thomas bordeleau

Previously: Part 1

Yesterday we began our sprawling update on all former Michigan Hockey players currently playing pro hockey around the world. In Part 1 we covered the firmly established, everyday NHLers with name-brand value. Today is the more odd-ball sequel piece, where we check in on our recently departed alums, those who have retired since the 2022 update article, and all the minor league/international players, so buckle in: 

Young guys finding their way

This category is for the players who have left Michigan since the last article and haven't yet developed in the NHL to the point that they fit into one of the yesterday categories the way Beniers and Power already have: 

Gavin Brindley/Frank Nazar III/Dylan Duke: The recent signees only got into a couple games at the NHL/AHL level before the season concluded, given that Michigan's campaign went into mid-April yet again. Check back next year. 

Johnny Beecher, C, Boston Bruins: After spending a season in the AHL, Johnny Beecher finally got his crack at the NHL this season and carved out a role as a pretty generic 4th line center and penalty killer for a good Boston team. Then, in the first game of the playoffs, he scored the series opening goal against Toronto. Only seven goals and ten points in 52 games is indicative of a player who's probably never going to score much in the NHL but if Beecher can continue to hone his skills in the faceoff dot and on the penalty kill, he can perhaps grow into a Luke Glendening type career. 

Thomas Bordelau, C, San Jose Sharks: Bordeleau has played a couple seasons now in the AHL with good production and has been looking for his first full-time gig in the NHL. 27 games towards the end of this past season in San Jose was the closest he's gotten to that. Bordeleau chipped in 6 goals, most effective on the power play, during his short trial this season on a godawful Sharks team. I don't think Bordeleau has big time upside, but his faceoff abilities and skill should allow him to be a 3rd line center and hopefully he'll get a real shot to prove that next season, as he's still only 22. 

[James Coller]

Kent Johnson, F, Columbus Blue Jackets: The first of our three Columbus players in this category, KJ has had to endure the bizarre saga that is the Blue Jackets franchise, a team that fired its coach before the season started and then canned its GM midseason, while a series of embarrassing headlines continue to plague the franchise. Johnson was caught up in that, as there seems to be some conflict between the player and the team. When he's played in the NHL, his ice time has been very limited, and they sent him down to the AHL this season even though he scored 40 points in the NHL last season. Johnson put up 15 points in 10 games in the AHL, making it pretty clear that sending him down was worthless. 

I continue to be befuddled by what's going on here, as Johnson has been an okay player at the NHL level. One with flaws yes, but he needs ice time to iron out those flaws. Plus, it's not like the Jackets are a team that is so good they can't give out ice time to young players anyway. If the Blue Jackets aren't going to give it to him for whatever reason, they should do right by the player and trade him to a new team. Hopefully new management in Columbus will resolve this situation and get him back on a developmental track, because this season was a fork in the road for Johnson, with only 16 points in 42 games, receiving under 14 minutes per game on ice. 

Adam Fantilli, C, Columbus Blue Jackets: Fantilli has mostly been spared the buffoonery of Columbus, but his rookie year was unfortunately hampered by injury. He played only 49 games due to multiple ailments, scoring a decent 27 points on a pretty bad Jackets team. Fantilli played this season at 19, so there's really no cause for alarm there. Next season, if he stays healthy, should see Fantilli begin an ascension to being a top line centerman in the NHL and maybe with it, he can lead Columbus out of the cartoonish ineptitude that has submarined the team basically since inception. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: increasingly obscure players]

It's been a couple months since I last did a Hockey Weekly piece. The previous one checked in on the Mel saga, talked about the transfer portal, and then checked off a few odds and ends. Today's will be similar- we know how the Mel saga ended, so instead I will devote time to digging into new head coach Brandon Naurato before checking off some offseason topics including the non-conference schedule release, the NHL Draft, and the World Juniors. 

Hello: Brandon Naurato 

I wrote a little bit about Naurato on Sunday when he was announced as the interim head coach of Michigan Hockey and David and I discussed him on the HockeyCast yesterday. As a brief primer, I will quote what I wrote on Sunday here first: 

Naurato is a 37-year-old who has one year of experience as a coach at Michigan but glowing reviews. Michigan Hockey fans of the late 2000s may remember Naurato as a rather middling forward on the late 2000s juggernaut teams (including the 2008 Frozen Four squad), where he played 130 career games for the Wolverines, scoring 32 goals and 32 assists in his career. After that, Naurato bounced around the lower minor leagues before retiring from his playing career at age 27 in 2012. 

After retiring, Naurato became a skills specialist and hockey consultant in the Metro Detroit area (Naurato is a Livonia native), specializing in prospect development. He founded his own business, Naurato Consulting, and in the 2010s he worked with nearly every notable Michigan player who went to the NHL during the summers, from Connor to Copp to Hughes to Larkin to Werenski. His excellence as a development coach led the Red Wings to hire Nuarato in a player development capacity in both Detroit and Grand Rapids, with the AHL affiliate. Last fall, Michigan hired Naurato to join the staff as an assistant. 

