4. Kierros: 109. varaus: Brian Zanetti – SUI – LD – 188 cm / 82 kg
Eurooppa-suuntaus jatkui myös neljännellä kierroksella Brian Zanettin muodossa. Katselin toissa päivänä U18 kisojen puolivälierän Suomea vastaan uudestaan, missä näytti profiiliensa mukaisesti raamikkaan ja kohtuu jämäkän peruspakin prototyypiltä. Rankingeissa ei moneltakaan kauhean korkealta löytynyt, mutta näillä 100+ pickeillä alkavat rankingit ja mieltymykset heittämään jo muutenkin. Ilmeisesti koko ja ok liikkuvuus –kombo painoi ilmeisesti Flyersilla vaakakupissa, mikä toistui myös muiden varattujen puolustajien kohdalla. On siirtymässä tulevaksi kaudeksi Sveitsin juniorisarjoista OHL:n Peterborough Petesiin, mikä helpottaa pelaajan tarkkailua jatkossa.
Future Considerations:
”A defensive blueliner with a long reach, Zanetti keeps opponents honest. Is of average skill as a skater. While he is smooth and uses his size to protect the puck, he can still improve other areas of his skating including top-end speed. Strong with his stick checking, he’s able to close gaps on opposing puck-carriers. An effective poke-checker who can cause headaches in the passing lanes. Not one to shy away from getting physical in the corners and putting his big body in the play, either. He will need to add muscle and work on strength and conditioning.
He can turn smoothly and possesses good top speed. Good on the transition, and matches speed with attackers through the neutral zone to aid his defending. Strong on edgework and crossovers, making him hard to beat 1-on-1. Can appear sluggish on the ice. Aggressive on defending the forecheck but awkward and jittery when dealing with inzone defensive coverage. Lacks confidence when attempting to distribute the puck, often turning it over when he carries or passes it. He has potential but needs to work on his overall game, confidence, and strength. Once he works on his overall conditioning, some of the other areas of his game should improve.”
Hockey Prospects:
”Athletic, two-way defenseman. Brian Zanetti looks noticeably larger and thicker than a lot of players in a league that is full of players that run about 5’10” and short of 170 pounds. Despite his 6’2” frame, he has a very natural, fluid stride with developing power. He has very appealing fluidity and foot churn with his lateral and transition skating. He leans off his center line cleanly through turns with sharpness on his edges. The top speed isn’t overbearing right now, but he’s very mobile and he’ll likely continue to improve as he grows into his body. Because of his feet and mindset for the game, he covers a ton of ice in many games. He piles down deep into the offensive zone – support, forecheck, whatever, but he gives off that he has some semblance of a plan. He has the confidence to come down and the recovery skating to get back. In fact, a good portion of his goals are from in very close when joining rushes. His nine goals lead all draft eligible defensemen in the U20 Swiss junior league, his 29 points do as well (as only one other player has more than 18). He has a plus skill level, but doesn’t give off gamebreaker vibes. He’s not much of a multi-line puck carrier and can’t beat a lot of average or better forecheckers routinely. Every so often, we’ll see him really rev it up and handle the puck at speed and it gave us pause that his skill might actually be a 6. The skill chaining isn’t there though – he’ll make one deke successfully and then it sort of gets out of control after that…either the puck gets out and away from his comfortable handling window or he’ll lose his balance. He’s not close on that front, so that suggests the likely offensive upside doesn’t align with what his draft and D-1 stats might suggest.
Not quite the next level thinker offensively. He’s a little short on how to get open in the offensive zone and how to open up lanes. There’s some attempted misdirection in his game. He’s trying to work head and shoulder fakes and look-off passes into his game. It’s not all the way there yet, but it’s nice to see that ideas are rattling around in his brain. He’s not a tempo controller, the game still controls him. He really favours the outlet where he swings the net, stops up like he’s going inside and then flicks it outside, up the corner boards. It has its purpose, but that’s not exactly the best zone exit – as pucks get stuck on the wall and it’s effectively surrendering the dot line. It falls under the “attempted misdirection” category in some respects, it’s just not fully fleshed out. His shot is surprisingly limp for his size.
