Prospect Info: #197 Mattias Elfstrom LW/C

[Unfriendly Ghost]

http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=212529

Blurb here: http://www.redlinereport.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/CHL-Top-Prospects-RLR.pdf

A big winger who has great skating ability and gets to top speed fairly quickly. You don’t expect to see a prospect this big with the speed to breakaway from the junior defenders, but he does. After they play against him a few rushes, they see how he forces them to back off. Displays a good strong shot, very good hands and an emerging physicality. He can beat you one on one, with a shot from the perimeter, or with body work. Projects as a player who can develop into a power player.
—Bill Placzek—

-Draftsite

Click to read more...

 

[Eye of Ra]

emerging physicality?? seen him 5 times, he is not someone who hits.

 

[Frk It]

 

[cjm502]

Good size, good skating, good puck skills, and has put up good numbers. Possibly seems like a guy who should have been taken higher? I am more curious about this pick than all the others.

 

[Konnan511]

Call him Elf, one more time.

 

[ChadS]

Have only seen glimpses but for an overager he wasn't that impressive. Strong skater, long reach, good with the puck and upside is there but would have expected more dominant play for his age. Let's see where he plays next year, hopefully against men.

 

[sarcastro]

Have only seen glimpses but for an overager he wasn't that impressive. Strong skater, long reach, good with the puck and upside is there but would have expected more dominant play for his age. Let's see where he plays next year, hopefully against men.

Overage? Dude's just a baby for an elf.

 

[FissionFire]

If he comes with a Zooey Deschanel lookalike attached I'm all for drafting Elfs

 

[Tasteslikekevinbacon]

I feel like its too easy to say "And the elf goes shelf", but hopefully that's what happens.

 

[ChadS]

Red Wings director of European scouting Hakan Andersson: “I told the guys who haven’t seen him there’s a player in Windsor, Logan Brown, who went early in the first round. He’s that type of player. Now I can’t say he’s gonna be that good but he’s a tall, big forward with a lot of skill and hockey sense. So I was pushing for him earlier in the rounds and but Tyler kept saying to be ‘Do you think we can play the draft a little bit? Do a lot of people know about him?’ and I had to admit, no they don’t. But when you like somebody you want to grab them, so this was great for us. He was in our top 10 on our European list.”

http://redwings.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=887386

 

[Tasteslikekevinbacon]

http://redwings.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=887386

Incoming Hakan special? I wonder how early he was pressing. We really restocked our European prospect pool. I like it.

 

[Bench]

Hakan putting his Elf Spotting Certification to good use!

 

[Shaman464]

Of all the picks this one is the most intriguing. Hakan is due for a gem.

 

[Ezekial]

Hail Hakan! Hail Hydra!

 

[HisNoodliness]

Hakan is really high on him. That bodes very well. Elfstrom will be one to watch for sure. Hopefully all of the Hakan picks go very well this year. He's due.

 

[GoAwayDanCleary]

Where will he be playing next year? Super intriguing prospect from the sounds of it.

 

[BinCookin]

Hakan has always been a good scout.

He doesn't have a crystal ball though, he got lucky with Datsyuk. (no one saw him)

Maybe we are getting lucky with Elf.

or Maybe hes a "4th rounder" going 7th.

Which means maybe he makes the NHL.

But to be honest thats a "GREAT" 7th round pick. Usually 4-7 is just trash for most teams.

Lets hope Hakan is still on his game!

 

[sarcastro]

Hakan has always been a good scout.

He doesn't have a crystal ball though, he got lucky with Datsyuk. (no one saw him)

Maybe we are getting lucky with Elf.

or Maybe hes a "4th rounder" going 7th.

Which means maybe he makes the NHL.

But to be honest thats a "GREAT" 7th round pick. Usually 4-7 is just trash for most teams.

Lets hope Hakan is still on his game!

Hakan hasn't had a hit since Nyquist, if I recall. He's overdue, unless he was lucky and overrated all along.

 

[HisNoodliness]

Hakan hasn't had a hit since Nyquist, if I recall. He's overdue, unless he was lucky and overrated all along.

