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20 Thoughts on the Hlinka

by Austin Brass - 0

The Hlinka Gretzky Cup is over, which means we have reached the dangerous portion of the NHL Draft calendar where everyone takes a handful of hockey games played in August and begins making definitive declarations about teenagers.

Well, I’d be remiss if I didn’t join in on the fun.

I watched a lot of hockey over the course of the tournament, came away significantly higher on some players, found a few I liked that I knew almost nothing about beforehand, and probably created more questions for myself than I answered. That’s generally a good sign. The Hlinka is useful because it gives us an early look at a draft class playing against peers from around the world, but it is still only one tournament. I don’t want to pretend a great week suddenly answers every question about a player, nor does a rough one make me write off a player.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I also watched Maddox Schultz terrorize people for a week, so we’re going to have some fun here.

The Superlatives

1.) Most Surprising Player I’ve Fallen in Love With: Ryerson Edgar, F, Canada

Ryerson Edgar was barely inside my top 32 coming into the Hlinka.

He is now inside my top 10.

So, yeah, that escalated quickly.

What hooked me wasn’t one spectacular viewing as much as how many different parts of the game Edgar consistently influenced over the course of the entire tournament. He’s silky smooth with the puck, especially around the net, where his edges allow him to change direction almost instantly and manipulate defenders in extremely small spaces. There were possessions where it looked like everyone else was playing on normal controls and Edgar had somehow turned his turning radius down to zero.

But if this were just about puck skill, I don’t think I’d be nearly as interested.

He showed strength, physical engagement, transition passing, defensive involvement and a willingness to go into the ugly areas. Against Slovakia, he stepped up physically at the blue line to break up a play, immediately turned it into an odd-man rush and then followed the play all the way down the ice to bury the rebound. He could make a beautiful one-handed pass in transition and then later score on a tip from the front of the net.

That’s why he made such a big jump for me. He was the most complete player I watched of the players eligible for the 2027 NHL draft. Every facet of the game he shined in and I’m excited to see what his OHL season has in store.

2.) Most Dog in Him: Jaako Wycisk, F, Canada

There are probably players who threw bigger hits during the tournament. There are certainly players who accumulated more points.

But Jaako Wycisk has that dog in him.

The more I watched him, the more I appreciated how well his physical tools fit into everything else he does. He plays a power-forward game, he can skate, his hands are better than I initially gave him credit for and he understands how to operate within the cycle instead of treating every possession like an invitation to lower his shoulder and charge toward the crease.

He’ll power his way down a wall, win a puck, move it to the right place and then immediately get himself available for the next play. He’ll make a soft pass into a scoring area rather than forcing something because he’s the biggest player involved.

He has enough puck skill to participate in quick give-and-go sequences, and he showed throughout the tournament that he can keep up with Canada’s pace. His ability to put pucks into space on entries when no immediate passing lane was available was high-end. It was, overall, an outstanding performance for Wycisk.

3.) Biggest Loser: Scouting Twitter

I’ve been off Twitter for over a year, and within a week of coming back we had some of the worst scouting discourse I’ve seen on that site.

Debating whether Landon Dupont should be the first player off the board in 2027 is completely normal. Hell, if you read between the lines of my Summer Scouting report on him, you can probably glean that even I’m leaving room for the possibility that he hasn’t cemented himself at the top of the mountain entering the season. There are legitimate questions to ask about his game, and the Hlinka gave us more information to assess our evaluations.

That wasn’t really the problem.

The discourse around Dupont became juvenile at best and, more accurately, just crass.

Living in my own little bubble for the last year, I forgot how much of Scouting Twitter revolves around being first. First to love a prospect. First to hate a prospect. First to declare someone overrated. First to announce a player as the next superstar. And, most importantly, first to remind everyone six months later that you were, in fact, first.

It turns scouting into this weird prediction market where the goal becomes planting your flag before everyone else rather than actually learning anything.

Scouting should be an exercise in constantly collecting information and being willing to change your mind. Instead, too much of the conversation becomes an exercise in collecting receipts. Every performance becomes evidence that someone was right or someone else was wrong, and every opinion has to be defended because changing your mind apparently means you lost.

Maybe that’s just Twitter. Maybe a year away made me forget how the game works. Either way, trying to find thoughtful discussion about the actual hockey this week sometimes felt like panning for gold in sewage.

