C Luca Del Bel Belluz, Mississauga Steeheads, OHL (2022, 44th, CBJ)
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GermanSpitfire
EU Video Scout for McKeen’s | Rest Easy #13
2022 NHL Draft: Wright tops Central Scouting's midterm rankings
Ranks #11 among N/A skaters in Central Scouting’s mid term rankings. Has rocketed up charts.
Ranks #11 among N/A skaters in Central Scouting’s mid term rankings. Has rocketed up charts.
I really, really like this kid and I don't see an issue with his skating honestly. Seems to get around the ice just fine to me. If he was a burner he'd be a top 5 pick imo because his hands, shot, vision and defensive play are all top notch.
It's a really interesting exercise in scouting Mississauga to see who you would take between Luca and his teammate Owen Beck who is ranked similarly with very different styles. Beck on the other hand is an extremely powerful skater with good hands and defensive play but lacks the same vision imo. I think Beck is a surer bet to play a bottom 6 role in the NHL but if I have to choose between the two I'm taking Luca and betting on his upside.
Love both players though and Mississauga has been a lot of fun to watch this year following these two.
It's a really interesting exercise in scouting Mississauga to see who you would take between Luca and his teammate Owen Beck who is ranked similarly with very different styles. Beck on the other hand is an extremely powerful skater with good hands and defensive play but lacks the same vision imo. I think Beck is a surer bet to play a bottom 6 role in the NHL but if I have to choose between the two I'm taking Luca and betting on his upside.
Love both players though and Mississauga has been a lot of fun to watch this year following these two.
He definitely needs to improve his skating, but somehow he manages to be an excellent puck transporter all the same. In his last game, he made a defender fall over with a few feints. For me, I would much rather have Luca. Owen Beck is the far better skater, and he owns a wicked wrist shot to go with it, so he's a serious NHL prospect as well. But whenever I've watched Mississauga, it's impossible not to notice how much more Luca creates than Owen. Luca always has the puck, Owen can go quite a few shifts without touching it.
This was a very elegant way of summing up the difference in the two at this level in my eyes as well. It will be interesting to see what skillset actually translates in the future however. Very excited to follow both guys in the coming years and see how things turn out.
Wouldn’t shock me if they both go in the late first range tbh. I think Beck’s got some appetizing qualities that project. If anything he’s a bit underrated here because his stats don’t pop quite as much. Is there even a Beck thread? Pretty unusual for a guy I see as no later than a 2nd rounder at this point.
Both are great players. Beck’s production vs. Del Bel Bel Belluz’s is also a function of linemates — Del Bel benefits significantly from having a sniper (James Hardie). Del Bel also has significant more OHL experience as a late 03 that played in the 19-20 OHL season.
GermanSpitfire
EU Video Scout for McKeen’s | Rest Easy #13
Honestly, im just bumping this because I haven’t see his awesome name on the prospect form the past 2 weeks.
GermanSpitfire
EU Video Scout for McKeen’s | Rest Easy #13
Looks like PLD low key.
It's my third game watching him but I'm a fan already. Through two periods against Niagara he's had a primary assist on their 2nd goal (patient set up for an empty net slam dunk) and a PP goal:
I'll say again I don't see a big issue with his skating. It's a little bit clunky sure but you can see in this clip his speed looks fine to me. I don't think it'll hold him back at the next level. His hands, shot, defensive play, IQ... I really think a team falls in love with him being a 6'1"+ centre and he's off the board in the top 15.
I can see that scenario happening.
Regarding his skating, I agree. Although I have to say that defensively he hasn't been super competitive and hustling all around the ice when his team doesn't have possession. Maybe that habit, in addition to not-so-smooth looking skating, has influenced on those assessments?
Probably the best from Woodbridge since Cirelli. He reminds me of Dal Colle, another native of the city.
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Reninds me a bit of Jason Robertson. Lots of upside. His skating to me isn't as bad as it looks.
Intangir
Registered User
It is the case if you compare him to most players in the CHL, players that will never see the ice at the higher levels, but let's not act like Del Bel Belluz's (I'll use "DBB" from this point on for brevity's sake) skating technique isn't absolutely awful for the NHL as it stands right now, because it unfortunately is.
His strides are choppy and way too short for a 6'1 player. DBB doesn't get low enough to build power through his skates and his ankles seem pretty stiff / don't flex enough to build good momentum. A lot of power and impulsion is also wasted by him rotating his torso uselessly when gaining speed (reminiscent of Kotkaniemi in that sense). Agility and edge work still need tons of work, and his balance is also pretty suspect as he falls over too easily despite the fact that sources like eliteprospects say he is close to 200 pounds in weight and so should have a strength / weight advantage over a lot of his peers. His backwards skating is pretty decent for a forward, but that's not much to go on.
In short, DBB falls over a lot, his acceleration is middling even in the OHL, his top speed is very clearly below-average for the NHL, and his changes of directions and pivots are slow and heavy when compared to even borderline pros in the AHL/ECHL.
