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2 days ago
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If and when this prospect dog will have his Day with the Edmonton Oilers
The Top 20 countdown of our 2025 Cult of Hockey Prospect Series continues. These are the twenty young men in the system today closest to making an impact with the big club. Players only fall off the list once they: -Make the NHL -Get dealt to a different organization -Age out, or… -Drop off the map. O.K.? Let us proceed… 2025 Edmonton Oilers Top Prospect Rankings #17 – Nathaniel Day, G (Voters: David Staples, Kurt Leavins, Jim Matheson, Ira Cooper). A few days ago, I wrote how the Oilers only have two goaltenders in their Top 20 prospects. That is when we were featuring young Eemil Vinni at #20. The other goalie in the Top 20 is the subject of this prospect preview, juts mere notches higher on the ladder than his tender brethren… …or at least that is how the Cult of Hockey panel sees them. A Grimsby, Ontario native, Nathaniel Day was drafted in 2023 by Edmonton, in Round 6, number 184 overall. Day is a fairly tall kid at 6'4, weighs in at 205, and catches and shoots left. He is 20 years old right now and will turn 21 in February. Puckpedia has him on a three-year contract with a cap hit of $856,667 through 2028. After a strong finish to 2023-24 for Flint of the OHL when he supplanted a more experienced starter, Day took another decent forward in 2024-25. In 59 games he was 26-25-5, with a 3.07 GAA and a .894 SV%. Those were improvements from 2024-24's 54 GP, 25-26-2, 3.73 GAA, 0.0868 SV%. Progress. He then had a productive cup of coffee with Fort Wayne of the ECHL at season's end. He was 2-0-0 in 3 games with a 0.43 GAA and a .981 SV%. For the Komets in the playoffs, he was 2-1-1, 2.17 GAA, 0.914 GAA. Small sample, but encouraging. Here is what the scouts say. Elite Prospects: – 'Day displays a lot of patience in a variety of different scoring opportunities. He is solid and composed on breakaways, rarely making the first move. When the puck is worked around the zone, he shows good attention to detail by making micro adjustments with his feet to stay on angle, even when the play around him speeds up.' From our old friend Bruce McCurdy's Cult of Hockey article back on draft day: – 'His wide stance could become more of an issue as he moves on in his career. It forces him to make a lot of lunging moves across the crease on plays that he could otherwise beat on his feet with a confident push. A narrower stance that gives him better access to his edges, combined with the patience that he already has could be a deadly combination. Questions about tracking have also emerged because too many clean shots beat him.' And finally, from Dobber Prospects: – 'An athletic goaltender who can make high-difficulty saves. Needs to get better with reads and consistency.' Other player pluses: -His height combined with his upright posture enables him to cover a lot of net. -Moves well post-to-post. Good news, for a bigger man. -He has quick pads. Fits his stand-up approach. Where does he need work? -As alluded to above, Day can go down early, and leave himself scrambling to get back on his feet where he is strongest. -Tracking the puck. Common for young goalies. His (small sample) good start in the ECHL is a good sign, though. -Perimeter & Angles. Related to the above, he can struggle with outside shots. General observations: -Day was a Ken Holland/Tyler Wright selection, so Stan Bowman and Rick Pracey may not have the same investment in him. That is just how it works in most organizations, and hardly exclusive to Edmonton. We shall see. Projection: -Nathaniel Day has a way to go and a lot to prove and improve upon before he would be considered a strong NHL prospect. In the short term, expect his time this upcoming season to be split between the ECHL and AHL. Most goalies develop slower than skaters and just need the reps at a lower pro level first. So, if he starts in Fort Wayne and even spends most of the season there, that is not necessarily a danger sign. -But if Day ends up in more games for the Condors than the Komets this season, that would be a significant plus. It would signal encouraging maturity and growth in the points outlined above. That would be considered the best case case scenario for Day, in the short-term. -As for his NHL future? At this time, it would seem several seasons away at the very best. Day may stack up no better than the organizational Number five. But as a 6th Round pick, he was always going to be a long shot. Next up…prospect #16 from my Cult of Hockey colleague David Staples. Now on Bluesky @ Also, find me on Threads @kleavins, Twitter @KurtLeavins, Instagram at LeavinsOnHockey, and Mastodon at KurtLeavins@ This article is not AI generated. Recently, at The Cult… STAPLES: Are the Oilers really in trade talks for Boston's 1st Round winger LEAVINS: Oilers cap challenges not Connor McDavid's problem Bruce McCurdy, 1955-2025. Don't miss the news you need to know — add and to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here
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24-05-2025
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Why The Kovalchuk Precedent Won't Help The Ottawa Senators Retrieve Their Forfeited First-Round Pick
