stormTRacker Podcast
...stormTRacker is your home for in-depth analysis of the Carolina Hurricanes, Chicago Wolves & Hurricanes' prospects around the globe. Host, Tom Ray, gives his insightful perspective & is joined by Hurricanes' "Insiders" Nick Bass, Erin Manning, Katie Bartlett & others to cover all the top stories for your Carolina Hurricanes. Tom is also active on "X" connecting with Hurricanes' fans on a regular basis. (@stormTRacker24)
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stormTRacker Podcast
Journey to the NHL: Hurricanes' Prospects and Wolves' Season Adventure
Unlock the secrets behind the Carolina Hurricanes' most promising prospects with our special guest, Nick Bass, offering exclusive insights. Can Nikita Artamonov shatter the U-20 scoring record in the KHL? Despite a few scoreless outings, his sheer talent and determination are undeniable. Dive deeper as we discuss Alexander Nikishin's tactical adaptation and the potential impact of Tony D'Angelo's play with SKA on his performance, while also predicting how Nikishin could soon ignite the NHL.
We then shift our gaze to the next wave of talent, including Lucas Mercuri's powerful presence at UMass and Jayden Perron's mesmerizing playmaking skills at UND. How will their unique styles translate to the professional arena? Simon Forsmark's towering defense in the SHL and the enigmatic Roman Shokrin are also under our spotlight, with Alexander Rykov's offensive prowess battling against consistency and health issues. We explore these emerging talents and their path within the Carolina Hurricanes' organization.
Finally, get the lowdown on the Chicago Wolves' adventurous season start filled with youthful promise and challenges. Scott Morrow and Ryan Suzuki are making their mark, as Bradly Nadeau and others continue to grow. We also delve into the team's goalkeeping conundrum, with Yannick Perets and Dustin Tokarski providing a glimmer of hope. With buzz around Russian player Gleb's future, we remain optimistic about the Wolves' trajectory, driven by their youthful exuberance and raw talent.
Well, of course, carolina hurricane's prospects around the globe are doing well in many cases and we want to stay up to date on what they're doing, as usual, and joining me for the top prospects of the month for October, of course, is our insider, nick Bass. Nick, welcome aboard. Hi, nick, certainly interesting to see some of the folks that you've been talking about over the last few months and, of course, the Russian contingency continues to really take the light as far as these prospects are concerned. Several of the players you've been talking about from Russia and I look forward to hearing more about them. Of the players you've been talking about from Russia and I look forward to hearing more about them, and I think certainly at the top of the list and you've talked a lot about him this year is Nikita Artemonov Now Artemonov, of course, second round pick this year for the Hurricanes We've talked a lot about.
Speaker 1:That Seemed to be a great opportunity for Carolina to get a guy that is a very young player, played in the KHL last year. Looks like he's off to a great start. What can you tell us about Nikita?
Speaker 2:So I've mentioned it a lot in the past he's just doing unbelievable things and he's still on a historic pace. He's still on track to break the U-20 scoring record, which obviously would be a very good deal for any player, but for Kane Sprouse that's going to be awesome. He's just generating chances consistently, using his IQ in ways that everybody wants to see him and everybody kind of expected him to. It's been awesome to watch he plays in about 10 minutes, probably something like that. So hopefully he starts to get back on track points-wise, because he's been held pointless in his past two, I think, but he's looked stellar and even then he's still doing incredible things.
Speaker 1:Well, he had a great October. It looks like he had five goals, four assists for nine points in 10 games, so definitely off to a great start. I think he's got what? 20 points already this year. So he's doing very, very well and he's a player that, of course, we talked a lot about Artimona as being a guy that's a feisty player. He likes to get into the mix very much on the puck in where the dirty areas are. He's a guy that also has a lot of skills. So, puck in where the dirty areas are, he's a guy that also has a lot of skills. So certainly a reason to be excited about Nikita for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the next guy. We talk about him all the time. Folks are waiting anxiously to see him in the National Hockey League and there was a discussion the other day I think you might have seen the piece with Frank Cervelli and Daily Faceoff talking about the potential of this gentleman coming over to play for the Canes this year. Of course we're talking about Alexander Nikitian. He's off to another great start and he's number two on your list. What's going on with Alexander?
