Reader Mailbag: Questions on Matt Boldy, Nils Lundkvist, NHL Draft risers, RMU's hockey debacle and much more
Plus: Updates on the Men's World Championship and a quick look at NHL Central Scouting's final rankings
I’ve been wanting to do a reader mailbag for a long time and I’m glad to have finally put this together. If you listened to Talking Hockey Sense this week, I answered all of these questions on the pod, but I wanted to give those that didn’t listen a chance to read them here. On top of that, I added a little more nuance to the answers in print.
On top of the Reader Q&A, I also wanted to put some fresh content in here including a look at some of the news of the week including a brief update on the Men’s World Championship and a quick look at NHL Central Scouting’s final ranking for the 2021 NHL Draft. So there’s plenty new if you did happen to check out the pod.
Also, as a quick reminder for everyone, I will be dropping two Mock Drafts next week around the NHL Draft Lottery, which is June 2. The first Mock will drop on Monday featuring all 32 first-round picks, with another one to come June 3 after we get the results specific to the lottery teams.
Those mock drafts will be premium content, so if you’d like to check those out and have not upgraded your subscription yet, you can do so right here:
In addition to the mock drafts, I will have updated rankings coming very soon with new reports on many players in the wake of the most recent international tournaments, USHL playoffs and the WHL’s abridged season. There has been some significant movement as we head into the home stretch of this most unusual draft season.
Let’s get a look at what readers want to know…
NHL drafted/signed prospects
Q. @StevieMcFeely: Do you see Boldy transitioning well to the NHL? Other classmates from the USNTDP 2019 super draft have done well so far. What’s your take on his ceiling?
@jessi_pierce We’ve already seen his former Team USA teammates translate well to the NHL, do you think Matt Boldy has what it takes to have an equally seamless transition to the show, especially with the youthful talent taking over with the mnwild?
A. Matt Boldy is a popular topic among Wild fans, though maybe less so as the Wild have forced a Game 7 against the Vegas Golden Knights even without their top forward prospect in the lineup.
To answer the questions. In a very short way, I do believe that Boldy will transition similarly to his teammates like Jack Hughes, Cole Caufield, Trevor Zegras and Spencer Knight, each of whom have already seen NHL action. The benefit Boldy has of getting to play college this year, dominating at the collegiate level and then transitioning to the AHL where he was very productive is a huge deal. He’s still going to have to learn how to make his defensive skills which were so notable as a college and junior player translate to the pros. That is going to come with strength and experience.
Boldy has such a unique skillset. He has a big frame, but great hands and soft-touch skills. He has a very underrated shot that can sneak up on goalies and he’s very effective in small areas and the hard areas of the ice. Then you put those offensive traits and combine them with superior defensive instincts and anticipation and you’ve got yourself a very special two-way winger. I’m very high on Matt Boldy and what he’ll be.
In terms of ceiling, I believe he has the potential to be a top-six forward, even a top-line forward who can handle tough matchups, provide a scoring spark and still make things difficult for the opposition in the neutral and defensive zones. Now that Kaprizov has arrived, look for Boldy and fellow prospect Calen Addison to be the next two guys that really add to the excitement level of the Minnesota Wild.
Q. @HockeyScibe: How soon until Spencer Knight is the No. 1 goalie in Florida?
A. Sergei Bobrovsky’s contract situation is the only thing that sits between Spencer Knight and the starting job this season. One thing that may help clear this up is what happens with Chris Driedger. He is a UFA after this season and if he walks for nothing, the door is open for Spencer Knight to be in the NHL. However, I wouldn’t think it makes a ton of sense for Florida to have their prized rookie riding the bench a lot. Could some AHL time help?
Now you might be asking me after watching him win five of his first six starts in the NHL, including his playoff debut where he made 36 of 37 saves, why on earth I would suggest he needs AHL time. I just think a goaltender’s development is so rarely a straight line. He needs reps and lots of them. If the Panthers can’t give him consistent playing time at the NHL level, it may be better to let him go play in the AHL and play a ton. Also, the NHL is not a learn-on-the-job type of place, especially not for a team that believes it can be a playoff contender.
With all of that said, if Florida can platoon Knight and Bobrovsky, that’s a great place to be. The NHL is becoming more of a tandem league anyway and having a Vezina winner around to learn from can’t hurt. I think Knight makes the majority of starts for this time by 2022-23 at the latest, with a chance for him to take over the job as early as next year.
