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Maine Recruits: When Ashes Fall, Legends Rise

walrus said:
The question is, can he skate, Simon Denis Pepin comes to mind.
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That was my first thought too. I think it comes down to lateral mobility. If he develops it then his gap can be adequate and combined with his reach would be difficult for forwards to get around the corner on him. This would make him a prized commodity and a NHL draft pick easy. If he doesn’t then he might need to back off to manage his gap which allows easy entry into the zone. Or worse, he doesn’t back off enough and gets turned a lot like Dani’s-Pepin, Mushaluk, and Robert Ek did. This would likely mean he is a project type that doesn’t get a lot of minutes. We see Lesakowski struggling for minutes and he has struggled at times with his lateral mobility and gap control. Overall though, I think he has been ok given he is a sophomore. But when you are 6’8” it is a lot more difficult to get your center of gravity low enough to get adequate balance for the lateral agility. Would love to see some footage of his skating. If I find any I will share. He is young and playing AAA hockey so not a lot of video available.
 
Sparkee said:
That was my first thought too. I think it comes down to lateral mobility. If he develops it then his gap can be adequate and combined with his reach would be difficult for forwards to get around the corner on him. This would make him a prized commodity and a NHL draft pick easy. If he doesn’t then he might need to back off to manage his gap which allows easy entry into the zone. Or worse, he doesn’t back off enough and gets turned a lot like Dani’s-Pepin, Mushaluk, and Robert Ek did. This would likely mean he is a project type that doesn’t get a lot of minutes. We see Lesakowski struggling for minutes and he has struggled at times with his lateral mobility and gap control. Overall though, I think he has been ok given he is a sophomore. But when you are 6’8” it is a lot more difficult to get your center of gravity low enough to get adequate balance for the lateral agility. Would love to see some footage of his skating. If I find any I will share. He is young and playing AAA hockey so not a lot of video available.
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In fairness Ek and Pepin improved tons over the careers in Orono. Pepin came in at 17 which was too early.
 
Sparkee said:
That was my first thought too. I think it comes down to lateral mobility. If he develops it then his gap can be adequate and combined with his reach would be difficult for forwards to get around the corner on him. This would make him a prized commodity and a NHL draft pick easy. If he doesn’t then he might need to back off to manage his gap which allows easy entry into the zone. Or worse, he doesn’t back off enough and gets turned a lot like Dani’s-Pepin, Mushaluk, and Robert Ek did. This would likely mean he is a project type that doesn’t get a lot of minutes. We see Lesakowski struggling for minutes and he has struggled at times with his lateral mobility and gap control. Overall though, I think he has been ok given he is a sophomore. But when you are 6’8” it is a lot more difficult to get your center of gravity low enough to get adequate balance for the lateral agility. Would love to see some footage of his skating. If I find any I will share. He is young and playing AAA hockey so not a lot of video available.
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Lesakowski has times where he just stops skating hard and tries to rely purely on his long reach. It's one of the biggest flaws in his game that still hasn't been coached out of him.
It's something a lot of taller players struggle with on the defensive side of the puck. Even a HHOFer like Chara had times where he'd fall into that trap.

Definitely excited to see some tape on this kid.
 
Sparkee said:
That was my first thought too. I think it comes down to lateral mobility. If he develops it then his gap can be adequate and combined with his reach would be difficult for forwards to get around the corner on him. This would make him a prized commodity and a NHL draft pick easy. If he doesn’t then he might need to back off to manage his gap which allows easy entry into the zone. Or worse, he doesn’t back off enough and gets turned a lot like Dani’s-Pepin, Mushaluk, and Robert Ek did. This would likely mean he is a project type that doesn’t get a lot of minutes. We see Lesakowski struggling for minutes and he has struggled at times with his lateral mobility and gap control. Overall though, I think he has been ok given he is a sophomore. But when you are 6’8” it is a lot more difficult to get your center of gravity low enough to get adequate balance for the lateral agility. Would love to see some footage of his skating. If I find any I will share. He is young and playing AAA hockey so not a lot of video available.
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It's hard to have project type players with a 26 man roster limit
 
Evan Van Gorp has been out of the lineup for London's wednesday game and the Friday night one that just started- appears to be injury-related. He took a massive hit from Simon Wang (a massive kid) in the Oshawa/London game. Not a dirty hit but seems like that might be the thing he's shaking off. Hopefully it is just being cautious since the Knights are already clinched for the playoffs and nothing serious.
 
In looking thru the recruits for next year-Langlois coming to Maine will be the oldest freshman in college hockey with a 2003 birth date
Also the number of recruits coming is way more than the openings for most schools especially Maine and Umass
 
DLG said:
In looking thru the recruits for next year-Langlois coming to Maine will be the oldest freshman in college hockey with a 2003 birth date
Also the number of recruits coming is way more than the openings for most schools especially Maine and Umass
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Langlois was injured and couldn’t play this season anywhere. He lead QMJHL in defensemen scoring and is a 3rd round NHL draft pick. So if he was healthy he likely would be at AHL level this season.

As far as what Maine is graduating… they graduate their top 3 centers, their top goal scorer that is LW, and on his line is a RW that has been on Maine’s 2nd line. However, there appears to be 3 forwards coming in… 2 centers and one LW. So this leaves 2 forward positions not filled with ‘04 birth year. Those two spots would be for C and RW. From the ‘05 on the recruit list I don’t think any are playing at a level to bring them in. Two are 4th line centers in the USHL, which is a great level for juniors but 4th line isn’t a lot of minutes. So they both will likely stay at USHL level for another season and hopefully get to center 3rd lines at least. The 3rd ‘05 forward is playing in NAHL and isn’t crushing that league. A couple of the ‘06 forwards are playing great in BCHL. But it appears as though 1 has already committed to play next year in WHL, I believe.

So what this means is that Maine will likely recruit 2 more ‘04 forwards from CHL. I think they would recruit a couple more center types.

I do think there is too many defensemen when you add Langlois and Usereau. However, it appears as though Barr hasn’t been happy with how the bottom pair has been playing. He has rotated in 4 defensemen for this bottom pair all season. It appears as though Nobes has earned his spot as the 5th defensemen. And recently Antonacci has played well. But the group of Lesakowski, Antonacci, Dalton, and Arnott have all had many blunders. Morse must be redshirting this year because I don’t think he has played a game all season. Barr appears to have very high standards for the defense. So I speculate that we could see scholarships not renewed which would result in transfer portal for a few of them.

So I feel numbers are high for the defense(unless a d man or two sign pro early). But not high for the forwards. Therefore I predict a few d on the team now transfer out, and Maine will recruit 2 more ‘04 from CHL(WHL, OHL, QMJHL).
 
Evan Van Gorp returned from his upper body injury last night for London's 7-3 win, scored an empty net goal. That win got London their second straight league regular season championship and sixth straight Midwest division title. London can coast a bit for the final few weeks, so EVG could either rest up more or get more ice time as they rest the players in the top of the lineup.
 
McGoverners said:
Do we have a preference on recruiting the CHL or plundering the ECAC in the transfer portal?
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Whatever gets the best team together.

I think making a solid pipeline to CHL is crucial though. Specifically I think Maine has to make a strong pipeline to QMJHL. They have QMJHL teams on each side. If the teams near Montreal play out of division against teams in New Bruinswick and Nova Scotia they likely drive through Maine and more than likely Bangor.

So it is encouraging to get two highly rated(NZ 4.0) defensemen from QMJHL. Would prefer to see them get a top center or two now. There are some very highly rated CHL forwards on the board.
 
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