Day three of the U18 Worlds is about to start here in Sweden. I arrived to Umeå on Thursday to watch Czech Republic vs Belarus and Canada vs Finland games. After that, I traveled to Örnsköldsvik on Friday to watch Slovakia vs USA and Sweden vs Latvia. And so far, my trip to Sweden [...]
Why aren’t we talking about the CHL playoffs!!!??? I will begin with the OHL playoffs, and will add to this later this week/weekend/next week I hope! OHL PLAYOFFS Guelph was able to win game seven versus the London Knights by scoring five unanswered goals to win the game 6-3. Four goals [...]
*** Digging into rookies playoff lists so far, something seemed...off. I was admiring a few performances (mainly Heiskanen's TOI numbers), but the list of 20 NHL rookies who have played so far seemed a little too short, so I've looked back over the last decade to compare: 2008-09: 38 2009-10: 38 2010-11: 43 [...]
I’ve been saying it for months. The 3-10 range in this class is an absolute blender. Once Jack Hughes and Kaapo Kakko have had their moment on the stage, any combination of selections to follow are reasonable and plausible. Most years, selecting the best player available is an intelligent avenue. However, with this group [...]
USHL Report – April 2019 It is always exciting covering prospects from the USHL. Draft evaluations begin to take over this time of year. However, there is always time for the latest from the league. Overall, it was a month of great plays, saves, and more. Two things stood out in the [...]
The WHL playoffs are upon us! --------------------- The time of the year where the best of the best go head to head and out pops the diamonds from the coal. Teams have the ability to focus on star players and see if they can contain them. The trade deadline proves whether a team who bolstered for a [...]
*** Welcome to the NCAA signings edition of the Prospect Ramblings! Today we look at the impact of some of the impactful players who were drafted and left college for the professional ranks, and some of the undrafted free agents that have made an imprint on their new teams. There has been a lot [...]
Just 10 more days to go before the 2019 U18 World Championship tournament starts! That means most European teams are arranging a training camp of some sorts, and there’s plenty of useful information in those training camp rosters. I’ll go through the rosters for Finland, Sweden, Russia and Czech Republic. I’ll make my lineup [...]
*** With the AHL regular season coming to a conclusion, it’s a great time to take a step back and review the year as a whole. When we kicked the year off in October, I reviewed three groups of players to watch in the AHL - "High Profile Vets", "Rookies to watch", and [...]
image courtesy of TipoftheTower *** As the WHL, OHL, and QMJHL seasons move through their respective playoffs, NHL organizations are vying over the best undrafted players who have had strong seasons. Every spring there are prospects added to organizational depth charts on multi-year deals, despite being passed over in the draft more than once. Maybe [...]
