First, you are a big consensus guy. In your own terms, you must admit that hockeyprospects had Gauthier much lower on than on Bob's survey. Hockeyprospects rated Gauthier 15th while Bob had him at 5. I do respect that hockeyprospects was bold enough to go against the grain.
I take issue with hockeyprospects ranking because they rated him below the following forwards: Kasper, Lekkerimaki, Savoie, Kemell, Snuggerud, Mcgrorarty and Yurov. I think the we can all agree that he shouldn't of been rated below all those players. You may nitpick one or two, but all 7? Many would even agree that he is the best of the bunch at this stage. Their criticisms of Gauthier were related to his lack of hockey sense and they provide example after example of him failing to execute the more simple play:
Also, they were also really down on Brad Lambert compared to the consensus, rating him 29th compared to Bob's listing of 16. Once again, it was his hockey sense that they flagged as the major concern. They gave him a 4 of a possible 9 ranking.
In both cases they wrongly evaluated very toolsy players. Trying to do too much, misreading situations and forcing plays became some kind of fatal flaw in their hockey sense rather than, let's say, chalking it up to youthful over aggression or inexperience or whatever. I am not suggesting that Gauthier and Lambert have elite hockey sense or anything, but hockeyprospects certainly underappreciated these players,
Hockeyprospects is very good at getting into granular detail and sounding very sophisticated in their scouting reports. But in the end, they were kind of off on both guys. Gauthier is considered an elite level prospect and Lambert is highly regarded in some circles these days. Mckeen's and Wheeler rate him around 30 in the top affiliated NHL prospects lists. Wheeler even rates him ahead of Marco Kasper and Joakim Kemell.
I believe hockeyprospects is making similar mistake with Yakemchuk. I have watched Yakemchuk; he will make a beautiful stretch pass or create something out of nothing and the play will die on his teammate's stick time and again. So when he goes cowboy and tries to do it all by himself, rather than lacking hockey sense, maybe he knows that he is the only one on that team that can get it done. It is very hard to abstract someone from their context and this really is the crux of the debate. Is he forcing a play because he lacks hockey sense or is he forcing the play because he knows he is the best option? We will find out in due time.
Also, one thing I noticed about Calgary, the forwards didn't properly support their Dmen in giving them structured options for breakout passes. They kind of left them on an island as they bolted out of the zone. I also think this had something to do the "poor decision making," because the team never presented him with a simple 7 foot breakout pass.
I think this blog post by Mckeen's, with short clips, represents why I like him so much. I don't agree with the bits about his skating. I think his top end speed is good while his bursts need work rather than he other way round:
2024 NHL DRAFT: SCOUTING REPORT (VIDEO + GRADES) - Carter Yakemchuk, D, Calgary Hitmen, WHL
