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- [00:01]
A
Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter? Right.
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B
And the best part? They accept Discover.
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A
Except Discover in a little place like this?
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B
I don't think so.
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C
Jennifer.
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B
Oh, yeah.
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D
Huh?
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B
Discover's accepted where I like to shop. Come on, baby, get with the times.
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C
Right.
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B
So we shouldn't get the parachute pants. These are making a comeback, I think.
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A
Discover is accepted at 99% of places.
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E
That take credit cards nationwide, based on.
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A
The February 2025 Nielsen report.
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C
20.
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D
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F
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C
Foreign.
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E
This is the athletic hockey show prospect series. Hey everybody. Max Boltman here alongside Scott Wheeler and Corey Promman for a post World Junior episode of the Athletic Hockey Show Prospect Series. Scott and Corey live on site in St. Paul. You can see the, I don't know, warm, itchy, I don't know what word we're going with commemorative hats here on their heads. If you do hear any background noise from them, that is the celebratory Swedes. Corey after a world junior gold medal for Sweden. Dominant tournament it turned out to be for the Swedes. How did they do this?
- [03:46]
A
Dominant Ish. It was a very close call there in the semifinals with Finland in a prolonged overtime and shootout there, you know, with the emphasis being Viggo Bjork's four breakaways in the overtime period and eventually a missed shootout attempt as well. They did it by being a very well rounded team. They got production up and down the lineup. They were a team that could really tilt at the ice at even strength. They had really their top three lines were all very effective, competitive, made plays. They had six defensemen they could trust. In particular their top four defensemen. Leoshely Wallenius, Felix Carroll, Felix Orkvist and Sasha Bumedian. Played huge minutes and made a ton of plays defensively. Were all very good skaters. You get to puck up ice and. Well if we look at the director awards you'll see that Anton Frondell, the Chicago third overall pick who had a great round robin and was a very good player all tournament, was named the best forward. They don't come close to winning this tournament without the performances of their two draft eligible forwards, Viggol Bjork and Ivar Stenberg. Let's start with Bjork for a second. Bjork came into this tournament, we thought he'd be an important player for them. Wasn't sure how important he ended up being. Being their clear best center in this tournament. He plays power play. If they had to kill a three on five penalty, he was the center going over the boards. This is a 17 year old 59 center being the main penalty killer for a team that won the gold medal and he makes a ton of plays. Very skilled player. Absolutely outstanding performance for him. And Stenberg, he was good in the round robin. He was the best player in the in the medal round among all teams. Dominant performance at times all around the park. Competes hard, made really high end plays. His gold medal game today has to be one of the most memorable gold medal games I've seen from a draft eligible. Really impactful play and you know, we'll contrast him with Gavin McKenna I'm sure when we get deeper into the show. But really those two draft eligibles for me is what drove this team and what led them to a gold medal.
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C
To think that they can come back too like the Stenberg may be in the NHL next year, but Bjork will probably play at two more of these tournaments. He wasn't to Corey's point on the power play and the penalty kill. He led them in face offs in this event. Took I think at the end of the tournament almost 20 or 30 more face offs than the nearest center for the Swedes. They played him in the overtime game to get, to just get to this gold medal game. They played him every other shift. He took five shifts in three on three overtime played. I think 455 of his nearly 28 minutes in the semifinal to get them here. Had four breakaways in that game that he didn't score on and was just all around it. Bjork is, is like a legit, legit player at this level and a few months ago, and we talked about it a little bit earlier on in the season but a few months ago he was B rated by NHL central scouting. People started to talk about him because of the 59 listing. They started to talk about him as kind of a late first, early second round type in this draft. No chance coming out of this. And frankly with the way that he's played over the last two, three seasons here, like this is a for me a top 10, top 15 player in this draft class despite the size.
- [07:20]
E
Corey talked about the well roundedness of this Swedish team. I mean you could have made a case for four, at least four Swedes on the all star team up front. You could. Obviously Frondell is on the team. Stenberg probably would have been on the team. If that vote takes place after the game instead of at the first intermission. Bjork certainly could have been on there and I think Jack Berglund had a case to be on there. Made two great plays in the gold medal game and was among their leading scorers. It was just a complete depth team effort.
