2024-25: Phantoms (AHL), Reading Royals (ECHL), NCAA, Jrs., Int'l, etc.

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We haven’t gotten a Matteo Mann update in a while.

1 point since the beginning of December for those keeping track.

#4 Dman as a 20 year old overager in the worst North American junior league... playing under 20 minutes a game with 47% Corsi!

And hilariously he is actually getting PP time. Averaging over a minute a game on PP. And not even on their top PK unit.
 
See where Gahagen is 6-1-1 for the Phantoms. In the same way as Rodrigo Abols is an interesting story, would be great to see a 31-year-old former military officer make his NHL debut later this year if the opportunity arises.
 
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A third of the Bellville squad was from the ECHL. Also, how many 1st round picks play in the AHL? This is an actual question not a rebuttal...

After the first dozen or so picks the majority of first-round picks spend at least some time in the AHL.

Just went back and looked at the 2019 NHL Draft and other than Jack Hughes and Kakko the majority of the picks played at least 50 games in the AHL - and players like McMichael and Hartley are only now emerging as solid NHL players.

Others, like Cozzens and Zegras, might have been better served playing at that level but were in organizations with little depth.
 
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#4 Dman as a 20 year old overager in the worst North American junior league... playing under 20 minutes a game with 47% Corsi!

And hilariously he is actually getting PP time. Averaging over a minute a game on PP. And not even on their top PK unit.

In all fairness, the Sea Dogs are playing several 16 and 17-year-olds and are one of the weaker teams in the league. Mann was not drafted to be an offensive defenseman so his numbers aren't very relevant.

Or he wouldn't have been taken with the 199th pick in the draft.
 
In all fairness, the Sea Dogs are playing several 16 and 17-year-olds and are one of the weaker teams in the league. Mann was not drafted to be an offensive defenseman so his numbers aren't very relevant.

Or he wouldn't have been taken with the 199th pick in the draft.

And he is not one of their best 3 Dmen... on one of the worst teams... in the weakest junior league in North America.

It was a waste of a pick from the second they took it...

he has played under 16 minutes in 3 of their last 4 games. When he is one of the oldest players in the league.

He might end up 5th on their D in ice time per game on the season within the next 2 weeks.

Tivey and Bilodeau are the 1st pairing, comfortably... then Amyot is the #3... Duhamel was playing more than his before injury...

John Lumsden, a 5'9 17 year old who was a 14th round OHL draft pick who every OHL team passed on, and is only 14 games into his junior career? Has played more than him over the last 4-5 games!

At this rate he wont be an AHL Dman...

he is more likely to be a Manchester Storm (my other favorite hockey team aha) player than a Philadelphia Flyer!
 
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Without hindsight that 199th overall pick could have been used on... I dont know...

Ilya Nabokov? Dmitri Gamzin? Pavel Moysevich? Magomed Sharakanov? Yaroslav Tsulygin? Jere Lassila? Tomas Cibulka? Roman Kechter? Jiří Ticháček? Isac Hedqvist? Dylan Hryckowian? Jake Livanavage? Mazden Leslie? Hugo Lejon? Martin Johnsen?

All guys who back in 2023 went undrafted but who had the profile of actual good pro hockey players who at worst would probably be good AHLers? And who have just developed "normally" since then but now have been either drafted or are likely to be UFA targets in next couple of years?

Who probably ~5 out of 15 end up playing in the NHL!


Which is why even 7th round picks should not be balked at. Yeh, they are a shot in the dark. But if you are sensible you should actually have a ~75% hit rate in terms of getting AHL players out of them. And getting guys who are AHL players? Means that a good dice roll from there and they are NHL players.
 
Should be using your 7th round pick to find a Cole Knuble so you don’t have to spend a ~top 100 pick to get him the following year.

Drafting a late birthday, low scoring, CHL player in the 7th round is the equivalent to lighting it on fire.

It is hilarious that:

0.80 P/GP at 17... not drafted. (6th highest scoring u-18 non-NTDP fwd his age)
1.15 P/GP at 18... top 100 pick. (6th highest scoring u-19 non-NTDP fwd his age)

That is just normal, linear junior player progression. I get his skating got a bit better. But put up over 0.75 P/GP as a 17 year old, not on NTDP in the USHL? You should get drated.
 
It is hilarious that:

0.80 P/GP at 17... not drafted. (6th highest scoring u-18 non-NTDP fwd his age)
1.15 P/GP at 18... top 100 pick. (6th highest scoring u-19 non-NTDP fwd his age)

That is just normal, linear junior player progression. I get his skating got a bit better. But put up over 0.75 P/GP as a 17 year old, not on NTDP in the USHL? You should get drated.

It’s not often something from one of those road to the draft videos sticks with me, but I will never forget the Canadiens’ one about the 2022 Draft. They were discussing taking Slaf at 1OA and Christopher Boucher says in a full scouting meeting that if taking Slaf avoids having to have the discussions about needing size instead of just taking good players late in the draft, he’s on board. That’s a discussion about 1OA and he felt it was important to set that specific issue on the table.

Drafting is incredibly difficult. Most teams just make it more so.
 
He’s 6’6” so he might get like an ECHL contract based off that but otherwise he’s a talent that should be headed off to the Canadian college system like other CHLer’s who aren’t good enough.
 
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