Q. @charger_j: Nils Lundqvist just went home hurt from World’s first of all hope he’s ok assuming he is 100% by camp do you see him making the Rangers this season? Also (Bonus question haha) do you see big jumps next year for Laf and Kakko? Thx Chris you do a great job!!!
A. This is a great question and my answer is, the first thing the Rangers have to do is get Nils under contract. Him getting bounced from the World Championship due to injury is not ideal, but it also allows the Rangers to begin in earnest working with Lundkvist’s team to nail down the contract and get him into the mix.
As I said on the podcast, there are a few things we need to see when Lundkvist gets to camp. The first is how he handles the timing and spacing of NHL players on a smaller ice surface. There are a few differences that require some adjustment time. We saw it with Blackhawks defenseman Adam Boqvist, who essentially (and still is) re-learned the position on the smaller surface. Lundkvist’s ability to produce and be mobile are all great things, but he’s going to have to do that at a higher pace. That could require time in the AHL just to get used to things, but he’s such a smart player I doubt it would take long.
Here’s the other thing to consider. The Rangers have a lot of similar defenseman to Lundkvist already. Adam Fox played at a Norris caliber this season, young Zac Jones signed out of UMass and played 10 games and looked very comfortable. The idea is that Lundkvist fills the void left by Tony DeAngelo, which definitely can be the case, but I think you’re going to have to be patient with what Lundkvist delivers in the early goings.
He’s been a highly-productive defenseman with over 30 points in each of his last two seasons as a young defenseman in Sweden. I think he very well could earn his shot right out of camp, but I’m not going to guarantee that — especially not before he signs his first NHL contract.
As for the bonus question: I have very little concern about either of Kakko or Lafrenière going forward. I think Kakko took a step this season and Lafrenière got better and better as the season progressed. I fully expect both of those two to take a big step forward next season and to be key figures in the Rangers’ attack.
Q. @SeanOBrien81: Do any of the defensive prospects for NJ (Bahl, Walsh, Vukojevic, Okhotyuk) take a step forward this year? Do any look like future NHLers?
A. All of those guys look like they have some NHL tools, but I think patience is going to be required. Bahl is a bigger defenseman who just completed his first year of pro hockey. There wasn’t a ton of production there, but you could see that his skating and mobility are all at a good level for a guy at his size. He’s also just going to have to gain experience defending against pros and being more physical. He’s got the biggest upside of that group of defensemen.
As for Walsh, I thought he needed another year of college to really dominate and come into his own, but that really wasn’t going to be an option anyway this year. His skating and puck movement are plus traits, but I still need to see more from him defensively and having more awareness. Meanwhile I’d like to see Vukojevic pick up things a bit more from a puck-moving side. Getting him into the AHL this season allowed the Devils to work with him and expand his skill set and he put up some points, which is positive, but I think he’s probably more of a depth guy down the road. I’ve always liked him as a player. Meanwhile, Okhotyuk’s transition to pro was fair. I think he’s a longer-term project, but there are some good tools there. All four have the potential, it’s just a matter of maximizing their development now.
Q. @paulcteeple: Does Hunter Shepard have a path to the NHL in the Caps' organization? If not, is there anywhere else? He's never had particularly high ratings among scouts but he just flat-out wins at every level.
A. This is an in-the-weeds kind of question, which I dig because Hunter Shepard was one of the best postseason goalies in the history of college hockey. The guy won two national championships, was in the final for another and had a lot of success at the NAHL level, too.
The short answer is that it’s tough to say, but I do think the Caps org is a good one to be in because they’ve had a history of developing goalies. That was true before, during and after Mitch Korn was there. Shepard played mostly in the ECHL this year, but shined during a few starts in the AHL with Hershey. The knock on him was he was slightly below average size for an NHL goalie and was a bit of an older prospect which leaves a little less runway for development.
What I think Shepard proved this year is that he has a chance. Reaching the NHL for goalies is such a crap shoot. There are only 64 jobs available and there’s enough turnover in the position that your number can be called at any minute to fill one of those 64 slots. I think Shepard acquitted himself well in his first pro season and may be able to reach a little higher if things break the right way, whether that’s with Washington or not.