In November 2023, the NHL came down hard on the Ottawa Senators, announcing they would have to forfeit a first-round draft pick due to the mishandling of their July 2021 trade of Evgenii Dadonov to the Vegas Golden Knights. As a result of the Senators' screw-up, the subsequent March 2022 Dadonov trade between the Knights and the Anaheim Ducks was invalidated, embarrassing everyone involved. Carter Yakemchuk Ranked 26th Overall In Magazine's New NHL Prospect Rankings Ottawa Senators Make More Front Office Changes Ottawa Senators Prospect Parts Ways With Organization And Signs Back Home In Sweden The league gave Ottawa the choice of forfeiting its first-round pick in either the 2024, 2025, or 2026 Draft. New owner Michael Andlauer questioned how this had become his problem, and why the league or the former Sens ownership hadn't disclosed the issue before he bought the franchise. The mistake occurred on Pierre Dorion's watch, and he was immediately removed as GM, a move that was probably coming down the pike anyway. At the time, the question was which pick the Senators would give up: 2024, 2025, or 2026? We now know the Senators will forfeit their 2026 first-round pick. The Sens kicked the decision down the road last year, selecting defenseman Carter Yakemchuk in round one. GM Steve Staios suggested they would probably defer the forfeiture again this year. "It's highly likely we'll keep our pick," Staios told reporters at the Senators' end-of-season availability on May 5. In reality, their official decision had to be made at least two days earlier. According to if the Senators were going to forfeit this year's pick, they had to decide within 24 hours of the conclusion of the May 2 NHL Draft Lottery. So on May 5, keeping the pick was more than just 'highly likely' at that point. The announcement, though oddly coy, was the right decision in every way. Will RFA Fabian Zetterlund Get Paid On His San Jose Numbers Or The Ones In Ottawa? Fabian Zetterlund has only been an Ottawa Senator for a couple of months, and he's already asking the club for a raise. That wouldn't fly in a normal workplace, but that's how it goes in the NHL when you bring in a pending restricted free agent at the trade deadline. The Senators are a team on the rise, so, in theory, their first-round pick will be less valuable next season. And forfeiting the pick this year would have sent a poor message to the team and its ticket-buying fan base, who head into the summer with great expectations for next season. There's also the strategy of dragging things out in hopes that time heals all wounds. In short (pun intended), the Sens are hoping Commissioner Gary Bettman has a change of heart. When people discuss this possibility, they frequently harken back to the precedent of the New Jersey Devils getting their forfeited first-round pick back 11 years ago. That happened, but here's why that was a very different situation, and probably not a good comparison for the Senators. The league punished the Devils in 2010 for cap circumvention after signing Ilya Kovalchuk to a wild 17-year contract that would have taken him into his mid-40s. They ruled that the Devils would have to give up a first-round pick in either 2011, 2012, 2013, or 2014, along with a third-rounder in 2011 and a US$3 million fine. The Devils did what the Senators are doing, delaying the forfeiture as long as possible. But two big things happened in the summer of 2013. First, Jersey traded their 2013 first-round pick to Vancouver for goalie Cory Schneider. At that point, the die was cast, and the Devils would be forced to give up their pick in 2014. But two weeks after the Schneider trade, Kovalchuk surprised the hockey world by retiring from the NHL with 12 years still left on his contract. The 2012–13 NHL season was a lockout year, and Kovalchuk, who had spent half the season playing in the KHL, apparently got homesick. Shortly after his announcement, he signed a lucrative four-year deal with SKA St. Petersburg, with an eye on playing in the 2018 Olympics. So the Devils had to carry on without Kovalchuk in 2013–14, and the league appeared to sympathize with that. In March 2014, the Devils applied to the NHL for reconsideration and relief from their earlier penalty. Towering Utah Defenceman Would Be Ideal Senators Trade Target Injuries to Artem Zub and Nick Jensen highlighted the Ottawa Senators' need for greater quality of depth on the right side throughout the 2024-25 season. The NHL agreed. "The Devils recently applied to the League for reconsideration and relief from a portion of the original penalty, citing primarily changes in circumstances which, in the club's view, changed the appropriateness of the sanctions initially imposed," the NHL said in a statement. "After due and thorough consideration, the League has decided that a modification of the original circumvention penalty associated with the Kovalchuk contract is warranted and, accordingly, has amended the sanctions." The Devils got their pick back. They were awarded the 30th overall pick in the 2014 NHL Draft, the final selection of the first round. Plus, their $3 million fine was also cut in half. The league still took its pound of flesh. The 30th pick could not be traded, and naturally, the Devils were ineligible for the draft lottery that year. The Devils missed the playoffs that season and likely would have selected around 11th overall. At that point, players like Dylan Larkin, Alex Tuch, and David Pastrnak were still on the board. Instead, with the 30th pick, the Devils selected John Quenneville. So that's the backstory on why the league reduced the punishment and gave the first-round pick back to the Devils. The star player in question had left the club with 12 years remaining on his contract, and, in a nutshell, the league took pity on them. So in the unlikely event the Senators do get their pick back, it won't have anything to do with the Kovalchuk precedent. That 2014 decision required a major shift in circumstances, and it's wildly different than anything that's happened (or could happen) in Ottawa. Steve Warne The Hockey News - Ottawa