That's the sort of information you can glean from the Michigan Hockey bio of Naurato, but let's try and dig a little deeper. As I said on the podcast, Mel's decision to hire Naurato seemed to come from asking his players "what did you do in the summer?" and they all replied "working with Brandon Naurato", after which he made the logical next step to bring the guy on board. He explained as much in this short video from around the time Naurato was hired: 

Brandon Naurato returns to Ann Arbor - a home run hire for Michigan Hockey#GoBlue〽️ pic.twitter.com/IavE6gGbTB

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) September 3, 2021

Little did he know, he was actually hiring his replacement. Connor Earegood of the Michigan Daily has a collection of good quotes from players last season citing Naurato as the reason they improved in different facets of the game and he wrote in his introductory column on Naurato that the youthful assistant's primary responsibility had been the power play. While there wasn't the sort of gigantic PP improvement like we saw with the PK when Kris Mayotte was on staff, Michigan did improve last year on the PP, from 23.7% (7th) to 26.8% (3rd). Coaching a PP with the talent Michigan had on it last season is kind of like teaching Clayton Kershaw how to pitch, but at least it's a point in Naurato's favor as a piece of evidence that he can coach team hockey.

[AFTER THE JUMP: digging into the paper trail] 

Typically we do a formal exit post when someone big from basketball or football leaves the team, and sometimes that is the case for hockey. We did not do one last week even though there was a spate of exits precisely for that reason: so many big name players were exiting for NHL/AHL deals that doing one post for each would have left you all drowning in exit posts. Instead, it felt better to do one big piece that gives a short farewell to each player that is heading to pro hockey, with a bonus take on how they will do at the next level. So here goes the Hockey Exit Bonanza. 

[James Coller]

Exit: Owen Power 

First up is Michigan's towering defenseman, the #1 pick in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft. Power was signed by the Buffalo Sabres shortly after Michigan's season concluded and he made his NHL debut last weekend in Toronto against the Leafs. Power played two seasons at Michigan, scoring 32 points in 33 games this past season to earn All-America honors. Power's 6'6" height was his defining characteristic, but his ability to skate well and comfortability cycle down into the corners of the offensive zone made him a rare find. Given the typical dimensions of hockey players, it is quite possible Michigan will not have another player with Power's exact traits for several decades. Power played top minutes this season, often paired with either Nick Blankenburg or Keaton Pehrson, and also played heavily on the power play. 

His NHL potential: Power is someone I've generally been a bit lower on than some of the scouts, because I didn't feel like he was Michigan's best defenseman (I would say Luke Hughes for that) this season. I also was frustrated by Power's unwillingness to use his size while defending, but I will admit that the NCAA is a much softer game than the NHL. That said, the toolkit is absolutely there, and the Sabres will have plenty of opportunity to mold Power how they want him. Power was 17 when he enrolled at Michigan, meaning he's only 19 now, and defensemen take longer to develop in the league than forwards. Guys who are 6'6" and can skate don't come around every day. If he learns to be a bit more aggressive in his own end and plays the point well offensively, it's not inconceivable he could be Dougie Hamilton in three or four years. Even if he doesn't, Power will have a lengthy NHL career because Big Body Canadian Boys who play defense always do. 

[James Coller]

Exit: Kent Johnson 

The other name who signed quickly after Michigan's season ended was Kent Johnson, inking an entry level contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets, who drafted him 5th overall last summer. Johnson played two seasons at Michigan, like Power, and was one of Michigan's highest scorers both seasons. Johnson never scored in double figures for goals, but racked up assists to boost his lofty point totals, scoring 37 this season in only 32 games. Like Power, Johnson played with Team Canada at the WJC and at the Olympics, meaning that he missed about a quarter of the season. Johnson spent most of his Michigan career on a line with Matty Beniers, playing the wing almost wire-to-wire, with one series against Minnesota in December 2020 being the exception. 

His NHL potential: Johnson is the player of this group that I'm most fascinated by when it comes to his NHL future. Johnson is a player with a clear set of skills, and also a clear set of weaknesses. Johnson has very good hands and the ability to make dangles/dekes that few other players can, even at the NHL level. His shot is also not bad at all. On the other hand, the aforementioned skill does not achieve as much as it should. He makes a lot of neat plays but they don't often lead to much of anything, and he had a tendency to rack up secondary assists that pad his point totals, which empirically are mostly random and not indicative of a player's success, generally speaking. Moreover, Johnson remains extremely skinny and does not engage physically in the corners. Finally, Johnson plays at a very slow pace, always preferring to slow the game down when the puck is on his stick rather than keep moving.

The concern with this approach to the game is pretty obvious when we're talking about the NHL: it is the fastest and biggest league in the world. Players in the NHL are far bigger, stronger, and more physical than the NCAA and if Johnson didn't want to play the physical side in college, what does that mean for the NHL? Additionally, NHLers take away time and space, and the hallmark of a great NHLer is one who can think and execute high-level plays on the fly. Johnson didn't show that much at Michigan. He's not going to get the same amount of time to stop and contemplate the play in the NHL.

Players who play a more meandering pace in the NHL tend to be big, burly players who give themselves that extra time because they can shield the puck from opponents with their body. These are folks like Ryan Getzlaf or Evgeni Malkin. Johnson is not that size and will never be. He's going to need to either figure out how to speed himself up, or completely change his approach. Drafting him in the top five was a major swing by Columbus and KJ will get his chance to make it work, but I have my concerns. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More guys]