- [07:46]
C
Corey.
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A
Yeah, this is one of those weirder tournaments. It reminded me of the tournament in Vancouver where Ryan Paling one mgp in that usually when we get to the gold medal game. The directed awards, the media all star awards are filled with players in the gold medal game. And they're easy to pick because they're among the leading scorers. Almost all the leading scorers in the tournament were not on Sweden and not on Czechia. They were predominantly Canadians. And they had Zayn Parek and Michael hage and Gavin McKenna had great tournaments. Really, they were really impactful players in this tournament. But Sweden and Czech got to the gold medal game in similar ways. And you know, maybe Czech didn't quite have quite the high end talent of Stenberg or Bjork or Frondel, but Adam Yurichek was my MVP vote like he. I thought he was.
- [08:33]
C
And Thomas Galves was mine.
- [08:35]
A
Yeah. And then you have Chihar who actually wins the mvp. And I think that kind of speaks to what, how this team won. It was a, it was a committee effort. You know, we don't think of, when we come to Junior Hawk, we don't think of describing rosters in like playoff style rosters, but that's kind of how they won't. They were big, heavy, highly competitive. All their forwards made life miserable for Canada in that semifinal. They had three lines they could roll that were really dangerous and won a ton of battles. That blue line was big and imposing. And then you had the Galvis in there who made a ton of plays while also competing. Well. It was that kind of tournament. There was no real standout here. I think by the end it became Stenberg. But it really took till the very end for him to distinguish himself in that way. I think most of the tournament there really was no true star level performance. It was really much more about the teams in general.
- [09:28]
E
Corey obviously talking about the check team there when he talks about how they won. Galvis, Yurichek, both defensemen on the check team. You could have made a case for that to be the all star defense pairing from this tournament if not for Zane Parek and some pretty incredible totals. Just one more thought on the Czech team, Scott. I mean, they will lose obviously, some, some top talent here. Not gonna return quite as much as the Swedes, but a really strong showing from this Czech team top to bottom for sure.
- [09:52]
C
And Corey talked about, we talked about Galvest and Yurichek and the play of them. Jacob Fibiger was absolutely outstanding and sort of a steadying role alongside Adam Yurichek on that blue line. Radim mirka, a top 10 pick. Their highest drafted player was their number four defenseman in terms of use. They really relied on those three primary guys. And then they played Merka about 17, 18 minutes a night. And Max and Ichka, a second round pick of the Utah Mammoth, was their number five defenseman and clearly the best number five defenseman at this year's tournament. Like, he was excellent for them as well. I thought his positive on ice results, he was his length and mobility, he just takes up so much space. Those guys, those five defensemen were key. You're right, they won't be returning some very important players next year, but they'll still have Adam Banach, they'll still have Vaslav Nestracil. They're ready. Merka is eligible to return again next year. They should still be a competitive team. And that's been a theme of this tournament. They've won four straight medals. They've been as good as any other nation over the last five years. Five straight trips to the top four through the semifinals and playing for a medal at this tournament and four straight medals now, two silvers and two bronze. So full marks to them. I mean, we always talk about Sweden and Canada and USA, but the Czechs are as good at this U20 level over the last several years as anybody.
- [11:20]
G
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B
Thy ticket, lady Jennifer of Coolidge. Well, many thanks, good sir. Here is my Discover card. They accept Discover at Renaissance fairs? Yeah, they do.
- [12:58]
E
Here.
- [12:59]
B
Discover is accepted at the places I love to shop. Getith with the times. With the times.
- [13:05]
F
You're playing the loot.
- [13:08]
B
Yeah, and it sounds pretty good, right?
- [13:10]
E
Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide, based on.
- [13:15]
A
The February 2025 Nielsen report.
- [13:17]
B
Hey, I'm Elise Hu, host of the.
- [13:19]
A
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- [13:53]
E
There will be people listening to this show who heard our roster projection episode about a month ago where we fought it out over Canada and the embarrassment of riches the Canadians had to choose from. Let's talk about how we got to the fact that this was a Sweden Czechia final with no Canadians there. They win the bronze medal. You know, I'm I'm not going to say they had a terrible tournament or anything. The Czechs outplayed them. I did think it was a deserved win.
