I watched Eeli Tolvanen play last night versus the Waterloo Black Hawks in Game 3 of the USHL semi-finals in a match Sioux City won 3-0. Tolvanen went pointless, and apart from one nice dangle in close that almost resulted in a goal he didn’t create much in the way of offensive chances.

Tolvanen threw a few hits tonight which was encouraging, however many of them were on his opposite wing and were hardly bruising checks…the most notable thing about them was that they left him out of position…and that was a common theme on the night.

Even though he’s a left winger he spent more time on the right side than the left… and that included in his own zone. He covered the right-side defenceman about 20 percent of the time, preferring instead to be running around chasing the puck. Luckily it did not result in any goals against, but it’s not hard to see why he’s not on the Musketeers’ penalty kill.

The other concern with his game is his skating. His stride is pretty sloppy…he flails around a lot, making his mechanics less than efficient. There will be lots of work to do gaining lower-body strength if he hopes to be a good skater in the NHL…he has decent agility and quickness but his stride is certainly not very powerful at this point, and when you’re undersized, it doesn’t get any easier at the NHL level as he’s not going to gain positional advantages with sheer brawn/strength… he will have to make a strong offseason commitment.

One USHL-based NHL scout weighed in on the draft-eligible winger last night:

“He’s competitive in the same way guys like Sprong and Ho Sang are,” said the scout. “Competitive to score, etc. but you’ll never see them compete to get a puck out of the defensive zone and they cheat like crazy. Coaches and teammates don’t like them but they play and produce some in NHL… time will tell if they win.”

A lot of parallels can be drawn between former London Knights center Bo Horvat and 2017 draft eligible center Robert Thomas. Both were considered to be mid teen prospects going into the OHL playoffs on most NHL draft lists…but as scouts saw more and more of what they could do in big games they climbed into scouts’ top ten rankings.

Thomas has been sensational for London in the playoffs, and while he’s not producing at the same clip and scoring as many clutch goals as Horvat did in 2013 in leading London to the OHL championship with 16 goals, scouts are already more comfortable with Thomas’ overall skill package as there are no question marks with his skating. Horvat on the other hands wasn’t thought to be overly agile or quick at the time…however nobody could discount his clutch playoff performances, and Vancouver stepped up and grabbed him ninth overall. Time has shown that the skating concerns were overblown, as Horvat won the fastest skater category at the NHL All Star skills competition and improved his skating immensely.

Thomas may not possess Horvat’s goal-scoring prowess – certainly he’s not as hungry to score and more inclined to set up plays – where he does draw comparison though is in his ability to win the absolute trust of his coach Dale Hunter to be played in every and all important situations at such a young age.  Power plays, penalty kills, 4-on-4, up a goal, down a goal, key faceoffs…he has surpassed Cliff Pu as London’s most effective pivot and now centering London’s top line with Kuokkanen and Stephens…setting up the latter for the winning goal in OT to send London’s series with Erie to a Game 7 winner take all.

As one NHL scout said the other night when he texted me inquiring whether I was watching London…”Thomas…wow. Gets better every game. Great hands and hockey sense.”

Much like Nick Suzuki, scouts have come to appreciate Thomas the more they see him. With his smarts, skill and competitiveness, he simply does not have off nights..he comes to play and makes things happen every game, be it offensively or defensively. A 200-foot player that will be able to play any role asked for him in the NHL…just like is happening in London with a coach…who knows a good player when he sees one.

As the season has gone on several things have stood out in regards to Swedish defence prospect Timothy Liljegren. There is no question that he is a natural, smooth skater, and that first and foremost is why scouts were so high on him going into the season. He also has good puck skills, and is able to dangle at the U18 level and without question he is one of the more skilled players in this draft.