4. Player I’m Most Bullish On To Rise Up My Rankings: Malik L’Italien, LHD, Canada

I need Malik L’Italien to put together the game. You know the game.

The one where all the things you saw in five-minute bursts this past week suddenly happen for three periods and everyone collectively goes, “Is L’Italien a top 10 pick?”

Because I think it’s coming.

There are moments with L’Italien where you can see exactly what the upside looks like. L’Italien has that swagger with the puck. The type of swagger that looks effortless, the type of aura that says “I can do whatever I want right now with the puck and you’re not going to stop it.”

I love the way he carries himself when he has possession in the offensive zone. He doesn’t just receive the puck and immediately move it. He’s constantly scanning for an opening to attack, a passing lane that might develop or a pocket of space he can slide into.

The puck movement can be excellent. His outlet passing can immediately tilt the ice to his team’s advantage. He has the mobility and offensive instincts to become a major transition and offensive-zone weapon.

There are still mistakes. There were retrievals where the pressure recognition wasn’t there and possessions died because of it.

I just can’t shake the gut feeling watching him play that he has the rare blend of offensive acumen, four-way mobility, and defensive chops to be one of the most sought after players by the time comes around.

5. MVP of the Tournament: Maddox Schultz, F, Canada

If I’m picking one player as my MVP of the Hlinka, it’s Maddox Schultz.

I think Liam Pue was the most skilled player in the tournament, but if you know anything about me, I value both skill and the fact that Schultz spent the tournament being an absolute pain in the ass.

He was hard on pucks, physical, relentless on retrievals and consistently able to create offense after winning those battles. That’s the part that separates him from players who simply make their presence known physically. Schultz can knock somebody off the puck and then immediately transition into a skill play.

There is very little delay between the contact and the offense.

He showed a hard wrist shot, good puck skill around the net, a strong defensive stick and enough skating power to disengage from contact and get himself back into open ice. He created offense because of his physicality rather than treating the physicality as an end result.

For a player this young to already understand how to combine those elements is what makes him so special. The offensive skill and mental processing are already high-end. The Regina Pats are going to be one fun watch this season.

Five Questions I Have Leaving the Hlinka

6. Will Alexis Joseph Regain Momentum for His 2027 Draft Stock?

I don’t think Alexis Joseph had a bad tournament.

I just think he had a bad tournament compared to what other people expected him to do.

There were flashes. His third period against Slovakia was probably the best stretch I watched from him. He showed skill entering the offensive zone, found trailers, created on odd-man rushes and started looking more like the player capable of driving offense rather than simply participating in it.

But I kept waiting for the sustained dominance, and instead he saw his role diminish in the gold medal game.

The size and flashes of skill will always keep him in the conversation, but he’s starting the regular season with a lot more questions than answers.

7. Can Gavin Burcar Continue His Goalscoring in the Regular Season?

Gavin Burcar scored. And then he scored some more.

Tournament production can be funny because a player can get hot for a week and suddenly everyone starts treating the shooting percentage as a personality trait. The first couple months of his WHL season are going to be about one question:

Can Burcar keep finding those scoring opportunities over the course of a larger sample size?

I’m less interested in whether he maintains some unprecedented goal-per-game pace and more interested in whether the mechanisms behind the goals continue. Is he consistently getting himself into scoring areas? Is he finding space off the puck? Can he generate his own looks when defenses aren’t giving him the same openings? Is his puck skill and pace good enough to be involved in transition in the WHL?

He’s on the radar now, but now it’s about sustainability.

8. Where in the Hell Do I Rank Jonah Neuenschwander?

I have absolutely no idea where I’m going to rank Jonah Neuenschwander.

Helpful analysis, I know.

The problem with Neuenschwander is that when he’s playing against competition he can physically overwhelm, he looks like a top 3 pick. Against Ukraine scouting his u18s earlier in the summer, he was the most physically gifted player on the ice by a country mile. He had the skating, puck skill and passing ability to create offense at pace, and there are moments where the combination looks like exactly what you’d expect from a high-end draft prospect.

He’s also a scummer, which I mean as a compliment. Not really every going to hit you, but he’s going to slash your ankles, cross-check you from behind after the whistle, and generally do things that cause hockey parents to lose their minds at a rink if it happens to their kid.

But the entire evaluation is going to hinge on how much of his game against weaker opponents translates when the athletic advantage shrinks. Against Canada he looked like he was playing in a summer showcase event. It was all skill and flash and it wasn’t translatable team hockey. To contrast, against weaker competition he looked like one of the better forwards in the tournament.

