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robinsonp16 · 06-02-2019, 11:43 AM

The Hat-Trick

Hockey Blog

Welcome ladies and gentleman to The Hat-Trick, a weekly blog for all you hockey fans out there looking to get your fix of SHL and SMJHL hockey talk.

For the casual hockey fan, this time of year might seem like a bore. With the season over and no games in sight, those fans move on to the next bandwagon sports fad and forget all about their short lived fandom with a team on ice. For us real fans, however, the presentation of the Challenge cup isn’t the end. Oh no, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. It marks the start of the off-season, those critical weeks on the hockey calendar where championship teams are made. With free-agency, the draft, training camps and all the trade talk you can handle, who wouldn’t love this time of year?

With the SHL and SMJHL draft only a few weeks away, my attention lately has been dedicated to prospect evaluation. The draft is one of my favorite part of all sports. The possibility of some team out there landing the next great player gets me all warm and gooey inside. I spend a fair amount of time throughout the year following the big name players, guys who are projected to be high-end draft picks, but it’s the month just before the draft when I really start to get busy. Nailing down a good mock draft, keeping track of who’s rising and who’s falling, who could be a potential bust or sleeper pick, this is where all my free time goes. The SHL draft is certainly the bigger and brighter of the two selection events and for obvious reasons. Not only is the focus on the pro clubs but, also, the kids getting selected have also had a bit of time in the junior system to prove themselves and, therefore, are a little bit more recognizable to fans watching at home. The SMJHL draft, however, is a much harder monster to predict. There are a few recognizable names in the kids who have been standing out among prospects since their early teens but many of the players are unrecognizable to anyone who doesn’t make a living scouting talent. It’s a much harder draft to predict, it’s a much harder draft, as a fan, to get excited about but it’s a draft that can change the face of junior organization in an instant. You may not know a lot of these kids now but a year from now there will be a whole crop of players who took their “no-name” status and flipped it into a 1st round pick at the SHL level. Tonight I want to look at one of those very players, who you might not know right now but I bet you will before all is said and done. I’m not a scout by any stretch of the imagination but I like to think that I have an eye for talent when I see it. Well, just the other night, a buddy and I ended up at a local arena watching two out of town Premier League hockey teams. It was by total chance that we ended up there but one of the players caught me by complete surprise. After a few hours of watching this kid work, a little research revealed that he is indeed an eligible draft prospect in this year’s upcoming SMJHL Entry Draft and could be worth a good hard look for any GM looking for defensemen. So if you haven’t heard, let me be the one to introduce you to Henrik Sapotchik.

[Image: images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSSmolsOZRkbS5X8bFjIOe...xKjlFhtTXo]

[Image: images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSSmolsOZRkbS5X8bFjIOe...xKjlFhtTXo]

   Name: Henrik Sapotchik
   Position: LD
   Height: 6’4”
   Weight: 220
   DOB: 7/14/2002
   Birthplace: Halmstad, Sweden

Henrik Sapotchik is a two-way defensemen currently flying under a lot of peoples raiders. My guess as to why he’s received such little publicity would be because of his muddled hockey resume up to this point. From the people who have seen him, Sapotchik has been a high end talent for a long time but has no real concrete routes in any of the big, high-end, youth hockey pipelines. While he officially calls Sweden home, Sapotchik has had to transfer in and out of programs his whole life, mainly due to his father’s profession which requires a great deal of international relocation. Over the past 6 years, Henrik Sapotchik has played for 7 different teams in 4 different countries. He’s made a good impression on all of them but, unfortunately, it’s caused him to fade in and out of the main scouting circles.

Why You Should Love Him

First of all, his size, for a 17 year old, is unheard of. The primary reason I was drawn to watching this kid in the first place was because he looked like a giant skating among other 16 and 17 year olds. At 6’4” and 220lbs Sapotchik already has a build comparable to many players a year or two older than him. This will serve him well, not only for his position, but it will also help him transition easier into the higher leagues. As players get bigger, faster and stronger, he’ll already have the physical make-up necessary to bang with the big boys.

His strengths as a player appear to be in his passing, skating and overall defensive game. Sapotchik seems to be a smart player, with good decision making, that becomes apparent while on the defensive side of the ice. I don’t think I caught him out of place once during the time I had to scout him and his overall defensive positioning on both sides was near perfect and set him up nicely to make a handful of positive plays. His passing was another aspect that clearly stood out. I call him a two-way blue-liner not because I think he’ll be a dangerous goal scoring threat but because he has a knack for finding the players who will be. His ability to consistently saucier in pin-point passes through heavy traffic, set up three or four golden opportunities for a few of his forwards, two of which found the back of the net. He projects very nicely as a future PP quarterback with vision and touch that could develop into a skill set that gets him on an SHL roster someday.

His creator, robinsonp16, could also be seen a potential reason to get excited about this player. Robinsonp16 is no stranger to the world of sim sports and has created characters in several different leagues. While his experience with the SHL isn’t extensive, he has created long-term, successful players in leagues like the SBA. With activity being a must for anyone hoping to have a someday star, it’s nice to have a player with a bit of a track record for sticking with his projects.

Why He Might Not Be Your Guy

For the first few years you may not see Sapotchik develop into the all-around player that I think he can one day become. You can see that the most natural skill sets that he has are his skating, passing and defensive talent. While these are already strengths, these will also be the early areas of focus in training. Instead of slowly spreading out TPE for a few years and balancing everything out, ill spend a bulk of my earned points on making those three areas true strengths for this player in his early career.

While the creator of Sapotchik is active and has demonstrated a commitment to the long term development of players in other SIM based leagues, I wouldn’t call him a locker room presence. This is just being straightforward and honest with anyone looking to draft this player. Sapotchik will, without a doubt, develop into a strong player. The creator loves to write articles and contributes to the leagues he’s in regularly in that regard, so money for training will never be the issue. He’s not, on the other hand, a regular visitor to locker room forums or live chat sessions. It’s not that I don’t appreciate or enjoy those aspects of the game but in terms of time management, I usually don’t dedicate a ton of it to casual conversation. You’ll get a strong player, one that can help a team win, but you won’t get a vocal locker room presence.

Overall, Henrik Sapotchik is an interesting name that I could definitely see being one of those annual “diamonds in the rough.” He’s fresh and new and doesn’t come with a lot of SHL credentials, so GM’s will certainly reach for the known assets before snatching up a guy like Sapotchik. For a lot of different reason, though, he’s an intriguing prospect. While his SIM experience may be in other leagues, you can’t discount the fact that there is a track record of training discipline with this guy. As always, teams will value the 1st round picks like gold dubloons, making those the corner stone pieces of their franchises future. For teams that want to maximize their draft stock and understand that winning a championship means having to hit on a few unknown assets. Based on what I’ve seen and heard from around the leaugue, my prediction is that Sapotchik will fall somewhere in the late second or early third round of the SMJHL draft. This is the perfect player to take a shot it if your still hoping to strike gold after the first round.

First article double

Nictox · 06-02-2019, 06:17 PM

Hard to read in dark mode, but good article!

RIP Dangel #AD26 | RIP TDZ

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