- [14:16]
C
They did.
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E
But Canada ultimately like not here. So what went wrong for Canada at this tournament?
- [14:21]
C
Scott I think a few things went wrong. A they just never figured out who they trusted both on the back end and up front. Their Their second quote unquote second line with with Michael Hayde, Brady Martin and Gavin McKenna was their best line through the preliminary round. But you always knew that in order for Canada to win this win this tournament and win gold, that the top line of teacherging Michael Misa and Porter Martone was going to have to get going. You look at their stats at the end of the tournament, they were all above point per game. Porter Martone led Canada in goals with six at this year's event, but Misa in particular looked vanilla more often than he looked impressive. I thought Iginlo was the best of those three. Martone had some moments but also sort of let the moment in a couple of important situations get to him a little bit. And as a result up front when Brady Martin went down and they couldn't go to the line that they'd been going to, they didn't really have anybody to turn to. They relied a little bit too much on their third line of Sam O'Reilly, Colbo Dwyne and Caleb Daneway, all three who played well. O'Reilly had a really positive tournament in particular. But they didn't know who to go to up front. And then on the back end, they fully never trusted Zane Parek defensively to be a true number one. Like to play 25 minutes a night at this event. He played 18, 19 minutes at this event throughout the tournament and they never found anyone to play around him. Cam Reed really struggled. Harrison Bruinick back from the NHL, really struggled. Ben Danford and Kayshawn Aitchison struggled as a pairing at times and were frankly asked to do too much as a pairing. It just never really clicked. And Ethan McKenzie, who was a great story in camp and prestige camp, the level looked like it was a bit much for him in the bigger games as well. So that was the big thing for me. They missed a Sam Dickinson that they could just roll out there over and over and over again. And the coaching staff never really found who they could shorten the bench to. The top teams that had success at this year's tournament did ultimately shorten the bench. Sweden in overtime just kept going to Stenberg and Bjork, right? And Canada didn't know who. And obviously the Czechs basically played five or six players when it mattered. Canada never really figured out who those guys were for them.
- [16:29]
A
Yeah, I think for me the blue line struggles are obvious, but I think you look at the skill level, like Hins is not a skilled guy, Reid's not a skilled guy. Even Bernicke like McKenzie, those are not high end puck movers. They knew what they were getting when they brought those guys in. Like they knew this was going to happen. Zane Parek was the only one on this team that could make a high end play. That was evident from the get go. Maybe Verhoff one day can be that guy, but he's a 17 year old. For me, the story of their downfall comes down to the Brady Martin injury and the fact that as we discussed several times, they brought no plan B in terms of skill guys. They cut Jake O', Brien, they didn't fight Justin Carboneu, they dressed 12 forwards in that game. They did not address a 134 to even give Carter Bear, Liam Greentree a chance to help them on a scoring line. They basically decided they only had six forwards they could trust to make a play and that was it.
- [17:21]
C
They also brought Liam Greentree, knowing before the tournament even started, before the puck even dropped on the tournament, they had made up their mind that he didn't have the feet, didn't have the pace. So some miscalculations there.
- [17:33]
A
And for Michael Misa who dominated the OHL last year, second overall pick, super talented skater, puck handler, and Porter Martone, who has a plethora of Hockey Canada experience, played on the senior men's team last spring. These were bad performances, even though Marton led them in goals like these were underwhelming performances that make you question just their pure offensive ability at times. Like this is. This is not the NHL. They're playing against average junior level players at times, and they could not take over those games for any meaningful stretch. In particular, Misa, at least Martone made the occasional play, showed some chippiness. Misa was invisible. This was a disastrous tournament for him and people are going to say, well, it's an NHL alone, yada yada yada, it's only a couple of games. I get it. But when you think of the bar that he set for himself and that we expect of Michael Misa based on what he showed in junior, this was really bad. And I think if you look at the main reason why they lost, it's really on that line and him in particular.
