Jesper Sellgren
On Tuesday, the Carolina Hurricanes announced that Swedish defenseman Jesper Sellgren had been signed to a three-year entry-level contract.
Sellgren was the team’s 6th round pick in the 2018 NHL Draft and has most recently impressed in the AHL playoffs playing on a tryout contract after the completion of his 2018-19 season in Sweden. What stood out to me watching him at the prospect camp last summer was that his skating is a strength and projects to the NHL level. He also gets high marks for his hockey IQ and two-way capabilities. Two things maybe offset some of the enthusiasm. First, he is a bit undersized at 5-10 and 170 pounds which is not ideal but is not a show stopper in today’s NHL. Second he will turn 21 in June, so he is not a typical 2018 draftee who is 18 or 19 years old with a full development schedule in front of him. He is two years older than most of his class and as such should be a bit more mature as a player and maybe with a bit less room to grow as a player.
Sellgren is now set to continue his development at the AHL level for the remainder of the 2019 playoffs and for the 2019-20 season.
More kudos to the European scouting team
The Hurricanes continue to win by finding under the radar European talent in the middle to later rounds. Sellgren has a way to go and there are no guarantees, but to spend a 6th-round draft pick on a player who is ready to jump the AHL level the next year is an early win the adds depth to the prospect pool.
Robert Kron and the European scouting team continue to do incredibly well. Martin Necas almost immediately rated higher than his #15 overall selection in 2017. Janne Kuokkanen similarly seemed to quickly outplay his second-round selection in the 2016 NHL Draft. Free agent signee Saku Maenalanen provided valuable depth in the 2019 NHL Playoffs. And the biggest prize of them all was stealing Sebastian Aho with a second-round pick in the 2015 NHL Draft. In addition, the Hurricanes still have other prospects developing who could add to the success. In total, the Hurricanes are currently doing an incredible job scouting European players and finding good value in the draft.
Speculation on the Hurricanes draft strategy
To be clear, this is not reported by the team (they would never admit to it being such a direct strategy), but here is what I think is happening courtesy of Eric Tulsky. In the OHL there are somewhere between 6 and 7 billion (only a slight exaggeration) scouts, analysts and experts tracking a few hundred players. The numbers are less but still significant for other North American leagues including the WHL and QMJHL. One has to figure that there is a significant bias in the rankings and draft position for players who are seen by a higher number of scouts. In simple terms that would simply be because there will always be a bell curve-ish distribution for how a player is rated. The more NHL scouts see a player, the more likely at least a handful will rate him highly at least relatively speaking. All it really takes is a handful of teams to rate a player at a certain level to almost guarantee that one of them drafts him at that level. So in general, players who are scouted more should have a bias toward being drafted sooner.
Europe is the opposite. There are numerous leagues each of which have fewer players to scout. The result is sort of a reverse bias for some of these players who just are not scouted as heavily and therefore have fewer chances to impress someone enough to boost their draft ranking maybe higher than it should be on average. So on average, I think there could be a bias toward drafting European players either where they should be or possibly even a bit lower. And maybe more significantly, because there are so many fewer European scouts watching players across numerous leagues in multiple different countries, I think the opportunity to find players like Aho who are underrated is much greater.
After using 8 out of 20 draft picks (40.0%) on OHL players in the three years prior to Tulsky coming aboard, the Hurricanes have used only 4 out of 32 draft picks (12.5%) on OHL players. Even that is maybe a bit misleading because only Andrei Svechnikov who is a unique case was drafted out of the OHL in the past two years.
That is sort of the high level math. What would be even more interesting (and is possible) is if Tulsky and his team went a step further and actually put some more direct metrics to success ratings for players drafted out of European leagues versus North American players.
The Hurricanes’ defense prospect pool
Jesper Sellgren is a needed addition to the Hurricanes blue line prospect pool which is the team’s lightest group. Adam Fox would have been a great high-end addition had he signed, but at least the team was able to convert his rights into two more higher-end draft picks. But his departure does deplete an already small group of true defense prospects.
Jake Bean, who I wrote out as potential power play help in yesterday’s Daily Cup of Joe, has had a strong 2018-19 campaign in his first season at the AHL level and figures to see at least some NHL ice time in 2019-20. Haydn Fleury has become some weird combination of a waning prospect versus low-ceiling depth player who is at least capable depth at the NHL level. Roland McKeown is the other player who maybe has a fairly low ceiling but could provide help at the NHL level. The wild card with McKeown is that whenever given the chance to seize NHL consideration he has without fail excelled. He basically won the NHL slot in 2017-18 before the team thought better of it and went the waiver wire route so McKeown could develop at the AHL level. I do not see McKeown as a top 4 defenseman, but he has steadily played his way up to whatever the next level was such that he could project as depth help. Luke Martin is the other defenseman who is still on the radar as he develops at the University of Michigan.