NHL Draft/U18 Worlds
Q. Ryan V.: How much did players like McTavish, Pastujov, Tuomaala, and Rosen raise their stock in eyes of scouts? I know scouts try to avoid recency bias and putting too much weight on one tournament, but their performances at World U18s were noteworthy. On the flip side, how did somewhat underwhelming performances from Robertsson and to a lesser extent Guenther affect their stock?
A. Those players really raised their stock quite a bit. I covered those guys in my U18 Worlds recap, so I don’t want to give too much away, but the part about recency bias is something I wanted to pull out.
When I was talking to scouts, they all said largely the same thing. That the U18 worlds was just another piece of the puzzle, but it was going to be a pretty big piece. For many scouts it was going to be the only time they saw those players live. But what the Worlds did more than anything was give the scouts a little more homework to do.
They’re going to take what they learned at worlds, probably have a lot more detail in those reports, but now they can go back and look at the video from the rest of the year, which many of them have already watched before, and see how what they saw live matches with how they felt about the player on video.
As for players that hurt their stock, I don’t think anyone that was in Texas is going to say that tournament sunk a player for them, or knocked a guy out of consideration. I do think they’re going to take into account how they played within the context of their team, the situation, how much they were getting used and when, and draw some more conclusions based on the other body of work they already had detailed throughout the season.
So the U18s performances definitely mattered and might be weighted a little more than games at other levels, but in the end, there’s a lot bigger picture to look at from this year for the vast majority of players outside of the Canadians.
Q. @MEKingsFan: Is there a 2021 draft eligible player that wasn’t really on your radar prior to U18’s that left you with no choice but to have him as a round 1-3 pick after watching/announcing his games?
A. Danila Klimovich is the easy answer. It seems like he’s on everyone’s radar now. Some outlets believe he is a first-round talent due to his great release and the skill level he showed at U18 Worlds while playing for Belarus. I wouldn’t personally feel comfortable taking him in the first round at this point, though I’m still going through more video. I do think that his U18s so much put him on the map that teams that really want the player are going to probably have to reach higher to get him. My guess is he doesn’t last past the second round.
The other guy that really stood out for me was Olen Zellweger. I was aware of him, but he really impressed me at the tournament with his skating ability and distribution skills. He made a lot of good decisions with the puck and by the end of the tournament was running Canada’s top power play unit. Zellweger’s defending is adequate, but not great, but that’s a guy who I didn’t have on my list to one who will be now.
Q. @LIFriman: Isak Rosen impressed at the under 18 worlds. What do you think he can be in the NHL? Top 6 winger? First line potential? Would love to hear your thoughts!
A. Rosén looks like the prototypical middle-six guy who you can play in a variety of situations. His speed makes him a factor in every game, but I don’t think he has the breakaway skill of some of the other forwards in this draft class. He does have good skill, but I don’t think he can make moves like Guenther or Lysell. What he does have is a powerful skating stride, a really good release and some solid anticipation skills.
In video viewings this year, I had thought that his feet worked faster than his brain did sometimes and I had some hockey sense concerns. I don’t feel that was as much anymore after seeing him live and how he creates his offense.
Q. @Kyle_Fultz: Do you ever look back on guys that fell to the very end of the draft or go undrafted that go on to become stars or at least serviceable NHLers to see if everyone missed something or if they are just late bloomers? Do you use this information to scout prospects differently?
A. I think we’re all constantly evaluating and re-evaluating what works and what doesn’t in our evaluation process. Scouts certainly do that on the regular. I think for the most part, there’s always some fatal flaw for these guys that gets honed in on or they are, in fact, just late bloomers who needed a little nudge in the right direction or had to hit a growth spurt.
I think smaller players are often fighting against it because of their size, but that’s becoming less taboo to take smaller players earlier as long as they have the skill, hockey sense and speed to justify it. Goalies still have to battle the size factor.
But sometimes guys just need to get better. I used this example on the podcast: Andrej Sustr was not drafted despite being a 6-foot-7, right-shot defenseman. He was a clumsy skater and didn’t have a ton of technical skills, but when he went to Nebraska Omaha, things started to smooth out. He started making plays. He turned it into an NHL contract and more than 300 NHL games. He had a long path, never became a star, but he was an NHL regular.
