Welcome back to The Journey, where we follow hockey prospects and their paths to the NHL, providing fantasy predictions and analysis along the way.

This week, prospect camps and showcases have opened up around the league. As other Dobbers writers have pointed out in recent weeks, insights like "Player A is in the best shape of his life" are meaningless given that this is the NHL and that should be a baseline expectation. That said, there have been some exciting clips and nuggets surfacing from scouts and observers about various high-level prospects. Let's dig into some.

Clarke's Skating

Ever since being taken 8th overall by the Kings in 2021, Brandt Clarke has lived inside the Top 10 of Dobber's Top 50 Prospect Defensemen rankings. He has been a coveted asset in fantasy both for his skill/upside and his opportunity with the up-and-coming Kings.

The 32-year-old Drew Doughty has seen a ton of mileage over his 14 seasons and will eventually start to slow. L.A. is flush with defensive specialists (Tobias Bjornfot, Sean Walker, Matt Roy, Mikey Anderson), but there is less competition on the offensive side of the blue line—though the emergence last year of Jordan Spence and Sean Durzi has clouded things somewhat. Regardless, this is a team with a top-tier prospect system who should be making serious noise in a few years, and many poolies envision the deceptive, high-IQ Clarke playing a central role.

The only thing holding him back has always been his skating. Every single scouting report in his draft year noted his awkward skating stride with assessments like "wonky," "clunky," and "knock-kneed." His backwards skating and crossovers were considered particularly suspect, the concern being that elite NHL skaters like Brayden Point and Connor McDavid would be able to blow by him wide and expose him on the rush.

The fortunate thing is that skating mechanics are one of the most correctable skills in a prospect—unlike assets like size, vision, and IQ that can't be taught in the same way. Indeed, early reports from the Kings first prospect game against the Avalanche suggest that Clarke has made noticeable improvements to his skating.

•Ingham needs to work on his timing and vision. Can't be loosing easy pucks.
•Clarke's footwork and crossovers don't look choppy at all. Super smooth, super versatile
•Nousiainen looks like the most well-rounded Dman
•Madden's skating looks fluid. Compliments Byfield well.

— Pavel (@blueonthecharts) September 16, 2022

Closing thoughts from the LA Kings rookies:

•Clarke's improved so much. He's going to help out the Kings offensively soon.
•Byfield looks so much more faster and aggressive, he's 100% NHL ready now
•Nousiainen looked really dangerous offensively and showed great two-way skill https://t.co/7iIHRgcDo0

— Pavel (@blueonthecharts) September 16, 2022

Clarke put up 59 points in 55 OHL games on a weak Barrie Colts roster this past year. The NHL-CHL agreement prevents L.A. from being able to send him down to the AHL yet, so he either makes the Kings or heads back to the Colts—likely the latter. If he lands back in the OHL, expect even gaudier totals this year. Either way, he is likely still a couple years away from making the Kings full time but appears very much on track to becoming the impact offensive defender that he was billed as during the draft.

Check out how smoothly he avoids the defender, attacks the zone, then distributes the puck into a high-danger area for an easy-looking assist:

Brandt Clarke is good. https://t.co/RKZXn1O6jp

— West Coast Hockey Bias (@MarcelAndRogie) September 16, 2022

Eklund's Dynamism

William Eklund (SJS) was ranked first overall on several boards heading into the 2021 draft after scoring 23 points in 40 SHL games. He ended up falling to San Jose at 7th and seemingly came very close to making their roster straight away by tallying four assists during his nine-game audition. Sharks brass then wisely decided to send him back to Sweden for more conditioning, and it was difficult for Eklund to hide his disappointment.

William Eklund tells @brodieNBCS that he was sad to be sent back to Sweden but is using it as motivation to come back stronger pic.twitter.com/2Ai4n15Ciq

— Sharks on NBCS (@NBCSSharks) December 3, 2021

In his third SHL season, Eklund's point pace fell from 0.58 to 0.48 and his stocks seemed to suffer slightly in keeper and dynasty formats as a result. Poolies have short memories and wanted to see a noticeable improvement from such a high-level prospect on the verge of NHL action. The window is closing, but now is as good a time as any to buy low on the dynamic Swede.

In the Sharks prospect games, he is looking every bit like the top-of-the-lineup player he was billed as in his draft year. He is a balanced two-way threat who can both snipe and make plays, and he has consistently shown excellent chemistry with fellow bubble prospect Thomas Bordealeau.