Speaker 2:He's doing what he's always done for the past two years. At this point he's not off to the same historic pace that he's been on, where he's going to have a top five scoring season by a defenseman in KHL history. It's kind of in more mute. He's played very well, even strength. He's still learning how to adapt to not having a partner. That helps him out a lot defensively. He's still tracking back a lot more, which is definitely something that's new for him, especially as well. I've spoken about this extensively in stuff that I've written. I am not a big fan of how sk is running their power play currently I understand they brought in they I understand they brought in in Tony D'Angelo for it.
Speaker 2:That's perfectly fine. At that point you need to move Nikitian off the first unit and just move him to power play two, because he was most successful running the point. Moving him out to the boards doesn't help anybody and it's stagnated SKA's power play to a just horrid point where it's actively hurting them. And you know, again bringing in D'Angelo is perfectly fine. He's serving his purpose and he's doing incredible things points-wise. The issue is you're kind of hurting what Nikitian is doing going forward, but again, nikitian's been doing fine.
Speaker 1:Well, again he had a solid October. As you mentioned, he's had four goals, six assists for 10 points in 10 games, I think. So he's a guy that again you know he's getting it done. He brings that size, he brings that toughness and you know it is interesting, he's moved off that top power play point position.
Speaker 1:Of course Tony D'Angelo is thriving in the KHL. That's kind of an interesting story in and of itself. Tony has 20 points in 16 games. He's got three goals, 17 assists, so he's off to a great start. In fact that's second in team scoring on SKA. He's played probably five or so games less than anybody else. And he's also second in league scoring and defenseman same situation probably five or six games less than the leader. So I mean quite a story for Tony and you know here's an amazing thing he's plus 16. So I mean he's doing something right down there in the KHL. He's certainly having a good time. I've heard some stories about him and Evgeny Kuznetsov getting along very, very well and so on. So he's definitely doing a big job for SKA and that is affecting Nikitian and that's kind of an interesting scenario. You have to think he's probably looking forward to heading over to North America at the end of this year and joining the Hurricanes. So yeah, definitely playing very, very well as usual, but not as dominant.
Speaker 1:I don't think as he's been certainly last year and the year before, so we'll see how that plays out. Now the next guy we've talked a lot about, drafted again this season by the Hurricanes, and this is Justin Poirier Poirier. You might recall that the comment on Justin Poirier was hey, this guy can shoot the puck, and that was coming from Darren York at the draft situation, and we know he can score and it looks like he's off to a great start.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's the sole reason I had to introduce a rule, because I know people would have gotten slightly upset seeing his point production realizing why wasn't, you know second or first? Uh, justin Poirier is insane. Uh, he plays in a league that some might not value as highly, just because it's a pure junior league at this, but again, he's doing things in that league that haven't been seen since, probably like the 90s or the 80s, in terms of goal scoring he's his release is insane. He fights along the boards incredibly well for a player of his size and his skating is really good, even if the stance itself is a little weird to watch. Um, you know, having a six point or six goal weekend I'm sorry he had eight points in total, but six goals in one weekend is obviously ridiculous. Having four goals in the game is obviously ridiculous. He's on a great pace right now and I would not be entirely shocked to see him break his own record of 51 goals from last year. I think he's probably got more in him this year.
Speaker 1:Well, again, he was a guy that we drafted on 156. And I think the general feeling by the Hurricanes was he fell a lot further down in the draft than expected and again that was due to size Smaller player but a guy that you know he can score goals and, as you say, he's got that great release. He can really fire the puck and he's definitely doing it. I think it looks like in 11 games in October he had nine goals and nine assists for 18 points. So those are pretty gaudy numbers for Justin.
Speaker 2:Poirier.
Speaker 1:But again a guy that looked good at the prospect showcase. I think he's a guy that definitely is in the plans for the Hurricanes in the future. Now, another guy that I like is Noel Fronson. You had him at number four playing in hockey El Expec San over in Sweden. This guy again, I think he's a guy that brings a lot of offensive capabilities, a very cerebral player. Liked what they said about him at the draft. I think that the comments that Darren York said were basically hey, you know, he doesn't get the recognition that he should. He's a heck of a player and it looks like he's continuing that fine play. Tell us a little bit about Fronson and his play in October.
