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Pre-Season GDT #3: Sabres @ Leafs, 7:30 PM, SN1

LeafGm

LeafGm

Well-known member
Third game of the pre-season tonight, with the Buffalo Sabres rolling in to Toronto.

I haven't seen any definitive forward lines or defense pairings for tonight's game yet, but we do know the Tavares & Kadri lines will be playing in this one:


Zach Hyman - John Tavares - Mitch Marner
Josh Leivo - Nazem Kadri - Connor Brown


Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun is also reporting that Semyon Der-Arguchintsev & Jordan Subban are set to make their pre-season debuts tonight, and McElhinney & Sparks will be the goalies. Travis Dermott was wearing a red "no contact" jersey in today's practice, so he's almost certainly not in tonight's lineup.


The Buffalo lineup appears to be pretty prospect & AHLer heavy, so this could be an ugly one tonight:


Nylander-Mittelstadt-Thompson
Olofsson-Asplund-Cornel
Smith-Porter-Baptiste
Girgensons-Sobotka-Oglevie

Guhle-Nelson
Pilut-Tennyson
Hickey-Redmond

Ullmark
Wilcox
 
actually excited to see Mittelstadt. I think he might be a beaut.


Leafs lines:

Marleau - Matthews - Ennis
Leivo - Kadri - Brown
Mueller - SDA - Timashov
Engvall - Greening - Jooris

Rielly - Hainsey
Marincin - Carrick
Sandin - Liljegren
(Nielsen - Subban)

big big game for Marincin-Carrick. Another bad outing and they're both on the outside looking in, imo.

Looking forward to see what that Mueller-SDA-Tima line can do, too.
 
Okay, now the Leaf lines for tonight are out:


Zach Hyman - John Tavares - Mitch Marner
Josh Leivo - Nazem Kadri - Connor Brown
Chris Mueller - SDA - Dmytro Timashov
Colin Greening - Josh Jooris - Pierre Engvall

Morgan Rielly - Hainsey
Martin Marincin - Connor Carrick
Rasmus Sandin - Timothy Liljegren

Curtis McElhinney
Garret Sparks


So, looks like Hornby was wrong about Subban playing, but SDA will be getting into the lineup.

Looking forward to getting a first look at him, especially in the middle of the ice.
 
Man, people may rip on Marner for looking like he's 12 years old, but SDA takes it to another level:



okU62rF.jpg



(not that I think this matters at all---just a funny pic)
 
It worked with Marner, so why not try it again? Mitchy looks like a huge, grizzled veteran next to that kid.
 
zeke said:
actually excited to see Mittelstadt. I think he might be a beaut.
Click to expand...

I think Mittlestat is the most over rated, over hyped prospect to come into the NHL since, funny enough, Sam Reinhart.

If we look at freshman PPG for notable NCAA forwards for a moment:

Kyle Connor - 1.86
Jack Eichel - 1.78
Jaden Schwartz - 1.56
Clayton Keller - 1.45
Brock Boeser - 1.43
Dylan Larkin - 1.34
Phil Kessel - 1.31 (very late birthday)
Jason Zucker - 1.13
Danton Heinen - 1.05
Johnny Gaudreau - 1.0 (very late birthday, turned 18 at start of season..was also a very, very tiny midget)
Jake Guentzel - .92
JT Compher -.89
Casey Mittlestadt - .88 (early birthday, turned 19 at start of season)
Derek Stepan - .83
Alex Tuch - .76
Charlie Coyle - .70
Nick Bjugstad - .69
Nick Schmaltz - .68
Jujhar Khaira - .68
Jimmy Vesey - .67
Riley Sheahan - .55
Brock Nelson - .50
Kevin Hayes - .45

So yeah, I get that he's the darling of last year's WJHC and all (aka, the worst scouting tool known to the hockey world) but he was fortunate enough to be an early birthday in his freshman NCAA season (so was 19 almost the entire season) and put up good, but only good offensive numbers. If we're playing the eye test game, I see slick hands and good passing/offensive IQ but mediocre skating without a lot of elusiveness (average edges) or top end speed. For the type of offensive genius he's being billed as, I would have expected much, much better NCAA offensive numbers from him last season. There is a pretty clear delineation between what he did in the NCAA last season, and what similarly hyped prospects coming out of the NCAA (Boeser, Connor, Keller) have done in recent years.
 
