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RD Carter Yakemchuk - Calgary Hitmen, WHL (2024, 7th, OTT)

majormajor said:
I think the consensus on the top D is mostly wrong. There are indeed some of us that think Yakemchuk is actually a better pick than some of the 5 above him. Buium is the only one I have clearly ahead of him, he's by far the top D in my books.

I've seen both Parekh and Yakemchuk improving this year on the technical aspects of defense, but Parekh gets tossed around like a ragdoll in the OHL and I'm not sure how much stronger he can get. He's always going to have challenges in his zone that Yakemchuk doesn't have. I think Yakemchuk is remarkably strong. He's the only guy I've seen manhandle Cayden Lindstrom.

Yakemchuk has to get much better at decision making when the attack is coming against him in transition. He doesn't have the skating to recover once he loses position there. But I see Lev's decision making as much worse in both ends. Defensively he'll lose his man entirely or vacate the zone for no reason when the other club has the puck. He gets locked into expecting certain plays to happen that don't end up happening. A lot of passes to nowhere. Levshunov doesn't have the passing and handling skill of Yakemchuk, I can see him being a turnover machine in the NHL when you combine the poor puck skills with the poor decision making.
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Thank you for the well articulated response. For what it's worth, I've had Yak as my 6th best D man since about January, and Buium as my number 1 since around the same time.
 
majormajor said:
I think the consensus on the top D is mostly wrong. There are indeed some of us that think Yakemchuk is actually a better pick than some of the 5 above him. Buium is the only one I have clearly ahead of him, he's by far the top D in my books.

I've seen both Parekh and Yakemchuk improving this year on the technical aspects of defense, but Parekh gets tossed around like a ragdoll in the OHL and I'm not sure how much stronger he can get. He's always going to have challenges in his zone that Yakemchuk doesn't have. I think Yakemchuk is remarkably strong. He's the only guy I've seen manhandle Cayden Lindstrom.

Yakemchuk has to get much better at decision making when the attack is coming against him in transition. He doesn't have the skating to recover once he loses position there. But I see Lev's decision making as much worse in both ends. Defensively he'll lose his man entirely or vacate the zone for no reason when the other club has the puck. He gets locked into expecting certain plays to happen that don't end up happening. A lot of passes to nowhere. Levshunov doesn't have the passing and handling skill of Yakemchuk, I can see him being a turnover machine in the NHL when you combine the poor puck skills with the poor decision making.
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I get the criticisms of the other defensemen, even though I don’t think they’re to the extent that you see them.

What I don’t get is your evaluation of Yakemchuk, he really can’t skate backwards well at all and his pivots are ugly. His agility is pretty bad and he is not good at recovering from bad pinches. In zone defense I see him drift from his position a little too much for my liking, though it’s not terrible.

He’s incredible in the offensive zone with the puck, no arguments there, though I don’t see elite vision with him.

But the big problem I have with Yakemchuk is his transitional play. He’s not good at skating the puck out of trouble and he’s not very good at controlled exits. The concern I have is that I see him making too many brain-dead breakout plays. He passes to his teammates who are already covered and routinely takes suboptimal breakout options. I feel like this aspect to him along with his heavy feet are not going to fly at the NHL level without significant improvement.

I think we’ll have to just agree to disagree on Yakemchuk. I like the player, I just think he’s the least appealing option of the six. I mean, you keep likening his issues to David Jiricek, whom I had ranked 3rd in his draft year, but even Jiricek is might have trouble making the NHL in his D+3 season as a late birthday. I don’t agree that you can brush off Yakemchuk’s issues as “easily fixable”, which I think is the main thing that we disagree with. I definitely see the upside you do, I just don’t believe in his ability to remedy those issues the way you do.
 
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FWIW: Scott Wheeler published an article in the Athletic yesterday about the D-group, asking 17 Scouts to tell him which of the top 6 D they liked best and least.

5 scouts did not give a (clear) answer to who they liked least.

3 scouts said they liked Dickinson least.

8 said they liked Yakemchuk the least.

No one said Yak was best.
 
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Juxtaposer said:
I get the criticisms of the other defensemen, even though I don’t think they’re to the extent that you see them.

What I don’t get is your evaluation of Yakemchuk, he really can’t skate backwards well at all and his pivots are ugly. His agility is pretty bad and he is not good at recovering from bad pinches.
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That's what I was referring to, talking about his decision making when defending the rush. His back skating leaves little room for error. It is a significant weakness, I've talked about it extensively.

Juxtaposer said:
But the big problem I have with Yakemchuk is his transitional play. He’s not good at skating the puck out of trouble and he’s not very good at controlled exits. The concern I have is that I see him making too many brain-dead breakout plays. He passes to his teammates who are already covered and routinely takes suboptimal breakout options.
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This I haven't noticed.

I took note that I liked his breakouts a lot more than Lev's.

