Office Hours #2
Welcome back to Office Hours! This is a series that will review some of the key stories and performances of players tracked in recent weeks, some quick thoughts and insights and where they moved on my board if at all. This week, we take a look at a few North Americans who have made some significant moves around my board since the last ranking I published in January. Stay tuned for an updated 2024 NHL Draft Ranking coming in the next couple weeks!
John Mustard - Waterloo Black Hawks - Currently Ranked 29th
Mustard is a perplexing one. In my view, he’s raw in the truest sense. He’s a wonderful north-south skater with great skill and evasion ability in transition. There’s an excellent release on his wrist shot, and lots of raw potential. For a player who was playing AAA hockey last season in New Jersey, as well as a player nearly ineligible for the 2024 NHL Draft, being 2nd in team scoring is impressive to say the least. The troublesome bit is that Mustard seems to be a very self-driven play driver who is still quite rough around the edges with his timing, finding gaps in transition, and being able to drive himself into scoring areas to create his own scoring chances and chances for others. He’s a player who shows tremendous ability in spurts, but you still want to see more out of him.
Using his speed to play with some more intensity in his own end could go a ways to getting him more involved in moving pucks up the ice. He’s highly involved defensively, relying on stick checks and being somewhat successful, but an extra push here and there that he is definitely capable of could take him a ways from here. He’s a bit of a volume shooter and his selection could use some work as well. All that said, all the tools are there. Learning to slow things down at times and problem solve at a lower pace when necessary could be a big step to go along with that extra step of quickness and intensity that he seems to need. While Mustard clings to a 1st round slot for me, that’s more based on his potential and youth, rather than what is directly in front of you every shift. The idea of John Mustard in a few years as a speedy 200-foot shot-first forward is tantalizing however, and could be an impressive add in the draft later than he probably should go.
An example of Mustard’s strength on his edges, evasiveness and quickness. While he loses control in this clip, you can see signs of his potential as a possession forward with diverse offensive tools.
Ben Danford - Oshawa Generals - Currently Ranked 53st
Over the years I’ve grown to appreciate players who just go over the boards and play a role that will never be out of demand. This goes doubly for defenders, and Ben Danford could be a great example of this kind of player. While he has issues connecting on passes in transition and rarely carries pucks himself, Danford is an intelligent positional defender, willing to play the body when necessary while also using his mobility and range to cut off loose pucks and make quick plays to extend possession. Stick checking in defensive transition has been a bit of a work in progress but when he plays the body, it’s tough to get through him. He scans the ice well, and in isolated moments, he has some impressive signs of something more locked away there. While I don’t think his NHL upside is massive, I could easily see him eating minutes and defending dangerous areas well as he’s done in Oshawa in the viewings I’ve seen this year.
Clarke Caswell - Swift Current Broncos - Currently Ranked 61st
This draft is often characterized by incomplete talent profiles but strong isolated areas of play. If I had to pick a player who might be one of the smartest players in the class who just seems to really “get it”, it’s Caswell. It’s always the little details with him that may go unnoticed, but the keen-eyed will notice his ability to utilize little pockets of space, create space, and forecheck with a strong sense of timing. He finds routes up the ice and is among the more efficient offensive transition players I’ve tracked this year. He makes himself a target on breakouts well, he finds ways to hit targets of his own with passes, even on offensive zone entries, and has a work rate that hopefully can overcome the lack of high end speed and skating ability that he seems to have. He’s a huge driver of slot passes but completing them is a bit of a work in progress and working on building his timing and vision to create plays rather than blindly heaving pucks into scoring areas could expand his offensive output.
I’ve been impressed with Caswell and the game I covered this past week was absolutely his best I’ve seen this year. After almost an hour of 5v5 data, he’s one of the better drivers of potential offense with extremely high end rates of dangerous shot attempts and these slot pass attempts in my entire dataset. Will it project to the NHL? I’m still not sure, but if it does, he could be a very very good pickup in the middle rounds of this draft.
Jett Luchanko - Guelph Storm - Currently Ranked 28th
The first few sentences of the Clarke Caswell update could be applied in an even more impactful way. Luchanko may lack the raw offensive output Caswell has had, but the quality of those chances are all ramped up quite significantly. His shot selection is nearly perfect, driving huge amounts of dangerous attempts and very little in the way of perimeter shooting. He generates more dangerous shot assists, but is also a highly impressive offensive transition quarterback. He reads play extremely well, forechecking with a great sense of timing and with strong pace leading to great offensive zone turnover generation rates.
Luchanko has grown on my over this season. He’s one of the youngest players in the draft as well, and has only gotten better the more I’ve seen him. There are echoes of an Easton Cowan-type profile here, leading with intelligence and selfless play, but rather than the dog-on-a-bone work rate Cowan had, Luchanko brings his intelligence to generating scoring chances for himself and playing a style of play that would be projectable to the NHL. It’s no-nonsense, it doesn’t always jump out at you, but it works.
