Downright spectacular playoffs so far. Small sample size but if he can keep this up he's gonna go pretty early in next year's draft. Played on Ambri's U17 team this season but was helping out the U20 team occasionally. Joined the U20 team for game 2 of the best of 5 series vs Kloten. Kloten was huge favourite. Loaded team, finishing season in 2nd place. Also receiving very strong reinforcements with pro experience (Ramel, R.Meier, Deussen) earlier because their NL team's season ended earlier than Ambri's who only received William Hedlund, the import of their SL farm. Ambri still won the series and now won game 1 vs Zug as well, the team that dominated the regular season. I'll provide some numbers to give you an idea of how big of an upset those results are. Ambri finished the 48 games regular season with 70 points. Kloten had 91, Zug 101.
Now back to Pekar. Like I said he didn't play game 1 vs Kloten but he did score 4 points in 3 playoff games after cracking the lineup. He did all of this as a 13th forward and, to put this in perspective, while also being pretty much the youngest player taking part in this league's playoffs. Davos' Aebli is just a few days younger but his team lost their quarterfinal. All other 07 borns involved in the playoffs are at least half a year older and there's just a handful of them anyway. Pekar also kept his place as 13th forward when Ambri's NL team lost to their local rivals of Lugano and reassigned Tommaso De Luca and Simone Terraneo to their U20 team. In fact, Pekar even added another primary assist in game 1 of the playoff semifinal. Game 2 is today. With a 1-0 series lead, De Luca and Terraneo reinforcing the team and perhaps more heroics from Pekar I think Ambri has a chance to complete the 2nd upset in a row and eliminate Zug.
I wouldn't read too much into that. The Swiss U20 elite league may not be a very good junior league compared to CHL or Swedish J20 but it's still similar or better than all other junior leagues in the world. Also, since two years I believe, teams are allowed to dress four overagers each game and therefore the name u20 elite became a bit misleading when it's in fact an U22 elite league now. This season is the one of the 04 borns but like I explained, teams are allowed to dress four 02 borns as well. Pekar is a rather smallish late born 07 kid, barely eligible for the 2025 draft. He's a 16yo playing against opponents partly almost six years older than him. Based on that I'd say he has exceeded expectations, really. Also, his season does display a steep learning curve. If he can keep this up he could be dominating the league next season, maybe even get a taste of pro hockey on Ambri's SL farmteam though for financial reasons it's still unclear if it's still gonna be there next season with the SCL Tigers no longer willing to continue the cooperation with Ambri on that matter. Pekar could always get loaned to a different SL team though or get looks on Ambri's NL should they have to withdraw their farm from the SL.
.We can not draft him second time can we?
