Michael Farkas
Celebrate 68
Here's the thing, and I don't want give too much of my report out because I can't...but there's a difference between a "project pick" and what this player is in some capacity. And it's really fascinating to see how people size it up...
So, for me, one definition of a "project" is a player who maybe hit a growth spurt and now has to re-find and refine his coordination and dexterity and understand all that kind of stuff...and you see the flashes of skill and all that...but the kid is a bumbling mess sometimes too. Or a player that hasn't really been challenged by a super competitive level of play and there's some really raw factors in there or he plays a really unstructured style that...blah blah blah...
Now, Levshunov is a really unstructured player. So...sure, you can make a claim that he's a "project". But the key thing here is where he's at on his physical development arc (I don't believe in the "single development arc" theory, if you will...combining all that we can glean about a prospect and throwing it on to one timeline...I think that loses some nuance, some really crucial nuance at that). He's really far along in terms of his physical development. He's strong, he's coordinated, he's there from that perspective. I don't mean that he won't get stronger or faster...that's not the intent. Right? Like...the amount of wasted words in scouting reports "well, he'll need to get stronger if he wants to blah blah blah" - yeah, the 17 year old kid isn't able to go 12 rounds with Ryan Getzlaf right now? Ya don't say...
But here's the thing...and this is where things get off the rails. Hockey sense at this point, isn't likely to go too much further as a whole. That's not how it goes - when you track the decision making process across time and leagues and all that... Now, there's elements of it that sort of decide how much room you have left to reasonably grow in that area...and it's really slight stuff, but it all adds up. You have your anticipation, right? On a broader scope, that's what you want. That's not really a trait of this player. But you have other elements...whether that's spatial recognition, adaptive processing, etc. and you have to weigh those out to make an informed decision on where the hockey sense can reasonably go. Coaching can be useful for pattern recognition - and that's hope for this player. Is that someone can give him some cues as to what to do in certain situations and it sticks.
If not, you'll get this sort of rover type player where anything can happen...and quite frankly (and I never would have said this 10 years ago, when I thought there was one dev arc...because that's what some people said I guess), I'd give that player a year to master what he can of his technical ability at a lower level...hypothetically, of course, maybe that's MSU, maybe that's MSU to the AHL, maybe that's a European pro season...give him one and get him in the show...because if you feel like you can't salvage the mental aspect, then don't sit around wasting his athletic prime.
Because once you start fall of your athletic prime and you have limited mental ability and, therefore, adaptability...it falls off quick.
So it can be...it can be a situation where it's almost a "reverse project". Instead of going, "well, this player finally made it at 23, glad we waited" it could be..."man, that player was diesel from age 21 to 26, and he fell off hard"...