- [18:34]
E
I think it's specifically the timely scoring too, though, right? I mean, Canada scored four or more goals at every game but one in this tournament, that being the Latvia game early on, but it was when they needed one. Right. In that back and forth game against Czechia, you didn't really know who you were looking to for the big moment. It wasn't Gavin McKenna. It was probably Michael Hage and he's a little.
- [18:50]
C
It felt like it was Zayn, frankly. Like Zane was the. Zane was the one who made in the big moments when they were trailing in games and I think he tied like three or four games. It was Zay Zane who made the play.
- [19:00]
A
Yeah, it was an abnormal situation where by the end they didn't. They. They kept trying, like Brunicki and mackenzie on the second power unit. By the end, they were just telling Zane Perek to run the whole power.
- [19:10]
C
Play, the, the whole minutes.
- [19:13]
A
He was the only one all tournament who seems like he can make a high end play with the puck.
- [19:19]
E
I don't know if you guys saw. We had A comment from Lebowski55 on if Canada wins this with celebrity. Not only do I think Canada wins this with celebrity, I think Finland wins it with celebrity. The Czechs win it with celebrity. The US Wins it with celebrity.
- [19:32]
C
You can throw Matthew Schaefer in there too.
- [19:33]
A
Yeah, it's frustrating for me when these tournaments happen and this becomes like these like great discourses about the state of the federations and Hockey in certain countries because that's, it's a, it's a microcosm.
- [19:47]
C
Right.
- [19:47]
A
You have players that are not available, you have injuries that have happened. We can get into those guys who, guys who weren't loaned out. It's the, the age groups qualities can fluctuate from year to year. I think it's fair to assess the players that are here and actually criticize them or praise them based on how they play. But like, yes, obviously like Canada's hockey is not in trouble. You look at ever the draft every year, there's plenty of great hockey players coming out of Canada. And yes, obviously if they would have gotten all their players, they would have rolled over everybody like, but that's not really, I don't think anybody with a brain is saying that Canada is having some issues when it comes to developing hockey talent.
- [20:28]
F
Yeah.
- [20:29]
C
And frankly, Canada with this collection of talent. Every, every single one of their forwards was a first round pick. Here they had two second round pick goalies who started games for them. Like, there's no, there should be no excuses even with the talent that's here three years in a row with one one bronze medal to show for it should be unacceptable for hockey.
- [20:48]
A
Yeah, like, I think I, regardless of the NHL, the management head that said they, if only we had gone like Sam Dickinson or whatever, it's like, come on, like you, you have like everyone on your team's a first round pick. If you needed one more first round pick to win, like, you could just say things didn't go well or like the Czechs are a good team and they all played us or that, you know, we got a, some bad penalties or like, whatever. Like it's. I, I have no time for that.
- [21:10]
E
Yeah, it's coming from Smelly Carcass. How does Canada move forward at next year's tournament to ensure a better team that can be trusted and not rely on two players?
- [21:19]
C
Well, I would say that one thing I, I spoke with someone on the concourse during the intermission here, just met with a couple of people and one thing that I will say is that there's a belief that the 07 group that's going to carry this team next year may not have the star power. It doesn't have a Porter Marton, it doesn't have a Michael Misa, doesn't have a Zane Parek, but they've won at every single level. And I think next year you're going to see a very different team, Canada than the last couple that we've seen. It's going to be led by Brady Martin if he's not in the NHL with Nashville and Cole Reschni and Caleb Dinoya, players who have typically performed very well for Hockey Canada, including at last year's U18 Worlds, but aren't the the marquee. And so it'll be a good test of Canada and the way that they want to build that roster because they're going to be at a little bit of a skill deficiency relative to where they've been before. If they get Gavin McKenna, which is possible, and I think Gavin is considering going back to Penn State. If they get Gavin for a third time, that gives them that sort of ultimate skill guy. But if they don't get Gavin and if a Brady Martin's in the NHL, Canada is going to be tested again next year, and particularly by this Swedish age group which is going to be returning Bjork, as we mentioned, off the top, potentially Stenberg, potentially even Frontel, though Frendel will be in the NHL or AHL with the Blackhawks next year and has a really strong age group coming out of this year's draft behind Bjork and Stenberg that are going to be important players for that team as well. So there's a bit of a chance I think here for the Swedes to go on the run and Canada, despite three poor tournaments in a row, better be careful that they don't. They don't make it 4.
