F Matěj Pekař - Seattle Thunderbirds, WHL (2025 draft)

[czech]

Last season, Pekař played for the weak club Ambrì-Piotta and became the club's top scorer, being one of the youngest in the team. He also helped his team maintain their place in the elite league in play-out games.
At the moment, Pekař is playing excellently at the Five Nations Tournament, which takes place in the Czech city of Chomutov. In the last two matches, the player scored 8 (!) points (goal, great pass). Today, thanks to Pekař's hat-trick (+assist) against strong Americans (7:4), the Czech team won the tournament ahead of schedule.
Pekař is another strong name among Czech strikers in '07, along with Benák, Pavlík, Poletín and Bartovič.

Click to read more...

 

[thrillhous]

Another Matej Pekar? Are these common first names and surnames?

 

[Czechboy]

Silver at U20... Silver at hlinka... This U17 has some promise too. Something is finally clicking at the junior level in Czech hockey!

 

[Wooren]

Another Matej Pekar? Are these common first names and surnames?

Matej is common, Pekar less so, but not that rare either.

Talented player, very curious to follow his progress this upcoming season. Makes me feel old though, I remember being excited for the Buffalo prospect Pekar in his U17 season and they are 7 years apart...

 

[czechcanadian]

Has anyone seen him this year?? Has amazing stats internationally but not as good in Swiss leagues.
I have no idea how Swiss U-17 compares to Czech. Similar? Better? Worse?

 

[Nikolajs Sillers]

.We can not draft him second time can we?

 

[czech]

...Has amazing stats internationally...

Yes.
Pekar was the best player in the u17 team at the just-ended Five Nations tournament. In 4 games he scored 10 points. The Czech team eventually won the tournament.

 

[martygod12]

This guys is really uncanny .. he barely has any points in Swiss U20, yet in the national team he is 17+19 (36) in 23games lol

 

[czech]

 

[Czechboy]

 

[martygod12]

He just goes to beast mode everytime he wears NT jersey, thats what we want to see damn!

Shame U17 lost the game in OT though ... leading 4:1 and 4:2 even 3mins before the end ... US just always find a way to overwhelm us at the end of those games between us lol

 

[Hinterland]

Downright spectacular playoffs so far. Small sample size but if he can keep this up he's gonna go pretty early in next year's draft. Played on Ambri's U17 team this season but was helping out the U20 team occasionally. Joined the U20 team for game 2 of the best of 5 series vs Kloten. Kloten was huge favourite. Loaded team, finishing season in 2nd place. Also receiving very strong reinforcements with pro experience (Ramel, R.Meier, Deussen) earlier because their NL team's season ended earlier than Ambri's who only received William Hedlund, the import of their SL farm. Ambri still won the series and now won game 1 vs Zug as well, the team that dominated the regular season. I'll provide some numbers to give you an idea of how big of an upset those results are. Ambri finished the 48 games regular season with 70 points. Kloten had 91, Zug 101.

Now back to Pekar. Like I said he didn't play game 1 vs Kloten but he did score 4 points in 3 playoff games after cracking the lineup. He did all of this as a 13th forward and, to put this in perspective, while also being pretty much the youngest player taking part in this league's playoffs. Davos' Aebli is just a few days younger but his team lost their quarterfinal. All other 07 borns involved in the playoffs are at least half a year older and there's just a handful of them anyway. Pekar also kept his place as 13th forward when Ambri's NL team lost to their local rivals of Lugano and reassigned Tommaso De Luca and Simone Terraneo to their U20 team. In fact, Pekar even added another primary assist in game 1 of the playoff semifinal. Game 2 is today. With a 1-0 series lead, De Luca and Terraneo reinforcing the team and perhaps more heroics from Pekar I think Ambri has a chance to complete the 2nd upset in a row and eliminate Zug.

This guys is really uncanny .. he barely has any points in Swiss U20, yet in the national team he is 17+19 (36) in 23games lol

I wouldn't read too much into that. The Swiss U20 elite league may be a significantly worse junior league than CHL leagues or the Swedish J20 but it's still similar or better than all other junior leagues of this world. Also, since two years I believe, teams are allowed to dress four overagers each game and therefore the name u20 elite became a bit misleading when it's in fact an U22 elite league now. This season is the one of the 04 borns but like I explained, teams are allowed to dress four 02 borns as well. Pekar is a rather smallish late born 07 kid, barely eligible for the 2025 draft. He's a 16yo playing against opponents partly almost six years older than him. Based on that I'd say he has exceeded expectations, really. Also, his season does display a steep learning curve. If he can keep this up he could be dominating the league next season, maybe even get a taste of pro hockey on Ambri's SL farmteam though for financial reasons it's still unclear if it's still gonna be there next season with the SCL Tigers no longer willing to continue the cooperation with Ambri on that matter. Pekar could always get loaned to a different SL team though or get looks on Ambri's NL squad should they have to withdraw their farm from the SL.