I say that but I'd still take him around the 20-25th rank at the draft as I absolutely love DBB's game and feel that there is still much room for him to grow into.
Right now DBB is a sub-par skater, no two ways about it. But skating is an attribute that players can, and will almost always improve. For many players the improvements they see from the time they're drafted to their peak is only marginal or small, but for others, like the John Tavares' of this world, the positive changes are absolutely incredible.
Which leads me to my next point. While we can honestly say that DBB's poor skating is a great detriment to his game as things stand today, there is also potential upside there. The simple fact of the matter is that DBB is a poor skater predominantly because his mechanics are just plain bad, not because he lacks athletic / natural ability.
To illustrate my point better, if, for example, DBB showed the same weakness of skating while having mature, refined technique as a skater, then the prognostics of his potential improvements would be based only on physical growth on his part and thus reduced by a non-trivial margin. That loss of growth potential would make him much, much more of a project at the NHL level and scouts would rate him lower accordingly. In that hypothetical situation I'm pretty sure he'd only get drafted near the midway point of the second round or perhaps even later.
But luckily (?) for him DBB's skating woes are very heavily mechanics-based in my opinion. And since that's the case it is possible then, though we must still face reality and understand that it is not the most probable result, that DBB will manage to shore up most of the egregious flaws in the way he skates by the time he is ready to turn pro, in maybe two, three years. With hard and carefully-planned training, we could then possibly see a massive increase in his skating ability as a player, which would make his life so much easier at the NHL level and possibly make him a permanent fixture in a team's top 6 (and I also think he could still get there even without the major upgrade to his speed simply given his skill/smarts).
If my team, the Canadiens, manage to obtain another first-round pick and select him then I will be pretty happy despite the obvious risks involved. DBB is just a really good player and I like him a lot as a prospect.
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I really do appreciate the detailed write up of your assessment of his skating but I have to push back on the above. Eliteprospects has him listed as 179lbs while his Mississauga player page has him at 178. Saying he is close to 200lbs is a bit disingenuous - 20lbs is a massive jump in weight from where he is now and just looking at him on skates you can see how lanky he looks. He skates and moves like the classic teen who just had a growth spurt and is catching up to his new body.
Personally that's why I'm so excited about him is I think he's far from a finished product physically. I think his mechanics are fixable, he has lots of room to add weight and get stronger and as he does I'm really excited about what he could turn into. I'll repeat again here I don't think his skating will hold him back from the NHL. If he was actually a bad skater at the CHL level I would have more concerns but as you've said he's comfortably average and with some technique improvement and strength I see that being the case in the NHL as well.
Including a clip here as an example for others to judge for themselves. He's not some lead-footed sloth that struggles to keep pace with the play.
Clearly we're on the same page with the rest of his game!
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Intangir
Registered User
Could swear I saw him at 199...
Whatever, just checked and the info you've got is genuine. I obviously misremembered that from the top of my head. Sorry, my bad.
I will admit it did feel a bit weird for him to be near 200 given that he doesn't look that thick/built but I attributed it to him being more thickset than meets the eye. At least that's cleared up now.
And yeah, since he still has some growing to do and weight to gain then his potential growth skating-wise might be even greater than I first thought.
To substantiate my opinion a little bit more, I don't think DBB's skating will preclude him from the NHL. I simply believe that it might hinder him from being an impactful player at the highest level since he still has a ton of work to put on before he's anywhere near NHL-average in that regard.
As for him being comfortably average in the CHL right now I agree. But if you took every prospect from the CHL that is likely to be drafted in the top 3-4 rounds by NHL teams this year and ranked them all by their skating as things stand right now, then I believe DBB would definitely be in the bottom-half of that hypothetical list, possibly bottom-third, despite being close to an overager.
I still am really high on DBB, and might even push him up on my list since you cleared my misunderstanding on his physical maturity, but there are legitimate concerns to be had in that sense.
Then again, almost every prospect has a tangible flaw to his game at that age and I'd much rather it be fixable-ish mobility than hockey sense, which is a much harder skill to improve.
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I think these are all fair points and appreciate you clarifying. Nice to have a civil discussion with someone on the internet haha.
ORRFForever
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DLB
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- Nov 9, 2017
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My take on Luca Del Bel Belluz:
DLB repêchage LNH 2022 Luca Del Bel Belluz l'oublié!/ NHL Draft - Dans La Bande
Mind that there is an english version after the french one.
DLB repêchage LNH 2022 Luca Del Bel Belluz l'oublié!/ NHL Draft - Dans La Bande
Mind that there is an english version after the french one.
ORRFForever
Registered User
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Aaron Vickers
FCHockey
Guy Flaming of The Pipeline Show recently had a 1-on-1 interview with Del Bel Belluz.
The Pipeline: A conversation with Luca Del Bel Belluz
The Pipeline: A conversation with Luca Del Bel Belluz
