Mitch Marner dominating the OHL, Connor McDavid comes alive and Jets prospects impress

Saturday, January 3rd

Happy New Year to all of our dedicated DobberProspects readers! As we turn a new calendar year, I speak on behalf of the entire DobberProspects staff, including Associate Editor Austin Wallace, when I say that we hope to continue bringing you some of the best prospect coverage out there. As a new resolution, Austin and I are planning on ramping up the frequency of our ramblings so be sure to keep checking back.

Before I dive into the World Junior Hockey Championships, there are few non-WJC related prospect stories that need to be addressed…

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In an NHL draft class that features to projected superstars in Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel, it’s extremely difficult to top the daily news that surfaces daily on those two players. In saying that, how about London Knights’ draft eligible forward Mitch Marner’s surgence? The young right winger has been absolutely sensational since the end of October.

He started the season off on a slow note with just four points in his opening 10 games which required me to remind the hockey world that he would be alright and not to worry, sending people to re-read my article on him late last summer. On October 24th, Marner picked up three assists against an Ottawa 67’s squad which sparked a 16-game point streak tallying 21 goals and 44 points before he was held pointless on December 5th against the Soo Greyhounds, ending that impressive run. Since he was blanked, Marner has picked back up from his storybook month that witnessed him become the OHL’s November Player of the Month.

In his past 10 games, the slick playmaking forward has dominated the gamesheet posting 10 goals and 28 points, including 5-point and 6-point nights in back-to-back games against the Sarnia Sting. Do the math and you quickly find out that Mitch Marner has racked up 31 goals and an astonishing 72 points over his last 27 games, with only one pointless game.

In any other draft, Marner would be a lock for a top 5 selection but the likes of McDavid, Eichel, Hanifin, Crouse, Werenski, Strome and Zacha are still making it tough to crack. Outside of maybe McDavid, I haven’t seen many draft eligible skaters with Marner’s ability to create offense and it’s going to be arguably the best Top 10 in the drafts recent history. What a class of players! Marner sits with a seven point cushion in the OHL scoring race (77 points in 37 games) ahead of Dylan Strome (70).

Great goaltending, great games, not so great teams.

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Welcome to my second ramblings in as many days. Instead of covering a lot of things broadly, I am going to take a deeper look at the two games today as well as the Leon Draisaitl escapade. I focus mainly on drafted NHL prospects; Brendan Ross will be posting his own ramblings in the days to come with much more of an emphasis on 2015 and 2016 eligibles.

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Denmark and Switzerland played a massively, unexpectedly entertaining game filled with highlights, great plays, sloppy plays and an improbable, unprecedented win.

Updates on some World Junior Standouts and some Angusing candidates.

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I am happy to be back from a vacation that had a surprising and complete lack of access  to cable or internet. While it was nice to unplug, it couldn’t have come at a worse time! I missed the start of one of the best tournaments in all of sports. The World Juniors is arguably a better display of pure skill than any other NHL tournament; highly skilled players bearing the weight of a country, and playing before NHL coaches can extract every last ounce of wild abandon and emotion in favour of silly things like “defensively sound hockey” and “clichés that not even Toronto media can twist into controversy”.

Updating the prospect action of the World Junior Championships with a close look on Leafs William Nylander, Predators Kevin Fiala, Canada's Connor McDavid and American Jack Eichel...

Sunday, December 28^th

Two days in at the 2015 World Junior Championships and we’ve already witnessed some stellar performances. Lucky for me, I have tickets to every game taking place in Toronto featuring Sweden, Russia, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Denmark and thanks to PVR, I have been able to catch the Pool A action, including Canada, US, Slovakia, Germany and the defending 2014 gold medalists – Finland.

As good as it would be to watch Canada and USA through the round robin, I am thankful for the teams and their talents participating in Toronto. Having the chance to watch William Nylander (Sweden/Maple Leafs, 8^th overall in 2014), Nikolaj Ehlers (Denmark/Jets, 9^th overall in 2014), Kevin Fiala (Switzerland/Predators, 11^th overall in 2014), Jakub Vrana (Czech Republic/Capitals, 13^th overall in 2014) and AHL star David Pastrnak (Czech Republic/Bruins, 25^th overall in 2014). With each of them possessing similar offensive skills featuring crafty puck skills and out-out-of-this-world creativity, all five of them have been a treat to watch. More on these players a little later.

Fortunately, the long list of exciting participants doesn’t end there as plenty of 1995s have proved (and will continue to prove) to be dangerous throughout this tournament. From Group B action in Toronto, here are a few drafted players (outside of the ones mentioned above) who have stood out for me … Nikolay Goldobin (Russia/Sharks), Pavel Buchnevich (Russia/Rangers), Sergey Tolchinsky (Russia/Hurricanes, signed), Vladislav Kamenev (Russia/Predators), Oliver Bjorkstrand (Denmark/Blue Jackets), Ondrej Kase (Czech Republic/Ducks), Mirco Mueller (Switzerland/Sharks), Noah Rod (Switzerland/Sharks), Jacob de la Rose (Sweden/Canadiens), Linus Soderstrom (Sweden/Islanders), Robert Hagg (Sweden/Flyers), Lucas Wallmark (Sweden/Hurricanes), Axel Holmstrom (Sweden/Red Wings), Adrian Kempe (Sweden/Sweden) and Oskar Lindblom (Sweden/Flyers).