Sunday, December 27, 2009

Ducks WJC prospect update

hey all i've been waiting for more activity before giving any updates and what better time during the world juniors?

The tournament started this past weekend and several ducks prospects are already making marks in a positive way.

first let me list the players that made their respective teams
Brandon McMillan-CAN
Jake Gardiner-USA
Kyle Palmieri-USA
Igor Bobkov-Russia
Radoslav Illo-Slovakia
Sami Vatanen-Finland
Luca Sbisa-Switzerland

Sbisa played his first game of the tournament against team USA, and he is clearly the best player, he logged huge minutes and made a few attempts at C2C goals as he doesn't have many talented forwards to work with, he has good ideas with playmaking but not the caliber of mates that know what to do in those situations. Don't expect big point numbers but when you watch him you can see at this point he's a level above most other players

Brandon McMillan has had a surprisingly good season and played himself on to Canadas top six, this was a player who went from off the radar to a prominent position. He does a bit of everything, he's a great skater, his hockey sense is well above average,, responsible defensively and is now starting to display an offensive upside nobody knew he had. He reminds you of former Duck Chris Kunitz, with a mix of speed, grit, heart and skill. he had a goal and an assist against Latvia, expect this tournament to springboard his career.

Sami Vatanen, during the summer I was raving about this kid, he has to overcome the size obstacle, but from a pure talent standpoint he is one of the best young defensemen out there. Don't believe me? watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzQdajbP4CQ&feature=player_embedded

also he tested as one of the best conditioned athletes at the draft combine, hes wirey strong and has amazing endurance, I expect Vatanen to possibly be one of the stars of the tournament.

Jake Gardiner, has been slotted in a defensive role, no PP time and basically covering for his young d partners he has done a good job of using his skating and size to protect his side of the ice in the long term this could be great for him, he has struggled through a reported shoulder injury most of the year. His combo of size and speed is very interesting especially as he rounds out his defensive game.

Kyle Palmieri, he is a pure agitator, but with talent, hes physical, fast and good at 1 on 1 battles how much skill does he have? time will tell but he is playing on team USA's top 6 and has 2 assists so far in two games.

Radoslav Illo, Illo like Vatanen could be one of the big surprises of the tourney. being healthy this year and having a really good year in the USHL has led to huge leaps in his development, he has 1 goal and 3 assists in two games so far. He has some grit to go along with an outstanding shot, his slapshot is hard and heavy and is also known to have quite a snap/wrist shot as well. He could emerge from this tourney as a blue chipper.

Igor Bobkov, Russia has played one game, it wasn't of consequence, hard to tell anything at this point