Prospect Info: With the 3rd overall pick in the 2021 Entry Draft, the Ducks select Mason McTavish

[Hey234]

I like that he kept saying he takes pride in his hockey IQ. A high IQ, physical, hardworking, 2-way, goal scoring, top 6 center sounds good to me.

 

[The Mighty Duck Man]

Terrible player. This is an absolute disastrous pick

in Madden we trust sure

but wTf

this goes against everything they believe in

That sounds a little bit dramatic lol

 

[Static]

Terrible player. This is an absolute disastrous pick

in Madden we trust sure

but wTf

this goes against everything they believe in

Woah!

 

[Static]

The highlight/shift videos are pretty vanilla. Here's hoping the scouts know what they're doing.

Elite prospects has an entire breakdown of his game with many videos. It's worth the $9.99 month long subscription to me, but that's subjective, obviously.

 

[HunterDuck]

Twitter is being especially obnoxious about this pick so I hope he shuts everyone up

 

[Static]

Terrible player. This is an absolute disastrous pick

in Madden we trust sure

but wTf

this goes against everything they believe in

Woah!

 

[Static]

Twitter is being especially obnoxious about this pick so I hope he shuts everyone up

Who, the sicard clowns?

 

[HunterDuck]

Who, the sicard clowns?

Literally 90% of the Ducks fans lol

 

[Static]

Literally 90% of the Ducks fans lol

The sicard clowns then.

 

[Anaheim4ever]

he has that snarl type of face like Kesler. Could see him some day sitting on a puck to eat time on the clock.

 

[Static]

 

[Dirk316]

Terrible player. This is an absolute disastrous pick

in Madden we trust sure

but wTf

this goes against everything they believe in

Good weed?

 

[pbgoalie]

A couple scouting reports mentioned he's got good acceleration but a short stride which affects his top speed. Something like this will be sorted by a skating coach with the Ducks in no time.

Hopefully a different skating coach than Bobby Ryan and Perry

 

[Boo Boo]

murr really wanted power wow. He doesn’t seem very passionate about mctavish but he’s right that he is a good fit here

 

[Ducksforcup]

Man you'd find more cheer in a grave-yard.

 

[Static]

I wonder if he is pissed about the eichel trade? Stephens said he was on the phone for much of the pick when they were on the clock.

 

[Son of Gib]

Sounds like they liked Power at #1 and then the next 6-7 players were about the same level. Maybe not the worst we didn't get #2.

 

[The Mighty Duck Man]

I wonder if he is pissed about the eichel trade? Stephens said he was on the phone for much of the pick when they were on the clock.

Bob said they were looking at a trade down but the value wasn't there. My guess would be LA, so a little far to move down.

 

[Gliff]

I'm pissed.

I hope he proves me wrong, but San Jose just got the steal of the draft and he was on our plate.
I have never wanted to be more wrong about a player then I want to be with McTavish.

Edit: Bob is a f***ing dinosaur. His interview did not make me feel better at all about this pick.

 

[Son of Gib]

Bob said they were looking at a trade down but the value wasn't there. My guess would be LA, so a little far to move down.

Looking at @Eklund tweets sounds like it was Columbus?

 

[Hockey Duckie]

Can anyone point me in the direction on highlights that show his elite shot? I don’t really see it.

His elite shot was cited often in the rookie season in the OHL, 2019-20. It wasn't used much this year because he had to adapt to playing against men in the Swiss League, but he had a couple of snipes in the WJC-18. Here's a highlight video of him only with the Petes as a 16-year old rookie to start the OHL season. He just knows where to go for potential rebounds and scores so easily like Perry near the net.

​

 

[terranraida]

What if Sideshow Bob was also a jack-o-lantern?

thick head thicker hair gang rise up

 

[TheStuntman]

I know I said in the draft thread that he gave me Nick Ritchie vibes, it's because mostly his body type and his skating as his main weakness. In a league where skill and skating is becoming more important than ever, I just didn't like this pick at this spot. However the scouting reports is talking me off hating this pick as much and it wasn't a complete reach as many players were all over the board. If he continues to improve his skating it'll be pretty difficult to stop him ala Getzlaf.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

That info only came later, though. Basically all the info available at the draft had him in mid-teens, though, at best, and that's obviously what shaped the reactions. Not sure if those threads still exist, but he wasn't being discussed as a potential pick, at all, and there were literal "who?!" reactions in both our board's and the main board's GDT.

I think that's mostly a difference in eras. Whether it's McTavish, Quinn, Sanderson, Snider, Kotkaniemi, Makar, Dubois, etc. you see these kinds of things coming now. People often refuse to believe them, McTavish being the worst example I've seen of that, but with more information available it's tougher to be truly surprised.

I also think McTavish might have only been seen that way because of this weird year. A normal year and he might've been in the 1OA convo by April.

tldr version: Yup.


It all goes back to having info. Mynhldraft had mocked Lindholm at 15th overall. The TV coverage on Lindholm was lost with lack of info. Central Scouting, EU had Lindholm ranked the 4th best skater. Technically, Lindholm wasn't an unknown prospect. There were so many good names we were enamored with that Lindholm wasn't a possibility. Welp, something similar here with McTavish, it's all about what information was available. With bigger names of Eklund, Guenther, Hughes, Edvinsson, and Clarke, McTavish didn't have a long track record to follow save Central Scouting boosting him up like they boosted up Lindholm. Most of the scouting reports were based off of McTavish's 2019-20 season until Central Scouting (#2) and EP (#5) dragged the rest of the community in the last month to save face in their scouting work. Recall, Smaht Scouting had him ranked 32nd before recently moving him up to 13th. Dobber Prospects had him 29th until this month when he got boosted to 11th.

The McTavish thing might be worse then because many fans didn't want to accept info about McTavish. A majority of recent mocks had McTavish at the bottom of the top-10. And before the more recent update on many scout rankings, McTavish was rated in the 20's - 30's. If I didn't post about McTavish, then this board would have remained mostly ignorant of McTavish. You can probably go look at how many posters never included McTavish as a possible pick at all despite me sharing the info. Look at the results of the post "Predict who we pick at 3rd overall" and McTavish comes in tied for 4th. I imagine he'd be lower if I didn't share my deep dives. And when he is picked, there's some "wth" responses. Then in this thread, all the McTavish info is being shared again. Now is when the board is doing a deep dive after he's been selected to wonder why.

McTavish is similar to Lindholm's situation, but worse because many just dismissed the info.

 

[mightyquack]

People are allowed to have researched a player before the draft and still not like the pick. Just like people are allowed to like the pick. Great that.