15 Thoughts: Canes Prospects

Let's think out loud

I’m still thinking of new ideas for what the 4th Substack post of the month will be. I think a 32 Thoughts-esque post makes more sense as a weekly/bi-weekly thing as it’ll be easier to jot thoughts down and remember them. But for now, let’s talk about all things Canes Prospects and what I’ve seen through live game viewings.

1. One of the big prospect-related stories recently has been Jackson Blake. Making the NHL roster out of camp and not looking a lick out of place so far. On a fourth line with Eric Robinson and Jack Drury, he’s consistently driving the offense and generating chances. Once he slows down in taking penalties and maybe gets some more ice time, he’s going to be really good.

2. I’d say the other big prospect story so far has to be the absolute heater of a start to the season for Nikita Artamonov. He’s already scored more goals this year than last year, he only needs 6 more points to tie his total from last year and he has 51 games left to do it. If we look forward, the record for scoring by a U20 player in the KHL is Danila Yurov with 49 points. Artamonov is on pace to break that record. I do expect his scoring to come back down to Earth as a shooting percentage of over 30% is rather hard to maintain.

3. Let’s start delving into the Chicago Wolves and I want to start with the leader in points, Ryan Suzuki. During the preseason, everyone that I spoke with, including Rod Brind’Amour, was very complimentative of Suzuki, saying he plays a “very mature” game. So far, he’s looked the part. With a goal and 2 assists in 3 games, Suzuki has looked every bit like an NHL player so far. He’s on the power play contributing, he’s out there killing penalties, he’s out there in overtime setting up game-winners. It’s super unfortunate that the Canes have so many 4th line players that have the veteran tag applied because Suzuki is ready for full-time NHL work.

4. I’m not worried about the Wolves starting 1-2. You shouldn’t either. In game 1, they had about 2 days of practice with a full team and they had to play an Admirals team that is consistently good. After getting a full week of practice, they beat the defending Calder Cup champs. The third game is a “meh” one to me because that was Perets’ first AHL start, so I’m not too bothered.

5. The Top 5 guys outside of Blake and Nikishin, that being Nadeau, Unger Sorum, and Morrow, have had mixed results so far in Chicago. Nadeau has been littering the net when he can, as he’s set up in the Ovechkin/Stamkos spot on the power play and has the lifetime green light. One of the main issues with that is opposing teams see this as one of the only things the Wolves do on the power play and it makes it really easy to play against.

6. Unger Sorum’s time in Chicago is going to be valuable, as it looks like they are serious about his development into a full-time center. Results have been varied, he’s looked really good at times and has had some growing pains at other times. I wish the AHL tracked faceoff stats, but that’s just more incentive for me to try and track it. Thought he had a really nice game against Hershey when they won.

7. Scott Morrow has also been a mixed bag. He’s certainly gotten the minutes I was hoping he’d get and at even strength, he’s been fun. He’s creative in the offensive zone with the puck on his stick and his defending has been ok. It does help that he has Ronan Seeley as his partner, who contributes a lot more defensively than offensively. Leading a power play, he’s been predictable. Staring down his passing target too often and sometimes being lackadaisical in the speed at which he’s passing. He’s also another player who needs to cut back on the “dumb” penalties, as he has more penalty minutes than games played.

8. Proud French-Canadian defenseman Charles-Alexis Legault has been letting the pucks fly more than I have ever seen from him. He is currently tied for 3rd in shots on the Wolves with Nadeau, Domenick Fensore, and Gleb Trikozov. Legault has been super fun to watch as he’s involving himself in the rush as a distributor more and more and he’s finding confidence with the more he does it. He’s also continued to be a bruising presence, seen by this hit I would like to label “Le Boom”.

9. Speaking of Gleb (Gleb!), I understand some people’s frustration when it comes to his placement in the lineup and deployment but this is about what I expected. Offensively, the kid is gifted and that’s shown by his line getting somewhat favorable deployment and Gleb himself getting power play time. It’s the other aspects of the game that need refining and he will get that. We as a hockey enjoying society need to understand that the jump from the MHL and VHL to the AHL is a rather big jump and Gleb needs time.

10. Speaking of Russian players who made a huge jump, Ruslan Khazheyev made his first career start on North American ice to a rather unfortunate result. 3 goals on 15 shots had him pulled in the second period. Physically, the kid has a bright future. But as I got to see first hand during Prospect Development camp and NHL training camp, he is incredibly raw and needs playing time at any level to develop.

11. Heading back to Europe, glad to see Dominik Badinka score his first goal for Malmo. He’s played decently well so far and nice to see him rewarded with a goal.