I think Pulkks, Jarnkrok, Marchenko and Janmark-Nylen all should count as hits for where they were drafted. None of them look like all stars but they all look like NHLers (Pulkks maybe not so much but he could still be a 2nd line winger honestly). Hakan also has had fewer picks in recent years (2016 he had a lot of picks) so it's tough to say. I will also say that the rest of the league has caught up and scouts Hakan's hunting grounds much more heavily. Elfstrom is the exception in that no one seemed to have heard about him besides Hakan. Let's hope this one pays off and he's actually on par with Logan Brown.

 

[sarcastro]

I think Pulkks, Jarnkrok, Marchenko and Janmark-Nylen all should count as hits for where they were drafted. None of them look like all stars but they all look like NHLers (Pulkks maybe not so much but he could still be a 2nd line winger honestly). Hakan also has had fewer picks in recent years (2016 he had a lot of picks) so it's tough to say. I will also say that the rest of the league has caught up and scouts Hakan's hunting grounds much more heavily. Elfstrom is the exception in that no one seemed to have heard about him besides Hakan. Let's hope this one pays off and he's actually on par with Logan Brown.

The guys you mentioned are all either role players or AHL lifers. Hakan's legacy is built off of Pavel, Hank, Kronwall, and Franzen. Guys who were at one point star caliber players who were not picked at the top of the draft. Kronwall was a first rounder but was off the board and widely criticised at the time because he weighed something like 150.

Finding useable role players from Europe is no big trick anymore, especially when you draft as many Europeans as the Wings have. Where is Hakan's next Zetterberg discovery? Now that everyone is saturation scouting Europe, has Hakam lost his advantage? Maybe one of these guys takes off and we can say he got his mojo back. I hope so, because there have been an awful lot of Lofbergs and Bodins and Axelssons and Mielonens since his last big hit.

 

[HisNoodliness]

The guys you mentioned are all either role players or AHL lifers. Hakan's legacy is built off of Pavel, Hank, Kronwall, and Franzen. Guys who were at one point star caliber players who were not picked at the top of the draft. Kronwall was a first rounder but was off the board and widely criticised at the time because he weighed something like 150.

Finding useable role players from Europe is no big trick anymore, especially when you draft as many Europeans as the Wings have. Where is Hakan's next Zetterberg discovery? Now that everyone is saturation scouting Europe, has Hakam lost his advantage? Maybe one of these guys takes off and we can say he got his mojo back. I hope so, because there have been an awful lot of Lofbergs and Bodins and Axelssons and Mielonens since his last big hit.

See I see things differently. I think Dats and Z were no better picks than say Pulkks or Elfstrom. I just think Hakan got very lucky with Dats and Z. They developed much better than he or anyone else could have possibly known. He's an exceptional scout at identifying potential and players that most teams are unaware of. It takes getting very lucky for Dats and Z to fill the obvious holes in their game (size in their case as they both grew a couple inches and put on serious weight).

Sure most of these guys didn't develop into anything too special but I don't think that's on Hakan. Sometimes you take a guy with tools and potential and they don't reach it. Pulkkinen was an excellent pick in my mind. He lot up the Finnish league and then the AHL. If his skating developed at all he'd be a top six player in the NHL. The others are similar in that they had much more talent than most teams realized. Hakan did an excellent job recognizing that. Jarnkrok and Janrnmark both came pretty close to realizing their potential but ultimately they stagnated after arriving in North America.

Will Elfstrom turn out? Probably not but I think he's an excellent pick because (from what I can tell with very limited information) he has much higher potential than most third rounders let alone guys in the seventh.

 

[Frk It]

See I see things differently. I think Dats and Z were no better picks than say Pulkks or Elfstrom. I just think Hakan got very lucky with Dats and Z. They developed much better than he or anyone else could have possibly known. He's an exceptional scout at identifying potential and players that most teams are unaware of. It takes getting very lucky for Dats and Z to fill the obvious holes in their game (size in their case as they both grew a couple inches and put on serious weight).

