Welcome back in all! Yesterday I was traveling for Thanksgiving here in the States and between connecting flights and toddlers slamming the tray table in the row behind me, I started to think about prospect pools for different clubs. This was brought on by Macklin Celebrini's performance the other night in the San Jose game against Los Angeles…and the fact there's not much else to do sitting around various airports in the Carolinas. So, I gathered what information that I could and began asking different friends, "what group would you rather have moving forward?", between the Blackhawks, Sharks, and Ducks. Might be a reach here, but I'm going to make a very early assumption here that those three, in some order, are going to be picking 1-2-3 in this upcoming draft as well. For Capped's purposes I think we can look at just how much cap space each of these clubs has right now and projecting how much each should have available upcoming to potentially sign some of these players in-house (amongst others).

Anaheim Ducks:
Current Cap Space – $25,119,582
LTIR pool -$0
2025 – 26 Projected cap space – $39.80M

Got to start with the Ducks here and the one of the young players that jumps off the page to me here is Leo Carlsson. I stand by, if he's not in a draft year with Connor Bedard, he's probably the top pick and there's not much conversation around it. I really liked him coming in and so far he hasn't disappointed in his early NHL career. He moves the offense into the zone so well, and can't see a world where he's not a top-six player throughout his career. If I'm building a team right now I understand the thinking of building from the blueline in, but I personally would rather be deep up the middle which the Ducks are currently constructing. Mason McTavish was my favorite player in the 2021 NHL draft who is starting to come into his own at center and while I know many are out on Trevor Zegras, I don't see why he couldn't at least be a 20-goal scorer every season? The goal he scored on Monday against Seattle was the way I'd like to see him play, win the draw and be able to get to your spot. I'd love to give you all an in-depth look here into Beckett Sennecke and what he projects out to be, but I've only really caught small samples of his play. That said though, because I have a problem, me and 57 other phenoms watched different Ducks offseason practices live and if there's one thing I can say about Sennecke watching different drills is – he's fast. Speed doesn't slump everyone.

On the blue line I wrote up Pavel Mintyukov in a Looking Ahead article last season and while I think he's a nice piece to have, the one player that I missed on was Olen Zellweger. Out of all the clubs we're going to cover here today, Zellweger might be the chip you'd want on the blue line going forward. It's telling when a young defensemen can skate as well as he can, and while I'm not sure he's going to break the slate for fantasy or DFS, he's going to be one of those puck rushing D men you're going to want moving forward.

In net, I regret to tell all of you that I was very late to the Lukas Dostal party. I hopped on here this season as he's been a go-to for DFS and someone that I admittedly should have had higher on my fantasy draft board in net. What's interesting here is that Dostal is the one player in this Ducks pool that the club is going to have to pay this offseason but he is arbitration eligible. Lukas buddy, take that first offer and don't go to arbitration as a netminder. This is (probably) his net next season and likely the better part of this season which is encouraging because we could be watching something special in the making. I say "probably" Dostal's net as we move on because (and I just want to brace all of you here), we're coming up on year…what is it, 17, of John Gibson trade rumors. While I think there's an obvious trade to be made here to a club that plays in the same city as the Denver Broncos, we've been down this road enough times to where Gibson is getting regular starts for the Ducks come April.

Chicago Blackhawks:
Current cap space – $6,888,976
LTIR pool – $0
2025 – 26 projected cap space – $30.74M

Sigh. Let's talk about the Hawks. So obviously the one young player here that might be the gem of this entire pool is Connor Bedard. Don't get me wrong here, I'm ecstatic that I have Connor Bedard in my life for (fingers crossed) at least the next ten or so seasons, but his game is different than what I'd imagined it being. Not saying that at all in a bad way, but I did not have Connor Bedard as a volume shooter on my Hawks prospect BINGO card. I imagined that he was going to be a player that could create a little more and maybe he'll be able to do that as he is playing more on the wing instead of center…losing draws and spending his shift in the DZ. The issue here is what's around him, as much as I love watching Philip Kurashev skip pucks over his stick or Bedard having to wait at the blue line for Nick Foligno to get there, I don't think we can really make heads or tails of just what type of player he'll be early. Hopefully, we can get to some conclusion here before he becomes and RFA after next season, but that's a nightmare for another day. What could be interesting here is just what's coming along at the AHL and college level, with Frank Nazar (center, smaller in size AHL), Oliver Moore (center, quick shot good skater NCAA) and Colton Dach (center, great size and opposite shot from his brother)…anything with prospects is 50/50, heck, maybe even 30/70 when it comes to picking these guys out. While all of these Hawks forward prospects have NHL certainty, it's going to be interesting to watch how these skaters all play out. Colton Dach is the one I'm circling here, as if my goal here is playing well off Bedard, he's already done just that with CAN u18. The one player I'm leaving off here is Lukas Reichel, although he's young in age, already has enough of an NHL sample size. He's going to be a player that needs puck movers around him to succeed and for now just won't be able to carry a line on his own.