He’s a very active defender with good urgency near his net and in the defensive zone in general. He can be a little greedy sometimes and over-reach with his pokes and leave himself exposed, but he has a good head on his shoulders. Too, his feet are really busy in rush absorption situations. It’s another area that kind of opens and closes things in terms of what’s available on him; more talented players can take advantage of Brian being over-active in these spots. Lesser players are eaten alive by it though. Zanetti doesn’t want to spend a lot of time defending. He wants to make it tough on teams, wants to be tough to play against, wants to start destroying pieces of a cycle, he’ll beat players back to his goalie to get loose change, and then he wants to spark transition.
At this level, he really moves players out of the way and off their mark. He’s not a dirty player or even a bully, but he could easily be the latter at this level if he wanted. He can pin players just hip on hip sometimes. If he can get the tempo of his game under control, there’s even more upside here. This might not be a major power play fixture at the next levels, but there’s enough skill to fall back on if he can refine the structure of his game.”
“One of our scouts banged the table to get him on our list. Not much support for him though.” - HP Scout, Mark Edwards, June 2021
5. Kierros, 158. varaus: Ty Murchison – USA – LD – 188 cm / 87 kg
Murchison edusti USA:n U18-kisajoukkueessa pienessä roolissaan ns. rautaa rajalle osastoa. On fyysinen, suorastaan ilkeä puolustaja, jonka liikekin oli vielä hyvää, mutta kiekon kanssa ei kummia sen sijaan esittänyt. Raamit ja liike löytyvät, mutta muilta osin matkaa olisi kuljettavaksi. Ei pelaajatyyppinsä puolesta niitä omia suosikkejani, mutta antaa ajan näyttää. Selkeät vahvuudet ovat olemassa, mikä on aina hyvä asia.
Future Considerations:
”Murchison's game right now is a mixture of good moments and bad moments. At times he makes smart decisions and creates options for his teammates, but then at others he finds himself chasing plays, resulting in him being out of position and giving up chances. He makes his stride look effortless, having very smooth transitions on pivots, not losing any speed or momentum. He has good speed, but doesn’t have an extra step to win a lot of races for loose pucks. He'll join the offensive rush, while also showing that he understands when he needs to retreat and get back to defend. Is able to maintain solid gaps. Can be aggressive and physical, not being shy to use his body and make a solid hit. Uses his body and strength well along the boards to pin opponents.
Defends the rush well, angling out his opponents into the boards. Keeps a very active stick, getting it in the passing lanes and taking away space. He carries the puck well under pressure, knowing how to put his body between the attacker and the puck, fighting off incoming sticks, but generally looks for the pass instead. It would be interesting to watch him get more involved in the offensive zone, but that doesn’t seem like his style. Has a good shot and a quick release, but needs to improve on shot location and selection. He shows good awareness in his own zone, but you'd like to see him react faster to the play. More bend would be nice so that he can increase his defensive circle.
Murchison displays tools that will make him effective at the next level, but he will have to improve on his decision-making and consistency. The long-term best-case scenario for him is a steady bottom-pair defenseman.”
Hockey Prospects:
”Ty Murchison had an underwhelming career for the program from a production standpoint. He finished his second USNTDP season with 7 goals and 8 assists for 15 points in 48 games played. This placed him at 19th on the team and 6th among defensemen in scoring. Murchison is a big body coming at 6’2” 192 pounds with plenty of room to continue filling out his frame.
Murchison spent his two years at the program without a true identity as to what type of defenseman he is. While he did not put impressive numbers on the stat sheet, he is an intriguing prospect due to his size and skating combination. Ty is big boy who can move around the ice very well. He has strong explosive strides providing him the acceleration he needs on retrievals and winning races to the puck.
To go along with his speed, he has skilled hands. His hands are quick and help him to move the puck effectively on the breakout and regroup. In the defensive zone, Murchison means well but can get caught running around and find himself out of position on a lot of occasions. He is a bit of a wreckless player who struggles to identify his man in the zone and stick with him. He has no problem playing physical and attempting to make life difficult on opposing forwards. He likes to throw cross checks and has no issue protecting the front of the net. His lack of positional awareness also gets him in trouble when he is trying to gap up with a rush coming. His backward skating is strong but when the timing is off it doesn’t really matter. Coming out of the zone, Ty is an average puck mover. Some passes are on the tape and then some are forced or poorly executed. He attempts to join the rush on occasion, but the offensive IQ and overall skill level aren’t cut out for it. In the offensive zone it’s more of the same. He means well and the effort is there, but the effectiveness is not.