Speaker 2:He was really good. He's separating himself in terms of scoring by drafted players in the Hockey All-Svenskan. He's doing things that I didn't think was possible, mainly because he's playing on the first pairing every night. He's getting over 20 minutes every night. He's doing pretty well in that, and this is the first time he's facing kind of genuine competition, because the J20 is a little bit weaker than Ospensky, which is just a step down. Franzen's looked really good. He's joined the Sweden U20 team for their last tournament before the World Juniors. He didn't play today, though, which is a little weird, but I'm not. I hope he makes the World Junior team because he's had a very nice start to the season. But yeah, franzen's had a nice little go of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's a guy again that he's a strong skater, he's a solid player. You know he's kind of cerebral on the ice. He's another player that you know. You look at some of these defense prospects and there's a consistency with them and you know Simon Forsmark's, another guy that I like. So you know you've got some players that are really interesting players and for sure, you know, again, they're going to challenge for positions with the Hurricanes in the future. I think at some point Now. A guy that has caught a lot of attention just drafted this year 133 actually for the Hurricanes is Oscar Boulay. Now, oscar Boulay, again a player that seemed to fly under the radar A couple of great years in junior. Really strong player, really strong player, smart player. Again and again he got off to a good start playing with he's, with who's he with Skeletre?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you can say it, you can do it, skelete.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly Skelete. In any case, he got off to a good start three goals, four assists in the month, so that's solid for him. He's a young guy, again, again, that's trying to cut his teeth in the major league over there. So tell us a little bit about this guy yeah, he's really enjoyable uh.
Speaker 2:I think he takes personal uh disrespect whenever he's made the 13th forward and makes it his goal to do something outrageous. Uh, the first, the first day of the month, I think uh made the 13th forward and immediately scored a hat trick, so it's one of those things where he just ends up doing what he does. He's a very fun player. He is very adept on the perimeter, uh, which is obviously something that you want from players that have the ability to shoot the puck like he does. Um, one thing that I've noticed specifically this year is his willingness to go into the middle and into the slot, which was something that he didn't do a ton of in his draft year. So if he keeps developing that, I would really appreciate it. He's also another Swedish guy that's on that U-20 team and he did play today. I don't want to say he's a shoo-in for the world junior roster for Sweden, but I'd say he's probably as close as possible.
Speaker 1:Well, the interesting thing about him you know we've talked an awful lot about this as well, nick is he's got that hockey IQ, and one of the things that Darren York said about him at the draft was this guy is one smart player. So they like these guys that can get out and make things happen on the ice and see it well. And he's another guy that brings a lot of skill as a young player and was drafted very low, as I mentioned, at 133. So I mean they're getting young players at such incredible positions in the draft. It's really something to see for sure. So the top five we ended up with, of course, nikita Artamanov at number one. We had Alexander Nikitin at number two, justin Poirier at number three, noel Fronson at number four and Oscar Boulet at number five. So we had a couple of defensemen and then three forwards. That's a pretty good mix for the Hurricanes. Let's talk about some of the folks that didn't make the cut this month but are in your players that you also wanted to mention as honorable mentions.
Speaker 1:A couple of guys that I wanted to talk about to kick it off, of course, you know we watched a lot of college activity at the end of last year we saw Lucas McCurry, of course, doing very well with UMass and he's a guy that we had talked about previously. He's a big player. He can skate. He kind of looks like an heir apparent to maybe a Jordan Stahl type player. We really think he's got some capability and he's getting a chance to show some offense.
Speaker 1:Jaden Perron smaller player, so maybe the other end of the spectrum. We liked him a lot. Jaden Perron is a guy that again sees the ice extremely well. He's a great setup guy. He can also putt some goals here and there. He was a prolific scorer in junior. So, again, smaller player, but he's got some elite skills. And we'll round it out with Simon Forsmark, who I talked about just a short time ago. Forsmark, a big defenseman, checks in at 6'1", almost 200 pounds, and he's a guy that's getting a lot of raves these days. Let's talk about those three guys first, on your honorable mentions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, lucas Mercuri is. He's a player that intrigues me from a standpoint of if his skating holds up, he probably has an NHL future somewhere. He is just big bodied. He understands that. He's big bodied. He doesn't lose a lot of board battles. He's incredibly hard to box out when he's standing in front of the goalie. He's just a very interesting player. Front of the goalie, he's just a very interesting player.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's had a really nice start to the season for UMass. Umass has had a decent start to the season, so that's always good. He's primarily been their second and third line center and he's looked good, and also especially in the face-off circle he's looked a lot better than I think people expect, or at least I expect him to be, because he kind of struggled with it last year. Jaden Perron is another undersized skill forward who's been awesome for UMass Not UMass UND, yes, und. He's struggling a little bit defensively, but then again he's on the line with Sasha Boivere, who was drafted super high, and Dylan James, who I want to say, was drafted top three rounds a few years ago by the Red Wings, so that one shouldn't really be asked to play defense that much.