- [22:54]
A
I think the way you not rely on a handful of players, and it's something that I've said now several times in the last few weeks, is you cannot build a roster with like kind of blinders on and say this is. These are the guys rules. They're going to excel in them. We have a plan. It's going to be executed flawlessly because we know that's not how it goes. We know when the tournament starts, the guy you think is going to be on the first line, like say the line with Misa and Iginla and Martone may not perform the way you expect. So you need to bring a certain amount of different types of talent with you and give yourself options for when things don't go exactly the way you plan. I'm sympathetic to the fact that you need to have guys who play hard and guys who can kill penalties. And that third line with Denouye, Bo Dwin, Samuel Riley was excellent and they fulfilled that role. But you probably didn't need to also bring Braden Coutts and, and Carter Bear and Jet Lachenko. You probably could have felt a little bit more skill in here. And maybe Jake o' Brien or Justin Carboneau or whoever else you could have mentioned may not have excelled.
- [23:57]
D
They might have.
- [23:57]
A
They might have been terrible at this level. There's a reason why they got cut. You know, Carbo's hockey sense and obriens pace. Like there's legitimate issues with like why the management group went a different way. But if you only give yourself so many options, then yes, you're going to. Only if a couple of those guys fail, then yes, you're only going to rely on two players.
- [24:19]
B
Thy ticket lady Jennifer of Coolidge. Well, many thanks, good sir. Here is my Discover card. They accept Discover at Renaissance fairs. Yeah, they do here. Discover is accepted at the places I love to shop. Get it with the times. With the times.
- [24:38]
F
You're playing the loot.
- [24:41]
H
Yeah.
- [24:41]
B
And it sounds pretty good, right?
- [24:42]
E
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- [25:24]
H
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- [26:02]
E
Well, you talked about the cyclical nature of age groups and there's no team that that's more true for at this tournament than Team usa Back to back golds at the previous two tournaments out in the quarters this time I would struggle to even call it an upset to Finland based on what we saw in pool play. Corey. So we'll go to the autopsy for the US to you what went wrong for Team usa.
- [26:20]
A
Yeah, I think we were talking all through this cycle about that. They were not a guarantee to get out of the quarterfinals. This was a team that always looked like they were in a Little bit of trouble. You know, obviously they had some, some injury issues with Trevor Connelly right before the tournament starts. They lose Cole Hudson in the middle of the tournament, they lose, they lose Max Plant, but those, even those. And Hudson came back towards the end and he played well in the quarterfinal. But those issues didn't really get to the heart of the problem where I think first their top players, which, which they did not have the first rounders. The amount of first rounders using from Team usa, neverminded Team Canada, there's only a handful of legit first round picks on this team and collectively they played fine. I thought James Higgins played good. He was an effective player for them. He produced, he drove play. He definitely didn't dominate though or really take over a game at any point. Riker Lee, first round pick by Nashville, had some good stretches and some bad stretches. Will Horcuff, first round pick by the Penguins was having a fantastic year in college, was all but invisible at times in many of those games and Cole Iserman was sometimes worse than invisible. He was often a negative for the team with his turnovers and decision making. And so now you're looking okay. What about the non first round picks? You mean they started asking a. These were guys that I had serious questions on. Can they get scoring from these guys? L.J. moody, Teddy Stiga, Brody, Brody Ziemer, Will Zellers ended up being their best player offensively anyways as a late addition. But those guys collectively cannot carry you to a medal that they just, they're good players. They didn't have that talent level. The blue line outside of Hudson was a disaster. You know, similar issues with Canada where they really only had one guy. Well, maybe two really. Chase Reed can make plays, Luke Osborne was decent with the puck. But they really, once Hudson went down, they had real issues getting reliable minutes from anybody else other than the Osborne read pair for stretches. But I think they overplayed them and then their goaltending was poor. They really needed a lot of things to go well. They needed their star players to have dominant tournaments and to get secondary scoring like they did from Zellers and others. And that just didn't happen. And the goaltending sunk them in the end as well.
