Lindstrom is very competitive in all aspects. Watch him defend in the video I posted above, that's remarkable focus. To me that's part of what defines him as a player, he's not the big kid who you think you can push to become a power forward (e.g. PLD), he's dialed in and always using his body to gain advantages.
i had a comment in this thread about him puck-watching (not questioning compete, but engagement when his man doesn't have the puck in the d-zone) – that specific critique came from a film breakdown i watched a while ago.
that same breakdown said his puck skill was good but not dynamic, and that he had some signs of improved playmaking. also called out what i thought were major issues with his skating.
i then watched a few other pieces on lindstrom – a breakdown by eliteprospects and then their march roundtable – and those alleviated a lot of those concerns.
there was some overlap between the previous breakdown i'd watched and the EP ones (praising his rush patterns, shooting and explosiveness) but the EP team have him as their unanimous number three.
they praised his defense, praised the routes he takes and said his playmaking and hockey sense are becoming real assets.
fwiw the same group (which has him at #3) has parekh at #5, saying his offense is more translatable to the NHL than other high-scoring junior defensemen, and that his defense is significantly better than people realize. so their criteria is more than the often lazy "big = good" stuff that i've seen from other media praising lindstrom, silayev, etc.
Players who physically dominate vs juniors but lose that element vs the pros are guys like Sillinger and Kerby Rychel who aren't that strong. It happens to a lot of 6'1 200 lb guys.
i'm not saying he's sillinger or rychel, but the power forward archetype in junior has unpredictable outcomes because so much of their success in junior is built on a strength advantage that dissipates at the pro level.
i don't think he's going to be a logan brown or kratsov type bust, but my concern is that guys like pavel zacha and lawson crouse had similar projections as power forwards in otherwise deep drafts and ended up as useful but ultimately disappointing (relative to draft position) players.
even if he's a chris kreider type player in the NHL – which i don't think is a bad comp – that's still not quite the impact you hope for from a top five pick. but again, the EP breakdowns have reassured me that he could have a really high ceiling.
He's also a much better skater, much faster in both his first step and top speed, basically he and Sillinger are opposite ends of the scale in terms of speed.
semantics here, but he's a much more
explosive athlete than sillinger but even to my layman eyes there are some things in his skating that need to be cleaned up. his acceleration is good, his top-end speed is insane (and looks easy), but his turns are
very wide (as sillinger's were at the same stage) and his posture is way too upright for my liking.
those are, ultimately, correctable. but the posture thing, combined with a back injury, could be seen as a red flag.
FWIW Aho certainly benefited from growing that extra couple of inches, his reach is much longer than Helenius. And Helenius isn't that level of skater. I think the comparison for Helenius is you wonder if he can become a Suzuki type of guy.
i think there's an element of like a chandler stephenson or elias lindholm in helenius's game, but in a smaller package, with aho being the ultimate dream outcome. but he seems to have near-prodigious hockey IQ (in a 200-foot way, rather than being an o-zone savant) for his age.
he certainly doesn't have the same physical upside as a guy like lindstrom, but players
that smart tend to figure it out. i think there's a ton of translatable stuff in his game and that he'll be capable of being a good all-situations player in the NHL.
