Over the summer we in the front office took a look at our first year in the CCHL and the one area we are committed to improving is our farm system. Once we relocated from Ottawa, we made a flurry of moves that lowered our payroll and improved our prospect pool. But then things went a little crazy and we started winning and all of our plans went out the window. We started to believe that we had a chance at a championship and before we knew it we were back to a high payroll with a weak farm system.
Since the Falcons brought us back down to earth we have made some moves in order to balance ourselves back out. We were able to acquire a top ten pick in the past draft and landed another player with a high upside that can hopefully help us out in the near future. So let's take a look at the top 10 Loon's prospects.
#10
Zach Senyshyn RW
Around the league there is still a lot of doubters about Zach, but not here in our offices. We have see Zach make steady improvements to his game over the past two seasons and really believe that he will be a solid contributor to the Loons. When we drafted Zach we were thrilled by his skating and his offensive game. Over the past few seasons, he has been put in the bottom 6 with the Chicks in order for him to work more on his defense and his physical play. We hope that this will allow Zach to be a more complete player when he competes for a spot on next year's team. We expect to see Zach on our 3rd line.
#9
Egor Afanasyev RW
Egor was drafted in the 3rd round of the '19 CCHL draft. As a rule we tend to try and avoid Russian players due to many players deciding to return to the KHL. However, Egor established himself by thriving in the USHL and had too much talent to pass on in the 3rd round. Egor possesses an incredible shot and great hands. His skating was a question mark at one time but he has made steady improvement according to our scouts and put on some highlight-esque moves during rookie camp. We hope to see Egor in Capeside for the 2022-23 season. He projects to be a power forward on our second line while seeing time on the power play unit. 25-30 goals is what we hope for out of him when he gets here.
#8
John Beecher C
John was a player that was heavily over shadowed on the US national team by Hughes and Turcotte. But our scouting staff loves him and snagged him in the 2nd round of the '19 draft. John is a fantastic 2 way center with great wheels. John is heading to play for the Wolverines in the NCAA where we want him to step out of the shadow of Jack Hughes and play on a top line. We project John to be our future 3rd line center and penalty killing specialist. Unfortunately, John will be behind Captain Dubois and our # 3 prospect - but nothing is set in stone and a lot can change during the next few years. We hope to see John in Capeside by the 2023-24 season.
#7
Bode Wilde D
All Bode has done since being drafted is prove his haters wrong. He destroyed the OHL last year by averaging more then a point per game as a defenseman, and just a couple days ago he was promoted to the AHL. Bode's offensive skills were never in doubt but now we will see if he has improved the play in his own zone. The increase in competition should definitely shine some light on that. We expect Bode to be a full time contributor by the 2021-22 season.
#6
Rasmus Kupari C
Rasmus makes the jump from Finland to the AHL this year, and in a limited sample size has a goal and an assist in 4 games. Rasmus has shown the ability to be a excellent play maker with great hockey instincts. Last year we saw Rasmus really shine for team Finland. With the promotion of Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Rasmus was asked to taken on a much larger role as the first line center and thrived. Rasmus showed that he is already focused on being a solid three zone center. If all goes well for Rasmus in the AHL we expect for him to see some time in Capeside next year. Our hopes for him are to be battle with Beecher for the 3rd line center spot.
Up next our top 5....
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