Hockey Foreseen: A Prospect Spotlight
Beau Akey
By Brian Fogarty
November 18, 2021
Beau Akey is a 6’0, 170-pound defenseman playing his rookie season in the OHL for the Barrie Colts. The sixteen-year-old right-shooting blueliner brings an intriguing mixture of excellent skating and hockey sense that belongs more to a 19-year-old than a player just getting started in major junior hockey.
Akey’s skating ability stands out immediately as soon as he hits the ice. He is a tremendous skater, both in up-ice speed and four-way agility. He looks equally adept and comfortable skating forward and backward and transitions between the two with almost invisible fluidity. As such, he can control space and gaps quickly, stepping into open areas to reach loose pucks or shut down attack lanes with surprising speed. With the puck in his own zone, Akey shows great hockey iq and the capacity to slow the game, make the correct reads under pressure, and execute clever little plays to either break the pressure with his feet or move to puck accurately to a teammate.
Akey can be physical when called for, but he is not the type of defender who looks for the big hit. Instead, he can seal off puck carriers, will pin forwards to the boards, and finishes checks with the clear intention of regaining puck possession rather than separating the player from the puck. His high level of mobility allows him to keep himself in position, almost always on the right side of the puck.
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Hockey Foreseen: A Prospect Spotlight
Mathieu Cataford
By Brian Fogarty
October 19, 2021
Mathieu Cataford enters his rookie season in the QMJHL with high expectations. Taken sixth overall by the Mooseheads in the 2021 QMJHL Entry Draft, the sixteen-year-old winger looks to bring the same kind of scoring power that he showed in AAA (he led his team in scoring for two seasons before last year’s pandemic cancelled year). The 5’11 (180cm), 183-pound (83-kg) winger hails from Saint-Constant, Quebec and is likely to become just the second NHL-drafted player from the small city on the southern bank of the St Lawrence--just across the river from Montreal—when he becomes eligible in 2023 (Michel Periard was drafted 188th overall by Ottawa in 1998).
Cataford plays with intensity at both ends of the ice, showing a high-level work rate on every shift and making the most of his ice time thus far in his rookie season for Halifax. Through his first six QMJHL games, he has two goals and two assists with nine shots on goal and is currently ninth in early-season rookie scoring.
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O'Reilly, Ryan (2000 Birth Year)