Speaker 2:He's looked really good. His playmaking has been obviously where he makes a lot of his money. Basically, he's an insane playmaker. His shot is good, he just doesn't use it a lot. And yeah, he's looked good, I liked it a lot. Und has kind of struggled, but his one of his good games, which was a two assist performance, was against a very good boston university team. So I I still like a lot of what perron is doing. And then, uh simon forsmark. Yeah, he plays big minutes for a very good team in uh timra in the shl he has a lot of success. He runs a power play. He does very good in that role. I like him a lot. I do wonder if he will ever step foot in North America just because the Hurricanes defense and their prospect pipeline continues to get more loaded and it might just become a thing like that.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, when you think of Forsmark and Noah Fronson, I mean those two guys are both outstanding, deep prospects playing in Sweden and I think you know again, you're right the Canes are loaded on the blue. I mean so much so that Anthony Hanka ended up heading to Switzerland this year. So they are definitely loaded up. But these guys are, from my viewpoint, very strong prospects. But these guys are, from my viewpoint, very strong prospects and both of them move the puck well, see the ice well and definitely are solid defensive players as well. So lots to say there. Jaden Perron was expected to kind of pick up the gauntlet from Jackson Blake. I think a lot of folks felt like when Blake moved on to the Canes, that Perron was going to get a chance to really take his game to the next level. Now it looks like. In October he had four points, he had a goal and three assists in five games. He's not kind of there yet, so still waiting for him to catch fire and start to show what he showed in junior. For sure, lucas McCrory is a guy that again, he had a solid month. He had two goals, three assists for five points in seven games. He's a guy that I really liked last year. I thought in the playoffs he looked really strong. He took his game to another level in the games that I saw in terms of I mean the frozen four, pre-frozen four games. He looked really strong and I think he's a guy that again, as you say, if he can get his skating going, he's going to be a player that can find a home in the hurricane or either with the hurricanes or in the NHL somewhere as well. So, yeah, some really strong guys.
Speaker 1:Let's move on to the final three. We've got Alexander Rykov. He seems to show up regularly, rykov, of course, he's a guy that has elite offensive skill but has just not been able to stay healthy enough to get to the next level, hoping he can put it all together this year. And he's another guy that seems to go up and down the leagues. So you'll see him in the VHL, you'll see him in the KHL. You know he seems to get moved around quite a bit. So he's a guy we'll talk about. He had a pretty good month. He had four goals in seven games, so that's good, but in the VHL again, and that would be similar to the American Hockey League, of course, in North America.
Speaker 1:And then a guy that I really am interested in is Roman Shokran. Now, roman Shokran, he's a guy that you know there were some really interesting things said about him at the draft. Now we drafted him 184. And this guy is a big man. He comes in at 6'5", almost 200 pounds, but he can skate. And the other thing that they were talking about was that he's a very strong defensive player, but he's also starting to build some offensive acumen as well, and I think he's a guy that I'm very interested to hear what you're going to say about Roman Shokran. And rounding it out is Igor Belmakin. And, of course, you had some fun with Belmakin at the Prospect Showcase or the Canes Development Camp, rather, and he's a guy that looks like he's going to be a goalie as well. He's off to a pretty good start with Dynamo Minsk. What can you tell us about Rykov Shokran and Valmakin?
