2021 NHL Draft Prospects
- Thread starter alko
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alko
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cmcneil02
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- Dec 27, 2015
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Great player, but 2020 eligible
Killerjas
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Anaheim4ever
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- Jun 15, 2017
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Stephane Robidas' son, forward Justin Robidas, will be an interesting name to follow as well. He didn't play in Bantam AAA this season because the team from his territory was loaded, but had a great season against his own age group. Will be very interesting to watch his progression. Three other names for you draft junkies: F Joshua Roy, F Tristan Roy, F James Malatesta.
Justin Robidas should be drafted by the Islanders so Robidas Island has a new meaning.
Outofbodyinhungary
Registered User
Alex Geci looks to be a good one. Late August birthday meaning he’s one of the youngest players in the draft. Currently has 9 pts in his last 8 games in the u20 league on a not particularly high scoring team. He’s got some size as well, already 6-1.
Outofbodyinhungary
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His numbers aren’t even that good for a player who is an 02 in an 03 draft.
Have to realize he's 16 playing against 20, 21 year olds. In the CHL though there are a few that are very close, there is only one 16 year old player with a decent amount of games played who is over PPG and that is Cole Perfetti, not that easy to score in a good junior league at that age. Next year we will have a much better idea as many talented 03s transition to major junior in North America and various u20 leagues in Europe.
I agree that Räty's numbers aren't super impressive, but if we consider his age they're not that bad. We also need to remember that before Räty moved up to the u20s, he scored at a 3 PPG pace(18 points in 6 games) in the Finnish u18 league. Another Finnish top 2021 draft prospect has scored 55 points in 37 games at that level, and Tuomaala is just 2 months younger. Let's also remember that Räty gets relatively low ice time on the 3rd line in u20s and doesn't get the same opportunities that some others do.
What I don't get is how some minor midget player could possibly go ahead of him. The u18s where Räty scored at 3 PPG is stronger than minor midget as is.
Draft -2 stats in Finnish U20 league All-Time:
1. Patrik Laine, 40 26+11= 37
2. Arttu Ruotsalainen, 39 13+18= 31
3. Aatu Räty, 37 15+11= 26
4. Robin Salo, 45 10+16= 26
5. Mikko Kokkonen, 38 6+20= 26
Ye looks pretty bad. Looks like 7 round pick..
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I am not trying to discount Raty or Lambert as players whatsoever, but this is the second thread in which you’ve made the ridiculous assertion that a player playing minor midget in Canada couldn’t possibly be better than an underage Finnish player playing well in the Finnish u-20. It appears that alone is your principle basis for knocking Canadian players. Until these players compete internationally against their peers, you really cannot pass such a judgement and rely on stats alone.
One of the main reasons Canada has province-specific leagues instead of amalgamated national leagues is because of its vast geography. Can you imagine 15 year olds having to fly from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Victoria, British Columbia (about 5,000 kilometres by plane) just to play a league game of midget hockey, all while trying to balance school and their social life? Not to mention what this would cost.
Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, John Tavares, Steven Stamkos, Taylor Hall, Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, Matt Barzal, Jack Hughes, etc. also played midget hockey in Canada, did this automatically mean they were worse than any underage Finnish player playing well in u-20? Guys like Brandt Clarke, Shane Wright and Matt Savoie are certainly not going to be second rate players because they play for the Don Mills Flyers and Northern Alberta Extreme instead of Lahti and Karpat U-20.
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The point's not to put blame on them, is it? It's just simple realities of the qualities of the leagues and career projectability at this point in time. Räty also has played in several international matches, Clarke in... How many? Obviously there are exceptions, like Connor Bedard completely destroying the level of competition, which also is quite high. That is not the case with Clarke in the slightest, he even is playing at quite a low level. I hope you realize the hypocrisy when you see people using "dominating CWG" as some #1OA indicator.
For the record and to get this out of the way by the way, I've never been all that high on Räty from the beginning. Lambert I'm very high on.
I am not trying to debate the merits of Clarke and Raty, I am simply pointing out you are making some very categorical statements that, in my view, are ridiculous on their face.
Having said this, simply playing in international matches is not exactly an indicator of a players’ worth. Perhaps it is a weaker birth year for Finland and Raty is better than other available older players given the smaller player pool vis a vis Canada? Again, I don’t have the knowledge of Finnish hockey, I’m just pointing out you are using odd evidence to make a claim that one player is superior to another when you likely haven’t even seen the other play.
To your specific points about Clarke, he eclipsed over 100 points this year as a defenceman, something that has rarely been done in the history of the GTMMHL, and there have been some Norris calibre defenceman that have come out of that league (again not saying Clarke’s a better prospect than Raty but he’s not playing in some house league like you claim).