12. Sticking in Sweden, what a start to the season for Oskar Vuollet. He’s been primarily playing bottom 6 minutes but currently has 4 goals and 2 assists for 6 points in 11 games at the time of writing this (10/22). That’s good for 6th on the team. The biggest thing during my viewings of him in his DY was that his perimeter play was very good but he didn’t find a lot of success in the middle. This year, he’s been much more active going to the middle, especially in front of the net. During a game where he had a hat trick as the 13th forward, he scored at least one goal by just being around the net and gathering a rebound. Very good development.

13. Egor Velmakin is a very interesting goalie in a very interesting spot. Started off the season not playing in Minsk’s first 2 games. Then came the Kolosov rumors and, thankfully for him, they didn’t come to fruition (as of now). He then gets one period of relief as their starter got hurt and he makes 18/18 saves. He then starts their next game and gets pulled after giving up 4 goals on 22 shots, albeit against much better competition. Velmakin then rides the bench for the next 6 games before getting thrown into the start role against Severstal, a game in which he makes 37/39 saves and Minsk loses in a shootout. Back to the bench for another 4 games before getting another start in which Minsk loses 2-1 after Minsk failed to score more than 1 goal on 35 shots. The fans, from what I can see, are apathetic towards him. They understand it’s hard for a young goalie to get anything going if he’s barely getting game time. Even worse is that when he plays, he looks good. If Kolosov does end up going back to Russia, don’t be surprised if Minsk trades Velmakin.

14. Russian defenseman that aren’t nicknamed “Boom” are becoming big minute eaters by the game. Timur Kol has seen 28+ TOI twice this season with SKA-1946 at the MHL level, Roman Shokhrin has played over 21 minutes in 4/7 games so far, Alexander Pelevin has become a top pairing defenseman for a VHL team and Vlad Grudinin has been a top pairing defender for Severstal since last season. The only one that hasn’t taken on a larger role so far is Alexander Siryatsky, who has bounced to every single level of Russian hockey (KHL, VHL, MHL).

This last point is incredibly long because I need to go in-depth to discuss it. This involves Nikishin so I implore everyone to read it.

15. In this age of hockey, people love to debate the best way to evaluate a player. Some think analytics is the best way to do so, while others believe the eye test is key. Some people also just believe in checking a box score and making agendas based on that. In my opinion, it needs to be a mix of all three. With that being said,

As a person who tries to watch as much SKA hockey as humanly possible, I’m not a fan of the Nikishin-TDA pairing. Everyone will immediately point to the point total from TDA and while yes, it is impressive, it is super inflated as he is being asked to play as little defense as possible, which is hurting Nikishin’s game. Let me explain.

Starting off at 5v5, Nikishin’s partners before TDA were very adept at helping recover defensively as Nikishin is a big fan of jumping and normally has success with. As for anyone who has watched any amount of Tony Deangelo, this is the one of the main things that he does. This has caused a rather big shift in Nikishin’s game that he wasn’t ready for and has shown signs of struggle because of it. He’s missed routine assignments and has relied on his physical strength more to try and break up plays. Which works most of the time, but has caused goals against the other times.

The biggest way that this has effected Nikishin is on the power play. As we know, Nikishin has ran the SKA power play for the past two years, in which SKA finished has finished 4th in 2022/23 and 3rd in 2023/24. Bringing in TDA, this has forced Nikishin from being the QB to being on the boards. To the shock of not many, he doesn’t look natural or, frankly, good from the boards. You would think that his shot would be perfect thing to put there but he really doesn’t get a chance to use it. With the talent he has at moving the puck plus the ever present threat of him shooting, he should be a QB but Rotenberg would rather play Demidov good minutes than move Nikishin to unit 2.

In reality, this isn’t a big thing. But when you watch the Nikishin from last season to the Nikishin this season, it’s very apparent that something isn’t working. Some would point out the injury that kept him out of action from the playoffs last season and the first few games this season. His ice time, which is still over 25 minutes a game, tells me otherwise. On my personal account, I joked that this was Nikishin’s “Slavin Test”, a way to measure how much responsibility one defenseman can handle while having a “less than stellar defensively” defenseman with him. An example being the way Slavin carried TDA when he was with Carolina and how Slavin propelled the Slavin-Hamilton pairing to being a top 3-5 pair in the entire NHL. So far, Nikishin is being thrown into a trial by fire and he’s not doing too great. This is not about point production, this is about what I have seen. You can point to point production and +/- and say it’s perfectly fine, but +/- and points are not the best way to judge a player.