Prospect Info: 2024 7th OA : Carter Yakemchuk (RHD)

[Nac Mac Feegle]

B.S

Tell me you never played hockey without telling me. Internet hockey fans just don't value it even though the results every year come playoff time show teams that are High level compete. That are long, physical and don't give other teams time and space are always playing at the end.

You'd be surprised just how many people here have played at a competitive level over the years.

 

[Burrowsaurus]

I mean, we took Greig in the tail end of the first who was just as small at the draft as Catton. Granted he is grittier, but nowhere near as skilled. We also apparently were pretty high on Raymond, I'm guessing had Detroit taken Sanderson, we'd have drafted him at 5.

We certainly have our preferences and lean towards bigger guys, but I see zero reason we'd have Catton at the tail end of the first. Later than I'd like, sure, but end of the first? No way.

I believe we also were trying to trade all the way back up for Jarvis. So we did have Jarvis ahead of Greig.

Like being offensively skilled being good defensively whether its defenisve reads. The ability to win 1 on 1 battles, blocking shots, or having the physical tools are all skills. This team lacks these types of players especially on the back end. A blanket statement saying a team can just be good defenisvely because of a coach is the same thing as a team can be skilled and score goals because of a coach.

We literally got better defensively when Jacques took over?

Maybe I misread. But yeah. A team can get better defensively and even become good with a new coach

 

[Golden_Jet]

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just not sure which gif you’re rotating through this week.

 

[Erik Alfredsson]

Not sure why it’s catton vs yakemchuk. Catton is far from sure thing if catton can reach his potential then no reason yakemchuk can’t.

It’s Yakemchuk over Buium and Dickinson that was a bit worrying.

The Senators took Yakemchuk over Catton because they drafted for need, which is absolutely the correct move.

Ottawa lacks a true offensive threat on their blueline, good luck winning the cup these days, or even getting to the playoffs without one. Chabot is decent, but he's more dangerous in his breakout and transition ability, which he's excellent at. When the puck is in the offensive zone, Chabot is okay, but fairly mediocre for what you'd want out of your top offensive defenseman. Sanderson I don't think will ever have the offensive creativity to be elite in that role either.

Yakemchuk has the potential to be an elite offensive talent on the blueline. He has unbelievable hands, size, and good lateral skating for his size. He has a fantastic shot from the blueline, he scored 30 goals this year in the WHL. Chabot ranked 27th in p/gp among dmen this year. That's not good enough. Yakemchuk has toolkit to offer an upper echelon offensive threat on the blueline, which is something the truly elite teams in the league have.

As for why Yakemchuk was taken over Buium and Dickinson, it's because he plays the right side (rare to see offense generated from the right side, it's more valuable), and because he offers a physical edge as a bonus which these guys don't have (having an offensive threat who also can be a physical presence is a unicorn of a defenseman in today's NHL).

 

[Micklebot]

The top of the draft is a bit different in that it largely looks the same for most scouting staffs, regardless of their philosophy.

We were taking Celebrini #1 and almost certainly had Bedard/Carlsson/Fantilli/Smith as our top 4 in 2023. Where we'll differ is guys like Michkov/Catton will be much further down our list than other teams.

And it doesn't matter much whether we had Catton ranked mid 1st or late 1st. If we had him ranked mid 1st we weren't going to be the team that drafted him, as there are other teams who weight skill/IQ a lot higher than we do and would jump at the opportunity to draft him before us.

The top of the draft, ok so 2020, has a top of the draft that went about 12 deep, of which Raymond was a part of, ranked 6th on MacKenzie's list, the 2024 draft was about 16 deep, with Catton ranked 12th by MacKenzie. Catton ended up going 8th, Raymond 4th, but both guys could have gone anywhere in that tier after the top 3 (Laf Stu and Byfield in 2020, and Celebirini, Levshunov and Demidov who imo only slid due to the russian factor).

Raymond is not in the Bedard Celebrini tier, He's not in the Carlsson Fantilli tier either. He's far closer to Catton than any of those guys, yet we were still very much interested in him as an option at 5 if Sanderson wasn't there.

We like physicality, but we aren't insane, no way we had Catton at the end of the first, that's just nonesense. We may have had him low enough that we weren't getting him (ie after 8th since that's where he went or heck, perhaps even outside that top 16 tier though I doubt it) but we weren't putting him as a late first rounder.