Puck Preps

Fantasy Summary

A hard-hitting pest who racks up penalty minutes and adds a scoring touch. Think Cal Clutterbuck with less discipline and a bit more skill.


Observations

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November 2024 – Davies is an incredibly fun player to watch. He made tons of noise during the NHL preseason after laying out Tampa Bay Lightning captain Victor Hedman with a clean open ice hit, introducing the league to the kind of player he is. Those familiar with his game were not surprised how he has already earned a bit of notoriety. He has split time between the AHL and ECHL thus far, scoring his first two professional goals with the Savannah Ghost Pirates of the ECHL this past weekend. After just three games in the ECHL, Davies has earned a call-up to the AHL which was announced the day after his triple-header in the ECHL. His style of game is valued in the NHL and once he proves himself at the AHL level, he will earn his call to the pinnacle of the sport. James Connelly

July 2024 – 32 NHL teams want somebody like Josh Davies playing in their bottom six. Davies skates fast, plays hard, and brings the intensity up to 11 on every single shift. He lacks discipline but has presumably gotten better with it as he took 40 fewer PIMs in 2023-24 than he did in 2022-23 while also taking on a larger role. He had his most productive season in the WHL on the Portland Winterhawks second line. Playing alongside a pair of 100-point scorers in Gabe Klassen and James Stefan, Davies’ production should be taken with a heavy grain of salt but that does not take away from his skill. Davies will need a bit of time in the minors to further refine his defensive skills which are already a solid part of his game. With his physicality and speed, he looks like he will be a player who spends the majority of his time on a 3rd or 4th line but gets thrown into the top six whenever his team is losing and the coach puts the lines in a blender. Davies will likely need a year to mature in the AHL but it would not be surprising to see him be one of the final cuts from Panthers camp this fall or to see him get a call-up if an injury were to occur. James Connelly

January 2024 – One of the hardest hitters of the 2022 draft, Davies has added a deft offensive touch in his third WHL campaign. After putting up a lacklustre 70 points across his first two WHL seasons, he currently has 51 points in only 34 games for the Portland Winterhawks, where he plays with fellow Panthers prospect Marek Alscher, also drafted in 2022. Because this scoring uptick is happening so late in his junior career, take it with a heavy dose of salt in terms of projecting similar numbers at the next level. He has all the makings of a Cal Clutterbuck-type pest who hits everything that moves and ends up in the penalty box more often than his coach would like. But players like that who can mix snarl and skill don’t come along every day, so he likely will get a chance in the Cat’s bottoms six at some point in the coming years. Ben Gehrels

Attributes
Fantasy Upside 5.0
NHL Certainty 7.0
Country CAN
Position LW
Roster Type Junior
Shoot/Glove Left
Date of Birth May 24, 2004
Height 5‘10”
Weight 201 lbs
Drafted 2022 Round 6; Overall: 186

Stats

 Season Team League GP G A TP PIM      Playoffs GP G A TP PIM 
 2015-2016 Western Canada Selects U12WSI U126 2 02 4|        
 2016-2017 Western Canada Selects U13WSI U139 1 12 6|        
 2017-2018 Airdrie Xtreme U15 AAAAEHL U1536 7 613 30|Playoffs13 2 02
  Airdrie Xtreme U15 AAAJohn Reid Bantam5 0 11 8|        
  Western Canada Selects U14WSI U146 1 01 -|        
 2018-2019 Calgary Edge School U15 PrepCSSHL U1528 20 929 44|Playoffs3 3 14 31 
  Calgary Edge School U16 PrepCSSHL U162 0 00 0|        
  Western Canada Selects U15WSI U157 2 46 12|        
  Team Alberta Blue Alberta Cup3 1 12 2|        
 2019-2020 Pacific Coast Academy U18 PrepCSSHL U1831 20 1131 49|Playoffs1 0 00
  Swift Current BroncosWHL3 0 00 2|        
 2020-2021 Airdrie CFR Bisons U18 AAAAEHL U185 6 17 8|        
  Swift Current BroncosWHL20 6 39 16|        
 2021-2022 Swift Current BroncosWHL64 16 2036 119|        
  Canada U18WJC-183 0 11 4|        
 2022-2023 Swift Current BroncosWHL62 20 1434 131|        
  Charlotte CheckersAHL1 0 00 2|        
 2023-2024 Portland WinterhawksWHL55 36 2561 91|Playoffs13 5 611 31 
 2024-2025 Charlotte CheckersAHL4 0 00 6|        
  Savannah Ghost PiratesECHL8 4 15 2|        

Highlights