The Athleticin Scott Wheelerin top 50 varattuihin prospekteihin mahtui 4 Starsin prospektia.
Tässä kiinnostuneille Wheelerin kirjoitukset Dallasin top prospecteista:
32. Wyatt Johnston, C, 19 (Dallas Stars — No. 23, 2021)
I mean, what a year for Wyatt Johnston. It cannot be overstated how impressive it was for Johnston to go from a lost season due to COVID-19 to 60 goals and 165 points in a combined 93 regular-season and playoff games. He had my vote on both ballots for the OHL’s Red Tilson Trophy (Most Outstanding Player) and I didn’t even have to give it any thought.
He was the league’s best player and he didn’t turn 19 until the middle of May when the playoffs were already underway. He outproduced his nearest teammate by 39 points in the regular season and 10 points in the playoffs. You could see it coming following his introduction to the Stars organization as one of the best players at the Traverse City Prospects Tournament last fall, too. Really, outside of an underwhelming showing at Team Canada’s summer showcase in Calgary in August (which I think was, in conjunction with his age, the reason he was excluded from the selection camp back in Calgary in December) it was a perfect season for him.
I think it’s clear now that Johnston was a little miscast ahead of the draft because of how effective he was in a checking role for Team Canada — and because his skating can kick out a little too. While he is a versatile, do-it-all type who is always on the right side of the puck, moulds his game to his linemates, excels in the faceoff circle, works hard, doesn’t make many mistakes, and comes up with a lot of lifts and steals, he’s also super talented. There were clear signs of this in minor hockey and in the second half of his rookie season in the OHL, when he had started to look like one of Windsor’s best players before COVID-19 hit.
His ability to make plays under pressure, play with tempo, and manufacture offence on his own has really shone through. The puck just finds him and then he just seems to make crafty, smart little skill plays with it. When you consider his 6-foot-1, 175-pound frame and the room he still has to get a little quicker and stronger, there’s a lot to be excited about.
He’s a guy I spoke about in advance of the draft as someone who several scouts and OHL executives spoke highly of unprompted. This year, he made them — and the Stars — look good, improving his projection from probably middle-six centre to potential impact top-six center.
38. Logan Stankoven, C/RW/LW, 19 (Dallas Stars — No. 47, 2021)
One of my favourite prospects from the 2021 draft class, the 5-foot-8 Stankoven, who ranked 18th on my board, was named the CHL’s Player of the Year in his post-draft season after he scored 62 goals and 135 points in 76 regular season and playoff games as Kamloops’ captain.
Despite his height, he plays a bulldog, competitive, driven, forechecking style that sees him consistently beat bigger, stronger, players in battles, or to loose pucks, or along the wall shedding past checks to keep the cycle alive and stay over top of pucks.
Stankoven’s got this shuffled, compact stride that rattles him around the ice and requires a lot of energy exertion. But that energy defines his game. He’s strong in puck protection, leaning on his lead knee and pivoting to push under bumps. He’s a fire hydrant for his size, rarely getting knocked off balance.
The wide gait to his stride also helps him sidestep defencemen with a head of steam, even if he’s not a speedster per se (though he does have legitimate perimeter speed and looked a step quicker to burn out wide more last season). And then from the top of the faceoff circles in, he’s a threatening creator who can crack a game open in a split second and who is even more dangerous the closer he gets to the hashmarks.
He’s got a strong release. He can break down defenders in traffic. He’s a sneaky-good facilitator. He’s got clear power-play upside, I think he’s got legitimate penalty-kill upside, and it’s not hard to imagine him as a third-line scorer who plays an honest game or high-skill top-six piece who has success with a playmaking linemate. He’s going to endear himself to fans, too. I don’t see his size as an issue. It’s an advantage in more ways than a disadvantage.
39. Mavrik Bourque, C, 20 (Dallas Stars — No. 30 2020)
In his last season at the junior level, Bourque, who missed all of November due to a shoulder injury, was one of its very best players, registering 100 points in 51 games across the regular season, a QMJHL title run, and the Memorial Cup to nearly break the rare two-points-per-game mark (after impressing me in Traverse City in September and briefly Edmonton in December). He gets high grades for his ability to maneuver in possession, manage the puck in control, adjust to pressure to evade checks, and make quick skill plays out of carries.
He’s also got great hands in traffic and around the net, he has started to show a real knack for improvisation, and I really saw his one-on-one skill flash more consistently last season. And all of those things have developed on top of a strong foundation of tools that he has always had. The trustworthiness off the puck defensively. The spatial awareness and his identification of where players are on the ice (with and without the puck). The consistency of the reads. His forechecking. His quick choices and his ability to play fast without necessarily being a burner. His light feet. His ability to play with the puck as a driver or play off of his linemates. His involvement level on the ice. His intensity and drive. Improved strength which has allowed him to add a step from a standstill.
All of those things, combined with his high-end skill, gives him legitimate, impact upside in the NHL, even if his 5-foot-10 frame and lack of a truly defining trait may prevent him from becoming a true star. He’s equal parts slick and detailed and that’s pretty rare.
50. Thomas Harley, LHD, 20 (Dallas Stars — No. 18, 2019)
I thought long and hard about ranking Oilers prospect Philip Broberg (one of my final cuts) here, which would have closed the list with three Oilers. But I kept coming back to my belief in Harley’s package. I stuck to my belief in Bouchard when it got harder and I’m prepared to do the same with Harley, whose time with the Stars at the NHL and AHL level has been a bit of a roller coaster.
It can be easy, as you wait for Harley to break through, to sour on him. It can also be easy to forget that he’s a late-August birthday, so while it feels like he has been around a long time now, he’s still quite young. Harley’s game exists and is evaluated at two polarities, where the highs are really high and the lows can be quite low, which doesn’t help come to a sensible conclusion about him on the whole.
Harley is a long, highly-talented puck transporter who is at his best when he’s playing a free-spirited, roving style that involves him in the game in all three zones (even when it comes with some mistakes). He can use his feet to escape, his length to flow up ice, and his gifts in control to pull pucks past opposing players in neutral ice or off the point. When he’s active, you notice him. But he’s a high-risk, high-reward player who for everything he gives you in transition offensively, or while using his skating to carry pucks deep into the offensive zone, or showing off excellent outside-in hands, or using his mobility to get back when the puck goes the other way — he can give back in misreads, mistiming, and the inconsistency of his decision making.
He’s got the ability to play an effective flow game defensively, sticking with opposing puck carriers and relying on his footwork and stick to compensate for mistakes. But his game lacks polish and he has struggled at the pro level with his identity (I actually find him too restrained at times, almost as if he doesn’t trust himself to make the plays he’s capable of making because he hasn’t been instilled with that confidence and leash from his coaches).
His style isn’t for everyone but I think he’s going to have to play loose to reach his ceiling as a play-creating top-four defenceman in the NHL. I want to see him hanging onto the puck and delaying until he can hit the second or third option. I want to see him taking space. Once he begins to do that, his ceiling will be high in the prime of his career.
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