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He never played with a natural centre and took over the role as the puck distributor on his line. He has good vision and controls the puck well but that's not his game.
F Brady Tkachuk (2018, 4th, OTT)
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He never played with a natural centre and took over the role as the puck distributor on his line. He has good vision and controls the puck well but that's not his game.
William H Bonney
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Stats don't tell the story. He played on an offensively inept NTDP team. The '99 team didn't have a ton of skill.
ProspectsFanatic
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I did know that but you get the point. It wasn't like he was carrying the team either. He stepped up his game by a lot this year.
I'm pretty sure the people who ranked him 3rd overall in this draft saw this type of potential. This isn't Jamie Benn or Gaudreau emerging post draft.
Samsquanch
Raging Bull Squatch
The Sens obviously saw this kind of potential in him to keep their pick and pass on some great players like Zadina. But yet some people here didnt have him in the top 15. Thats pretty inexcusable..
Hfboards is a really puzzling place, and probably the least reliable source for rating prospects pre draft (dont get me wrong we have some bright people here, but the noise mostly drowns them out).
For every golden prospect & complete bust that gets called correctly here, there's probably 100 other misses that are equally telling. Its a far worse ratio than real NHL teams drafting records.
If you polled every active NHL scout (there are about 400 or so) you would get some pretty extreme variation and opinions. Everyone is going to get some things right and wrong. It really depends on if you consider the process people use to arrive at their conclusions as effective and whether putting faith in, rather than just judging everything as who got what right and who got what wrong. People are trying to project 17 and 18-year-olds, which is always going to have a great deal of fluctuation. I'm happy to have personally been on the right side of the equation when it came to Brady (or at least look to be so far in his NHL career), and I think I fared pretty well with Pettersson. But, I know I also got a sizable amount wrong and will continue to have my hits and misses.
I know which sources I put heavy weight into, who opinions I trust, and have some faith in my own eyes. No single person here is going to be adequately informed on the 215 or so draft prospects to adequately rate them on a highly informed level (this is a 10 to 20 man job for most NHL teams), or the hundreds of players in multiple teams farm systems. Look some people value statistics. I do to a certain extent, but I am not dogmatic in my view of them, but adjusting and using them is highly complementary to live viewings. People went way to extreme on Brady's stats, and let them overshadow the player he was or his particular circumstances. Loving stats will help you be right on Alex Debrincat, but wrong on Brady Tkachuk. Although, I would also caution that not all people who were wrong on Tkachuk just arrived at that conclusion because of stats.
Personally, I had Brady in a tier behind Dahlin and Svech, with Dobson and Zadina. Right now, there is a good chance I was wrong on Kotkaniemi who I viewed as being in the 7-10 range.
William H Bonney
Registered User
He was the leader of his NTDP team and drove a lot of it. I agree he's stepped up his game a lot this year, but it's not just a this year thing. He's made huge improvements each of the last 3 years. He came into the NTDP pretty raw - you could see the potential, but he was unpolished and by no means close to Matt's level at that point. Then in his U18 year you could see him start to realize his potential. And then the next year he turned himself into an elite prospect on par with his brother. And now he's turning himself into a star in the NHL, just like his brother. The point is this year isn't an anomaly - Brady has a long history of doing this, year after year. Hopefully folks now realize the mistakes they've made with the Tkachuk brothers, but I imagine if there was another brother with the NTDP right now, they'd face the same thing.
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Great player. Definitely making me look like a fool. I thought he might become a good producer a few years in, but to see this kind of play in his rookie year is damn impressive.
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He didn't have Thomas Chabot and Mark Stone dishing to him every shift.
Whalers Fan
Go Habs!
I watched most of that team's home games, and you are correct that it was one of the weaker NTDP teams in recent memory. Brady showed skill at times, but also disappeared in some games and took too many questionable penalties, especially earlier in his career there. He came on very strong in the latter half of his 2nd season with the NTDP, though. As a Habs fan, I thought taking him at #3 overall would have been a reach. He's turning out to be an excellent pick for Ottawa, though -- better than I expected at this early stage in his NHL career, obviously (I doubt anyone would have predicted this type of production this early). I still think Kotkaniemi was the correct pick for Montreal, but Brady's making this draft class look even better. He looks to be the much better choice over Zadina so far.
Sens Vader
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Trent Mann - Ottawa Senators head of Scouting - said exactly that after drafting him. That BU overachieved and Brady carried the team on his back in the 2nd half of the season
TheBradyBunch
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I really hope the Mann Brothers are a part of this organization for a long time. Don't know Troy as well but Trent has done an amazing job since taking over as Head of Scouting.
Always thought it was quite funny the hate him and his brother received prior to their drafts. Their physical games are tailored for the NHL game and have underrated skillsets. I said pre-draft, I wouldn't have been disappointed if he was MTL's pick at 3.
Sensinitis
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He was also playing center which explains the lack of goals because he was forced to be more defensive and more of a playmaker.
He wasn't playing center. Jordan Greenway was.
edit: Here is his game log from BU, he never took more than 4 faceoffs in a game.
GoTerriers.com | The Official Site of Boston University Athletics
Sensinitis
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Maybe he wasn’t taking faceoffs but I’m pretty sure I saw an interview his coach was saying Brady was the defensive conscience of his line and was the center.
TheBradyBunch
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MasterMatt25
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He was used as a winger. The big change for him at the half-way mark was that they used him more along the half-wall on the powerplay. He was mostly used how he is currently used, which is the guy first on the forecheck, which is rarely the primary role of a center. They may have run more offense through him, but that doesn't really make him a center. For example, guys like Marner, Kane, and Gaudreau are effectively used as center's in the offensive zone in how teams run plays through them (although, their centers are asked to battle down-low more). But, he was used as a winger. I'd like to see the interview where this was said, that he was operating as his teams center.
He had a really good world juniors as an undrafted player and was consistently ranked high by experts
Ppl saw this coming unless u just watch stats
ProspectsFanatic
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Many experts believed he had top winger potential just like his brother lol
ProspectsFanatic
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Why wouldn’t he be projected to be better than Matthew? He was drafted higher and definitely would have destroyed the OHL if he played there. The NCAA is by all accounts a more difficult league to play in.
