Here is what scares me about Yakemchuk:
1. Plus/Minus rating. He's at -6 rating.
The team high is +29. A d-man teammate that's 2024 draft eligible, Dax Williams, is a +18 rating. Central Scouting (NA) has ranked Dax #211. There are a total of four other defensemen teammates who have a positive rating compared to Yakemchuck.
Yakemchuk is 6'3, 194 lbs, and reported to have great skating skills. So why is he in the negatives? With 71 points generated and second on the team in scoring, why does he have a negative rating?
View attachment 841223
Tulk is a 5'9 forward at 19 years old. Kindel is 16 years old at 5'10. Muranov is a 19-year old forward, standing at 6'2.
Yakemchuk's detail to defense isn't on the same level of a priority as his offense. This is Yakemchuk's third season in the WHL with Calgary. He hasn't been a positive player at all during his tenure there.
2. PIM's are far too high.
From the image above, Yakemchuk has 120 PIMs. That's 5th overall in the WHL, where the high is 13 PIMs. A top-4D man cannot spend that exorbitant amount of time in the sin bin.
========
Those two factors don't scream top-5 pick to me. Yakemchuk is a great scoring d-man with great size and skating. Which is why he's projected outside the top-10 in some mock drafts.