Simon Science Pre-Draft Profile



Born in Kiel, Denmark, Simon Science is a six foot one offensively focused right winger hailing from a new agency to the Simulation Hockey League (SHL) system. Growing up, Science was not always slated to join the SHL. While there has become a greater and greater influence of Scandinavian born SHL players, Science was relatively unknown to SHL scouting circles. Relatively undersized most of his youth, Science was playing on the second and third lines while spending all special team time on the power play second team. His parents were led to believe that he would end up college as a, you guessed it, science major. It was not until his U16 season where his skills came to the forefront. Suddenly jolted onto the first line for his travel teams, Science was able to show off his skills in the elite Scandinavian youth circuits. A key component to "Team Denmark Youth", Science was a leader of the team as they played in major tournaments across North America. The JasonHopefully agency was finally on the radar with their first client, Simon Science.

Simon Science was able to land himself on the radar of SMJHL scouts due to his blazing speed. Having been undersized most of his playing career, it was crucial to work on his skating as a way to differentiate himself. Noy only could he beat his opponents by pure speed, but his edgework was elite. Constantly being able to shift directions and to do so quickly allowed him to create space in the offensive zone and create opportunities for the more lumbering second and third liners he originally played with. Now, at six foot one, Science is still capable of blowing past his defenders off of pure speed alone. His edgework has also carried through despite his growth spurt, capable of using his edges to nudge the defenders away to lead to an eventual sprint into the offensive zone.



The speed would all be for naught if Science was incapable of capitalizing on the opportunities. Science is an intelligent forward who has shown flashes of potentially becoming an elite playmaker. He is not only capable of reading plays quickly, but also is able to act on them and get passes into tight windows. Due to most of his development being on the second and third lines, he was used to operating in tighter windows as his teammates were less capable of creating space for him. While other playmakers may use their stickhandling to create space for passes, Science mainly relies on his speed to create the advantageous passing lanes to set his teammates up for prime opportunities.

Despite playing many minutes outside of the top line growing up, Science is behind in terms of development in the defensive zone. His main skill in the defensive end would be his stickhandling capabilities and even that is seen as average for the SMJHL level. What Science will need to work on to be a plus two-way player in the SMJHL is to work on the defensive zone to make sure that he does not give up as many points as he creates. He is an extremely intelligent player, and his intelligence in theory should carry over to the defensive zone. Coaches will need to spend time with Science to make sure that he can at least reach defensive ability neutral instead of being a negative on the defensive zone.

As a whole, we project Simon Science as a strong top six forward at the SMJHL level. There is always a level of unknown relating to a player agency that is new to the SHL system, however we are fairly confident that Science's agency is one that can see success across both the SMJHL and SHL. Coaches will need to determine whether the agency will look to shore up Science's defensive abilities, or if he will attempt to become a one-way superstar. It is expected that there will be a good amount of interest at the SMJHL level as Science has shown leadership capabilities and has been active in training. A player of his profile should be able to challenge for a top ten pick, but to be conservative we can expect him to come off of the board around the five to fifteen range. We are wishing the JasonHopefully agency the best of luck with their first player in the SHL system!

@JasonHopefully

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Defense never got me far in the league :emojiHype: