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Someone asked for this earlier.
I definitely feel that the Athletic is worth $4/month.
I really only got it for Sabres articles, but there are also some general NHL articles of interest. I wish Baker posted more though...
There's video, which obviously doesnt copy over.
On Mitts:
In hockey, as in life, there are archetypes built on hyperbole and buzz words which are designed to fit every player into a pre-defined box. Scouts and evaluators often fall prey to lazily characterizing young prospects in this way; the power forward, the two-way centre, the speedy winger, the one-dimensional scorer, the elusive European, the stay-at-home defenceman. But sometimes, just sometimes, there’s a player that is so uniquely different from everyone else in approach or in ability, that you can’t help but notice him. These players have mastered their skill and used it to set themselves apart. The Gifted is a 10-part series which examines through video the NHL’s most fascinating prospects and the unique skillsets that define them. By popular demand, The Gifted is back this fall. It runs every Friday. Check out last year’s series featuring Carl Grundstrom, Jordan Kyrou, Vitaly Abramov, Juuso Valimaki, Vili Saarijarvi, Filip Chlapik, Travis Sanheim, Timo Meier, Kirill Kaprizov, and Elias Pettersson here.
The Gifted (the 2018 series): Part 1: Miro Heiskanen | Part 2: Casey Mittelstadt | Part 3: Dylan Strome | Part 4: Oliver Wahlstrom | Part 5: Gabe Vilardi | Part 6: Adam Boqvist | Part 7: Evan Bouchard | Part 8: Kristian Vesalainen | Part 9: Jonathan Dahlen | Part 10: Morgan Frost
I distinctly remember the first time I was ever blown away by Casey Mittelstadt. It was Sept. 22, 2016 and his draft season had barely just begun. I was beginning to ramp up my scouting for Future Considerations with one of the big early events on the draft calendar: The CCM/USA Hockey All-American Prospects Game. In a losing effort (Mittelstadt’s Team Howe lost 6-4 to Team LeClair), Mittelstadt looked bored. Not bored in the lazy kind of way but bored in the my-skill-set-is-so-far-ahead-of-everyone-else-on-this-ice-that-I-can-do-whatever-I-want kind of way. In a game that featured top-flight prospects such as Kailer Yamamoto, Jason Robertson, Josh Norris and Ryan Poehling, Mittelstadt looked peerless.
He scored twice (the only player to do so) and was named player of the game. The first goal looked like this:
Mittelstadt’s drives the middle of the ice off the rush, his hands are high on his blade, he corrals the puck on his forehand in one motion and finishes along the ice on his backhand. On the surface, it looks like an easy play to make. But Mittelstadt has so little time to make it happen and still opts against the simple redirect to the far post — which may have also gone in. Throughout, his head is up. He doesn’t have to look down at the puck, nor does he bobble it (which would have cost him the scoring chance). He knows exactly the play he’s going to make a split second before the puck arrives on his stick.
That, in its essence, is why Casey Mittelstadt is one of the best prospects on the planet. From that moment on in his draft year, I tracked him extremely closely. By the time the 2017 draft rolled around, he was my third-ranked prospect behind only Nico Hischier and Nolan Patrick.
Ever since, he has continued to demonstrate to me that he has all of the tools he needs, led by that composure and the anticipation that comes with it, to be an elite NHL player (a term I am extremely reluctant to throw around with players his age). That was true before the draft and it was true in July when I released my ranking of the top-50 drafted prospects and Mittelstadt landed at No. 4.
Throughout, I have believed this despite the stats indicating a lesser player (data has always favoured him as a top prospect, but never as one of the game’s or his draft’s best).
While his draft-year production (1.25 points per game) narrowly led all under-19 USHL players, he was also one of the class’ older players (a November 1998 in a 1999 draft year). All-time, that production ranks 90th in USHL history for an under-19 forward, even excluding the U.S. National Development Team Program’s players. In recent memory, it has been bested by Kevin Roy (who has yet to play an NHL game), Rem Pitlick (who went in the third round to Nashville a year earlier), Taylor Cammarata (who spent his first pro season in the ECHL last year after going in the third round to the Islanders), Zach Stepan (also began his career in the ECHL last season), Alex Broadhurst (played two games in the NHL last season) and NHLers Vinnie Hinostroza and Sean Kuraly (who have both fashioned out good early NHL careers, but as depth players). The only player in recent memory who bested him and went on to become a star is Kyle Connor, but even then Connor posted two U19 seasons better than Mittelstadt’s in the USHL and then smashed his NCAA production when he posted 71 points in 38 games as a freshman to Mittelstadt’s 30 in 34. (Side note: Mittelstadt’s freshman production isn’t all that uncommon either, and there is a similar laundry list of recent players who’ve done what he did but aren’t the prospect I believe him to be.)
So what has led me to believe that Mittelstadt’s going to be a star in the NHL, while many of his cohorts top out as role players? And how did he take that production and extrapolate it to MVP honours at the world juniors and five points in a brief six-game stint with the Sabres at the end of the year?
That’s where video and scouting to identify translatable NHL talent really comes into play.
One of the first things I look for when I watch a player is whether or not the plays they’re a part of are by dictated by their contribution or dictated to them. Primary production and data can sometimes illuminate if a player is driving play or reacting to it but a lot of that can be tested by watching the player over repeated viewings.
With Mittelstadt, he’s almost always the biggest factor in the plays that happen when he’s on the ice. A lot of players can live on the outside, thrive on the power play or succeed with good linemates. Mittelstadt has never been one of those players. He learned to be the only guy by playing in Minnesota’s high school hockey circuit and becoming Mr. Hockey — which is annually awarded to the best high-school player in the state — in his draft year. That continued with Green Bay in the USHL on a Gramblers team that missed the playoffs where he immediately became their best player as a rookie, and at the University of Minnesota last season on a team with some decent two-way forwards but lacking in firepower. He didn’t have the benefit Connor did of having Zach Werenski or J.T. Compher to play alongside. That impacts production.
When the Gophers scored with Mittelstadt on the ice, it was usually by his doing. Often, that looked like this:
There are a few things on this play that shows what makes Mittelstadt so special. The first is those aforementioned hands. Mittelstadt makes a ton of plays by relying not on his feet (he’s a good skater but he’s not going to blow by guys at the NHL level) but by keeping his hands high on his shaft and using his stick to change directions or make plays through defencemen (I wrote about the benefit of high hand placement in terms of the freedom it gives players who can manage it without sacrificing strength on their stick to create a wider range of rotation in tight here in a video piece on Johnny Gaudreau).
The other thing from the play above — and maybe a more important facet of his game than the world-class skill he has as a handler — is the way Mittelstadt uses the ice. Everything he does pushes the play to the middle of the ice. And not in the overpowering sense (though Mittelstadt is strong on the puck, he’s not all that physical) but just in the make-plays-to-the-slot-in-waves sense. As soon as Mittelstadt has control of the puck in space, he’s driving the middle lane, making a pass to the high slot, and then attacking the net to finish off the rebound and secure the overtime win against a better team.
He makes a similar play here:
There, he corrals the puck in transition, creates the entry, and immediately finds a streaking teammate in a more dangerous area with a deft pass, his hands high on his stick. Mittelstadt is never going to take that play wide and into the corner to start the cycle, or throw a bad angle shot on net to occasionally get lucky and create a goal. Instead, he’s going to consistently make the higher risk play — and occasionally turn the puck over — relying on his skill to create a more dangerous scoring chance. He consistently works from the outside-in, rather than the inside-out.
He can make the flip side of that play work, too. He doesn’t have to be the handler and the passer. But he’s always going to drive the middle of the ice. Sometimes, that means attacking the front of the net to finish the play rather than start it:
When he is a carrier and a teammate doesn’t make himself available as a more dangerous threat in the slot, Mittelstadt falls back on his skill — on that anticipation, and those hands, and that grip — to make the harder play happen himself.
Here, with both of his linemates out wide, Mittelstadt attacks into four Harvard defenders, curls the puck into his feet to avoid a poke check and uses an in-motion release to shoot from as low in the slot as the play allowed him to with a nice delay:
Without the puck, it’s the same story. Mittelstadt rarely glides on defence. Instead, he activates, he pursues, he keeps his feet moving, and he is the one getting the puck back or making a play to regain possession. Just like on offence, he’s dictating rather than reacting.
Watch, on the play below, the way Mittelstadt pursues the carrier, bumps him, and then allows his skill to take over with a light touch around the defender instead of a chip into the corner. And then look for everything else I mentioned above in how the rest of the play develops:
What happened after the retrieval? Mittelstadt was in a poor position to make a play on net, so he dropped the puck into the middle of the ice for a better scoring chance. That drop pass, coupled with the little dodge play he uses to play the puck to himself instead of into the corner for a 50/50 battle is the peak of his play selection.
What is the common theme on all of these plays? Mittelstadt is either the largest factor in their outcomes, or he’s driving the middle of the ice to become as big of a factor as he can be. None of the plays happen from the perimeter.
The end result, occasionally, when you put that complete package together, is a player who can take over a shift and a game without having to rely on his linemates to do it. And that’s the best sign of a player who can be dominant at the next level.
Last year, it looked like this, which is as clinical a shift as you’ll ever see from a freshman in college hockey:
Here’s a list of every play Mittelstadt made during that sequence:
A failed feather pass to a teammate in the middle of the zone and in traffic, closely checked by four other players.
Active feet and pursuit for a retrieval.
A cut back against the grain with the puck to the middle of the ice rather than keeping his momentum to attack the outside.
A small-area self-pass around a defender to himself.
A shot from the low slot with the puck in his feet.
Active feet and pursuit for a retrieval (again).
An immediate attempt to spin and find a teammate in the low slot.
A slow track back into the centre of the ice.
A third retrieval, this time at the top of the crease.
A rebound goal on his backhand.
You’ll notice a theme. Hint: He’s using the same set of translatable skills: High grip, challenging small-area plays, puck pursuit, and constant attempts to push the puck to a teammate in the middle of the ice or attack it on his own. He is in complete control and everyone on the ice, his linemates include, are responding to him — not vice versa.
And that’s how you dominate the world juniors:
Hunt, create the turnover, a grip that allows your puck skills the range of motion needed to make plays as tight to your body as possible, and a mentality that tells you to force the play to the front of the net instead of throwing a backhand on net when the chance presents itself.
With enough repetition, that’s how you score goals as a teenager in the NHL, too. Look at where Mittelstadt, who was playing the point on the power play, scored the first goal of his career from:
And then watch the play develop from a different angle with Mittelstadt’s mindset when he gets the puck in mind to see how the play ended where it did:
In that situation, a lot of young players probably stop up. They look for the cross-ice pass or put the puck back down low when their net-front option releases from the defensemen to open up.
But Mittlestadt isn’t a lot of young players. He’s thinking: “attack the middle” and as soon as the puck touches his stick he turns and takes two strides to do that.
He wants to be the one making the play. That’s an incredible quality, and a mentality that can take you far if it’s matched by skill. Mittelstadt has both in spades. |