Murchison is an extremely raw as a prospect and would be a complete project for a team. He will need to harness the natural ability he has and fix his issues. Murchison has chosen Arizona State University to continue his development this coming fall. He was also selected in the 3rd round of the 2018 WHL draft by the Portland Winterhawks. Whichever path he chooses, he will need to work on developing his hockey sense and rounding out his game in all areas.”
6. Kierros, 174. varaus: Ethan Samson – CAN – RD – 185 cm / 88 kg
Samsonista ei omia havaintoja ehtinyt kauden aikana kertymään, mutta youtubesta sattui löytymään tältä yksi shift by shift koonti. Vaikutti vähän särmättömältä yleishöylältä, mutta saapa nähdä. Peliaikaa luulisi olevan jatkossakin luvassa sen mitä vain jaksaa suorittaa.
Future Considerations:
”A generalist on the back-end for Prince George, Samson is a big, righthand defender with a lot of raw potential. Played in all situations for the Cougars, logging north of 25 minutes per game on a regular basis. Skating projects to be a big part of his game, and even though you want the footspeed to improve he is efficient with his stride and can cover a ton of space with his glide and range. He could make a career of managing the game by under-handling pucks and making simple passes, but he is also a guy who likes to activate on the rush and get parallel in the attack to provide an option. There’s not a lot of flash to his game, but his ability to battle hard on 50/50 pucks, evade opponents, or move pucks with precision with little processing time are impressive.
Needs to get a bit more aggressive off the line and do more than hammer pucks with his fairly impressive slap shot, but he’s getting more efficient at walking to the middle and moving pucks from the front to his hip to just give that extra bit of room to create a shot or pass lane. At times he can get a bit unbalanced and hunched over with his torso, which may lead to him being limited with movements and in physical confrontations. He’s fairly clean in how he deals with the rush and odd-man breaks, but he needs to get out ahead of plays a bit more and be more assertive in stepping up and using that size to push bodies off the puck and box the net. Has a tendency to grip his stick with two hands in his zone and at times get tunnel vision. You’re going to see him play the same slow-pace, low-panic game most of his outings, but that's a fine approach as long as he continues to maximize his chosen playing style.”
7. Kierros, 206. varaus: Owen McLaughlin – USA – C – 182 cm / 75 kg
Viimeisellä pickillään nappasivat itselleni täysin tuntemattoman Philadelphian kupeessa Spring Cityssä varttuneen McLaughlinin, joka päättyneellä kaudella pelasi pääasiassa high school kiekkoa + hieman pelejä USA:n maajoukkueohjelmassa. Pelannee tulevan sesongin USHL:ssä, jonka jälkeen edessä vuosia NCAA:ssa eli pitkä projekti.
Hockey Prospects:
”McLaughlin played much of this year for Mt. St. Charles Academy U18 squad but also saw 7 games with the USNTDPU18 team, as they had some injuries throughout the course of the year but didn’t register any points and played a limited role in many of those games. Prior to this season, Owen was a standout player at the Hill School (NEPS) which got him eventually protected by Sioux City (USHL) where he played 3 games last season and committed to Penn State for the 2022 season. McLaughlin has a decent frame at 6’0” but still has a way to go in the strength department before he fills out that frame. McLaughlin is a smart two-way center that holds up his end at both ends of the ice. Can win draws for his team and generates a lot of puck possession time. Owen isn’t a high-end playmaker or goal scorer but moves the puck swiftly and can make quick reads and plays in the neutral zone to benefit the transition game. He showed good awareness and ability to read the play and get to areas where the puck is going to be. McLaughlin isn’t afraid to be first in on the forecheck as a center and win pucks down low.”
“Certainly, didn’t look out of place as far as his skating when with the NTDP, just don’t think he has the offensive skills or instincts right now to be an NHL prospect. He will be a solid college player.” – HP Scout, Dusten Braaksma