And as far as defensemen who project to provide NHL help, that really might be it. Trevor Carrick is a good AHL defenseman but has never really garnered NHL attention from the organization. Josh Wesley has been unable to play his way up into a regular AHL role in three years and might (team has room) or might not (just has not really moved up the depth chart) be re-signed when his contract expires this summer. Recent draftees Brendan De Jong and Ville Rasanen have not earned NHL contracts and could both go the way of Noah Carroll who was not signed to an NHL contract before his draft rights expired. Daniel Renouf is the only other defenseman under contract, and he is more of a veteran AHLer than an NHL prospect at age 24.
So if one bumps Fleury out of the prospect group, I think it is reasonable to say that Sellgren immediately hops into the mix to be the team’s second best defense prospect behind Bean and in the group with McKeown and Martin.
Implications on building the NHL roster and the upcoming draft
The lack of potential top half of the roster players in the blue line prospect pool past Bean has implications for building the near-term NHL roster. On the one hand, the Hurricanes are incredibly deep at the NHL level already with six potential top 4 defensemen counting Trevor van Riemsdyk. On the other hand, there is not much available to back fill higher roster slots, so the team might need to keep its blue line depth. The long-term injuries to de Haan and van Riemsdyk coupled with the lack of NHL-ready depth with experience could also make a case for adding a depth defenseman with NHL experience this summer. “Best available” pretty much always makes the most sense when drafting players in middle rounds who will not likely have an impact at the NHL level for three of four years, but I do think the Hurricanes will enter the 2019 NHL draft with a bit of a bias toward restocking the defense prospect pool.
What say you Canes fans?
1) Who has an early opinion on Jesper Sellgren and where he will rank on the team’s blue line prospect pool by midway through the 2019-20 season?
2) Which, if any, of the Hurricanes defense prospects past Jake Bean do you see as having the potential to become more than #6/#7 depth at the NHL level?
3) To what degree do you think the current status of the blue line prospect pool will affect NHL trade/roster decisions this off-season?
Go Canes!
1) From what I have seen, Sellgren is good skater who plays bigger than his size. He is by no means a physical defenseman, but he doesn’t get easily overpowered behind the net. I think he gets lots of minutes in Charlotte next season. If he continues to develop, then he will be battling for NHL time if both Faulk and TVR move on.
2) Beyond Sellgren the only likely candidate is Luke Martin. Though honestly he didn’t seem to develop much his junior year in the NCAA.
3) With 10 picks (without any trades) in the draft, it makes sense to add at least 4 d-men. As you mentioned Tulsky, there has been some interesting discussion on HFBoards of a model that helps identify d-men outside the first two rounds. My guess is the Canes are using something similar.
We do have a very good crew of NHL quality defensemen. We have a good mix of defense-minded as well as offense-minded people among the six. All six are good sized men who can skate. Upper body strength is slightly better than average. Not one plays a physical game. Not one.
Not one.
We are in desperate need of one or more such players (physical game). Our so-called depth resides with 2 undersized and untested young men (Bean and Sellgren). Color Haydn Fleury gone.
What we need to acquire is one or more large (6’4″ plus and 220 pounds plus) NHL experienced good skating d-mided men who are always in a bad mood. There are many available as tradable or UFAs. We need at least one.
It also wouldn’t hurt to spend a draft pick or two on such a prospect. Our defense does need some real depth. And with the recent surgeries of both TVR as well as deHaan, we need that depth now.
It will no doubt shock the fancy stats fanalysts, but the defensemen I described will not be easy to pry loose from the team that now has them.
But I am certain that one or two can be obtained. And judging from the fact that there are those GMs who are still interested in Matt Duchene, there is a chump or two among them. So we might be able to steal one. Don fleeced the Wild by getting Niedereiter for Rask.
Please Tom and Don, keep Ferland and find me a Jamie Oleksiak or a Darnell Nurse or an Eric Gudbranson or a Dion Phaneuf. Please? Please? Please?
The Canes have done remarkably well drafting D men from the lower rounds (just look at our current D), so using at least half our picks on D this year sounds like a good strategy.
I’m not sure about the higher round draft prowess (not saying it’s bad, but I do not agree it’s all that remarkable).
Necas is not outplaying his draft pedigree, though the potential that he could do so as early as the upcoming season is there and I look forward to seeing him develop. Janne Kuokkanen, to me, is a bit of a disappointment, or about what you’d expect in the second round. He did not excel with the Canes, seems to be falling of the radar in Clt as well (maybe he’s injured, I don’t know) but Aho sure was a once-in-a-decade find.
I suspect our old Caniac, Pitkanen, deserves a lot of credit for identifying Finish quality hockey dudes.