What is disconcerting to me and many in the scouting community is his vision, sense, shot and decision-making, and they really lead me to wonder just how much offensive upside he will bring at the NHL level. I have a hard time envisioning him ever being a double digits goal scorer as he simply does not have the shot or instinct to find the open lanes to shoot at the opportune time. He takes wrist shots the majority of the time…I’m not sure how effective his slapshot is as it’s rarely utilized…and his shot lacks heavy velocity with rare exceptions

Equally as troubling are his passing skills in the offensive zone in particular…his overwhelming tendency is to shoot…the quicker the better. He rarely finds the best shooting location however…especially on the powerplay. If one wonders why Swedish U-18 coaches have stopped using him on the first powerplay in the past two tournaments…you have your answer, because he’s not creating offence with either his shot or his passes. Yesterday in one 40-second sequence versus Belarus Liljegren attempted six shots on goal, four which were blocked and two that were at least a foot wide. He has been one of the most frequent shooters in the tournament so far with 16 SOG, but that’s because he is ALWAYS looking to shoot even though his shot is often far from dangerous. I have no doubt that he leads all players in attempted shots in this tournament, almost all of them wrist shots from the blueline.

Another concern is when he has the puck in the defensive zone he invariably does one of two things..tries to carry it out of the zone or tries to make a two-line stretch pass. It is exceedingly rare to see Liljegren attempt a ten- or 20-foot pass or a dish laterally to his defence partner…and if you think he might ever consider reversing the puck or passing it backwards, you can forget it…his passes are going forward…and so are his rushes. One wonders if he needs to pull an Al Arbor and play with spectacles on….or at the very least convex mirrors on his faceshield, as it sure seems like he lacks peripheral vision.

He’s a half decent one-one-one defender thanks to a quick stick and excellent mobility..but when the puck starts getting passed around in his defensive zone he can get out of position and leave opponents open…once again because of his lack of vision and hockey sense. He is not being used by the Swedes on the penalty kill…and for a player who many still project to go in the top ten..if he’s not good/smart enough to play on the first PP or PK against fellow 16, 17 and 18-year-olds, what makes one think he’ll be able to do it at the NHL level? It’s no easy task teaching smarts and vision…they are pretty innate.

He’s not a big defender, so you aren’t looking at a player who is going to be a defensive bruiser that clears the front of the net and intimidates opponents. He competes okay, and he should become a reasonable defender one day if he can figure out how to read plays, cover the right opponent, and see the whole ice surface. A whole lot of maybes.

So it begs the question…just what will he be at the NHL level? If he doesn’t have the sense/vision//creativity/shot to be a ten-goal scorer or 45-point defenceman, and has enough question marks and lack of size to be a stalwart defender…you likely have a mobile puckhandler who at best might be a number three or four defenceman. That’s not top-ten material, and if you are worried about the mistakes, questionable passing and turnovers…may well not be enough to be a top-15 or even top-20 selection.

Liljegren still has a few games to make me change my mind in his upside, but he is quickly running out of time. I’d like nothing more than there to be another candidate for my final top-ten rankings…but after 20 or so disappointing viewings since the summer I’m not holding my breath.

Heiskanen passed it more times to his d partner in one shift than Liljegren did in an entire game. The simple play is often the wisest. Nothing flashy from Heiskanen in the first…making the simple/safe plays and as always solid in his own zone. Often times the less said about the

Finland strikes first on the power play…nice feed by Ikonen to Talvatie, whose pass to the crease goes off the goalie right to Nyman, who deposits the rebound.

Vesalainen needed to show he could finish and create at the U18…and so far so good, as after four periods he has a goal and three assists. He gets the puck high in the slot later in the first period, slides laterally and unleashes a hard low writer that gets tipped by Nyman in front of the net.

Vesalainen has been the best player on the ice without question through two periods…skating, dangling, passing, competing, shooting. Has had a half dozen highlight reel plays…almost impossible to check when he’s entering the offensive zone with speed..using soft hands, length and puck protection skills to make Swiss cheese of the Switzerland defence. Demonstrating keen vision in this game..making several smart passes that created excellent scoring opportunities. Today at least…he looks like a top ten prospect…perhaps top five. May have a rise similar to Logan Brown’s last U18…but his could be even more dramatic. Struggling to score in men’s competition evidently didn’t ruin his confidence as he has tried all sorts of offensive moves and succeeded with all of them.

Given that there is a huge divergence of opinion on Jarret Tyszka…ranging from scouts that like him in the first round to some who would be hesitant to pick him in the mid rounds – I decided to have an in-depth video look at him. I focused on the first game of Seattle’s WHL semi-final series versus Everett. I started watching him at about the 7 or 8-minute mark of the first period – here is a shift-by-shift breakdown of what I saw that was notable:

Very first shift I look at…D partner gives it to him..he skates up to his own blueline like a house on fire with it and head down, then realizes he can’t do anything, stops just as he’s going to get checked and softly dumps it to the Everett dman on the opposing blueline.