With plays like these, Eklund has likely left the Sharks with no choice but to find a spot in the top six for Eklund in 2022-23.

Eklund with the spinorama to end it OT pic.twitter.com/HTz6pbUDnK

— Curtis Pashelka (@CurtisPashelka) September 17, 2022

Check out this wicked shot in tight:

I'm going to try obnoxiously hard this season to make "Slippery Pete"stick as William Eklund's new nickname. #SJSharks pic.twitter.com/9oNp4DnOEQ

— SnipeCity420  (@SnipeCity420) September 17, 2022

Hutson's Height

As with Clarke and his skating, the main knock against Lane Hutson (MON) has always been his size: he was listed as 5-8 and 157 lbs at the draft, which is Jared Spurgeon (5-9, 166 lbs) and Torey Krug (5-9, 194 lbs) territory. Had he been a few inches taller, he likely would have gone in the first round instead of falling to Montreal in the second given his dynamic skill set and impressive 63 points in 60 games with the UNDP in his draft year.

(In case you missed it, check out last week's Journey article here for a more in-depth look at his intriguing profile.)

Being 5-8, Hutson qualifies as "exceptionally sized" and will likely take 400 NHL games to show his ultimate upside. Assuming he takes a couple years to make the Habs roster full time, it could realistically be seven years before we see meaningful numbers from Hutson. That is an eternity in fantasy, and poolies will likely lose patience with him well before that happens.

But what happens if he grows a couple inches and adds 20 pounds? It's not that far-fetched given that we're essentially talking about a 17-year-old kid.

Not if he grows those 2-3 inches. His bones are younger than the rest of his body.

All I'm saying is there is a chance that he's breaking out at 200+ games instead of 400+ games

— Caleb Kerney (@CalebDobber) July 10, 2022

Fun fact: I was 5'10'' when I was finishing high school. I was nearly 6'2'' 6 months later.

Long story short… it would be really fun for everyone if Lane Hutson ended up being 6'0''+. https://t.co/HV7utlIrc3

— Byron Bader (@ByronMBader) September 14, 2022

All of that lead up was to set up the news out of Boston University this week that Hutson is indeed still growing.

Lane Hutson, the Canadiens' second-round pick, who was listed at 5'8" at the NHL Draft and Development Camp is up to 5'9" per Boston University.

— Jared Book (@jaredbook) September 14, 2022

One more inch and Hutson's Breakout Threshold will be cut in half down to 200 games. Something to keep an eye on over the next year or two because this is a player who just oozes high-end skill.

Lane Hutson:

Justin Barron ✅
William Trudeau ✅ pic.twitter.com/jkV0WoTr4P

— L'CH & LNH (@LCH_LNH) July 13, 2022

Mann's Sleeper Potential

Strauss Mann (SJS), 24, was profiled here back in February heading into the Olympics, where played two games for Team USA and came away with a sparkling 1.85 G.A.A. and 0.945 SV%. He put up similarly excellent numbers over his last two seasons with the University of Michigan and then turned in a top-notch SHL campaign in 2021-22 (2.19 G.A.A., 0.914 SV%), prompting San Jose to sign him to a one-year contract this offseason.

Though he likely starts out in the AHL, Mann is an intriguing sleeper who is still flying way under the radar. The goaltending situation in San Jose is crowded but uncertain. He is one of six Sharks goalies signed for 2022-23 along with James Reimer, Kaapo Kahkonen, Aaron Dell, Eetu Makiniemi, and Zachary Emond. Although Reimer and Kahkonen will likely play 1A and 1B to start the season, Reimer (34) isn't getting any younger and Kahkonen has a lot of questions to answer after the Minnesota Wild showed very little faith in him—first exposing him in the Seattle expansion draft and then trading him to the Sharks for a pittance.

As much as I hate the expression and hope that one day advanced stats will be able to paint a clearer picture, goalies are still voodoo for the time being. Anything can happen. As far as stashes go, you could definitely do worse than Mann given his promising trajectory and close NHL proximity.

Plus, he has been lights out so far for the Sharks at their Prospects Showcase. Again, this is a situation to monitor moving forward.

Through three "games" in the summer development camp and one period of the rookie tournament, Strauss Mann has not allowed a goal while wearing a Sharks uniform.

That's pretty good. #analysis

— Corey Masisak (@cmasisak22) September 17, 2022

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @beegare for more prospect content and fantasy hockey analysis.