absence, the team appeared to not even miss him, with others proving they were more than capable of stepping up. Thus making him seem pretty darn expendable, if you ask me.
Why would they want him, you ask? At this point, Toronto’s fanbase is just plain desperate to win, seeing that they last raised the cup nearly 60 years ago. Consequently, if the Leafs find themselves salivating over the possibility of landing a defender with his type of physicality and choose to come calling offering up a first or second-round pick for a player who has never finished as a plus player in his 11 seasons in the NHL. I say let’s do the dam deal so that the Flyers can keep garnering quality draft picks that will help add to this team’s depth in the future.
Sean Walker
Another Flyer that teams have been asking about the availability of is their 29-year-old veteran defenseman Sean Walker. This underrated player acquired from the Kings during the trade that sent Ivan Provorov packing has proved to be more than just the throw-in most chalked him up to be. Dressing for all 26 games that the Flyers have played thus far, Walker has scored 11 points and is a plus-seven on the season. However, Sean is in the last year of a contract paying him an A.A.V. of $2.6 million, and the team may be unable to resign him due to cap restraints. Thankfully, they may not need to bring him back anyway, given the emergence of blue liners like Egor Zamula, Louie Belpedio, Ronnie Attard, Emil Andre, Adam Ginning, Helge Grans, and Oliver Bonk currently coming up in the team’s system.
That’s why selling high on Walker may not be such a bad idea, especially if it could garner the Flyers an additional first or second-round pick in the coming months. Besides, doing so may also be beneficial to the team, given the fact that it would give the Flyers an extended look at a few prospects on the back end who will be battling it out for a permanent roster spot next season.
Nick Seeler
The last and final player I think could bring back future value to this team at the trade deadline is one you may not have expected: Philadelphia’s 6’2 201 pound 30-year-old versatile defenseman Nick Seeler. Nick is a guy who has proved over the last couple of years that he is defensively responsible enough to have gained the trust of his head coach, John Tortorella. So much so that the Jack Adams Award winner allows him to move up and down the lineup as injuries occur.
Seeler, who can play both the right and left side, currently leads the Flyers with a +13 average. I believe this insanely tough customer would provide great depth, strength, and toughness to any team heading into the playoffs and should be considered a steal if attained, especially since he is only getting paid a mere $775,000 this season.
If dealt, I believe Seeler could bring back a mid-round pick in the upcoming draft that could allow their GM, Danny Briere, to bring in some talent this summer that other teams have managed to overlook.
These are but a few players that could bring back some much-needed draft capital to this rebuilding organization if dealt at the deadline. While squeaking into the playoffs this season may sound nice, the team would benefit more from obtaining additional draft picks to go along with the multiple first and second round picks they already possess in this impending draft.
After Re-signing Nola, the Phillies’ Focus Should Now Shift to Upgrading the Bullpen
Seattle Mariners v San Diego Padres / Sean M. Haffey/GettyImages
Although the Phillies appear to be interested in inking another star pitcher like the 25-year-old Japanese international sensation Yoshinobu Yamamoto despite having just closed on a deal to bring back Aaron Nola to the tune of $172 million over the next seven years, I would advise against it.
Hear me out! The Phills tried to do that last off-season when they paid SP Taijuan Walker $72 Million to leave the Mets. Still, I think most of us would agree that while he did win 15 games this past season, his production still wasn’t enough to warrant the team being stuck paying him $18 million until the end of the 2026 season. Besides, I don’t know about you, but Ranger Suarez impressed me a lot this postseason. So much so that if I were manager Rob Thompson, I would already have him slotted in as my number three guy for next season.
I think a better idea would be to wait and revisit upgrading the starting rotation until later in the season, like Dealing Dave Dombrowski did last year when he acquired the impending All-Star free agent SP Michael Lorenzen from the Tigers at the trade deadline.
