It's a scouting kind of night for me tonight. Caught most of the NTDP U18s vs Providence College earlier. Now watching WHL Seattle (Korchinski) vs. Tri-City (Dragicevik).
Interesting to see how every USA line struggled against the older competition except the Gauthier - Cooley - Snuggerud line. That top trio just took it to Providence all night long. First time I've seen anything like that from any NTDP line against DI competition since that 2019 super team. Starting to come around a bit on Gauthier as a potential top 10 pick. But holy moses that Cooley kid is something else. Shades of Pavel Datsyuk? The 2nd line tonight was Howard - Will Smith - Nazar; they looked very dangerous when they were in the offensive zone, but had a lot of trouble getting the puck out of their own zone. Not the greatest game for Nazar, and yet he finished with 2 points, bringing him up to 6 in his last 5 games against DI opponents.
Absolutely loving Korchinski's offensive and transition game. Sensational. Didn't get to see much of his defensive game unfortunately - Tri-City is pretty bad and barely touched the puck when Korchinski was on the ice. Regardless, he's closing in on the top 10 for me.
Pretty disappointing game for Dragicevik. I mean, he's a 16 year old playing top minutes for one of the worst teams in the league so gotta cut him some slack, but I was hoping to see a little more from him.
hoping for speedy recovery!!
