Usually, I like to write full prospect reports on one specific player at a time. That way, I can break down their games and track their progress over the season. The problem is, so far this season there hasn't really been anyone who I can write anything new about them. I've written one full report, and I've been waiting for someone else to give me something to sink my teeth into.

But either they haven't played enough games yet, or they haven't done anything interesting. No one has really stood out, shown big improvements from last season, or won a bigger role on their team. So, instead, I'll break down how all of the prospects NOT in the AHL have been faring.

Easton Cowan

The challenge for Cowan this season was to either make the NHL out of camp, or to find ways to fine tune his game to prepare for professional hockey next year. In training camp, he didn't look good enough to win an NHL spot even if there weren't others who were older and had NHL experience that he had to beat. I couldn't tell you the reasons why, but he just didn't look as impactful as he did in the previous year's training camp. He looked like he was getting more tired more quickly, and was playing things safer.

So, we're three games into Cowan's OHL season now. His production has been what it's always been... a point in all three games, four points in total. The task for Cowan is to take his impact and production to another level. To become more reliable with the puck, to make better decisions with AND without it, and show he's one of if not THE best player in the league. It's early, but there's still some work to be done in these areas from what I've seen so far.

Ben Danford

After suffering a concussion ahead of the prospect tournament, Danford missed all of the exhibitions and training camp and start of the OHL season. He returned to Oshawa on October 4th, and was named Captain by the team just before that. Oshawa was supposed to be one of the better teams in the OHL, especially after they traded for Colby Barlow who was a first round draft pick by the Winnipeg Jets. So far, they've struggled. They've gone 1-3 in the four games Danford has played, where he has two points (both primary assists), four shots, and was a minus player in three of the four games.

I'm not going to break down much of his game as far as how I think he looks. He missed basically all of the pre-season time to get prepared, which I think will give him a slower start than others. But his defense has looked good, his offense pretty good, and we'll see how much he improves in those areas over the next couple of months when he gets his legs under him.

Sam McCue

Owen Sound is supposed to be a bad team this year. They barely made the playoffs last year when only a small handful don't qualify. They lost their best player to Oshawa (Barlow). So far, however, they're hanging around the middle of the pack. What's helped them is a balanced and deep offensive attack – McCue is tied for third on the team in points with six in five games, with seven players having 6+ points in their seven games played.

McCue missed two games due to suspension (dumb OHL fight things), which means on a per game rate basis he is the team's leader in things like shots and points per game. He isn't carrying the offense, as he isn't someone who will be tasked to carry the puck or set things up or break defenses down. He's a power guy who goes to the net, forechecks hard, gets open in the slot and shoots the puck when he gets it. His passing is pretty good, but half of his assists have come from rebounds off his shot. It's working so far.

Noah Chadwick

After a breakout season last year, Chadwick had some hype this summer. He was invited to Canada's World Junior summer camp. His GM, who is also in Team Canada's management for this coming WJC, talked him up a lot. Other scouts also talked him up a lot.

But like Cowan, his rookie camp, prospect tournament, and NHL training camp was... eh. Not as good as you'd expect given the hype. So far this WHL season, that's carried over. He only has two points in his first give games with Lethbridge, which is fourth on his team among defensemen. He's been a minus player, and just hasn't looked as effective as the previous season. Lethbridge as a whole has been pretty meh, and if he wants to maintain that World Juniors aspirations he'll certainly need to be better than he has so far.

Miroslav Holinka

A newer prospect who also had a lot of hype this summer, after Holinka looked good in their rookie camp and received high praise by Hayley Wickenheiser. He came out of the gate strong in the WHL, lining up as their 1C and generating two points. Since then, all the prospects were released from their NHL teams' training camps, and Holinka found himself bumped down to 3C. He has one point in the three games since, but has been used to take big faceoffs and in defensive minutes.

From what I can tell, this tracks with what I read from his scouting reports after the NHL draft. He has offensive skill but hasn't learned to do it effectively at higher levels so far, but his two-way or defensive play has held up.

