F James Hagens - Boston College, NCAA (2025 Draft) Part 2

[FLAMESFAN]

He'll be the top dog nextyear. Be interesting to see how he does.
Can he still play WJC next year?

 

[rsteen]

He'll be the top dog nextyear. Be interesting to see how he does.
Can he still play WJC next year?

Yes, he'll be 19 at the next WJC.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

I said generational in international tournaments.

He leads 2 of the 3 prominent junior international tournaments in most points in a single tournament. I think that alone qualifies.

Nobody takes those 2 tournaments as seriously as you do obviously. The U17 is mostly an evaluation tournament, that's why Canada sends 2 teams (and used to send 3), pretty sure the Euro teams see it the same way.
The u18 takes place while roughly 1/2 the CHL players can't attend. That leaves out a lot of top players, not just Canadians either. One year the Czechs (maybe Slovaks?) had their top 3 fwds all playing in the CHL playoffs during that tourney.
Hagens had a good, very good, not generational WJC.

 

[eklund2chicago]

Then name a forward who had a better draft season. And please don’t say Misa or Martone — two turnover machines facing the worst goaltending in all of junior hockey and were either scratched or cut by Team Canada.

You watching Misa’s wonderful playoff against Erie? You know, the one where Pano Fimis has been feeding him his lunch? I can give you a detailed recap if you were too busy (or cheap) to watch the games.

Challenge accepted. Anton Frondell has had a better year than Hagens.

 

[WarriorofTime]

The u18 takes place while roughly 1/2 the CHL players can't attend. That leaves out a lot of top players, not just Canadians either. One year the Czechs (maybe Slovaks?) had their top 3 fwds all playing in the CHL playoffs during that tourney.

Most of the CHL is eliminated by the time the U18s occur.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

Most of the CHL is eliminated by the time the U18s occur.

Define most? I was wrong when I said 1/2 I realize now. Generally Canada doesn't take players from any team who makes round 2 of the playoffs. Round 1 eliminations can go.
ex. ; 8/22 teams in whl are still playing. More than 1/3 less than 1/2.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Define most? I was wrong when I said 1/2 I realize now. Generally Canada doesn't take players from any team who makes round 2 of the playoffs. Round 1 eliminations can go.
ex. ; 8/22 teams in whl are still playing. More than 1/3 less than 1/2.

Most is more than half.

And the teams playing skew significantly older as they are usually the ones that trade 17 year olds for 19 year olds.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

Most is more than half.

And the teams playing skew significantly older as they are usually the ones that trade 17 year olds for 19 year olds.

Fine. The point remains: Every year there are a bunch/some/many of top prospects who would be playing in the U18 if they weren't playing in the CHL playoffs. Every single year.
Very quick example.- We already know either Jackson Blake or Cole Reschny will be playing U18 and the other won't.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Nobody takes those 2 tournaments as seriously as you do obviously. The U17 is mostly an evaluation tournament, that's why Canada sends 2 teams (and used to send 3), pretty sure the Euro teams see it the same way.
The u18 takes place while roughly 1/2 the CHL players can't attend. That leaves out a lot of top players, not just Canadians either. One year the Czechs (maybe Slovaks?) had their top 3 fwds all playing in the CHL playoffs during that tourney.
Hagens had a good, very good, not generational WJC.

Oh so Canada doesn’t take it seriously?

What about every other nation then?

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Challenge accepted. Anton Frondell has had a better year than Hagens.

Tough to compare.

If you want to compare stats (what most people seem to care about), he’s .86 in the Allsvenskan. .7 in J20. 1.07 for Sweden U18.

How do we compare that to a player who has played in none of the same settings?

Unless it’s drastic, we can’t know how all these players would do if they were all in the same situations.

 

[AlternateSideParking]

Challenge accepted. Anton Frondell has had a better year than Hagens.

Not statistically and not internationally, plus he missed time with a knee injury. Although I've never seen Frondell have a bad game like Misa and Martone, his first half was mostly incomplete outside of the two games at the U20 5N, the JWAC and a handful of league games.

 

[FLAMESFAN]

Yes, he'll be 19 at the next WJC.

Then I'm sure he'll have plenty of time next year to show he's one of the top non NHL players out there.

 

[FLAMESFAN]

Oh so Canada doesn’t take it seriously?

What about every other nation then?

Can't argue that Canada is at a disadvantage here.
Yet we've done as good as any other country the past 4 years.

 

[brrt]

Not that Hagens will, but McDavid was drafted around 5’11/6’0 and is now 6’1

No, he wasn't. McDavid was measured at 6'0.75", i.e. NHL 6'1", at the 2015 draft combine.

 

[eklund2chicago]

Not statistically and not internationally, plus he missed time with a knee injury. Although I've never seen Frondell have a bad game like Misa and Martone, his first half was mostly incomplete outside of the two games at the U20 5N, the JWAC and a handful of league games.

Frondell just had the highest U18 ppg EVER in Hockeyallsvenkan (a top 10 league in the world). I would say that’s statistically better than what Hagens has done this year.

 

[AlternateSideParking]

Frondell just had the highest U18 ppg EVER in Hockeyallsvenkan (a top 10 league in the world). I would say that’s statistically better than what Hagens has done this year.

