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

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Some of his fanboys can't handle that he's getting #1 OA scrutiny. That's all it is really. Questions that weren't asked in his D-1 when he was playing USHL competition are going to get asked now.
There's been 2, 5'10 players in history to be drafted #1OA. Bedard and Hughes, there's your bar. Compare away. He's a better skater than Bedard and much better defensively than either. That's about it, and nobody is drafting a 5'10 center #1 hoping he can one day win the Selke. The race for #1 is wide open this year.

So when you have no argument against him you just call people who disagree with your illogical arguments fanboys?

You can’t even get your facts right either. He is listed at 5’11 this season. He has not even hit the draft combine yet. For all we know, he’ll be taller. This has been something that has been speculated, given his brother is 6’0 and we’ve slowly seen his height trickle up over the years. Bedard and Hughes actually were fairly wire to wire at shorter heights (Bedard was listed at a rounded up 5’10 and Hughes got 5’10 but refused the draft combine measurement like Quinn because it was widely speculated he was shorter), so I’m not sure where you’re going with this. He compares favorably to those players in that area and they didn’t exactly struggle to get picked first at that height.

And what is the scrutiny that you call for? That we question his scoring ability when his shooting percentage is unsustainably low? Well, he has 6 goals on his last 14 shots in official games (don’t know about exhibitions, but he scored in the Slovakia game, for what it’s worth). Seems like he’s went from questionable scoring abilities to the best scoring abilities in the world. Funny how that works. Or maybe that’s just how hockey works? Are you going to be question how he broke the U17 Worlds Scoring record? Or broke the U18 Worlds Scoring Record? Or led the USHL in PPG last year? Or had 4 points in his first World Junior game? Oh yeah, he’s so much worse offensively than those players with those numbers.

It really does come off like some just can’t accept that Canada does not have the best draft prospect this year. They can’t for once let another nation have it. Don’t want to paint all with this paintbrush. It’s not all, but it’s definitely a vocal minority.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

The reality of how math and hockey coincide is that production matters. Offensive production obviously. Maybe somebody in a scouting department somewhere (probably a basement) is calculating Hagens Xgf and xga, and determining what that's worth but the decision makers don't seem to care. Bedard and Hughes were both awful defensively and were #1 picks. Maybe you haven't noticed but Hagens' production is still not that special for an 18 yr old ncaa freshman:

https://www.eliteprospects.com/league/ncaa/stats/all-time-season?age=u19&sort=ppg&from=2000-2001

This is almost impressively lacking awareness. So you bring up the point about small sample sizes and his shooting percentage (certainly relevant), and then ignore that it’s the difference between saying he’s been very good and great so far this season?

Should’ve ignored the first point if you were gonna bring up the latter. It makes you look decidedly against Hagens to be so dishonest in your argument.

Yes, I think his SH% will trickle up over the upcoming months 3-5 points. It’s already started to. 4 goals on his last 9 shots for BC. Almost like this stuff is random, and there’s nothing wrong with his stats. The assist rate has been elite, and the goal scoring was mostly just missing the puck entering the net on the shots he takes.

As has been mentioned by others, BC’s early schedule is extremely difficult, and they have a lot more cupcakes in the upcoming months. They are also more defensive in nature this season. So there’s really nothing wrong with his stats if you understand the context. People who are looking for problems that don’t exist might find a faux-problem though.