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Allegiant · 09-12-2020, 09:53 PM

New Entrants to the S56 SMJHL Entry Draft

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The S56 SMJHL Entry Draft is growing larger by the day. Although there is some suggestion out there that this class isn’t particularly deep, at least compared to the SHL Draft that happened tonight — with solid players being selected well through the third round — nobody can accuse the class of being short on players numbers-wise. While there’s already been some attention towards players who declared for the draft over the past couple of weeks, we should take a moment instead to look at those players who declared for the draft more recently — as in, today and yesterday.

To start, let’s take a look at Carl California. A Canadian left winger, he’s demonstrated some solid puck-handling talent thus far in his career. He’s also a speedy skater, and he has all around decent athleticism save for his rather poor physical strength. He doesn’t have much of an offensive game outside of that, and he definitely needs to improve his ability to actually do something with the puck save outside flashy handles. As it stands right now, California has not made any real early development efforts.

Next up is Vlastislav Malik. This one is a bit more of a promising prospect. He’s 6’5” winger from the Czech Republic with a knack for getting in front of the net. He’s also a tank, and once he gets himself in place, nobody is going to be moving him. While he could also do with improving his overall offensive instincts, his raw size and strength will carry him through. Perhaps even more promising is that, despite only showing up a day ago, Malik has already made the rounds, doing every appearance and training program available to him. While his late arrival to the class might lead some to be hesitant, he looks to be a very promising young player.

Following after Malik is Hank Spankie, a decent-sized center with a focus on passing. He’s already a reliable face-off guy and he’s an all-around solid athlete at the junior level. It must be said that he isn’t a fantastic player in his own end yet, but at this stage in his career that’s entirely forgivable. While he might look promising at first glance, he’s another instance of a player who hasn’t really done much after declaring — he hasn’t been seen since then, and unless he can correct that, his stock will likely be very low.

Our next player is Tanner McLeod, and he’s another player who showed up and declared for the draft, but didn’t really do anything thereafter. It has to be said that this is understandable for a lot of these players. We’re looking at some of the latest possible entrants into the SMJHL Entry Draft. But, in terms of where they could go in the draft, it’s inevitably going to hurt them. As a player, he’s a single-minded offensive winger. He can pass, he can work his way into the open, and he has good all-around instincts. He’s fast, he can go out of nowhere — and he will play absolutely no defense whatsoever.

Our next player is a goaltender — none other than Vincent Mietitore. For a player who declared so late, it must be said that Mietitore is one of the more promising players in this article — maybe in the draft itself. He’s already a pretty solid, if unremarkable goaltender. That’s probably exactly what you’re going to be looking for if you select a goaltender. He’s someone who can back-up for the season and probably transition into a starter, or at least a 1B after a year. He’s also made his presence known quite well around the league, and he doesn’t carry the same question marks a lot of other players have. The biggest knock against his draft stock is just that he’s a goaltender, and not every team has space for that.

Where Mietitore was one of the most promising, Brett Matthews is another quiet one. He’s a winger iwth all-around solid offensive skills and virtually no interest in defense outside of some occasional stick-work. That skill-set could probably be leveraged fairly easily at the SMJHL level, but he’s a huge question mark. Is he going to make an impact in the league? Is he even going to show up to train? At this point, it’s about as up in the air as the other unknowns who stepped in for late draft declarations.

Next up, we have Bobby Motz. He’s a scoring winger with good, all-around offensive instincts and solid athleticism. He isn’t the most refined defensively, but he has shown some intention to improve in that respect. If he continues to develop as is, he does have the potential to turn himself into a very decent goal-scorer at the SMJHL level. He’s also been fairly quiet, but he has been seen around the league a little more than some of the others, outside of Mietitore and Malik. For that reason, he’s probably one of the more promising of the unknowns.

Although the draft itself is fairly defense-heavy,Michael Scotch is the first actual defender on our list. He is, it must be stated, a very offensive-minded defender at that. At a glance, he’s got great hockey IQ, at least on the attack, and he’s got a decent shot, he’s got the capability to be a decent set-up guy, and he keeps moving and challenges opposing forwards to cover him. He needs to shore up his defense and work on his overall skating ability, but there’s some real promise there. He has also been reaching out to a few teams and starting to make his presence known. Is he a top pick? Not right now. But he’s got a good shot at making it onto a playing roster.

Alex Haas technically declared for the draft a couple of days ago, but he technically was only approved for it today. For that reason, we’ll include him on this list. He’s a speedy center who can get to top speed with at an incredible pace for a prospective SMJHL’er. On top of that, he’s demonstrated a clear defensive mindset, and some decent puck-handling. Due to the way he has developed thus far, it appears as if Haas could be a pretty solid penalty-kill specialist, his skating making him a perpetual threat for a breakaway. He hasn’t developed much, but he’s been around and seems like he could start working at it soon.

Our next defender is Viktor Petrenko, a decent all-around defender. He plays an unremarkable, but reliable game in his own end, with some decent puck handling ability to go along with that. He won’t be putting up many points, but he’s starting to look like the type of player that could build into a defensive anchor. He’s big, at 6’6”, and he has the impressive strength to match. He hasn’t technically been approved for the draft yet, but he’s an honourable mention just given he’s already made some early strides.

We’ll end off the article proper with another player who hasn’t actually been approved for the draft yet. Bjorn Thornsen is a responsible, two-way defender out of Norway. He doesn’t stand out as anyone flashy, but he’s a decent athlete who plays a smart game and has the potential to really build himself up as a big-minute defender — largely because he hasn’t really demonstrated any major weaknesses yet. He’s made some early efforts to develop, so that has to at least earn him the attention of managers, even if he has some work to do to earn real clout.

With that done, let’s take a look at some very early, and likely very unreliable rankings for these late-arriving players.

1. Vincent Mietitore - G
2. Vlastislav Malik - LW
3. Michael Scotch - RD
4. Viktor Petrenko - LD
5. Bjorn Thornson - RD
6. Bobby Motz - RW
7. Alex Haas - C
8. Brett Matthews - LW
9. Tanner McLeod - LW
10. Hank Spankie - C
11. Carl California - LW

At the top of the list we have a couple early earners, while nearer to the bottom we have those players who have declared but not really made anything of it yet. In that case, it’s whoever was seen last that gets the next spot — it’s not much to go off of, but having been around more recently is at least a point in their favour. Even if it’s a point that’s a couple decimal places to the right. The top four or five are definitely players to watch — although one or two might go in the first round or so, a couple others might turn out to be later round steals.

Ultimately, the SMJHL Entry Draft is fairly shallow at this point in time, so the value of a couple of the long-shot prospects listed — players who might not have much demonstrable draft stock right now but who have shown the potential to make strides forward — might be higher than it would be in other years. Tomorrow’s draft will be interesting, even if we’re not looking at a star-studded list of players at first glance.

**leafs1997** · 09-13-2020, 12:47 AM

DELIRIVM · 09-13-2020, 04:53 AM

Oh shit! We finally have a Haas in the league that isn't me! Alex Haas going to be one of the GOAT. I will be watching your career with great interest @Slappinmynuts

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