NHL Prospect Scouting: Maxime Fortier
Sam Morales
Admin, Dallas Stars Fan Club and Hockey Talk (Facebook)
Contributing Sports Writer to GravityBeard
READING TIME: 3 MINUTES
(click to the title and scroll to comment)
ITS HERE! ITS HERE! The first installment of prospect scouting! Today's player is Maxime Fortier of the Halifax Mooseheads.
To be clear, I tend to scout just players playing in the Canadian hockey leagues (OHL, QMJHL, and WHL) just because I am more familiar with the competition level for each league is vs the NCAA and foreign leagues. Additionally, gameplay footage is more readily available. Occasionally I'll focus on a foreign player if there's enough data available on him, but NCAA I tend to not study. They can be great players, but if you want info on them, you'll have to look elsewhere smile emoticon.
Finally, I am currently using eliteprospects.com ratings, and focusing on players on the outside of the top 30. Once central scouting releases their rankings, I’ll use those. I won't be focusing on top prospects, as hopefully we are going to be picking anywhere from 26-30 wink emoticon
So onto Maxime: For starters, he's a RW. If you have seen some of my other posts, I feel like RW is the weakest link in our prospect pool right now. We don't have a true impact player outside Ritchie right now. He's 5'10" and 176lbs, which is going to be about average build. He's 18 and plays for the Halifax Mooseheads which are NOT a good team, so take everything with the knowledge he is not having his stats inflated by having multiple studs on the team.
He's had balanced production with 19 goals and 21 assists for 40 points, and a -10 rating in 35 games played. All around he's a fairly balanced player. He's got average speed and an average shot. The one thing I noticed was that he seems to have a really good hockey IQ. He's in all the right places, following up on rebounds, and got quite a few chances on breakaways. I like guys who score goals more than guys whose scoring is heavily based on assists, and while his shot doesn't impress me that much he can pass the puck just fine. While he does have a -10, as I said, the Mooseheads are a bad team this year. He's not going to be a defensive dynamo, but he's capable in that area. In short:
Skating: 3.5/5
Shot: 3.5/5
Passing: 4/5
IQ: 4.5/5
Defense: 3/5
Puck Control: 3.5/5
Size: 3.5/5
If I was to compare him to a prospect from last year, I'd say he's a slightly worse Timo Meier, who was taken 9th overall and is his teammate. If I'm comparing him to a current player, he's got aspects of Janmark, Sceviour and Fiddler. He won't wow you with any specific feature, but he's a smart. You can teach skating (see Jamie Benn who was a terrible skater and we were able to get him in the 5th). You can teach shooting (See Daley early vs last years with us). You can't teach intelligence, and just being at the right place at the right time, and that’s what he's good at. A goal is a goal, no matter how you score it. Janmark has gotten quite a few rebound goals, or goals in the crease. Garbage goals if you will. They still count the same as a Tyler Seguin snipe. If we have some of the last picks in the first round, and he continues to play well (I mean for Christ's sake he's above a PPG and isn't a fantastic shot) I'd love to have him in Victory Green. No, he's not a future super star, but when you’re at the end of each round, he's exactly the type of overachieving player you want.
If you have any particular player you'd like me to take a look at, you can post those into the comments and I'll see what I can do!