I definitely take the information from past drafts and look to see where I went wrong in my own evals or if there were things I should have picked up on for guys that were drafted late. The fact of the matter is, scouting as a whole has gotten a lot better in the last few years and fewer of those guys that are lasting until deep into the draft are making it to the NHL, while more from the earlier rounds continue to find their way.
I think the biggest takeaway from all that is if there are traits in a player that you feel are NHL-level or on an NHL trajectory, don’t dismiss that because of a player’s physical attributes. Consider looking deeper and maybe don’t try so hard to talk yourself out of a player, which I have done plenty of times and constantly have to learn from.
Q. Jimmy from Jimmersville: What would a goalie have to do in Juniors/NCAA for you to consider them a worthy number one overall? (Please give me a fake name like Jimmy from Jimmersville)
A. I think there are so many variables that we may not see it again unless a goalie is stopping 95% of the shots he sees. Even then it may not matter. Teams do all sorts of risk assessments when they’re talking about different players, but no team does that more than the owner of the No. 1 pick. You screw that one up and you may set your franchise back years, possibly even a decade or more.
There’s also been a standard set that whoever you take No. 1 should be in the NHL the following season whether they’re ready for that or not. I have yet to see a goalie at a draft look like he was ready to step into the NHL a few months later. That includes guys I was super high on like Andrei Vasilevskiy, Yaroslav Askarov and Spencer Knight.
So in short, I couldn’t tell you what would have to happen, but I just don’t know if we’ll ever see it again beyond someone coming along who has somehow revolutionized the position to make it next to impossible to score on with evidence that it’s both repeatable and translatable to the NHL. It would take a lot.
Others…
Q. @jessi_pierce: Can I get an official review of Mighty Ducks Game Changers?
A. Well, in case you haven’t been following along on Twitter for my long-standing bit about this show, well… I will never say a bad word about anything Mighty Ducks ever, aside from the Flying V often being both offside and full of interference penalties.
Remember kids, if you complain enough, grovel enough and be an absolute idiot on Twitter, sometimes good things can happen. Like this…
This is both the dumbest and most effective bit I’ve ever done on Twitter. Thanks, Disney+!
Q. @gopherstate Robert Morris: WTF?
A. Alright, I hate to end the Q&A on a downer, but this is a really important topic and when I answered it on the podcast, it was more from an emotional state and less from a logical one. Now that I’ve had time to think about it some more…
The Robert Morris University administration is absolutely gutless for the move it made to cancel the men’s and women’s hockey programs with no warning. But aside from their lack of foresight, courage and general care for the 55 student-athletes and seven staffers that they’ve left out in the cold at a point that is likely too late to find suitable alternative options with the transfer portal already picked over and staffs being finalized for next season, they’re also heartless for the absolute bullshit press release they put out making this announcement.
This paragraph still is making my blood boil:
"Robert Morris University announced today it will no longer field NCAA Division I men’s and women’s ice hockey teams as part of a series of strategic initiatives intended to position the university to be amongst the most agile and professionally focused schools in the nation as it prepares for its upcoming 100th anniversary.”
The way this news was presented was one of the most dismissive acts I’ve seen from a university. No apology to the student-athletes and staff that this pulled the rug out from under. No remorse whatsoever. This was presented as the best way to move the university forward, meanwhile taking away two of its most competitive Division I sports.
Hey everybody, it’s our 100th anniversary! In order to celebrate it properly, we’ve really gotta get these hockey teams out of the way first! Brutal.
The Women’s hockey team was in the NCAA tournament this season. The men’s team had one of the nation’s top scorers in points per game with Randy Hernandez and the Colonials have competed in the NCAA tournament on the men’s side multiple times as one of the class programs of Atlantic Hockey. They’ve also had extremely successful midseason events in Pittsburgh, exposing a large number of fans in the city to college hockey.
Western Pennsylvania has been a booming hockey market since Sidney Crosby arrived and started winning Stanley Cups. To take away a local option for kids to aspire to is not something to be celebrated.
This is the closest RMU’s hockey players and staffs got to an apology:
“We are saddened for the student-athletes who will be unable to continue in their sport at Robert Morris University and are committed to assisting them during this difficult time,” said RMU President Chris Howard. “However, this is the best course of action to leverage our strategic assets and position us for future growth.”
