halfway through the season, we are doing an update on the main prospect thread. how would your list change? howard was pretty sick at WJC.
The biggest changes are with new prospects Emil Lilleberg and Waltteri Merela. I didn't know much about them at the time and that made it difficult to rank them, especially having never seen them play a game. 6 months later I feel more confident in evaluating them.
1.
Isaac Howard / 1st rd - 2022
Howard is still the number 1 prospect for the Lightning. Hard to knock him down, especially after the world juniors. Everything has just gone right for him this season. He's bounced back at Michigan State with former NTDP coach Adam Nightingale, and then 7 goals in 7 games + a shootout winner is an incredible stat line at the WJC tournment. Tip of the hat as well to David Carle for reuniting Howard with Nazar and Brindley, who helped him score 6 in 6 games at the U-18s. It doesn't really change how I view him overall or some of the shortcomings in his game, but he did what you wanted him to do, and it continues to confirm what we thought of him as an offensive threat at the draft.
2.
Ethan Gauthier / 2nd rd - 2023
Like Howard, I think Gauthier continues to lock up the number 2 spot. He was somebody that got better as the September prospect tournament went on, and then carried that into a nhl preseason game where he flashed a little bit. In Drummondville he's on his way to surpassing his goal and point totals from last year. Like a lot of the top players in junior, the majority of his peers don't really pose a challenge to him on most nights. He just needs to stay on his path. The next step here is trying to make Canada's world junior team, and because he's able to wear many different hats, that should help his chances.
3.
Niko Huuhtanen / 7th rd - 2021
Huuhtanen moves up 1 spot here, but honeslty he could even jump up to #2. Just my own personal preference to have Gautheir ahead of him, and that's mainly to do with Gauthier being less of a project. There's not really much to say here. Statistically he's blowing up the Finnish Liiga, he earned his first call up to the mens national team, and he will likely get another call in the spring for the World Championships. Again, credit to the work Olli Jokinen and his staff at Jukurit have done so far. Now hopefully the time will come soon where that responsibility is handed off to Joel Bouchard and his staff to finish the job at Syracuse.
4.
Waltteri Merela / undrafted free agent
I really like Merela. Maybe not the highest potential, but I believe strongly in him as a NHL player. From July on he was riding a trajectory that was just going up and up. One of the top players at development camp, one of the top players in the September prospect tournament, one of our top young guys in the preseason, made the Lightning out of training camp. He just kept on impressing. Unfortunately like a lot of young guys, he just hit a little bit of a wall. A lot of these young guys have great training camps and preseasons, maybe creating a false misconception about how good the league actual is, but then the game starts to picks up through the first 10 games of the season, and then into November. But Merela is a mature and smart player. His game is already pretty well rounded. He's got size, he can skate, he can play on the pk. He just needs experience. Currently he's on the top line for Syracuse in the AHL, so he's in a good spot to work his way back.
5.
Max Groshev / 3rd rd - 2020
We had seen a little bit of Groshev at the world juniors, but his lack of playing time at SKA in the KHL really created a little bit of a mystery at what we were getting here this season. These past few months have done a lot on answering a lot of those questions. Really impressive at the prospect tournament, and flashed quite a bit in the preseason. He's spent some time on Syracuse's top line, and his 9 goals, 18 points in 33 games is not bad either for this being his first time playing in North America. He's smart, he's really fast, and he's got a NHL future if we can be patient.
6.
Dylan Duke / 4th rd - 2021
Nothing has really changed for Duke at Michigan. Last seasons top 3 scorers (Fantilli, Luke Hughes, Samoskevich) are gone, but Duke is still producing. Not that there isn't still a great group there with McGroarty, Nazar, Casey, and Brindley rejoing the team with gold medals around their necks. We're just letting time do it's work here, which is what small guys like Duke need before turning pro. When he's ready, he's ready.
7.
