Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Back in on Canuck Central, it's Sat and Vic coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Text in to our Dunbar Lumber text inbox, 65650. We'll hit your questions and comments as the show goes on. And this hour is brought to you by your Lower Mainland Boston Pizza. The playoffs are here and BP is ready. So skip the couch and catch every hit, every goal, every save, every playoff beard.
This is how you watch Playoff Hockey. Let's go to the Able Auctions hotline and welcome in our next guest. It is Tony Ferrari, covers the NHL draft and prospects for the hockey news. And the draft is getting pretty close and there's a lot going on, even with the U18s, although maybe not going great for Canada. Didn't quite go the way we wanted. All right, now let's welcome in Tony to the convo.
Tony, what's going on, man? How you doing?
Not too bad. It's a great time for me. The World Under-18s are going on, and the draft is getting closer, so always fun.
Well, on the U18s, in this country, as soon as Canada stubs its toes even a little bit, there's a national crisis in many ways. So what do you make of Canada's play at the tournament, and what that means for the program long-term? Because there are some nervous Nellies across this country right now.
And you can count me usually as one of them. I'm usually one of the most harsh critics after the World Juniors. I think they've made a lot of mistakes at those tournaments in recent years. This year, not so much at the under-18s. I think this was just a situation where Canada played a great tournament for the most part. They're one loss against Slovakia. They played a really good game.
And they just happened to play a really bad game all at the same time at the wrong time. And I think that's really what this one came down to. All tournament long, they were the faster team. They were the team setting the pace. In this game, they allowed Sweden to come out and set the pace. And it helped that Sweden also played its best game of the tournament.
So while usually I'm ringing all the alarm bells, this is one of those cases where I'm like, I think it was just bad timing for Canada in a lot of ways.
Now, I hear you. And I think, you know, obviously the focus remains on the top players at that tourney that are vying for better draft position in the 2026 NHL entry draft. So for the draft eligible players at the U18s, who stood out to you on Team Canada?
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Chapter 2: What are the highlights of the U18 World Championship for Team Canada?
So those two stood out on the back end. Up front, it was Mathis Preston, who's, in my opinion, vastly underrated because his point totals aren't necessarily what people expected this year. And Adam Valentini, who I think has been absolutely on fire for most of the season. He played great at Michigan this year. He is undersized, so I get the concerns there. But I think a lot of his...
Lack of favor with NHL scouts came from his decision to leave Kitchener right at the last second before the season and go to the NCAA. So with those sour grapes under the bridge now, I think his draft stock is going to rise pretty good after the U18s.
Is Keaton Verhoff subject to kind of like the ā
McKenna spotlight where like you come into the season you're viewed as number one D and most of the years kind of spent kind of picking you apart or is it a function of Chase Reed Smiths and all these guys have had fantastic seasons and so like this late season push for all those guys feels like it's maybe unseated to bear off I think it's a little bit of both I think this year coming into the season
Everyone looked at Verhoff as the number one defenseman, and arguably there's a lot of people talking about him as being the one guy that can truly challenge McKenna at the top of the draft. And while things have changed, obviously, in that regard with Stenberg's rise, and like you said, Chase Reed and other guys as well, I think with Verhoff,
he had exactly the kind of season I was expecting him to have in, in the NCAA, some ups and downs. But a lot of the flaws people have been picking apart, there were the same flaws he had last year in the WHL. So I think a big thing with him is just growing and continuing to get better. And I thought he did that throughout the season.
I think his, his final college game of the year wasn't necessarily the best. He didn't look great in the frozen four. And then he looked good at the U18. So I think that'll help boost the stock up a little bit, but, I think the other thing, too, is, like you said, there are so many other defensemen in this draft class that have really had good years.
And I think Verhoff came into the year as the guy that everyone was sure about, kind of, because they knew what they were going to get from him. Everyone else had questions, whether it was Smiths being this unknown factor. Could Chase Reed round out his game a little bit more? Could a guy like Ryan Lynn or Carson Carrolls truly rise up to that level? And you're seeing a lot of those guys do that.
So it's a little bit of both.
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Chapter 3: Which Canadian players saw their draft stock rise or fall?