So, naturally, I have questions. Can he create separation when he transitions to the men’s league? Can he navigate pressure when defenders can actually keep up with him? Does the decision-making become more complicated when the first option isn’t automatically available?

God bless the people solidifying their opinions on Neuenschwander, because I’m about as fluid on him as I’ve ever been on a prospect.

9. Can Landon Dupont Channel His Offensive Acumen at Michigan?

The version of Landon Dupont I watched during the back half of the tournament was exactly the version I wanted to see: aggressive and activating into every play.

Dupont has enough skating ability that when he decides to become an extra layer of the offense, there aren’t many defenders at this level who can replicate it. He can activate from the point, carry through transition, jump into space below the circles, activate down the right wall and create from below the goal-line and then still recover defensively because his skating gives him that wide of margin for error.

There were passing mistakes. He got a little too interested in the stretch pass at times and there are still possessions where I’d like him to choose the shot instead of looking for another layer of offense.

But I liked the intent. Now the question is whether he carries that mentality to the University of Michigan.

If he does, the offense could become a significantly bigger part of his projection than I expected coming into the summer.

10. Is Luca Santala Legit?

I really, really want to start the hype train for Santala after that performance against Canada. However, if I’m being honest, I just haven’t watched him enough yet.

Santala was one of those players who kept making me notice him despite entering the tournament without me having much of an existing opinion attached to his name. He’s on my list for the Summer Scouting series, but I haven’t gotten to track any of his games yet.

Neuenschwander and Sundstrom looked good but couldn’t dictate their games against Canada. Santala single handedly willed Finland into keeping it competitive. Every shift he went out felt like he was dangerous. Whether in transition, finding players in the offensive zone, or generating shot attempts for himself in scoring areas: he was everywhere in every situation. The amount of just misses he had could’ve swung the game in Finland’s favor if he connected on just two or three of them.

I don’t have a firm idea of where he’ll land in my preliminary rankings, but I wouldn’t be shocked if he ends up in the lottery after the Hlinka. I can’t wait to see what OHL powerhouse London does with him this year.

My Five Favorite Players from the Hlinka

11. Charlie Murata, F, Canada

Charlie Murata is exactly the type of player I end up liking more than I probably should. He’s scrappy, supports pucks well, works in the cycle and seems perfectly content doing the annoying work required to keep possessions alive.

There isn’t necessarily one overwhelming tool that screams high-end prospect every time he touches the puck. Instead, he just keeps finding ways to become useful. He’s around loose pucks. He gets underneath defenders. He makes the next pass. He finishes every hit.

What I like most: he works to create the possession that allows somebody else to make the flashy play and he is always involved.

He’s going to be ranked by me this year. Where? I don’t know, but I love players that play his style of game.

12. Kayden Stroeder, F, Canada

Watching Kayden Stroeder there are puck touches that look clunky. There are transition plays where the first attempt doesn’t work. He isn’t going to consistently make you rewind a play because of a highlight reel display of skill.

Then you look up and Stroeder has somehow has three points.

What I really liked about him at the Hlinka was how rarely a failed play actually ended his involvement in the sequence. A few times in the tournament, he was slow off the blocks through transition and eventually had to dump the puck in. Instead of disappearing after the dump, he immediately went hunting for the puck, helped Canada regain possession and eventually ended up around the net and scored or created a scoring chance. That sequence could be called The Stroeder because it felt like it happened in every game

He drives the net. He retrieves pucks. He gets involved physically. He finds his way into scoring areas. He is a really good passer in the offensive zone and at getting pucks to dangerous areas. And when the first thing he tries doesn’t work, he has this wonderful habit of just going and finding something else useful to do.

It’s not always pretty, but it sure is effective.

I had very little opinion on Stroeder coming into the Hlinka. I’m leaving it knowing he’s going to be one of those players I end up watching way more than I originally planned.

13. Maximilian Mares, F, Czechia

Maximilian Mares was just fun.

Sometimes this entire exercise gets bogged down in projection, rankings, expected NHL roles and arguing about whether someone’s skating and pace is passable or good. Then somebody just makes you enjoy watching hockey.

Mares did that for me.

There was enough pace, skill and offensive creativity to keep pulling my eyes toward him, and I’m leaving the tournament considerably more interested in what his regular season looks like than I was going into it. His size, physicality, and offensive/neutral zone involvement were all impressive in the games I saw.