Strategic assets loosely translates to money we’d rather have to spend on other things. But it’s OK, because it’s the university’s centennial and that’s the most important thing. There was no quest for donations to save the program, no chance for the teams themselves to gather up support and possibly prevent this from happening. It was a decision they had nothing to do with, no say in and no recourse. Gutless.
Listen, it’s really difficult to run an athletic department and it’s even harder to do it amid and after a pandemic. Everyone took hits, but I think RMU didn’t realize what it had in its hockey programs. They saw expense instead of a bright light for their university, which the program has been.
I just feel terrible for those involved that are now trying to figure out what’s next. I feel bad for the staff that built a program over 18 years. I feel bad for the alumni whose efforts to be part of that were dismissed callously.
Q. Joe From Terre Haute: While its focus on adding program is laudable, what can College Hockey Inc. do to retain existing programs?
This is a good question and one that I’ll want to explore more with the folks at College Hockey Inc., down the line. I think they’re trying to do the best by the programs that already exist as well with their help in raising awareness and providing recruiting opportunities. The fact is, some of these decisions by athletics departments were so blindsiding it’s hard to even know they were going to come. Nothing was more shocking than what we just learned about RMU.
I do think that a lot of programs at this very moment, those in positions that may be precarious as athletic departments try to streamline, have to advocate within their athletic departments for what they bring to the school. Hockey loses money at most places. It’s expensive, but there are a lot of sports that loose money at various institutions and they provide these opportunities for the student-athletes and the entertainment of the rest of the student body.
We’re at a point now where Alaska Anchorage is in the most desperate situation with their fundraising inching toward the finish line after they got an extension and it’s hard to know if they’ll make it, but we can hope. Alabama Huntsville was not welcomed by any conference and therefore the athletic department doesn’t see a path forward despite the many donations that poured in.
It’s not so much what CHI has to do and more what the college hockey community as a whole has to do I think. Conferences aren’t out there to be charities. I understand that, but more pressure needs to be put on them to make the effort to support outlying programs that are providing the same opportunities all of their other member institutions are. The new CCHA and Atlantic Hockey not finding room for UAH is effectively killing that program.
Meanwhile, we’ve got Illinois exploring adding hockey still, Tennessee State just announced their efforts for a feasibility study to become the first HBCU to add a hockey program, which is amazing. But there’s a lot of effort that has to be made to stabilize what we have, while making room for more. Both are possible.
No school is entitled to have a hockey program, but the ones that take that leap are going to need extra support from the college hockey community as a whole. We can’t say that we want growth and then when someone makes that gigantic multi-million-dollar leap, leave them hanging, nor can we do that for the programs that have been fighting for their own existence since they came into existence. That includes the conferences, the other member schools and those of us that care about the sport. There are no easy answers, but we can’t allow what’s happening right now to become a trend if we expect college hockey to ever reach its full potential.
Men’s World Championship Update
Owen Power’s ascent at Worlds adds another wrinkle to pre-draft prep.
One of the biggest reasons to watch the World Championship has become seeing the growth and maturation over the course of one tournament of Owen Power. After barely playing at the beginning of the first game, the coaching staff hasn’t had much of a choice but to play Power a ton. Now with Colin Miller out for the tournament, Power has essentially become Canada’s No. 1 defenseman.
While that is a low bar to clear, giving an 18-year-old that responsibility on a relatively shallow team is still a big spot for Power to be in and he’s handling it well. In a must-win game for Canada against Kazakhstan, Power played 26 minutes. He had an assist on Canada’s second goal, which was tipped by Adam Henrique, and also had two shots on goal.
The biggest thing I’m seeing from Power is that his skating is becoming a difference maker for him. He’s got a powerful stride, which we knew, but seeing the ground he’s covering on the big ice and making it harder to get around him and being able to make plays in transition are all great things. He’s making good decisions with the puck and hasn’t had too many instances where he’s in the wrong spot or getting beat.
This Canadian team is not very good, but a lot of teams aren’t. Power has been a bright spot who has seen his ice time raise in every game and every game he seems to handle it better. It’s been quite a statement from the guy many, including me, expect to go No. 1 in the draft.
Team USA is making a case to be a gold-medal contender.
