Braeden Cootes Has Earned An NHL Spot With The Vancouver Canucks

Braeden Cootes Has Earned An NHL Spot With The Vancouver Canucks

We have to be careful not to get too excited about preseason games, but it’s a bit hard to do when watching Braden Coots. Last year, we already thought he could be one of those players who impressed in their first training camp and earned some NHL games. He pretty much has everything needed to impress a coaching staff. The skating, physicality, playmaking, and the defensive details. Broken up. Here’s Braden Cooks trying to cut to the goal. Couldn’t get the shot away. Now it’s in front and Dun scores. But honestly, in some ways, he’s even better than we anticipated. In this video, we’ll break down one of Coot’s preseason games and really look at the details that make him such a great prospect. Already on the first shift, we see Coot’s defensive engagement. There’s a turnover, his defenseman gets beat, and he rushes in support. Maybe covering the pass option at the net would have been the even better point, but his defenseman gets there. Then he sees another open man, gets to him, and he continues to battle. He scans for passing options. sees that his team is outnumbering down low, so he goes to pressure the opponent on the wall and he sticks to him. He helps his team recover the puck by making the opponent force a point. When the puck moves high, he doesn’t rush too far ahead because his team still hasn’t fully secured possession. He keeps a defensive position. Most young players jump on offensive opportunities in preseason, hoping to impress, but teams look for those defensive details even more, especially from their centers. This shift displays another facet of Coot’s game and why we liked him so much in his draft year. He’s highly competitive. He’s battling a 6’4 defenseman at the net, taking multiple cross checks, but he doesn’t really care. The puck moves high. He anticipates the rim down low, so he prepares it by taking the inside positioning on the defender, and he maintains it despite a clear strength difference. After protecting the puck, he tries a one-handed pass to his teammate. The po misses, but he’s right back on the forche, chasing the puck. He sticks to the opponent, doesn’t give up, and then he doesn’t overback check, but takes care of his assignment, and then again conserves good spacing of the rush. He doesn’t skate too far ahead, as that would remove him as a passing option. He calculates his space with the defense and stays back trying to give the offense some shape and create another passing lane higher in the zone. Again, it’s all about details. Not only does Scoots have a motor, but he plans his movements very well. And because of this, it’s very easy to project him to a center role in the NHL. The shift has some teaching moments for Coots. He’s on the ice against McDavid and Dry Cidle. So, you know, some breakdowns are coming. He covers McDavid well in the first rush and cuts the pass, but then he makes a soft drop pass. He knew a teammate would be behind him and he wanted to launch a quick counterattack, but the pass is just too slow and the other team picks it up. Now, they attack with some space. Here’s Heck, and that was blocked. Forward was battling his man Frederick in front and I think it hit there as they jockey for position. Here’s Bonard at home again. Long shot Demco a blocker save. I don’t know Vancouver system very well. But since a defenseman is climbing with the puck carrier in a man-on-man fashion, it may be Coot’s job to stay low and balance the numbers there. There’s a twoon-one at the net, but thankfully the puck turns over on the re-entry. Coots is counting behind, but he’s giving too much space at the top of the zone to make David coming in. We shouldn’t expect Coots to handle two of the very best players in the world already. And it’s also normal for him to take a bit of time to adjust to a new system. Here, he makes another good play. He’s rushing the puck. The middle lane is taken, so he attacks wide. He finds the puck back and gets it to a teammate in the slot. The puck goes to the back wall. He goes in support, gets possession, and slips the puck under a stick to another teammate in the slot. His next pass from the back wall gets intercepted, but it was worth a shot considering like Hermaki was standing in space ready to shoot for Coots. Puts the puck in front. Intercepted by Letman. This is another very intense shift from Coots. He sprints to the wall and rams the hands of the opponent, forcing him to get rid of the puck. Then he reloads high, surveys the P, and puts himself in a shooting position. He sprints again on the forch check, steals the puck, and passes it to a teammate. There’s confusion in the formation a few seconds later. A defenseman pinches, but the F3 doesn’t replace him. So Coots has to skate all the way back to try and break up the P, and he continues to defend with his stick on the puck, denying passing lane and space from the puck carriers. Coots plays with such a high level of energy that it becomes