Sure most of these guys didn't develop into anything too special but I don't think that's on Hakan. Sometimes you take a guy with tools and potential and they don't reach it. Pulkkinen was an excellent pick in my mind. He lot up the Finnish league and then the AHL. If his skating developed at all he'd be a top six player in the NHL. The others are similar in that they had much more talent than most teams realized. Hakan did an excellent job recognizing that. Jarnkrok and Janrnmark both came pretty close to realizing their potential but ultimately they stagnated after arriving in North America.

Will Elfstrom turn out? Probably not but I think he's an excellent pick because (from what I can tell with very limited information) he has much higher potential than most third rounders let alone guys in the seventh.

Pulkkinen's skating improved more than any other individual trait since being drafted. His skating is not the reason he is ineffective at the NHL level.

 

[HisNoodliness]

Pulkkinen's skating improved more than any other individual trait since being drafted. His skating is not the reason he is ineffective at the NHL level.

It's certainly gotten better but in my mind to make it he had to either improve his skating by about this much and get three inches taller (very unlikely) or improve his skating from a weakness to a strength. It's still a weakness (at best it's mediocre enough to be acceptable) and in the NHL you can either be big or fast, but you have to be one of the two (or average in both regards). Pulkks is small and slow so defenders can close the gap on him too effectively and he can't battle through.

He also isn't a good enough skater to get open and let loose his shot. His shot gets blocked or goes wide so much because he can't find the lanes to use it properly.

 

[Frk It]

See I see things differently. I think Dats and Z were no better picks than say Pulkks or Elfstrom.

This is just a preposterous statement for a number of reasons.

First, the situation with assessing Datsyuk and Pulkkinen are absolutely nothing alike. Pulkkinen was a top 10 prospect two years before being drafted, and he was on literally every single team's radar. Hakan, by his own account, was the only person he thinks actually saw Pavel Datsyuk play before the 1998 NHL draft. Having no other scout or anyone see him and see the talent, and to recognize it and formulate that thought all on your own is a feat on a completely different level.

Second, what the pick actually becomes is your entire livelihood as a scout. No one is just going to pat you on the pick if the kid doesn't work out, and say "well at least you had the right idea with that one". It's almost irrelevant. It is what your entire reputation and job security are based on.

 

[HisNoodliness]

This is just a preposterous statement for a number of reasons.

First, the situation with assessing Datsyuk and Pulkkinen are absolutely nothing alike. Pulkkinen was a top 10 prospect two years before being drafted, and he was on literally every single team's radar. Hakan, by his own account, was the only person he thinks actually saw Pavel Datsyuk play before the 1998 NHL draft. Having no other scout or anyone see him and see the talent, and to recognize it and formulate that thought all on your own is a feat on a completely different level.

Second, what the pick actually becomes is your entire livelihood as a scout. No one is just going to pat you on the pick if the kid doesn't work out, and say "well at least you had the right idea with that one". It's almost irrelevant. It is what your entire reputation and job security are based on.

I guess I just have a different view of scouting. Of course it's all about results but to me results are almost entirely about probabilities. Each player has a set of probabilities associated with them.

For example let's discuss Elfstrom. Hakan seems really high on the guy so I'll be pretty optimistic here. Supposedly he's a guy with good size and good skating so his likelihood of making the NHL is pretty decent for a seventh rounder. Let's say he has a 60% chance of being an NHLer. Supposedly he has skills too so I'll say he has a 5% chance of being a first liner, 15% second liner, 20% third and 20 fourth. That's pretty wildly optimistic.

Giving pulkks the same treatment when he was drafted I'd say it was more like 10% first line 20% 2nd, 10% 3rd and 0% fourth. So he was more of a long shot (only 40% to make it at all) but he was more likely to be a top sixer. I think Z and Dats had similar probabilities as Pulkks and they turned out he didn't. A good scout maximizes your likelihood of getting a good player. Sometimes you get lucky (Z, Dats, hopefully the Elf), others unlucky (Pulkks etc.)

If you never get results then the guys you're drafting probably have low probabilities of succeeding.