With no gold since 1936, could this bizarre year be the one for the U.S.? After losing their opener in a tight 2-1 game against the Finns, the U.S. is starting to gain its footing. Now 3-0-0-1, they’re just one point out of first place in the group ahead of their game against Norway Saturday.
Having seen a lot of the teams, there aren’t many that have been as consistent over the last stretch of games as the U.S. The Americans have wins over Canada, Kazakhstan and Latvia since that opening loss, which may not seem overly impressive, but through four games no team has allowed fewer goals than the five the U.S. has given up. Whether it’s Cal Petersen or Jake Oettinger in net, the Americans have a capable backstop who can win them games.
On top of that, the U.S. has one of the best lines in the tournament to date with Trevor Moore centering Jason Robertson and Conor Garland. That trio has been pretty much unstoppable with each bringing a slightly different element to the table. Garland’s skill has been fantastic in his playmaking, Moore has been a high-end finisher and Robertson generates many dangerous chances every game.
I also think veterans like Brian Boyle and Justin Abdelkader have settled into their roles better on this team and provide some steadiness.
No matter who wins this tournament, it’s not going to be like winning Worlds in a normal season. No one disputes this, but because it is so wide open with so many “upsets” and so many teams struggling to find their game, it looks like it will be as hard as any year to finish with the gold medal.
You don’t have to care, but if the U.S. can finally take home gold in this tournament after generations of not doing that, it’s a good thing. There’s still a long tournament to go and teams are adding players, who still have to get through quarantine to be eligible to play. So who knows where this goes next. Still, it’s been interesting to follow.
NHL Central Scouting’s Final Rankings is out
The NHL Central Scouting final rankings for the 2021 draft are out. In a weird year where so few scouts were able to get into their normal routine of getting to games and being in the rinks, there’s bound to be plenty of disparity among what appears to be public consensus and industry consensus. However, that’s actually true a lot. There are 32 teams with long draft lists that they build based on their own philosophies and standards. That’s why I always enjoy when CSS puts out its final list because I know there are going to be a lot of differences with what might be out there publicly.
Central Scouting’s list should basically be treated as the only team list that we publicly know. They’re going to have views based on their standards and the preferences of leadership, in their case Dan Marr, the director of central scouting. It’s going to be different.
Their list was quite different from my own this time around. If you haven’t seen the lists, the requisite links are all right here.
Unsurprisingly, Owen Power was named the No. 1 North American skater. That seems to be the industry-wide consensus with a few disparities out there among individual teams. Power is currently playing for Team Canada at the Worlds, and if you read the above capsule you know he’s doing quite well.
After that, however, it gets interesting. Central Scouting’s Top 10 North American Skaters are as follows:
Owen Power, D
Mason McTavish, C
Kent Johnson, C/W
Luke Hughes, D
Dylan Guenther, RW
Matty Beniers, C
Brandt Clarke, D
Brennan Othmann, LW
Matthew Coronato, RW
Cole Sillinger, C
McTavish at No. 2 is the real stunner for me. While I agree he is rising up the charts, I still haven’t seen enough in his overall skill set for him to go ahead of some of the others on the list. Beniers being sixth is the second-biggest surprise for me. Talking with a lot of teams, there’s a lot of love for Beniers and his overall skillset. I don’t think he falls out of the top five, but he’s not as big of a lock. I think players that had really strong U18 World Championships were rewarded for those performances and McTavish was one of the best draft-eligible players in the event.
Differences of opinion are good. It helps us all challenge our own takes on things.
The top five European skaters went like this:
William Eklund, LW
Simon Edvinsson, D
Aatu Raty, C
Nikita Chibrikov, C/W
Daniil Chayka, D
This was more or less as expected. Eklund seems far and away, at least to me, the best European player in this draft class, while Edvinsson’s ceiling is intriguing enough for him to go higher than anyone else listed. Chayka is a bit polarizing in terms of his potential and overall offensive game, but he’s a big, mobile defenseman and not a big surprise.
Meanwhile, the top North American goalie, as expected was Sebastian Cossa of the Edmonton Oil Kings and the top European goalie was Jesper Wallstedt. Both of those netminders should expect to hear their names called in the first round.
It’s a hard year to gauge from a scouting perspective. Everyone has their own opinions, and as always, it’s nice to have Central Scouting presenting their own spin on the class. It’s something I always look at, but it usually won’t have much of an impact on my own rankings.