On the blue line, I love Alex Vlasic who has probably graduated out of being a "young player", but he was the one bright spot for this team that came out of the 2019 draft/still not over it/don't want to talk about it. If you're part of team Artyom Levshunov and Kevin Korchinski on the blue line, I can't say I'm out there on the front lines with you, but at least they are both young enough that there might be something there. Just remember though, this is what this Hawks front office sold people on Ian Mitchell.

Drew Commesso is the only name that stands out here, and the Hawks did use a second-round pick selecting him. When it comes to goaltender prospects, I just want to see it at the NHL level before making any judgements at all. These guys move so frequently and I'd previously thought that high picks in net were safe for a few seasons, but following Yaroslav Askarov getting moved this offseason, I've drawn back my stance on that.

For fantasy, Bedard is going to be the one you're going to want here and if I had to pick someone for dynasty leagues, I would lean Colton Dach. Or maybe you inherit a dynasty team and are stuck with Lucas Reichel despite trying to tie in on different trades. This Hawks team next season is going to run into the same issue cap-wise as this year and that's getting to the cap floor. I can see pieces like Taylor Hall or Connor Murphy getting moved at the deadline and without the Hawks extending Bedard early, this could be a club that comes into next season two top lines, a checking line, and a salary dump line. Pat Maroon, would like to congratulate you early on signing a one-year $2.3M deal to come back to the Hawks!

San Jose Sharks:

Current cap space – $8,866,837

LTIR pool – $0

2025 – 26 projected cap space – $34.80M

So Connor Bedard is the best player in this little exercise we're doing…Tim Robinson is asking, "Are you sure about that?". It's fun to debate player A to player B and I'm sure that's going to be a conversation moving forward, but I'm cautious to plant my flag on one side or the other here. That said, I am very much a fan of Macklin Celebrini, and if he is now fully healthy as we saw earlier this week, then I'm all in here. Just watching his games in college at BU, he just looks and plays like a player that would be a blast to be on a line with. Along with Celebrini, the Sharks have William Eklund up at the NHL level and Will Smith. Not the 56-year-old actor that Google thinks is on this club when you type in "San Jose Sharks prospects", we're talking about the 19-year-old center here in our case. Sometimes in hockey, you just know something is genuine when you see it on the ice and although I don't want to read too much into a handful of games at SAP, I like the way this group works together out there. The creativity that they have entering the zone is what you see from clubs that might be more established in age, but this group has it early on and that's extremely encouraging. This is also a group where we have yet to see how Quentin Musty (LW) will fit in, where I worry here is how quickly he'll be able to move the puck with this group but it might just be a case of where his roles are different at the NHL level.

On the blue line and in net…okay so blue line here with this club is where I struggle a bit. Not as well versed in the world of Sharks defensive prospects but do want to give a shoutout to them for trading for Jake Walman. Stay hot, Detroit. As mentioned in the Hawks section, Yaroslav Askarov is the name to watch for in net even with the small sample of NHL exposure being less than encouraging. He's still only 22 and if Nashville thinks you're good enough to be selected in net in round one, then there has to be something there, even in his new environment in San Jose.

For fantasy, I mean, I would roster Celebrini right now if I could and will say do regularly roster in him in DFS. He looks great while my Nashville power play stack gets scored on shorthanded. This is another club that's going to be in the market for signing some mid-range bridge deals with players, but I'm curious here on just what that looks like. If this group moves along quicker than expected then they would have space to make moves happen in their favor. It is important though from a cap standpoint though when we talk about San Jose that this is a club that has three retained contracts already, so that could hurt them slightly if they were to try and move a player to get assets back in return like they did with the Tomas Hertl trade five seconds before the deadline last season.

*Salary Cap data from PuckPedia.com  

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