Speaker 2:Rykov started his year at training camp with Tractor at the KHL level. He got hurt. Don't really know what the injury was, but he was out of commission for a while, started playing again at the MHL level, looked good, good and got moved right back to the vhl level. Still looked really good, got hurt again. He's finally starting to come back from injury now. He's primarily been on the third line for the most part. He looks fine in that role. Uh, I really do hope he you know he's finding form and eventually does get moved back up to the KHL level, because he did look decent at the KHL level doing what he was doing and translating what he was making successful in the VHL to the KHL.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that's going to happen because Tractor is a very good team. It just kind of depends on how he plays. Roman Chakran is really fun. He's gigantic and he skates pretty well for his size. And his offensive game is really fun. He's gigantic and he skates pretty well for his size and his offensive game is really good, mainly because for a while they used him as a fourth-line forward and it was kind of cool to see that. But he's finally been moved back to defense where he's primarily been a first-pairing guy playing about 22, 23 minutes a night, and he's had very good success in those in that role, except for one game where he had 25 penalty minutes.
Speaker 2:Don't really know what that was about but he's looked really good in that and he's having a lot of success. He got moved up to locomotives gold league MHL team which is higher level competition than where he was before, cause the MHL, as I learned and still continue to learn, is a two division, four conference thing. So there's a silver division which is lower end competition, but still mhl, and then there is gold division which is higher competition mhl. He got moved from silver to gold and and the gold league he's honestly looked better than what he did at the silver silver division, which is higher competition. Mho he got moved from silver to gold and in the gold league he's honestly looked better than what he did at the silver silver division, which is very good to see. So Igor.
Speaker 2:Velmikin, I had a very long thing and I'm going to continue to write about it in some stuff that I have coming up, because I the his stats. If, if you look at him just overall, he has a close to a 930, I think and like a 2.5 or a 2.3.
Speaker 2:And that's awesome. He's played very good against good competition, against locomotive, the number one team in the KHL, even if the top media people do not like the way they play hockey. He had he came, he came in relief and had 16 saves and he shut them out and did what he could to get Mince back in that game Against Severstal, who's another very decent team in the KHL. He had 39 saves and only lost in the shootout when he couldn't get goal support. He's a very solid goalie.
Speaker 2:I thought when Kolasov leftlexei kolosov, when he left to come to the nhl, I thought igor velmikin was in line for a much bigger role. They then signed a goalie, a starting goalie. That goalie gets hurt. I again went okay, velmikin's probably going to get a few more starts now. This is good. They. They signed another goalie.
Speaker 2:That guy's been basically their everyday starter and Velmikin's gotten rotational work about once a week and for goalies you need playing time to maintain consistent development and unfortunately for Velmikin he's just not. So their goalie that's starting over him now is still perfectly fine. Their starting goalie that they signed at the beginning of the year is finally back training with the team after getting hurt and Kolosov still has a way to go back to the KHL if he does not believe there is a path to starting at the NHL level, which, after watching the game yesterday, he's a I don't. I don't think that's a surefire thing, especially on that game winning goal because it hit him in the glove and it just popped right back out. So I don't, unless there's a trade happening. I'm a little nervous about what Velmik is going to do the rest of the year, because sending him to the Belarus league is really not going to help him out.
Speaker 2:Even though that game time is good, he's not going to be playing competition. That helps him out, and he's having good success against good competition, which is probably the most annoying part about him.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you spent a fair bit of time with him. I know you got to know him a little bit at the development camp and he's a guy that again fits that Russian goaltender kind of style. We've got several. I think there's probably two or three others we haven't even talked about. We have talked about Ruslan Kazik, who's in Chicago right now, I think, backing up Ganna Peretz.
Speaker 2:Oh, hold on Before we go further backing up the kid deserves to start before we even go further. He's looked.
Speaker 1:Oh, because he is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I want him to start in the in the east coast league, the east coast hockey league. He was uh, I will outright say, didn't look that great. He gave up three goals on 15 shots and got yanked and you know. But he goes to the ahl and has two games where I'm very impressed with how he plays. He had a very decent game against Iowa, which was his first game, and it wasn't even that bad.
Speaker 2:Chicago just kind of struggled early on with transitions and they never really got guys back and they gave up a ton of transition chances, ton of odd man rushes, which was bad. In the game against Rockford he just looked like a different goalie. I was insanely impressed to see what he was putting up because he was scanning swear to shooters, he was getting active at the top of his crease, he was seeing through traffic with ease and he should because he's 6'4", but he just looked like a goalie that looked a lot more complete than his start in a lower-level league. So personally, if Spencer Martin is staying with the NHL team, I'm making Kazaev the starter and moving Peretz to a backup role.