And to your point regarding the Canada Winter Games, most of the Canadian superstars I noted above also played in this tournament and dominated. It is a best-on-best tournament for a very strong age group of Canadian players. Scouts and fans should be rightly excited if a player with strong league performance translates their high level of play to this tournament given the historical success of others.
They're not ridiculous, I even mentioned projection. And mentioning that Clarke plays minor midget is also not ridiculous considering that several top prospects graduated from there a year earlier. That, in fact, is not a Finland-vs-Canada argument. Heck, we can bring Savoie to the conversation if you want, who's a year younger and plays vs older competition. There are some similarly aged NHLers that were high scorers in minor midget at that age such as Ho-Sang, Gagner, Dylan Strome but that's hardly #1OA material. If he was, he'd already have graduated - That's my logic there. But unfortunately, I don't have his scoring available on eliteprospects so perhaps if he scores at 3 PPG or so that's worth consideration.
Also, you seem to ignore the fact that many of those great players who dominated this competition didn't do it at this age but younger. By trends, scoring tends to increase by up to 2-3x in the same league when the player becomes a year older. 2003s dominating 2003s - That's whatever. You can't project even based off national team success like that, but just a Canada-only competition? Pfft. He might be the strongest Canadian of his age group. But that's all. The best Canadian to be drafted since McDavid's draft is, what, Pierre-Luc Dubois. Most have been disappointments or question marks since - consider it.
If you still don't get why such accolades shouldn't be enough for a player to somehow be considered the #1OA, be my guest I guess.
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This will be my last reply to you as it is clear you are not rational:
1. Nowhere did I say that it is ridiculous for you to point out that Clarke plays minor midget; I indicated it’s ridiculus to conted that just because a player is dominating players of his own age, in likely the best minor midget league in the world, they somehow can’t be a top prospect.
2. Only two Canadian defenceman in history have graduated from minor midget a year earlier: Aaron Ekblad and Sean Day (who played in the USA). Doughty, Subban, Pietrangelo, etc didn’t graduate a year early and they’ve had solid NHL careers.
3. Those high scorers you referenced are forwards, and Clarke has even out-produced some of them (granted he’s on a very good team) as a defenceman. If you ever find a 3ppg defenceman in the GTMMHL, they may be a unicorn.
4. You really need to stop with the broad generalizations. There will be exceptional players that play ahead of their own age group like Tavares and McDavid, and there will be others like Crosby, Stamkos and Mackinnon who didn’t receive exceptional status and are still superstars. And you are incorrect that all the best Canadian players dominated the Canada Winter Games as underagers (see Crosby, Mackinnon, Stamkos, etc who did not play as underagers).
5. Every player has a different development cycle, and this draft isn’t for another two years. You’re telling me that just because Clarke didnt play in the CHL as a 15 year old, even if he walks into the CHL and dominates at 16 and 17 (including the U17s and U18 tournaments) he won’t have done enough to be considered for 1st overall in his draft year? I’m not saying this will happen, just pointing out the inherent flaws in your argument.
1. Nowhere did I say that it is ridiculous for you to point out that Clarke plays minor midget; I indicated it’s ridiculus to conted that just because a player is dominating players of his own age, in likely the best minor midget league in the world, they somehow can’t be a top prospect.
2. Only two Canadian defenceman in history have graduated from minor midget a year earlier: Aaron Ekblad and Sean Day (who played in the USA). Doughty, Subban, Pietrangelo, etc didn’t graduate a year early and they’ve had solid NHL careers.
3. Those high scorers you referenced are forwards, and Clarke has even out-produced some of them (granted he’s on a very good team) as a defenceman. If you ever find a 3ppg defenceman in the GTMMHL, they may be a unicorn.
4. You really need to stop with the broad generalizations. There will be exceptional players that play ahead of their own age group like Tavares and McDavid, and there will be others like Crosby, Stamkos and Mackinnon who didn’t receive exceptional status and are still superstars. And you are incorrect that all the best Canadian players dominated the Canada Winter Games as underagers (see Crosby, Mackinnon, Stamkos, etc who did not play as underagers).
5. Every player has a different development cycle, and this draft isn’t for another two years. You’re telling me that just because Clarke didnt play in the CHL as a 15 year old, even if he walks into the CHL and dominates at 16 and 17 (including the U17s and U18 tournaments) he won’t have done enough to be considered for 1st overall in his draft year? I’m not saying this will happen, just pointing out the inherent flaws in your argument.
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Outofbodyinhungary
Registered User
Your not taking into account he should be draft -1 because he is an 02 not an 03.
It doesn't work like that. He is 2 years away from his draft, thus he is d-2.