 

[martygod12]

Downright spectacular playoffs so far. Small sample size but if he can keep this up he's gonna go pretty early in next year's draft. Played on Ambri's U17 team this season but was helping out the U20 team occasionally. Joined the U20 team for game 2 of the best of 5 series vs Kloten. Kloten was huge favourite. Loaded team, finishing season in 2nd place. Also receiving very strong reinforcements with pro experience (Ramel, R.Meier, Deussen) earlier because their NL team's season ended earlier than Ambri's who only received William Hedlund, the import of their SL farm. Ambri still won the series and now won game 1 vs Zug as well, the team that dominated the regular season. I'll provide some numbers to give you an idea of how big of an upset those results are. Ambri finished the 48 games regular season with 70 points. Kloten had 91, Zug 101.

Now back to Pekar. Like I said he didn't play game 1 vs Kloten but he did score 4 points in 3 playoff games after cracking the lineup. He did all of this as a 13th forward and, to put this in perspective, while also being pretty much the youngest player taking part in this league's playoffs. Davos' Aebli is just a few days younger but his team lost their quarterfinal. All other 07 borns involved in the playoffs are at least half a year older and there's just a handful of them anyway. Pekar also kept his place as 13th forward when Ambri's NL team lost to their local rivals of Lugano and reassigned Tommaso De Luca and Simone Terraneo to their U20 team. In fact, Pekar even added another primary assist in game 1 of the playoff semifinal. Game 2 is today. With a 1-0 series lead, De Luca and Terraneo reinforcing the team and perhaps more heroics from Pekar I think Ambri has a chance to complete the 2nd upset in a row and eliminate Zug.




I wouldn't read too much into that. The Swiss U20 elite league may not be a very good junior league compared to CHL or Swedish J20 but it's still similar or better than all other junior leagues in the world. Also, since two years I believe, teams are allowed to dress four overagers each game and therefore the name u20 elite became a bit misleading when it's in fact an U22 elite league now. This season is the one of the 04 borns but like I explained, teams are allowed to dress four 02 borns as well. Pekar is a rather smallish late born 07 kid, barely eligible for the 2025 draft. He's a 16yo playing against opponents partly almost six years older than him. Based on that I'd say he has exceeded expectations, really. Also, his season does display a steep learning curve. If he can keep this up he could be dominating the league next season, maybe even get a taste of pro hockey on Ambri's SL farmteam though for financial reasons it's still unclear if it's still gonna be there next season with the SCL Tigers no longer willing to continue the cooperation with Ambri on that matter. Pekar could always get loaned to a different SL team though or get looks on Ambri's NL should they have to withdraw their farm from the SL.

Thanks for this post. It really gives me a lot of insignt also how the Swiss youth league works, didnt know that at all.

Thats an optimistic write and hopefully we will see him at U18 WCH in April. I definitely have him in my lineup 100%. He is an absolute beast in NT and dominating in his age group.

 

[Hinterland]

Thanks for this post. It really gives me a lot of insignt also how the Swiss youth league works, didnt know that at all.

Thats an optimistic write and hopefully we will see him at U18 WCH in April. I definitely have him in my lineup 100%. He is an absolute beast in NT and dominating in his age group.

Yeah. Always difficult to predict the future, development sometimes isn't linear. Having said that, Pekar is playing an excellent season, both at club and international level. His U20 elite scoring you initially criticized is actually very good. Compared to that, his U17 elite scoring is pretty pedestrian but the Ambri U17 elite team, unlike their U20 team, also wasn't really competitive this season. So that somewhat explains Pekar's underwhelming scoring output there. I think there are only two comparable 07 born forwards (Lars Steiner and Florian Schenk) currently playing junior hockey in Switzerland. Always a good sign when you're clearly better than your peers.

 

[czech]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1845305497198415892

 

[martygod12]

2+1 tonight and after the slow start he is really starting to get there on the level I expected from him.

I personally think he should go much higher then that 6/7 round he was ranked lately

I am glad he is starting to show that

 

[Trav]

It's great to see Pekar and even Lewandowski with the Blades, two young imports that come over late and already they're contributing to their teams.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

2+1 tonight and after the slow start he is really starting to get there on the level I expected from him.

I personally think he should go much higher then that 6/7 round he was ranked lately

I am glad he is starting to show that

He’s a 5’10 forward who isn’t even 1PPG in juniors. He’ll need to up his scoring to get drafted much higher than that.

 

[Hinterland]

He’s a 5’10 forward who isn’t even 1PPG in juniors. He’ll need to up his scoring to get drafted much higher than that.

The poster you quoted was talking about a three point game and the player trending nicely. Pekar has 7 in 5. It's not uncommon for imports to need time to adjust. They tend to get eased in as well.

Also, Pekar is less than a week short of being 2026 eligible. He's one of the youngest prospects available in the upcoming draft.

 

[Goodman68]

He’s a 5’10 forward who isn’t even 1PPG in juniors. He’ll need to up his scoring to get drafted much higher than that.

Yes, but he also writes that he had a slow start. However, he had 9 points in the last 10 games and 7 points in the last 5 games.
Even for me, he is a contradictory striker, there are games when he is lackluster in the game and then there are games when he shows flashes of extraordinary talent. Last year he had more than 1.5 points per game in the national team and I don't think I remember when this happened in the czech youth team. Maybe they will end up as a forgotten player. And maybe not, and if he puts everything together, he can attack the NHL. He is another talented czech and at the same time contradictory prospect.

 

[martygod12]

Sadly last 10 or so games he is kinda invisible, of course Seattle sucks as a whole team, but yeah probably we cant expect much here.

5-7 round maybe if he is lucky.