Speaker 1:But he's looked awesome so far. I just want to get that Well. You know it's interesting. You mentioned that because we talked a lot about him before. I'm a big fan of his. I mean, he's a big goalie, he's extremely mobile in the net as well, and certainly watching some of the action we saw with him in the showcase games and so on was he was very strong the thing about him.
Speaker 1:I think that the key thing is that he's got to play, and I think the other thing we sometimes forget with these players he's come over from russia, so this is a whole new deal for him. Uh, you know, he's in a new country. I don't know if he speaks english at all. Usually these guys don't. Uh, he's got a fun. Yeah, he's got to find. Yeah, he's got to find his way and he's got to. You know, that's not the easiest thing, and so I give them a little bit of slack in terms of finding their game, and certainly for a goaltender boy, that's even more challenging as I see it. So I think you know, expecting him to come in and be a star off the get-go was not really reasonable. I think he's got the talent to do what's necessary. They just have to stay with him, give him lots of playing time, and I'd love to see him play more in the American League as well.
Speaker 1:He's definitely the prototypical Russian goaltender that we're seeing now. There's so many of them. We've talked about this before. That seems to be a factory. You know, you look at Val Mack and you look at him. I think we've got some other guys Namav and some other guys floating around as well, so lots of guys out there, for sure, and you know. Speaking about the Wolves, well, I've got you here as well, nick. What's your take on the Wolves so far this year? A bit of a slow start.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my take was always going to be. It's going to be a rough start to this season because one they had a hard road trip immediately off Ripper. They had to go to Hershey and Hershey is an insane AHL team. But my thing was the Hurricanes were not forced but they kept a lot of their prospects and their AHL guys up until the last moment at NHL training camp because they physically had to meet requirements.
Speaker 1:Right so having they.
Speaker 2:Basically they didn't play a preseason game. They had maybe about three days of practice before they had to play their first real AHL game.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So I always thought it was going to be a very rough start to the season because they have a ton of young guys and a ton of new guys new head coach on very little practice.
Speaker 2:So I was ecstatic to see them beat Hershey in one of the games. That was amazing because again, hershey's a great team and Chicago showed they have talent to beat Hershey with very little, you know, time to prepare and then you go into another week where they've gotten more practice and they honestly look like again a competent hockey team. They just have to keep working on their goalies because obviously without Martin, who is very good in his starts, you're going to be leaning on two guys that don't have a ton of experience. So you have to be able to insulate them and you have to let your young talent shine, which I'm not really worried about because Cam Abbott is very good in that regard. He's putting a lot of these young guys in positions to succeed.
Speaker 2:I've seen Bradley Nadeau kill penalties and do it consistently and do it and do it at a high level, which is awesome, because their Wolves penalty kill is good from what I've seen. So I think the Wolves are going to be fine. The slow start doesn't really necessarily do anything for me. If it continues for like another month, then maybe, but even then they're such a young team that I'm not really too worried about it.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I think, certainly the ownership of the Wolves. We're a little bit concerned with that. You know the Canes sat down Tyson Jost and they sent down Brendan Lemieux and of course Joaquin Ryan is down there and I suspect maybe at some point Riley Stillman might get down there as well. But in any case you're right about the goalies. Yannick Pretz I like a lot. He was outstanding in Quinnipiac, as we recall, in their championship. He's going to get a lot of playing time. They do have Dustin Tokarski Interesting story. Dustin, of course, had a cup of coffee with the Charlotte Checkers some years ago, so they knew a little bit about him. He's had an outstanding American Hockey League career so he's a guy that could come in and certainly help them and give them some veteran experience as well. So I think you're right Any players that you've seen so far that you're excited about this year in terms of the Wolves, who's sticking out in your mind?
Speaker 2:Scott Morrow is leading the team in points, which is really cool. Ryan Suzuki is doing a lot of things you like to see from a player who probably should be in the NHL at this point. Bradley Nadeau is doing things that Bradley Nadeau likes to do, which is just shoot the pocket at a very high rate and doing so at a very powerful number. Felix Ungersorum is having growing pains at center, which I fully expected, but again, he has to bulk up, no matter what Other than that defensively he's been fine. He just has to bulk up, no matter what, other than that defensively he's been fine. He just has to bulk up. That's going to be the big thing.