Juxtaposer said:
I think we’ll have to just agree to disagree on Yakemchuk. I like the player, I just think he’s the least appealing option of the six. I mean, you keep likening his issues to David Jiricek, whom I had ranked 3rd in his draft year, but even Jiricek is might have trouble making the NHL in his D+3 season as a late birthday.
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I also had Jiricek 3rd that year and I'm a Jackets fan. The reason I've made the comparison to him is because Jiricek's back skating is still an issue. I'm saying it's a legit cause of concern for Yakemchuk.

But both D I think might have enough they do right to ultimately be among the top few D in their drafts. I'd still take David Jiricek over anyone in this draft not named Zeev. I wish he was the total package, but I can live with him if he's somewhere on the Evan Bouchard track.

Similarly I see Yakemchuk being a big asset in his zone and the offensive zone. The rush defense will hurt his value. But overall there's more there I like than I see for Lev, Silayev, etc..

Juxtaposer said:
I don’t agree that you can brush off Yakemchuk’s issues as “easily fixable”, which I think is the main thing that we disagree with. I definitely see the upside you do, I just don’t believe in his ability to remedy those issues the way you do.
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I don't think Yak's back skating is easily fixable at all. I appreciate the discussion but I don't think you've made a good summary of my thinking on him.
 
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Immense upside with this player. If he puts it all together we are talking about Brent Burns here.

The issue is that he is prone to making huge errors and there are serious questions about his game and decision making at times.

But he’s a fun player to watch and teams are always looking for a right shot mean dman who can play top 4 minutes
 
CaptainShark said:
FWIW: Scott Wheeler published an article in the Athletic yesterday about the D-group, asking 17 Scouts to tell him which of the top 6 D they liked best and least.

5 scouts did not give a (clear) answer to who they liked least.

3 scouts said they liked Dickinson least.

8 said they liked Yakemchuk the least.

No one said Yak was best.
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I trust Anaheim's scouts ahead of anyone in the world when it comes to drafting defensemen. If they take him I will have 100% faith in the pick.
 
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majormajor said:
That's what I was referring to, talking about his decision making when defending the rush. His back skating leaves little room for error. It is a significant weakness, I've talked about it extensively.



This I haven't noticed.

I took note that I liked his breakouts a lot more than Lev's.



I also had Jiricek 3rd that year and I'm a Jackets fan. The reason I've made the comparison to him is because Jiricek's back skating is still an issue. I'm saying it's a legit cause of concern for Yakemchuk.

But both D I think might have enough they do right to ultimately be among the top few D in their drafts. I'd still take David Jiricek over anyone in this draft not named Zeev. I wish he was the total package, but I can live with him if he's somewhere on the Evan Bouchard track.

Similarly I see Yakemchuk being a big asset in his zone and the offensive zone. The rush defense will hurt his value. But overall there's more there I like than I see for Lev, Silayev, etc..



I don't think Yak's back skating is easily fixable at all. I appreciate the discussion but I don't think you've made a good summary of my thinking on him.
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Perhaps I made some assumptions because of how high you are on Yakemchuk… if you aren’t a believer in his ability to fix his issues, then how could you rank him as the second best defenseman in the class? Backwards skating and transition defense is one of the most important aspects for a defenseman.
 
Juxtaposer said:
Perhaps I made some assumptions because of how high you are on Yakemchuk… if you aren’t a believer in his ability to fix his issues, then how could you rank him as the second best defenseman in the class? Backwards skating and transition defense is one of the most important aspects for a defenseman.
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I doubt he can "fix" it, but it's very possible he can make some small improvements to his pivoting and back skating, and more likely than that he can learn to position himself better to minimize his weaknesses. It will likely always be somewhat limiting.

This isn't a guy I expect to have a sterling CF% in the NHL, but he can box out around his crease and I think he'd be very good at killing the cycle and launching transition the other way - I like his offensive transition game much more than you do.

I also see limiting factors for Levshunov, Parekh, and Silayev that I think will likely make them less valuable than Yakemchuk. Dickinson is solid but lacking in upside. The top group of 6 D as a whole is somewhat overrated. I've liked what I've seen from Pulkkinen and Solberg more than some of them.
 
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majormajor said:
Dickinson is solid but lacking in upside.
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You’re going to have to explain this one. What are you basing this on? Their production was basically the same. Yakemchuk had less help, but Dickinson did it in a tougher league while playing elite defense. He doesn’t cheat for offense like Yakemchuk does.
 
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Garbageyuk said:
You’re going to have to explain this one. What are you basing this on? Their production was basically the same. Yakemchuk had less help, but Dickinson did it in a tougher league while playing elite defense. He doesn’t cheat for offense like Yakemchuk does.
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You're talking about how good Dickinson is now, which I'm not going to dispute. He was great. He could play in the NHL very soon.

The upside conversation about Dickinson has been going on for a while and you can check his thread for that. I don't have a unique take on him.
 
Faceboner said:
If he falls to 11 I am punching the air as a Sabres fan
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Lol , only reason I think so is because his situation kind of draws a lot of similarities to Forsberg in 2012. I posted my mock w some predictions if you’d like to see my explanation a bit more in-depth, since it’s Yaks thread

16thOverallSaveUs said:
yall are stacked everywhere you just need a goalie and competent coaching
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And centers that are good on the dot
 
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