2017 NHL Draft: ISS Hockey's early look at five top prospects

HF Article

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Photo: Brandon Wheat Kings forward and 2017 prospect Nolan Patrick has been a productive contributor on one of the WHL’s top teams in 2014-15 (courtesy of Marissa Baecker/Getty Images)


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It is still two years and three months away, but the prospects eligible for the 2017 NHL Draft nevertheless are receiving some attention from scouts, albeit not as much scrutiny as those in the Classes of 2015 and 2016.

One of the scouting organizations keeping an eye on the late-’98 and ’99-born players that make up the 2017 draft pool is ISS Hockey, the largest independent scouting organization in North America.… read more

The post 2017 NHL Draft: ISS Hockey’s early look at five top prospects appeared first on Hockey's Future.



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kelsier

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Aug 17, 2013
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Seeing Vaakanainen there is suprising. Normally Finnish prospects don't show up very high on initial lists of upcoming draft years that are a few years away. Maybe that's a sign of international scouting being less hesitant in adding blue - white colour on the sheet nowdays, due to our better established fresh generation of youngsters.

Anyway, should both 2016 and 2017 draft years produce top10 defenders while having Ristolainen added from 2013, that'd make three guys in a short time line. Would be quite amasing.
 

Tormentor

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Dec 27, 2007
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Seeing Vaakanainen there is suprising. Normally Finnish prospects don't show up very high on initial lists of upcoming draft years that are a few years away. Maybe that's a sign of international scouting being less hesitant in adding blue - white colour on the sheet nowdays, due to our better established fresh generation of youngsters.

Anyway, should both 2016 and 2017 draft years produce top10 defenders while having Ristolainen added from 2013, that'd make three guys in a short time line. Would be quite amasing.

Lehterä promotes his own player by saying that Vaakanainen is the most promising Finnish D ever. Now ISS eats that bait and claims that he's been "labeled by some Finnish hockey observers as potentially the best defenseman to come out of that country to date". Some source criticism might perhaps be in order here. Then again, the Finnish scout for ISS is involved with the Blues Jr.A team as well, so maybe I shouldn't be too surprised to see this. Nepotism.
 

kelsier

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Aug 17, 2013
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Lehterä promotes his own player by saying that Vaakanainen is the most promising Finnish D ever. Now ISS eats that bait and claims that he's been "labeled by some Finnish hockey observers as potentially the best defenseman to come out of that country to date". Some source criticism might perhaps be in order here. Then again, the Finnish scout for ISS is involved with the Blues Jr.A team as well, so maybe I shouldn't be too surprised to see this. Nepotism.

Yeah Lehterä was indeed praising one of his players. So you don't think the pre-hype is at all warranted? Basicly I'm not caring much about these articles, still just interesting to see country men (or kids) being highly touted so early on, considering that normally the European attension would either go across the pond (Pohjanlahti) or across the border to the east.
 

Eyelanders

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Jan 9, 2011
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I've seen Vaakanainen play decent amount of times this year and I don't think he's as good as ISS claims. However, he's been really solid defensively and his skating is quite impressive both ways. My opinion is that he could end up in the first round in the 2017 draft, but to be honest I don't see him as a top five talent. Nevertheless, he's definitely among the best Finnish 99's and seemed to play consistently well at the U20 level.
 
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Tormentor

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Yeah Lehterä was indeed praising one of his players. So you don't think the pre-hype is at all warranted?

Vaakanainen is an early developer, he grew height early and his physique and conditioning are comparable to the top 98-born Finnish defensemen. Taking that into consideration, he didn’t look like a generational talent in Jr.A this season. There were quite a few 98-born defensemen who either matched his level of performance or outdid it. Vaakanainen has a January birthdate, so Välimäki and Salo are only 3 months older than him, and even the top dog Juolevi is only 8 months older than him.

1. Olli Juolevi (Jokerit), 44gp 6g+26a=32p, +0
2. Tarmo Reunanen (TPS), 42gp 8g+22a=30p, +16
3. Robin Salo (Sport), 45gp 10g+16a=26p, -5
4. Juuso Välimäki (Ilves), 44gp 5g+15a=20p, +22
5. Markus Niemeläinen (HPK), 39gp 2g+14a=16p, +24
6. Urho Vaakanainen (Blues), 30gp 4g+8a=12p, +20

The ISS article mentions that Vaakanainen had a nice plus-20 rating during regular season. That’s all well and good, but on the other hand even Veeti Vainio who plays like boiled spaghetti half the time had a plus-22 rating on that strong Blues squad. Not that the plus-minus stat matters much, but the article fails to mention that Vaakanainen finished the playoffs with a minus-2 rating and had a minus-3 rating at the latest U17 national team tournament in Russia.

Vaakanainen has a good balance, footwork and overall mobility, but I wouldn’t say that he’s among the fastest players on the ice. Overall his puck skills are pretty good, but he still mishandles the puck occasionally and could be more thorough with his passes. He shoots the puck well from the point, it’s an asset when he manages to get it through traffic. He has good work ethic and shows up to play every night. He plays the body, but doesn’t usually use much force and isn’t particularly tough to play against. Likely won’t have the size or the attitude to regularly overpower opponents along the boards at NHL level. Displays some poise moving the puck and usually makes heads up plays, but his decision making and play under pressure needs to improve. There's inconsistency in his defensive anticipation and positioning, a few too many lapses and bad reads considering the level of competition he plays in.

I see an interesting all-around type defensive prospect, but the talk about him being the most promising Finnish D ever is just silly. If his development continues on a good path he might or might not be a 1st rounder two years from now. Everyone has the right to rank him wherever they see best, but I believe there’s a good chance you’re setting yourself up for failure if you think he’s a top-10 kind of talent.

Some recent video of him if you're interested:

 

kelsier

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Aug 17, 2013
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Thanks for the link. Haven't got to see Vaakanainen as much as I'd like to.
Some quick notes:

They seem to use him as the go-through-guy and lot of plays started through his outlets. Played a lot of minutes. You could see he wasn't physically ready yet against big guys like Rantanen. The few times he got played out was against Rantanen, 1 on 1 especially. Easy to give him a pass on that for being two years younger and since Rantanen is already playing against men. Made a few passes that weren't exactly tape to tape but overally pretty solid. Wanted to see more PP cause Vaakanainen seems to have an excellent shot. His skating was a treat to watch (backwards and forwards) - while not being the fastest he's still very mobile. Good size for his age. Not really suprised for the kid being highly touted but still a small sample size and a lot of room for growth, gamewise and in frame. Vaakanainen is definately worth keeping an eye but too early for making estimates I'd think.
 

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