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interesting.

I remember liking his numbers pre-NCAA on draft day, and then he made a nice impact for those few nhl games last year too.

Surprised that he did so poorly in the NCAA.
 
zeke said:
interesting.

I remember liking his numbers pre-NCAA on draft day, and then he made a nice impact for those few nhl games last year too.

Surprised that he did so poorly in the NCAA.
Click to expand...

I don't know how much stock I would put in US high school or USHL numbers when he's a november birthday. I know he's not Auston, and it's an unfair comparison....but....if we line them up according to age (they were both early birthday's, so some of the oldest kids playing at every level, so enjoyed similar advantages in development)

17 - USNP U18

Matthews: 1.95ppg
Mittlestadt: 1.0ppg

and if we throw Clayton Keller (very late birthday) in, again adjusted by age

Keller: 1.73ppg


Keller is the most damning comparison for me when I look at this. Keller is exactly what Mittlestadt is hyped to be. An elite level offensive genius. But when you look at them in direct comparison, and despite Mittlestadt having the advantage of being older at every level, Keller comes out looking vastly superior. If Keller is what a future, smallish offensive stud looks like offensively, Mittlestadt is a huge step down from that in production across multiple levels that they've both played at.
 
Middlestat is one of the guys where the tools and eye test aren't backed up by production (yet). Will be interesting to see how it works out.
 
Deckie007 said:
Middlestat is one of the guys where the tools and eye test aren't backed up by production (yet). Will be interesting to see how it works out.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it'll be interesting. My best comparable is, like I said, Sam Reinhart. I think we'll see a guy who is average in a lot of things, but has a high enough IQ and good enough hands to pop 50-60 points as a secondary offensive talent in the NHL. Which isn't a bad gig at all, I don't mean to say that he's going to be a proper bust. But I've seen all sorts of shit this off season talking about him in the same breath as Elias Pettersson (who is going to be a ****ing beast) and he's just not built like that. He's just not an elite prospect at this point. If I was to use the Hockey's Future scale, I'd call him a 7.5B
 
I don’t think his game translates great to the NHL. He likes to hold onto the puck and use his size to protect it and slow the game down. But he’s only 6’1 200. Which at that size works against kids but not against men in college hockey or pro.


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I can't claim to know much of anything about Mittelstadt. But would be nice if he only turned out to be a mid-level top-6 guy like Reinhart.

It'd follow the pattern of, Dahlin excepted, all of Buffalo's best young players being the poor man's version of the Leafs' young stars:


Rielly > Ristolainen
Marner > Reinhart
W.Nylander > A.Nylander
Matthews > Eichel
 
LeafGm said:
I can't claim to know much of anything about Mittelstadt. But would be nice if he only turned out to be a mid-level top-6 guy like Reinhart.

It'd follow the pattern of, Dahlin excepted, all of Buffalo's best young players being the poor man's version of the Leafs' young stars:


Rielly > Ristolainen
Marner > Reinhart
W.Nylander > A.Nylander
Matthews > Eichel
Click to expand...

In some cases ridiculously poor man's versions. Dahlin though is a ****ing stud. I don't think Buffalo is going to do a good job filling in the depth of that club at all, but just on the strength of Dahlin-Risto playing 27 minutes a game together, they're going to be a decent team. We're going to be their nemesis for a long time though, they just won't be able to match our depth in talent.
 
I know I'm getting old but holy **** this guy seems like he hasn't even hit puberty. That said, he's got a pair.

Check this out ... liking this kid already:

[video=youtube;UIPOAyd0qJ0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=133&v=UIPOAyd0qJ0[/video]
 
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