2nd shift – ….I’ll let the play-by-play commentator sum up the shift…. “Right side Tyszka….gives it right back to the Silvertips.”

3rd shift – Gets the puck in the O zone with a good chance…wrist shot four feet over the crossbar and two feet wide.

4th shift – Pressured an opponent in his own end..puck ended up going out of his zone…he chases it all the way down to behind the Everett net as the first forechecker…circles the Everett net…follows the puck on his way back to his own zone a line behind it and out of the play as a forward covered for him. Looked fast doing it though…he can skate.

5th shift – Last 30 secs on the pp..made three short passes in the EVT zone that weren’t intercepted. No mistakes…but nothing noteworthy.

6th shift – Nothing noteworthy happened good or bad..deflected a shot out of play.

7th shift – Nothing happened…he was there. No offensive or defensive plays.

8th shift – Strand played with his regular D partner Hyman

9th shift – Touched the puck once…puck came to him at his blueline…pass went off the Everett player pressuring him..turned over but nothing bad happened.

10th shift – Went back behind his net to retrieve the puck..skated around his net and tried to keep it from the forechecker but lost it..puck was fed into the slot but no great scoring chance…turnover. Puck battle with his D partner in his own one on his left side…instead of staying on the right hand side of the net stands about ten feet away from his partner on the same side..leaving the entire right side exposed..nothing bad happens.

11th shift – With Bear. Everett comes down…he backs up right to his goalie…is on the same side as Bear and ends up with his back turned facing the goalie. Two Everett forwards on his side left alone…rebound comes to Tuololla..he scores with Tyz still turned around facing his goalie. inexplicably. 1-1. Next shift Bear plays with Hyman.

Played last 15 second of the second…lost a puck battle behind his net..Everett ran out of time

13th shift – puck takes a funny bounce.behind his own net..puck comes to the front of the net with goalie out..Tyszka was there..lost the puck again behind his own net..got it back and got it to a teammates…uneventful other than that.

14th shift – Tyszka gets the puck deep in his own..moves slowly with it and doesn’t pass..Everrett fwd takes it from him…D partner rescues him. Puck comes to him behind his own net..gets bumped off it…Everett gets it…takes a shot on net.

15th shift – Nothing happened….never had the puck.

16th shift – Offensive zone faceoff won back to him..went over his stick..D partner quelled the chance as he skated back behind the play. Gets puck in off/ zone at the blueline..takes a wrist shot that never finds the net.

17th shift – Seattle up 2-1 late. Everett gets puck along the boards..he leaves the front of the net open and stands high in the slot..leaving forwards to cover the front of the net…puck comes to Seattle..he takes off like a bat out of hell ahead of the other four teammates..don’t even see him in the screen he’s so far ahead of the play hoping for a pass..this is with his team “protecting” a one-goal lead…it was quite mind boggling. Seen him do it before as well.

18th shift – Puck comes to him in own zone..tries to head behind the net..gets it checked off his stick three times.manages to club it over to the boards where luckily a teammates gets it..certainly wasn’t a purposeful ‘pass’..more a play of desperation.

19th shift – Puck comes to him in own zone and once again just hung onto it until it was checked off his stick..swung it away from the opponent and it ended up behind the net..where he lost it again Gets the puck…and often does nothing with it until it’s checked off of his stick. This happened at least eight times. He had two shifts the last 11 minutes.

PP time – 30 secs at the end of one PP
PK time – None
Shots – None
Scoring chances created – None
Plus/minus – He was -1 in a game his team gave up one goal.
Turnovers – If you count ones where he ended up knocking the puck back off the Everett players after he lost possession…more than a dozen. At least six times he took the puck below his goal line and stood there with it until it was taken off his stick…simply handed it to the Everett dmen three times…another three times his own zone passes were intercepted, three other occasions as he glided in his own zone with it he had it stripped.

Draft potential – This is not the first time he’s had a bad game..there have been more bad ones than good for me in the 15 or so I’ve watched. Major issue with his hockey sense….it’s a big issue with me. I would not draft him in the top-three rounds. I would not draft him at all, frankly, as he’ll be gone by the time I’d consider him. Someone will pick him based on his size and skating higher than he should be.