a skill. He forces the opposition into mistakes, gets to the puck first, and wins battle after battle. And we also see some projectable offense from him. He has the same kind of details with the puck too. Here he makes a pass off the board directly to his teammate stick, avoiding a rim. Then he passes around the defender and sprints to the net. At first, he keeps a middling position. He’s in a spot to catch a board pass if it happens. But when he sees his defenseman step forward, he drives to the net and gets his stick on the puck, catching the defender off guard and making a surprise deflection. Season winning streak coming into this one. This is already the fifth preseason game for the Oilers. Well, he did that split squad against Calgary to start. Hootz also makes similar good plays in the shift. He helps his team get the puck back, passes it instantly off the wall to a teammate, joins the rush, and then four checks and drives the net in the offensive zone. Cuts isn’t always a flashy offensive player. His offense comes mostly from those net drives, quick transition passes, and plays to the slot from the walls of the offensive zone. But what’s really impressive so far is how he has managed to translate almost his full junior game to the NHL preseason without losing any skill. This is another great sequence. He one touches the puck, gets it back, drives the middle, connects with the same teammate, establishes body positioning on the wall, wins the puck, and passes it to the middle, creating two potential scoring chances for his team. And he continues to fight on the forche after. He’s capable of manipulating sticks and bypassing them to land passes, too. like here where he pulls the puck in his feet to instantly avoid a poke check. Watching him play the way he does, it’s really easy to envision him becoming a great compliment to two skilled wingers. He can retrieve pucks, take a lot of the defensive work, quickly connect passing plays, and keep the puck in control of his team. In the offensive zone, he can battle around the net, control the backboard, and find space in and around the slot by timing himself with the play to get the puck and some scoring chances of his own. walk behind the order goal and he comes up with it. Derek Forbert now Coops to Sherwood. They had a little chemistry here. Okconor after the puck down from the blue line comes forward. Canucks get it again. Okconor to the net. Just slid it wide on the forehand as he got it past the right pad of Skinner, but it just went outside the post. Here’s Coops in front. Tipped down. Okconor set up by Britain Coups. And the Conucks are within one with two quick goals here in the third period. And the Oilers back into a twogoal advantage here as Dry Settle scores his second of the game at 927. It’s more of the same here. He for checks hard, but I want to highlight the awareness under pressure again. He cuts the opponent at the hands, which means he has the inside positioning on the next boy, and he’s already spotting his next boy. Before he falls to a hit, he passes to his open teammate, creating a shot out of nothing. That was a big hit to take, but Coots did it without hesitation, and he’s right back to doing the same good things on the next shift. This was Riceidle and McDavid again that he stopped from rushing up the ice by winning a battle and then reloading high ahead of the PO, forcing a pass and helping push the PO to the outside. Coots doesn’t look like an 18-year-old in his first training camp. He looks a lot more like a high motor NHL just arriving in a new team. He hasn’t been perfect. He still has a lot to learn and would benefit from more development in Seattle. But so far, he’s handled every facet of the game pretty well. He battles, goes to the net, wins the puck back, makes plays from the wall, shows a lot of awareness under pressure, and he can connect some difficult passing plays. Again, preseason is preseason. There’s a limit to what we can evaluate in this setting. But considering that Vancouver has a need at center, Coots is surely making the coaching staff think. One thing is for sure, the early returns on their recent 15th overall pick look very promising. Got in the way as Leer Mackey tried to return the puck to the veteran defenseman. Now a scrum for along the boards and out with it is Sherwood dumps one to the end board. Coots is there, but he was checked and the puck is cleared off the If you want to read more prospects analysis, we broke down the preseason ploy of nine Vancouver prospects in the news section of Elite Prospects. There’s a link to the article in the description below. So, that’s it for this video. If you enjoyed it, please like and subscribe.

David St-Louis breaks down a game of Braeden Cootes and talks about his two-way details and why he may earn some NHL games with the Vancouver Canucks.

Which top prospects have stood out in the NHL preseason?

https://www.eliteprospects.com/news/nhl/which-top-prospects-have-stood-out-in-the-nhl-preseason

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