Sorry boys you have me on the McCagg slander train. Read this if you want to roll on the floor laughing:
He compares Laine to Mario and says he's not far off his level. This article is gold from top to bottom. Reminds me of a certain Slaf vs. Wright debate, even if Matthews and Laine were far superior prospects.
There's no need to "slander" him, McCagg's rankings suck, plain and simple. He gets weird hard-ons on two-way/grinding players with above-average hockey IQ every year, and also big, rangy defensemen from the WHL.
He gets so bad about it, so caught up in his own narrative that he begins ranking them way too high (cue-in those annoying MAD ads about driving high, wayyyyy too high) and drastically undervalues high-level thinkers of the game with some two-way flaws, or softer, yet uber-skilled guys like Caufield.
I do enjoy McCagg's write-ups though. As long as you forego the scouting reports about guys he isn't level-headed with and understand that he overestimates two-way play / grinding, and underestimates high-end smarts / skills, and so adjust your reading accordingly, he is generally a good source of info to read on prospects and get acquainted with them at the beginning of the year or so.
But yeah, you can still skip his lists without any problems whatsoever. Even if he is supposed to have "sources" within the team.
Oh yeah, and while I'm not as averse to drafting Slafkovsky as others on this board, I still think he would be a sub-optimal pick at #1 overall.
I appreciate his great shot, sweet release, will to battle for and find prime scoring positions, respect his hockey IQ, his board work and his physicality, as well as his very unique blend of size/skating + smooth hands, but Slafkovsky plain isn't a creative player in the offensive zone, nor is he a primary play-driver, which could ultimately limit his offensive potential in the NHL.
And if you look at our team's makeup you must surely know by now that what we need most isn't a goalscoring winger with size/speed/power elements to his game that shows his full potential when playing with a strong playmaker, but rather that very playmaker that keeps defenses honest and guessing as to where the puck will end up (which we haven't had since probably Koivu/Kovalev and more recently Suzuki, although the latter hasn't fully matured yet).
Then we look at mental aptitude, and Slafkovsky suddenly doesn't shine as much. His vision is only average/above-average right now for an NHLer (which isn't to say it can't/won't improve, but it is generally the single hardest attribute to majorly improve as a prospect / young pro and should factor in on our 42-years-in-the-making #1 overall draft pick decision).
Juraj also doesn't anticipate plays the way you would wish a top-line forward would (his positioning is pretty freaking good, but anticipation is another story), and he is not versed enough in playmaking ability to be a versatile threat in the offensive zone (biggest drawback to his play and also biggest reason why I don't think we will draft him, dominant Olympics/WC or no). His "manipulation" skills, AKA hiding his intentions from defensive players through dekes, feints, head fakes, pivots, etc., while not bad, are also far from elite.
Worse, not only is Slafkovsky NOT a "dual threat" if we will, but he also isn't anything to write home about defensively. Don't get me wrong, Slaf isn't a wreck defensively, and he will backcheck with energy, pressure the puck carrier on the boards and win more than his fair share of 50/50 puck battles, but aside from that he has very underwhelming defensive traits. He is plain not good at closing passing lanes (particularly cross-ice seams, killed his team's momentum a few times in Liiga), and frankly has trouble figuring out how to best apply pressure when the other team is cycling the puck.
Of all his defensive weaknesses, the timing of his defensive pressure is probably the worst. From the games I've watched in the Liiga, Slafkovsky was either late in his tracking/anticipating of the play, which let his marks create space for themselves to make passes/keep the offensive pressure on, or he committed too early in his coverage, the defenseman quickly making a pass as he tries to run them over / separate the puck from them physically, and then the opposing team had more ice to exploit because Slafkovsky was too aggressive and got caught. But he did get better at it over the course of the year, so maybe there is something there.
Anyways, even after all that I said I still like Slafkovsky, I really do, and have him fourth on my list, after Wright, Cooley and Nemec. But because of his lack of ++ hockey IQ, lackluster playmaking/passing game, and also because he is not a great defensive player I not only think that we should not draft him first overall, but also that Shane Wright and Logan Cooley (probably Nemec, Jiricek, and Miroschnichenko too for that matter) have more potential than him at the NHL level in my opinion.
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