Linden Vey / Medicine Hat Tigers WHL RW-R / 5-11.25, 176 / 17-Jul-91
Skating: 60 / Skill: 55 / Sense: 65 / Compete: 55 / Tough: 40
Strengths: Excellent hockey sense. Always around the puck. Decent skater.
Weaknesses: Soft and doesn't initiate any contact.
Very smart and creative with the puck. Most of his production comes from anticipation and doing the right thing with the puck rather than elite natural hand skill. Passing instincts are top notch. Makes those difficult short passes look easy. Good skater with some ability to carry the puck with speed. Good stop-start and lateral quickness. Just an overall good skater, but not elite.
Very good penalty killer. Uses his stick and smarts to take the puck away from opponents. Good work ethic, but not necessarily high energy - good anticipation allows him to be in the right place without having to skate hard to be there. Does take a hit to make a play, but generally avoids contact and the heavy traffic.
Summary: If this guy had any physical game at all, he'd be one of the best sleepers of the draft. Even so, he's very underrated. Where he's at on my list translates to mid- or late-2nd round, but I have to acknowledge I'd probably have a hard time selling an NHL GM on a somewhat soft, smallish player in that range.
Draft Day: Should be a top 100 pick, but I could see him being perceived as only a "good junior player" and sliding deep into the middle rounds.
5 comments:
King is way better than Vey, even the coaches in the WHL think so
Tristan King is very talented, but talk about avoiding physical contact! I don't know a single WHL coach that would take King over Vey. Vey was a point per gamer in his second season as a 17 year old...get off his back "Anonymous"!
Did you read the scouting report on Vey? "He could go into a corner with an egg and come out without it being broken" Just look at what even this scouting reprt says about him. I live in Medicine Hat and watched these two play all year and the one thing I can say is they did play well together. But King was way more physical and got into mre fights as I recall than Vey. Hey good luck to both of them in the draft.
I think this explains him pretty well. He is a little underrated, but damn he wont ever throw a hit.
His play along the boards has grown tremendously this year. There were some games where he was just dominant in the corners.
If he can keep that up game in and game out next year as an 18 year old, I think a 3rd rounder would be considered a steal of a pick
I think he'd be a steal in the 3rd round, but I think he'll fall to some lucky NHL team in the 5th round or so.
I think he'll incorporate some physicality into his game next year, as he will be that much bigger. Tyler Ennis found a way to assert himself physically and ended with extra space to operate, so I'm sure that didn't go unnoticed by Vey. GO TIGERS!
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