Speaker 2:Obviously, keziah, in my opinion, should be the starter. He's looked really nice so far in his appearances. Charles Alexis Legault is doing a lot of correct things. I'm seeing him throw his body weight around, which everybody knew he noticed how to do. More importantly, I'm seeing him actively lead rush chances and transition chances more, which is something that I never saw at Quinnipiac and I'm very happy to see this continue. Dominic Fensore is very fun to watch. Gleb, okay.
Speaker 2:I guess, since I mentioned his name, I gotta he's been playing fourth line minutes and if you're looking solely at plus minus in those fourth line minutes, it hasn't been good. I don't think it's attributed to him in particular, but you know again, it's a young player coming over from Russia. He's obviously going to have some struggles.
Speaker 2:It's nothing like he's going to come over and obviously immediately be a world beater that yeah those are going to be saved for the meechkoffs who play at the khl level for a long time for the demodoss when he comes over.
Speaker 1:Who's playing at?
Speaker 2:the khl level for a long time. It's going to be reserved for those guys. For him he's been playing mainly a junior russia, so obviously he's going to have struggles. The timing was super interesting of his KHL rates getting traded and then he's getting healthy scratch for the Wolves, which is why I mentioned something which got some dude who paywalled KHL's content you can get for free incredibly mad at me for some reason.
Speaker 1:I could not believe that on.
Speaker 2:Saturday. I was like that's insane, but in any case it was just a very interesting timing of it all. Obviously, Gleb still traveled with the team and he's still with the team now. Russian media has been very quiet on it. All they've said is that his rights were traded. They haven't said they've given any indication if he's going back at all.
Speaker 1:So I wouldn't worry about it for now.
Speaker 2:The timing of it was just insane, though that's all that was. Do you think there's a possibility he could go to Bloomington or something and play in the ECHL for a while. Oh, I don't think so, because at that point, if you give him the option of ECHL or going back to Russia, I think Chicago has some nice flights out at that point.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, well, I mean again he did have a great you know opportunity at the showcase. He had a hat trick in one of the games. I thought he looked pretty good generally in the showcase and he's a guy that brings elite offensive skill. The challenge he's facing again, too, with the Wolves is they have a lot of forward talent as well. So particularly with the veterans down there now there's not a lot of positions for him to kind of move up into and that's why he's been sitting on the fourth line. He's definitely not a fourth line type of guy and they've got to figure out how they can continue to keep him motivated and grow his game with limited playing time. That's going to be the key, because he's a guy to me that has tremendous potential. He's got natural offensive talent that you know you just you either have it or you don't. He's got it. So, again, hopefully he can get his game back on track and we'll see the you know, we'll start to put a winning streak together.
Speaker 1:Of course, the Hurricanes have been smoking hot, so maybe that'll rough off on the Wolves as well. Anything else you'd like to say as we wrap up here today, Nick?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Jackson Blake's going to. Jackson Blake is awesome. I love the kid so much. He's very fun to watch. I hope he continues this point streak and he beats Mishkoff for the Calder.
Speaker 1:Well, he definitely scored A gorgeous goal last night on a great Setup from Jack Drury. He has offensive instincts. He's near the net. The one thing I've found with Jackson Blake that's impressed me the most is he Really likes to go into the dirty areas. He has no concern at all with getting in where the action is, and that's for a young player and a rookie to do. That is fantastic and I think you're right, he's got a great future with the Hurricanes and he certainly earned his role and his playing time and I think one of the key moves was putting William Carrier on that line. I think that line has certainly been much stronger with William on the line and I think they're going to be great. So yeah, jackson Blake exciting, and we'll keep an eye on him for sure.
Speaker 1:In any case, nick, as always, it's great to bring you on. We'll catch up again next month and talk about the Canes' prospects around the globe and follow some of these folks over in Europe and in Russia and so on, and keep everybody up to date on how they're doing, for all of you that have been watching or listening today, of course. Thanks so much for joining us. If you like this episode, please press the like button. If you have any comments, please leave those down below and Nick and I will be happy to respond to them. And, of course, if you want to be alerted of future episodes of Storm Tracker, please subscribe and hit the bell button and we'll make sure you're aware of when they are released. Again, as always, thanks so much for joining us. We'll catch up with you real soon, right here on storm tracker. You.