Emil Martinsen Lilleberg / Arizona 4th rd - 2021 / free agent
Like Merela, Lillberg was another guy I didn't know much about. I saw he played 2 seasons in the SHL, he's been to 3 world championships for Norway including this past year where he played over 23 minutes a game on their top pair (25+ minutes vs Canada) and was awarded top 3 player on his team, and their golden puck award for top Norwegian player of the year. All great, but still hard to rank him without seeing him in action. So far he looks like a steal of a pickup. He played well in the prospect tournament and limited time in the preseason, he's done well in Syracuse, and he looked decent in his first NHL game against Boston, in Boston, one of the top teams in the NHL. He's getting some time right now with the Bolts to gain a little bit of experience and measure how far away he is from being here full time. I don't think he's completely ready yet, but he's the kind of dman who can become a fan favorite for his play style.
8.
Gage Goncalves / 2nd rd - 2021
I had wrote for Lucas Edmonds that there was a chance for him to establish himself in the absense of Alex Barre-Boulet and Simon Ryfors, but here's Goncalves leading the team in points without the help of all 3 of those guys. He's never really wowed me in prospect tournaments or nhl preseason games, and maybe that's contributed to his lack of looks in the NHL. Gotta take advantage of those oppertunities, but he's been pretty consistent this season putting points on the board in the AHL.
9.
Jack Thompson / 3rd rd - 2020
If Lilleberg is the top left handed defenseman prospect in the pipeline, then Thompson is the top right handed one. You could make a case to swap them in the rankings. The biggest hurdles for Thompson are 1, there's a bigger need on the left side over the right, and 2, the guys on the right (Perbix and Raddysh) bring a lot of the same things to the table as he does. That kind of blocks his path to the NHL for the moment. Otherwise he's developing just fine. Thompson does a good job on the pp for Syracuse, and being the main point getter on their blueline. Not too surprising as that was his bread and butter in juniors. He's also wearing an 'A' for Bouchard and that says a lot as a 2nd year pro.
10.
Declan Carlile / undrafted free agent
It's hard for Carlile to stand out next to Thompson and Lillberg. He doesn't have the bite or mean streak of Lilleberg, nor is he as good offensively like Thompson from the blueline in. But he does his job, and defends well, the #1 thing you want in a defenseman. He was on the top pairing with Perbix at the 2022 prospect tournament, and then funny enough kind of slid in really well again next to him the other night against the Minnesota Wild. The litmus test for all young D is turning their back to the play, getting/winning the puck from behind the net or in the corner, and then turning, making a quick decision, and giving a strike to a teammate for a clean breakout. I thought he did that well in his first NHL game. He was a +28 in the AHL last year, +11 so far this year, and he doesn't score a lot. Pucks just don't go in as much when he's on the ice. Nothing wrong with simple, yet effective, but that's how he has to be.
Out of the Top 10:
Lucas Edmonds / 3rd rd - 2022
He got hurt early in the season, he's missed time, it's just kind of been derailing. Jack FInley knows that feeling. On the bright side, there's still half a season left. This ranking in no way reflects how the Bolts feel about him, as I'm sure they're still very high on him. Important to remember that they wanted to sign him as a free agent, and when they found out they couldn't, traded up to get in him in the draft to make sure he was ours.
Hugo Alnefelt / 3rd rd - 2019
The #1 thing I wanted to see him do this season was take hold of the starting job, and that hasn't happened. When Pyotr Kochetkov was there, Kochetkov was cleary the starter. I don't really have a problem with that, but now we're on to Matt Tomkins, and it's been a split net with them both posting pretty similar numbers. If he's going to win a NHL backup job one day, he has to win a AHL starting one first.
Cole Koepke / 6th rd - 2018
He got a little time up with the Lightning again as a callup, he played all right at times, but didn't stand out too much. It's hard coming up, be put on the 4th line, and play a role there, so I get it, but you have to make some sort of impact to warrent sticking around. He just hasn't so far.
Gabriel Fortier / 2nd rd - 2018
He was one of the last cuts in training camp with Barre-Boulet, which lead me to believe he was somewhat close, but it just hasn't lead to anything for him yet. I would have thought he would have been the first guy to get called up, and he hasn't been called up at all. The Bolts like to over-cook their prospects, but as a 4th year pro I feel less confident in his future than I did previously.
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