14. Brock England, F, Canada

Brock England had the coming-out party I was hoping for.

For stretches early in the tournament, you could see the pieces. The skating was ridiculous. The forechecking pressure was immediate. He could enter the offensive zone with control and occasionally flash a pass that made you rewind the video.

Then against Slovakia everything started connecting at once.

He was defending, transporting the puck, creating off the rush, finding teammates through traffic and using his skating to erase space defensively. He’s the rare blend of elite speed, creativity and grit. He’s not just a skilled player who is looking to use his mobility to dance around defenders and weave his way through the neutral zone. He’ll put his shoulder down and bull you over. He’ll actively go hunting for the puck.

There are definitely some plays he missed on, but I left the Hlinka confident that I was right to put him in my top 10 going into the tournament.

15. Brock Cripps, RHD, Canada

I really enjoyed Brock Cripps.

The offense was never going to be difficult to find. He carried the puck effectively in transition, showed creativity as a passer and consistently looked comfortable manipulating defenders with possession.

What made the tournament more interesting were the flashes away from the puck.

There were neutral-zone step-ups where he timed his pressure well and physically separated players from possession. Those plays matter because the offensive projection is already pretty easy to understand.

The question with players like Cripps is always going to be whether the defensive game gives the offense enough room to breathe at higher levels.

He gave me some encouraging answers.

Revisiting My Initial Thoughts on the Hlinka

16. Who Amongst the Sub-6′ Offensive Defenders Was Going to Shine?

The original list was Landon Dupont, Brock Cripps, Douglas Johnsson and Jake Prunty.

The answer ended up being: most of them, in different ways.

Dupont was great, particularly once he became more aggressive offensively in the back half of the tournament. Cripps had flashes of very good hockey and gave me more to like defensively than I expected.

Then Lukas Kachlir crashed the conversation despite not being one of the players I highlighted before the tournament. His offense looked legitimate enough that he probably belongs in this group going forward.

Prunty and Johnsson both showed flashes of the offensive upside that made them interesting coming in, but there were also moments where the size showed defensively. That’s going to be the balancing act for both players throughout the season.

Small offensive defensemen don’t have to become large. They do have to prove they can survive being small.

17. Will Brock England Have His Coming-Out Party in August?

Yes. Yes he did.

I wanted a game where the skating, puck transport, playmaking, forechecking and defensive involvement all showed up together. Eventually I got it.

The exciting part isn’t that England had one great game. It’s that the great game looked like a collection of things he’d already flashed individually. That’s usually more encouraging than somebody suddenly doing something you’ve never seen from them before.

18. Who Amongst the Unknowns (to me) Would Capture My Heart?

This is always my favorite question before a tournament because the answer is impossible to know beforehand. So for me they ended up being:

Ethan Sung.

Kayden Stroeder.

Quinn Norman.

Sebastian Weber.

Luca Santala.

That’s the best part of spending a week watching every team NHL Network put on the screen rather than only following the players already sitting at the top of preseason rankings. Somebody you’ve barely heard of makes three plays in ten minutes and suddenly you’ve added another name to the list of players you’re going to chase around obscure broadcasts all winter.

19. Can America Go Back-to-Back?

No. They did not.

The United States had a great tournament and looked like the one roster capable of standing between Canada and the gold medal.

Then Canada beat them down.

Sometimes there isn’t much nuance required. Canada was loaded and didn’t give them an inch from start-to-finish. The Americans still gave us plenty of interesting individual performances and showed why this group deserved to be taken seriously, but Canada was simply too much when it mattered.

20. Who’s Coming Next in 2028?

Maddox Schultz and Liam Pue answered this one pretty loudly.

Schultz was my MVP of the tournament.

Pue spent the week showing off his skating, quick hands and the ability to create offense through defenders rather than simply around them. He made plays in transition, created dangerous passes, generated chances around the slot and generally looked way too comfortable playing against players a year older than him.

And that’s really the fun takeaway.

We’re supposed to be talking about the 2027 NHL Draft. Instead, two of the players I couldn’t stop watching aren’t eligible until 2028. The 2028 class has plenty of time to change, players will emerge that none of us are talking about yet, and I’m not going to pretend a tournament two years before the draft tells us anything definitive.

But Schultz and Pue gave us one hell of a preview.

Austin Brass

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