Frondell did that over his final 11 games -- hardly a full season. He had only six points in his first 18 games and was on the fourth line for most of that. As impressive as he's been all season dealing with a knee injury, it's too small of a sample to say he was definitively better statistically. And I'm pretty sure NHLe for Hockey East is either equal to or higher than the Allsvenskan since it's barely below the SHL.

Frondell also was left off the Swedish WJC team.

 

[Lumber]

Oh so Canada doesn’t take it seriously?

What about every other nation then?

Of course Canada takes it seriously, and so do I. Truthfully, I enjoy watching Canada's U18 play because of the fact that it doesn't have a full squad available.

 

[newmanager]

Canada takes the U18's fairly seriously but only sends kids that don't make the CHL playoffs as well as those that get knocked out in the first round.

This is last year's gold medal winning team.

Gavin McKenna	Caleb Desnoyers	Porter Martone
Malcolm Spence	Tij Iginla	Ryder Ritchie
Liam Greentree	Jett Luchanko	Maxim Massé
Marek Vanacker	Cole Beaudoin	Carson Wetsch
Ollie Josephson
Matthew Schaefer	Harrison Brunicke
Kashawn Aitcheson	Charlie Elick
Frankie Marrelli	Spencer Gill
Henry Mews

This would be the team had everyone been available.
So missing 14 of their best players.

Cayden Lindstrom	Macklin Celebrini	Beckett Sennecke
Gavin McKenna	Michael Misa	Porter Martone
Berkly Catton	Roger McQueen	Tij Iginla
Carter Bear	Jett Luchanko	Lynden Lakovic
Sacha Boisvert
Sam Dickinson	Zayne Parekh
Matthew Schaefer	Ben Danford
Jackson Smith	Harrison Brunicke
David Bedkowski

 

[Mattb124]

People don't want to admit this because it's inconvenient to the narrative, but Hagens even strength scoring numbers and overall analytics are elite. There's nothing wrong with the season he had. People claiming he has lower potential are grasping at straws because they are poor at interpreting stats.

BC had a pathetic PP this year. Leonard and Perreault likewise did not score anywhere near what you would've expected for the same reason (and Leonard's stats are slightly padded because he has a unique talent for ENG's). Did they all get worse? Remember, this is the line that lit up the World Juniors, so a little hard to believe that.

This may be a shocker, but I'm going to believe the player who has been an elite player quite literally every setting for years didn't stop being that, and his point totals might've simply been a little unsustainably low due to his team's pathetic PP (as most of you should know, no player is going to have one of their best scoring seasons if their team's PP sucks).

Wasn’t Hagens on PP1? Seems as much an indictment as a defense.

 

[wickedwitch]

Wasn’t Hagens on PP1? Seems as much an indictment as a defense.

He was moved off for a bit. It didn't help. It was a systems and coaching issue.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

He was moved off for a bit. It didn't help. It was a systems and coaching issue.

Also that they had no PP defenseman. For all the forward talent, they lacked a defenseman who could anywhere near match the forward talent offensively.

 

[wickedwitch]

Also that they had no PP defenseman. For all the forward talent, they lacked a defenseman who could anywhere near match the forward talent offensively.

That too. I would have gone with a 5 forward PP with Leonard in the PP QB's spot.

 

[boredmale]

I think Hagens will be fine, you will just need to pair him up with his USNDTP partner Cole Eiserman, so unless you have Eiserman on your roster best to pass.

 

[eklund2chicago]

Frondell did that over his final 11 games -- hardly a full season. He had only six points in his first 18 games and was on the fourth line for most of that. As impressive as he's been all season dealing with a knee injury, it's too small of a sample to say he was definitively better statistically. And I'm pretty sure NHLe for Hockey East is either equal to or higher than the Allsvenskan since it's barely below the SHL.

Frondell also was left off the Swedish WJC team.

I would say that makes his season even more impressive. He struggled with injuries and adjusting to pro hockey and then figured it out and dominated a men’s league vs James Hagens with his mostly underwhelming performances as the 1C with the two best wingers in college hockey beside him (I know they didn’t play together during the entire year).

You shouldn’t hold Frondells second half of the year against him. It’s a testimony on what he is when he’s not struggling with injuries. Even if he did score a majority of his points in the last 11 games he still has had a statistically better season than Hagens, which was the question. Not in which games the points were scored but overall.

And he was left off the WJC team because he had been injured for the better part of the last six months. Hagens was good in the WJC but if we’re being honest he stat padded against the weaker teams.

 

[AlternateSideParking]

I would say that makes his season even more impressive. He struggled with injuries and adjusting to pro hockey and then figured it out and dominated a men’s league vs James Hagens with his mostly underwhelming performances as the 1C with the two best wingers in college hockey beside him (I know they didn’t play together during the entire year).

You shouldn’t hold Frondells second half of the year against him. It’s a testimony on what he is when he’s not struggling with injuries. Even if he did score a majority of his points in the last 11 games he still has had a statistically better season than Hagens, which was the question. Not in which games the points were scored but overall.

And he was left off the WJC team because he had been injured for the better part of the last six months. Hagens was good in the WJC but if we’re being honest he stat padded against the weaker teams.

He didn't have a statistically better season.