- [28:28]
C
And just as this may be a chance for the Swedes to go on a bit of a run over the next couple of years, don't expect that the Americans are just going to turn it around next year. They're going to have potentially an even tougher time in next year's tournament after losing Hudson and Hagans and not replacing them with anywhere near that caliber of player with these upcoming couple of drafts.
- [28:48]
A
I think Reed could be an impactful player though next year. I think like he, I think when you look at the positives in Team usa, the play of Chase Reed was a big one. This was a guy who I did not know what to expect expect coming to this tournament. And I think we leave this tournament from a guy who's six' two, could skate the way he can make the kind of plays he can defended way better than I expected from what I've seen in him in junior hockey. He was a critical defender for this team and even strength on the penalty kill. I think this is a guy who is going to be in the top five conversation in the upcoming draft. Not saying he's going in the top five. You're talking about 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. I think he's in that range right now coming out of this event.
- [29:24]
E
Well, let's go there next because this was, that was one of the storylines of this World Juniors is that they're as as deep of a draft eligible pool that I think we've seen in quite some time at this tournament. So the big story as always was going to be Gavin McKenna.
- [29:37]
C
Corey.
- [29:37]
E
We've, we've joked about our constant updating of, of where McKenna falls, I think we called it as McKenna turns. Where does he sit after this World Juniors tournament?
- [29:46]
A
Well, obviously he had a very so so first half at Penn State relative to his dentist, slightly above a point per game after being in one of the most prolific junior scores we've ever seen in the CHL in the modern era. So we have these questions, you know, how does he compete? How is he going to handle it even straight? Can he drive play? Is the scoring going to come at this level? Is he going to help Canada win a gold medal or is it going to go really poorly and the free falls on. I think it was somewhere in between the two extremes of it went really well for him and it went really poorly. He had a really good tournament, ends up getting four points in the bronze medal game, ends up being among the, the, the tournament's leading scorers. I think you can see a lot of stretches for him where he makes that special play where he makes us a deker. He makes a pass or with the puck that is truly special and unique to the type of skill that he has. You get really excited and I think there were some times where you had to look for him where he was often the third best player on that line with Hage and Brady Martin or that semifinal. I really didn't think he accomplished all that much and kind of got bullied around by that big physical check blue line. So we came to this tournament and my thoughts was he belongs to the top of the draft. He's an excellent player, potential top line, top power play wing in the NHL. But there's some debate. There's some other players in the mix here and he kind of belongs with them. And I think we leave this tournament in the exact same spot. He's at the top of the draft. He's a great prospect, but he's not a can't miss guy, at least in terms of being a number one pick. And there's going to be debates. If you haven't liked the fact we've been debating him for a couple months, well get ready because it's going to ramp up here in the coming months, especially if he doesn't turn it on the second half at Penn State. So I feel like you know him, Ira Stenberg obviously outperforms him. But then you can get into debates of pure skill level, track record, context, etc. But you know, he, whether it's Stenberg, whether it's Tyler Lawrence, Keenan Verhoff, Chase Reed, Albert Smith, like he's. There's a group, he's in it where he fits. Well, let's try and figure that out in the coming months.
- [31:44]
E
Well, Stenberg's the interesting one, Scott, because it was already like a hard head to head, right? This, this tournament was, was really important because Stenberg plays in the shl. It's a different level of play. It would actually be a really fun conversation like which one is more predictive. Like we see more players come through the NCAA putting up lines like McKenna's this year than we do players putting up lines like stenberg's in the SHL. And then you see him on the same stage, McKenna leads the tournament scoring or sorry, above Stenberg on the tournament scoring. Stenberg more impressive though.