This way, Philadelphia could instead go out in the coming days and throw money at a much more glaring hole right now: the bullpen! While the team managed to get great production from guys like Seranthony Dominguez, Matt Strahm, and Jose Alvarado last year. Others failed to live up to their expectations.
A key example of this was their free agent acquisition of closer Craig Kimbrel last offseason. But I’ll give Dombrowski some credit here: even though he tried to cheap out on a closer Kimbrel (who now has 417 career saves) did seem like a good idea at the time when the team was able to sign the now 35-year-old free agent to a one-year deal for the significantly discounted price of just $10 million. But the team should have known better because, just like when they brought in veteran closers Jonathan Papelbon and Billy Wagner, who were at the tail end of their careers. Craig, too, turned out to be a shell of his former 50-saves-a-year self.
In fact, he even ended the regular season well below his career average of 29.7 saves a year when he finished the 22-23 campaign with just 23 for the Phills. Kimbrel also saw his E.R.A. jump from a career 2.40 to a 3.26 last season. And we won’t even mention the beach balls he was tossing up in the postseason that easily cost the team a couple of games- if not the series- versus the Diamondbacks.
So, it should go without saying that Kimbrel won’t be back next season, but what about the production (or lack thereof) that the team received from lefty reliever Gregory Soto, whom they acquired from the Tigers last January? He, too, was not as lights-out as the team had hoped he would be this past season. Greg averaged a 4.62 E.R.A. during the regular season but ended up getting rocked in the postseason, where his E.R.A. proved to elevate about as fast as the balls that the opposition was able to hit off of him, with his postseason E.R.A. reaching an embarrassing 6.00.
Who, then, should their options be in free agency, you ask? Well, to start, I wouldn’t mess around anymore. I would go out and acquire an elite-level closer who is young enough that management could feel comfortable signing him for approximately five years. The reason behind this being so they won’t have to revisit this problem on an annual basis. And to me, that player would be none other than 29-year-old Josh Hader from the San Diego Padres. Hader, who finished last year with an E.R.A. of just 1.28, collected 33 saves and 85 strikeouts, which proved him to be one of the best at his position last year.
But signing him will not come cheap, considering his current market value is estimated to be around $17.5 million a year. However, with the Phillies’ payroll reaching new heights and their production beginning to level off, their window to win now is starting to close. That’s why I feel it’s high time Dombrowski tried solidifying this position for the first time since maybe Brad Lidge last grabbed a rosin bag and was still lining them up and sitting them down.
I know many teams out there are currently vying for Hader’s services. Still, one thing that may be on Philadelphia’s side is that signing with the Phillies may serve as a homecoming of sorts for this Millersville, MD native who has bounced around the country a lot over the last few years.
If the Phillies can get Hader, they will no doubt be in an excellent position to make a run yet again, but if they wish to compete for a World Series title, then I suggest they sign another relief pitcher in addition to Hader; one that can truly bring the heat. And for that, I would recommend 27-year-old right-hand reliever Jordan Hicks. Hicks, who came up throwing absolute gas that registered 105 m.p.h. on the gun with the St. Louis Cardinals some five years ago, has managed to develop over the years into a more complete pitcher. For example, Hicks finished the season with the Blue Jays last year where he was able to showcase his newfound ability of not just going up there trying to blow the hitter away every pitch (like he did in the past) but instead mix in a slider every now and again to keep the opposition guessing.
If acquired, this still relatively young pitcher who averaged a 3.29 E.R.A. last season might just be the piece that allows this team to reach the summit. What’s surprising, though, is that it may not cost the Phillies as much as you may think because his current market value is just $3.5 million a year.
Although some may view this article as nothing more than a blueprint for what I feel could lead this team to future success, let’s face it: while the Phillies could still use an upgraded multi-positional player to fill in when the occasional injury occurs, overall, the team already has the bats needed to drive in the runs; they just need the arms that will be able to prevent runs from being scored on them late in a game.