But, again, drafting Slaven and Pesce in the mid rounds was a scouting achievement of some note.
No overspending for an Eric Karlson or Subban etc. we got a pretty quality D drafted and developed from within in team friendly contracts. The D can always be improved, but the core is pretty remarkable, I’m sure Slaven in particular could have fetched 7 or 8 mill if he entered free agency this summer.
Kuokkanen was injured in early March and had season-ending surgery in the middle of that month. I am expecting it was knee, but I don’t know.
Aah, I wasnt aware of that.
I admit I only read the Checkers game recaps and Shaya’s 10 thoughts (he often has bonus thoughts).
Kuek definitely has another couple of years to prove his NHL worthiness, but I think next year is the year he needs to impress.
He played on Staal’s wing during preseason and Staal had nothing but great things to say about him. But does he play RBA’s style? He may be another one who’s style doesn’t match up regardless of his skill set.
Who has seen enough of Bean to be able to evaluate his future, upside?
My draft research indicates significant depth on defense!
With 28,36,and 37th picks I suspect that there is one (if not two dman) likely picked. Some possible Dmen available in the top 60,are Honka-RD Thomson-RD Tuomisto-RD Knyazev-LD Johnson-LD Chistyakov-LD
M. Robertson-LD Heinola-LD Kokkonen-LD KORCZAK-RD Vlasic-LD
Warren-LD
I’m going to mesh all three questions and say Sellgren is in same boat that Slavin once was, a latter half pick which could lead to a nice surprise. I’m okay with that and think it’s smart to lock this guy down for what he’s shown so far.
As for how depth shakes the team’s decisions, as opposed to decades past, its a young man’s NHL. This doesn’t mean you rush the grooming process, but I strongly believe a 1st round draft pick should be “NHL ready” after 1yr of AHL service for a defenseman, or 2yrs of AHL service as a forward. Ideally this means Bean, Necas and Gauthier should all be ready for an NHL spot next year. If not, certainly not the end of the world, but chances are good their respective draft class passes them by and maybe were picked too high (e.g. Fleury). Same for 2nd round picks, only they maybe get an extra AHL year respectively (we’ve seen what we need from Ned, Kuokkanen and Saarela on this outstanding Charlotte team).
Boston gets it, they have 1st/2nd even 3rd round picks holding key NHL spots within a year or less of professional development…we need to get there. If it’s a young man’s NHL, and our young guys are on their 3rd/4th professional year in the AHL, then we probably don’t have the right players to fill NHL gaps. This is why I think the team will fish or cut bait with some, and be more active in the trade market than many think.
1. When Sellgren came to play in CLT a few weeks ago I remember Shaya saying he was still under contract with his Swedish team and if he didn’t make the Canes coming out of preseason he would need to return to Sweden and not be able to play in the AHL next season. Does his new ELC override that?, or are paying something to the Swedish team in compensation. I remember the same question circling over Aho before his rookie season.
Sellgren reminds me a lot of Bean.
2. The only true NHL prospect behind Bean in CLT is McKeown. Others are on the wrong side of the cusp (Carrick) or are veteran/career AHLers. McKeown has nothing left to prove in the AHL and in other organizations he would most likely be on MHL ice already. Like Fleury he should be in the NHL and, like Fleury, he actually wants ice time and has the talent to be better than 6/7.
3. I really think they are going to try to stay status quo with the NHL blueline and won’t necessarily offer a path up for the AHLers. I would not be surprised to see us pick up another NHL d-man in UFA or trade to shore up the blue line in CdH’s and TvR’s early absence.
Good note on Sellgren’s contract status. These situations are often fluid. Sometimes NHL teams can negotiate to get a player ‘released’ to play in North America. In some ways, playing another year in Europe would not be the worst thing because I believe that would roll his entry-level contract forward another year. Regardless, Sellgren seems to have quickly played his way up to the next level of development which is encouraging.
It definitely would extend the ELC. Either way, Sellgren gets to enjoy his signing bonus (> $250,000).
I will add another comment on Sellgren. I think of Vellucci’s ability to assess players. And in only a few games Vellucci has given Sellgren a lot of TOI – the coach likes what he see in his player.
In addition to Sellgren, Bean, and Fleury, I also see McKeown as a solid NHL prospect.
I was very disappointed when the canes went waiver wire and sent McKeown back to Charlotte in BPs last year of mediocrity.
Sitting next to GMRF, who wanted to build from within, BP famously said “We need experienced NHLers. The answers are not in Charlotte.”
After that uncomfortable display, one, the other, or both had to go. Turned out to be both. It may have only been one if GMRF had acted right away. But, that is history and I am quite content with where we are know and hope RBA continues bringing in young guys and coaching them to the next level of performance.