- [32:16]
C
Yeah. And, and frankly I would say that I. We don't typically see what we're seeing out of the shl. It is a little bit of new territory like it. You have to go back to, to Matt Snazlin to find a player who played at a point per game player at a point per game level in the shl. Stenberg has out produced the draft years of the Sedim brothers who went 1 2, of Peter Forsberg who went 6th overall, of Leo Carlson who went 2nd overall, of Anton Frondell who obviously went 3rd overall last year. So he's. He's in a little bit of unique territory. But you're right, the sheer numbers coming out of the NCAA are higher and are about to get even higher because of the influx of talent from Canada now playing at that level. But Stenberg belongs in the. From a statistical standpoint, he belongs to. At that level. And I think seeing them head to head this week, it's pretty clear that Stenberg absolutely belongs in the conversation at first overall in this draft. And frankly, I think on my next list, Stenberg is going to be number one for me.
- [33:13]
A
There's no doubt he competes harder. He was way more impactful in this tournament on an even strength basis. Just taking over the play, being around the puck a lot. I think the debate's going to come down to what's really come out with McKenna through the entire process is the body of work. Because even though Stenberg's body of work is really impressive, you know, McKenna's body of work is historic. And I think it's gonna be a fascinating debate. I think you're talking to people who think that if you look at really pure skill, pure hockey sense, McKenna probably has a notch higher. But then when it comes down to what do you think is gonna be predictive in the NHL, how is it going to translate for me? The evidence suggests a slight lean towards Stenberg at the moment.
- [33:56]
E
Yeah, the other draft eligible, this one, I. I think it's fair to say Keaton Verhoff didn't really do anything to help himself. Did he hurt himself, Corey?
- [34:03]
A
Good moments and bad moments. I think there were times where you saw him make a really difficult play. You see a 64 defenseman who can move and seems to have some different offensive abilities than a guy like an Albert Smith or a Carson Carls who we saw here. You can get really excited. And there were some times he struggled and he got himself into trouble. Really costly turnover at the end of the round robin against. Against Finland that I thought would get him bench and up. Didn't that led to a critical late goal, some ups and downs, nothing too stressful. I think some people wonder, like, well, you're talking about McKenna being a tournament scorer and Stenberg being arguably the best player here. How can he even be in the same conversation? Well, he's nearly a full year younger than both of them too. And also he's 64 versus being 4510 or 5 11, like. Like those guys. So I think the projection there is still really exciting.
- [34:51]
E
It is interesting. I'd Be curious, Scott, like, how would you order Carl's, Verhoff, Chase Reed. We could probably put Smiths and maybe even Dax and Rudolph right now at the top of this draft among the.
- [35:01]
C
D. I think Chase Reed would probably be in the pole position of that group. And then I think you get into. Did you include Verhoff in that?
- [35:11]
E
Yeah.
- [35:13]
C
Okay, so Verhoff would still be in pole position for me within that group, but I think Chase Reed's right behind and then I think the rest of those guys are in a cluster, but they're all arguably in the top 10. I, Rudolph would probably be a little bit of a cut below Carl's and Smith's for me, but I'd probably go Verhoff, Reed, Smiths, Carl's, Rudolph, Corey.
- [35:36]
A
Yeah, similar for me. I, I like Carl's a lot. I probably would have a little bit higher than where Scott has him, but otherwise it's I think pretty similar. Although got to work some stuff out still with the draft process, but, but from what I've seen right now, that'd be very similar.
- [35:50]
E
I don't think we're going to be talking about William Hawkinson in that company, but I don't think he hurt himself either. And he, he probably did himself some favors this last two weeks.
- [35:58]
A
Yeah, puck plays a little limited, but he's still like a 64 guy who could skate pretty physical and he's gonna be a tough eval because he's played SHL all year. That's a tough level. Comes here. This is, this is the world juniors playing against really good players. Does he look like he can make. Make really difficult plays with a puck? Probably not. If he's playing J20, he probably would have like 30, you know, be on pace for 30, 40 points this year. Maybe it looks a little bit different. I don't know. I like him. He looks like a positive player. Looks like a guy who could play in the NHL. Maybe not in a major minute type of role, but a guy who I think looks like an NHL defense.
- [36:31]
H
Yeah.
- [36:32]
E
All right. Well, after a great tournament from you guys coverage wise In Minneapolis and St. Paul, I will let you go finally get some rest. Thank you all for joining us for this episode of the Athletic Hockey Show Prospect series. We'll talk to you soon.
- [36:51]
F
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