So as much as I would love to be like, yeah, that's, that's the go-to if you're at number three, it's probably not going to happen. We're probably going to see them go and get their guy there anyways.
I can't remember if I've asked you about your opinion on Morozov as well. He's someone that I just look at and it feels like such a clear evaluation, even if there might not be enormous upside as far as the offensive creativity, but just your opinion on him, is there certain translatable things that give you certainty of what he's going to be at the next level?
Yeah, I look at Morozov and I'm just like, that's a meat and potato center. That's the guy that's going to play in the middle of your lineup. He's not going to make a mess. There's not going to be a whole lot of fuss around his game. He's just going to do what you need him to do. He's not going to lose shifts on a regular basis.
He's also not going to go out there and dynamically win shifts either. He's going to generate scoring chances and do things in a very simple, tactical way. And sometimes you just need that, especially when you're in a game where it's 2-1 and it's late in the game, you need to waste a minute and throw Morozov over the board with whoever is on his line.
You're probably going to get a good minute out of him. So he's a guy like that that I look at where you're not necessarily excited, but NFL teams need offensive linemen. When the Ravens drafted a big offensive lineman this year, I was ecstatic. So you need to be excited when a guy like Morozov gets drafted as well.
Well, and especially once, you know, and I think this is where it's been so fascinating for this year's draft because you talk to different people, you know, whether it's guys like yourself or people in the league, and they'll tell you different things in terms of how many true first round grade players there are. Some view it as a top 15, some view it as a top 12, others as a kind of a top 20.
So if you kind of get past that range, you're really looking at functionality, aren't you?
Yeah, I think the interesting thing to me is, We always look at everyone's draft boards, whether it's the public draft boards or somehow you get a sneak peek at an NHL team's draft board, and no one does exactly the same. And when they are, it's usually because people are copying off other people's work.
So when you're looking at a draft board that's completely unique, that's the reality across the NHL. I remember at the draft in Vegas, I'm talking to one team about a player, and they're like, oh, we have him as a top 15 guy. We're hoping to get him in the second round because people don't value him that way. I talked to another team about the same player.
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Chapter 4: What factors influence the decision to trade down in the NHL draft?
And this goes back to the year they won the Stanley Cup. And I mean, sometimes we see this with role players. They have a knack to come up in big moments. I mean, one of the most famous ones in Canada was Fernando Pisani back with the Edmonton Oilers many moons ago at this point. Marty Jelena. Well, let me ask you this.
Why do you think you see those third and fourth liners have those moments in playoffs, and it's not like a random skill guy that everyone always thinks there's more to his game than it comes out in playoffs? It doesn't happen because the game moves to a more grinder style and you have to get to the guts of the ice.
You have to be hard in front, be able to take extra cross tracks and wax to fight for your ice and find those rebounds and come up with a big play on the PK. It happens because that's what those guys play already. This is where the argument or the conversation of
penalties come playoff time right like going back to connor mcdavid he's you know he's best player in the world and he draws a ton of penalties but playoffs come and they're not going to call all the same things on them right so the game starts to in a sense dumb down and it gets down to where the grinder is like you got to find more of that in your game so it makes sense that
Every season, there's a couple bottom six guys that have these amazing runs because with a bit of puck luck, but with driving the net, playing their normal game, they put themselves in the position to have those moments.
So then what's the...
trait that you would look at amongst top six guys that you're saying okay like that's the thing that that's gonna survive come playoff time because you can't build a team out of third liners during the regular season you you're likely not making the playoffs um but is there is there a thing that you're looking at saying okay that's the thing that's constantly translatable to the second season to me like the word is like tenacious
Whether you're a top-line guy or a fourth-line guy, you have to want the puck. You have to work to get it back, especially when it gets to playoff time. every little puck battle isn't one like in January where, yeah, you can go by and kind of poke at it because the other guy's poking at it too. And one of you is going to win it, right?
Like both guys are going to stop on it in playoffs and give a hundred percent in that one battle. Cause if they know if they mess that up, it might end up in the back of their net and their playoffs done. Like everything is so much more important. You look at a McDavid, a McKinnon, like those guys, like they're dogs. They fight for the puck. They go after it.
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