Nathan Mayes

Mayes has been a slight surprise for me, sort of like McCue. He hasn't been fantastic, but has certainly looked better than a typical 7th rounder. Offense isn't his game, but he has an underrated amount of skill to at least provide capable puck movement – even if it isn't flashy or high level. He has five points in seven games so far this season, well ahead of the pace he had all of last season. He also gets no powerplay time, so that's all at even strength.

Mayes is getting a good amount of minutes at even strength and shorthanded, especially holding a lead. He is the Tanev-type in his role, but at a junior level. I can see a world where he becomes a Marshall Rifai kind of guy in the AHL, which still means a borderline NHLer at best. That's still a pretty great outcome for a 7th rounder, though.

Matt Lahey

Lahey and Mayes are funny in that they are supposed to be very similar kinds of players – big, defensive, not much offense to speak of, and both taken in the seventh round. From the scouting reports, I got the impression Lahey was a much better candidate to surprise. He was said to be a really good skater with some underrated offensive ability.

So far, however, I'd say that where Mayes has been a pleasant surprise, Lahey has looked like a big old nothing burger. His skating doesn't seem to help him much, he doesn't really seem like he uses his size effectively either, and I have yet to see any kind of offensive skill... underrated or otherwise.

Nick Moldenhauer

Moldenhauer was presented with a big opportunity after almost all of Michigan's top six turned pro after last season. He started the season on their top line in the first game, but was since bumped down to the second/third line. The good news is that the line he was "bumped" down to is on the wing of Michael Hage, a freshman who has been on fire to start this season and Moldenhauer's former teammate on the Chicago Steel.

Mind you, that's only a good thing in terms of giving him a better opportunity for points. But those points could only come from being around an actual offensive leader. So far, Moldenhauer has two points in four games, and doesn't really look any more impactful on the ice than he did last year.

Hudson Malinoski

Malinoski's season is starting with the same situation as last year. He's the second line centre for Providence, but does have some better wingers to work with. So far, he seems to be running a more defensive line to... mixed results. He's played in one exhibition/warmup game, and one actual game that counts. Between those two games he has a goal on the powerplay, six shots on net, 57% at faceoffs, and is a -4. Still too early to really say if he's showing improvements from last season.

Victor Johansson

The only prospect I've written a full prospect report on this season, Johansson has definitely shown some improvement compared to last year. At the time, he was atop the league's leaderboard in points, with 10 in 8 games. His pace has cooled a bit since then, with 3 points in the 6 games since. He's still well ahead of the pace he had last year, and is sitting at the team lead in plus-minus if that's your thing (+14) and penalty minutes (43) thanks to a 27 penalty minute game he had two weeks ago. He still leads the league in points for defensemen, but only narrowly now. So no major updates since the prospect report, with things still going pretty well for him.

Alexander Plesovskikh

I've been trying to write a full report on Plesovskikh for three weeks now, but I can't bring myself to finishing anything. He's just... weird. He has 10 points in 13 games so far, playing in the middle six, and has gone four games without a point. He's like a better version of Sam McCue, where he is very obviously not the guy driving his line but he looks to have much better skill across the board. The weird thing is the skills he's good at are very specific and almost isolated – deflections, setting picks without taking a penalty, doing the right/little things along the boards to make a play, and so on.

Plesovskikh is pretty good at the usual general skills, like passing and shooting and defensive work, but they don't come out as often as they'd need to. I'd say he has a problem chaining together plays, because he hasn't yet learned how to bring his various abilities together to work in unison. I'm interested in him, but still can't make full sense of him.

Timofei Obvintsev

Obvintsev is the reason why you never take the pre-season in any level or league seriously. In the pre-season he looked virtually unbeatable, but in the regular season so far he's looked more regular. He began the season as their 1A starter, but after a really good first game has been just okay. All told, he has a .913 save percentage and one shutout in six games. That's well behind the younger but more touted goalie prospect, Pyotr Andreyanov, who has a .950 sv% in seven games.

The same thing I wrote about Obvintsev earlier in the year is holding true – his hybrid style relies a lot on his athleticism to get to shots, which helps him make tougher stops but can also create problems that a simpler, positional butterfly goalie never has to face. In the pre-season, he looked very calm and that helped him a lot. So far in the regular season he's gotten a bit more frantic.

Maple Leafs Prospects