Jtown
Registered User
Originally what i wanted to do was have a variety of people on the board look at prospects they were interested in for a scouting project. However there wasn not enough interest to do that, so I just went ahead and did some very amateur scouting on zacha a prospect that I find intriguing.
Zacha is really an enigma. There are times where he is the fastest skater on the ice , and there are times where he looks slow. There are times where he looks defensively responsible and there are times where he looks like he has no clue what he is doing on defense. There are very few consistencies about his game but the few I will list.
Areas where he is good
1. Great hands, he is very good accurate passer , can dangle, receives passes nicely and in stride. Just great soft strong hands all around
2. Physical. He is a great forechecker. Simple as that.
3. Elite shooting capability , with great release, accuracy, and abiity to get shots off.
Areas where I think he is bad at
1. Mental aspects of the game. More on this later.
Areas where he struggles to find concistency
1. Skating. At times when he puts his nose down and moves his legs his skating is elite top speed and elite acceleration. You may only see those shifts 2x a game which is ashame. Most of the time he is not moving his legs and kinda just gliding. I don't know if this is a concious thing he is doing or if the mental aspect of the game is hindering his ability to impact it physically.
2. Defense. There are times where he plays deep into his own zone and has the puck skills and skating to break out all on his own with ease. There are times where he cheats up ice and does not fulfill his responsibilities as a center and as result Sarnia fails to clear the zone. When he is facing his man he is a pretty good defensive center because of his ability to cover a huge area of the ice with his size ,skating and reach. He is not very good at faceoffs from what i could tell.
3. Playing Center. Zacha may not be a natural center, but again he had a lot working against him this year in Sarnia.
Advocay on his part:
Zacha played on a pretty bad sarnia team this year. NOt much talent, and from most of the games i saw they really struggled to clear the puck out of their zone. Zacha was tasked as a first year NA player to center their top line. Zacha was clearly the most talented Forward on the team and was suspended twice this year and injured his shoulder as well as playing in the wjc this season. All those interruptions prevented him from finding any consistency in his game , along with being a first time NA player. I can fully understand why some considered his rookie year to be a dissappointment , but he had so much working against him this year I can see why he may have struggled. I don't think we saw him at his best this year.
Final Notes:
I am scared of Zacha as a fan of the flyers. I am scared of him busting if we select him, but what i am most scared of is us passing on him and him finally blossoming and becoming an absolute force. Zacha clearly struggled in the NA game. I think he would've looked a lot better and put up more guady numbers as a winger but going through the growing pains now may benefit him more next year. He absolutely has first line 2 way center potential which is extremley rare. He has also shown he has no sort of consistency in his overall game right now. Young players are rarely consitent, and considering this was his first year playing in north america i can sympathize with why he did not have the consistency you would expect.
Best case scenario is this, Zacha has top 3 talent and was unable to show that this year because of a disasterous up and down season with no rhythm and some fortunate team is able to get him while his value is lowest.
Worst case scenario is for all his physical gifts zacha has zero hockey sense which makes him unable to make a signifcant impact.
On the High end he could be Jeff Carter
On the Low end he could be Benoit Pouliot.
Zacha is really an enigma. There are times where he is the fastest skater on the ice , and there are times where he looks slow. There are times where he looks defensively responsible and there are times where he looks like he has no clue what he is doing on defense. There are very few consistencies about his game but the few I will list.
Areas where he is good
1. Great hands, he is very good accurate passer , can dangle, receives passes nicely and in stride. Just great soft strong hands all around
2. Physical. He is a great forechecker. Simple as that.
3. Elite shooting capability , with great release, accuracy, and abiity to get shots off.
Areas where I think he is bad at
1. Mental aspects of the game. More on this later.
Areas where he struggles to find concistency
1. Skating. At times when he puts his nose down and moves his legs his skating is elite top speed and elite acceleration. You may only see those shifts 2x a game which is ashame. Most of the time he is not moving his legs and kinda just gliding. I don't know if this is a concious thing he is doing or if the mental aspect of the game is hindering his ability to impact it physically.
2. Defense. There are times where he plays deep into his own zone and has the puck skills and skating to break out all on his own with ease. There are times where he cheats up ice and does not fulfill his responsibilities as a center and as result Sarnia fails to clear the zone. When he is facing his man he is a pretty good defensive center because of his ability to cover a huge area of the ice with his size ,skating and reach. He is not very good at faceoffs from what i could tell.
3. Playing Center. Zacha may not be a natural center, but again he had a lot working against him this year in Sarnia.
Advocay on his part:
Zacha played on a pretty bad sarnia team this year. NOt much talent, and from most of the games i saw they really struggled to clear the puck out of their zone. Zacha was tasked as a first year NA player to center their top line. Zacha was clearly the most talented Forward on the team and was suspended twice this year and injured his shoulder as well as playing in the wjc this season. All those interruptions prevented him from finding any consistency in his game , along with being a first time NA player. I can fully understand why some considered his rookie year to be a dissappointment , but he had so much working against him this year I can see why he may have struggled. I don't think we saw him at his best this year.
Final Notes:
I am scared of Zacha as a fan of the flyers. I am scared of him busting if we select him, but what i am most scared of is us passing on him and him finally blossoming and becoming an absolute force. Zacha clearly struggled in the NA game. I think he would've looked a lot better and put up more guady numbers as a winger but going through the growing pains now may benefit him more next year. He absolutely has first line 2 way center potential which is extremley rare. He has also shown he has no sort of consistency in his overall game right now. Young players are rarely consitent, and considering this was his first year playing in north america i can sympathize with why he did not have the consistency you would expect.
Best case scenario is this, Zacha has top 3 talent and was unable to show that this year because of a disasterous up and down season with no rhythm and some fortunate team is able to get him while his value is lowest.
Worst case scenario is for all his physical gifts zacha has zero hockey sense which makes him unable to make a signifcant impact.
On the High end he could be Jeff Carter
On the Low end he could be Benoit Pouliot.
Awesome.
