After Further Review: Felix Unger Sorum
A player reborn with confidence and about 5-10 pounds of muscle
The last After Further Review that I did was back in 2024, so it’s been a while since I did these. But I got this Felix tape back in November and never got around to making this, so I figured I could try and get this series back up while also testing out a new format.
The new format will be a different Felix Unger Sorum game, but in video format. It’ll let me explain my thinking in a little more depth than what I can over words on a screen. Don’t expect that any time soon, because this one already took me months to get to. But it is something that’ll happen down the line. For now, let’s watch some Felix Unger Sorum tape and dissect what has made him successful this season.
Shift 1:
Off the faceoff, he supports to get the puck back. Receives the puck on the wall and fires a no look pass to the middle, which ends up in a grade A chance for Ronan Seeley. If Seeley is a righty, that looks a lot cleaner but still the idea is great from Felix. Having the sense to understand where the other defenseman is going to go and to be able to send the pass without looking over your shoulder is really nice. Rest of the shift is not much, but the wall work towards the end where he’s shielding the puck is encouraging when talking about his ability to handle the physicality of North America.
Shift 2:
Running the 2 man game with Aleksi Heimosalmi and then, eventually, the 3 man weave with Domenick Fensore creates all kinds of havoc for Manitoba. Wish Heimosalmi went back to Felix when he was one timer ready but the shot ends up being decent. The next play, where it’s probably more luck than anything, of him being able to get the puck to the middle while falling down is pretty cool.
4 on 4(3):
This is where Felix is allowed to show the insane creativity in his game. Liked him realizing that he wasn’t going to do anything 1v2 in transition and deciding to wait in the neutral zone to re-engage. Did it lead to anything? No, he messed up the entry pass and it resulted in a turnover. But the idea was good.
The abrupt freeze in the middle of this shift was the game footage I have, sorry about that.
He then gets stuck on ice for a little penalty killing shift, where it was somewhat ugly. But he did get the puck out and almost gave Justin Robidas a good chance the other way.
Shift 4:
Picking up this one in the middle of his shift, the Manitoba defender pushes him to the ice with relative ease but the pucks still ends up with Felix. He’s able to recover quickly and find Evan Vierling with open space. He reloads on the boards and receives the puck. His eyes immediately go to Vierling backdoor, but there is about 4 Manitoba players between Felix and Vierling.
How in the world does Felix get the puck to Vierling from here? Maybe it takes a slight bounce off the Manitoba player, but it gets there in the end and it’s a goal. Good work to keep the puck moving in the zone after losing his footing and then even better work to fit the puck backdoor in a tight window.
Shift 5:
We’ll pick up this shift with him getting the puck in transition and entering the zone. Here’s a nice example of him anticipating contact and embracing it, even going into the defender first. He starts to cycle behind the net and gets the visual attention of every single Manitoba player.
If you’re Manitoba, you staple this to the wall somewhere with the text “DON’T DO THIS” in all bold in a film session.
Nothing really comes of it, but good on Felix for taking Seeley’s place on the blueline while he does what he was doing.
“Shift” 5:
We bring the BOOM.
That’s about all I got for this game. Like I mentioned before, I plan on trying to get a video format version of After Further Review with a second game I have for Felix, but it’s getting to busy season with my semester ending, so that’ll come down the line.