To be completely honest with you, I think Phillips is destined for the Bracco path. Looks good in the AHL, will probably never be an NHLer. I’d love it if he surprised me (could really use some good news lol) but I don’t think he’d ever make a Sutter team unless he earned a scoring line role, and I don’t think he’s that good. Pelletier might earn a spot out of camp though, he’d be the rookie to watch for the Flames this year.

McTavish should be on any 2023 Calder favourites list tbh. He absolutely dominated the junior level last year and also looked good in the 9 NHL games he played (small role though). He should succeed in an elevated role with good line mates.

I think the fact he played in the OHL, SL, AHL, NHL, WJC and Olympics probably will help him to be comfortable with something new.

100% I’d place him with the popular names out of camp

Will Aatu Raty have a better rookie season than Barzal?

Not better than Ross Johnston

Ross Johnston is such a bad hockey player. But, hey. He’s physical and likes to hit so people will insist he’s essential. #Isles pic.twitter.com/iHpIUL5Qp6

— Daniel Friedman (@DanJFriedman) April 15, 2022

Wow that’s dreadful to watch

Crazy how Chara in his D+26 season still can’t defend a 2 v 1

D+26 💀💀

He woulda been so good in his 27th

Bold of you to assume he’s not coming back

Coming in Off the top ropes in November to ruin the Islanders season by January?

I’m in.

Was watching some clips I got for the prospect camp

Man if all goes well Knies-Minten are gonna be a fun duo to watch. If both are on a third line together man that could be a fun kid line to watch soon wonder whose gonna be the RW on that line.

Salavat and @MapleLeafs agree to extend the loan of Rodion Amirov for one more season.Rodion is training and works with the coaches there on an individual basis.Rodion thanks management and the entire club.Says recovery is going great. 💚🤍 #KHL #LeafsForever pic.twitter.com/1TrxuIqVa6

— Hockey News Hub (@HockeyNewsHub) July 27, 2022

So happy his recovery is going well 💪

I swear to god they better play him or else I want Dubas to get on the phone and get his ass to the Marlies.

This still doesn’t mean he is cleared to play, but none the less a positive step in the right direction for his recovery back to a normal life and 🙏🤞hockey.

Salavat has a VHL affiliate so he can take his time getting back.

Hopefully they put him there as last time he just was in the press box rather than have him in the VHL and it got bad enough to where Dubas was on the phone telling them to play him or else

But then 2 weeks later the bad news with the brain tumor came out

Hopefully if he is cleared we dont see a repeat as man Dubas will not be happy and probs will get him to NA ASAP

That top line could do some real damage.

Early look at Team USA for next month’s World Junior: Based on line rushes in today’s practice, top lines appear to be Knies-Bordeleau-Coronato and Berard-Cooley-Mazur. 🇺🇸 @NHLNetwork

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) July 27, 2022

Knies-Bordeleau-Coronato sounds awesome, and Cooley on the 2nd line is great too. Canada still claps tho

whats our roster looking like, any announcements? (I don't want to sift through all the stuff regarding hockey canada that takes up all the mentions)
or a close projection?

I have an ACGM in my drafts of what it could be, but I can guarantee that like half the roster won’t be there lol. So far I’ve only seen stuff about the Hlinka team and the 2023 (December) WJC roster, who actually played each other yesterday, nothing about the 2022 WJC team though

That top line is scary agreed as it incorporates size (Knies), puck carrying (Bordleau) and skilled hands that can make some scary plays (Coronato). Gonna be fun to see whose in charge of clearing Knies in front of the net as this kids got the size and power to make a defenders job miserable

I've been playing around with some of my NHLe figures and I decided to take part in a little experiment based on a clickbait video thumbnail I saw on YouTube:

Is Connor Bedard a better prospect than McDavid?

I haven't watched it yet as I wanted to form my own opinion on the matter first.

McDavid's NHLe progression over his junior career is nothing short of ridiculous and had he been NHL-draft eligible as a 16 year-old, he would have posted the seventh-highest NHLe in the draft (based on quick math, didn't check the late rounds) and arguably goes as the third- or fourth-overall pick of that class (cannot understate how monstrous a season Drouin had in 2012-13). McDavid unequivocally goes first overall in 2014 based on his production as well, but the gap between him and Draisaitl is far smaller than one would think (about 4.5 points). For reference, his NHLe's are as follows:

McDavid D-2 NHLe: 24.741pts
McDavid D-1 NHLe: 41.750pts
McDavid D-0 NHLe: 60.296pts

Bedard started his junior career on actual fire, but it's important to consider that the WHL's "bubble" half-season meant that the Regina Pats missed out on a lot of quality competition. In the formula for NHLe, given as NHLe = (P/GP junior)*(82 NHL GP)*2*(NHLe Factor), I've applied a correction by removing the doubling multiplier typically added to junior leagues. A slightly arbitrary decision but the end result seems satisfactory enough to approximate what a proper WHL season would have resulted in. His resultant D-2 and D-1 NHLe's are as follows:

Bedard D-2 NHLe: 21.889pts
Bedard D-1 NHLe: 37.889pts

The transition between D-2 and D-1 seasons favours Bedard's year-over-year growth to McDavid's if only ever so slightly. This bodes well for Bedard having the potential to eclipse MCDavid as a better prospect: developmentally, he's a hair ahead of what McDavid did in Erie prior to his draft season despite his NHLe falling short of the McDavid benchmark. There's also the matter of the relative strength of the Regina Pats to consider: they have been a very, very poorly run WHL team since winning the Bedard draft lottery and have failed to build a contending team around Bedard. In order to match McDavid's year-over-year growth into his draft season, he would need to play at a 149-point pace (2.328P/GP).

For context, no 18 year-old player in the modern WHL (since the 2006 NHL lockout) has scored equal to or more than 130 points since Sam Steel in 2016-17 (131 points). No 18 year-old has hit or crossed the 140-point mark since Daymond Langkow in the 1994-95 season. No modern WHL player has breached 140 points. Furthermore, the only modern WHL players to post a P/GP above 2.000 were Aleksi Heponiemi (2.070P/GP, 2017-18), Oliver Bjorkstrand (2.000P/GP, 2014-15), and Sven Baertschi (2.000P/GP, 2011-12). Bedard's task is to eclipse these benchmarks as a seventeen year-old.

I'm currently projecting his draft-year NHLe to be 55.943 points, which translates to 152.668 points over 64 WHL games (2.385P/GP) assuming his year-over-year growth rate is consistent to McDavid's. As it stands, Bedard is currently projecting to be the best prospect since Connor McDavid but likely falls short of eclipsing #97. Whether or not he meets the projection is an entirely different question, but boys and girls lordy do we have ourselves one hell of an NHL talent in the WHL right now.

EDIT: for a little bit more context for how good Bedard could be, Matthews' draft-year NHLe was 48.093 points.

Oh, so that’s why Nill hasn’t signed Oettinger and Robertson…