Finally Added a Missing Feather to the Cap

The World Selects Invitational is one of the marquee events for players ages 15, 16, and 17 and it's one of the few and far between high-status tournaments that get listed on your player's Elite Prospects page which kind of immediately gives it more distinction than most other events.

It's a lot higher end than your typical spring or summer tournament and no matter where they hold it -- it brings in players from all over the world.

I know I heard plenty of French, German, Swedish, and it was either Latvian or Lithuanian (I can never confidently tell the difference) in the crowd. And also saw a handful of former NHL guys, keeping it low key, watching their sons too.

You don't see those things at the annual CCM Llama Shootout...except for Brett Burns and Zdeno Chara. I feel like I've encoutered them in hotel elevators more often than actual teammates over the years. It's weird.

I'm not going to say the teams were "elite", overall, but big names at that age level dot the rosters. It's one of those things where, sadly, it's not so much merit based but one of those "you know a guy" type of things.

If you ride in the right circles, you can find a team.

I've also found that at this age, players who have no business being there in the first place...but happen to have connections...finally stop embarassing themselves.

That's...refreshing.

So, like, the teams aren't "the best of the best" but I only counted maybe two players that looked really out of their league in the U17 division all weekend.

Unlike some of the other big and bloated tournaments in this class...this one doesn't have a "epicly obvious money grab" division or bracket. If you know, you know...

Solid talent all around and I only witnessed one total blowout game...

The parents I spoke to all agreed...it was nice to have a full roster where there wasn't a single "why is that guy on the team?" type of player.

So we latched on with a program named Between the Bucket run by JT Tarantino.

We'd crossed paths with him a few times over the years -- he was with the Mercer Chiefs program and spoke at a seminar we attended at a prior Chowder Cup tournament.

He's now with the New Jersey Titans (and their new "controversial" NA3HL team, the Garden State Gamblers) and the roster showcased that -- an abundance of NJ Titans and Mercer Chiefs (mostly headed to play for the Titans this coming season) were on the roster.

Good and bad to that.

Obvious if you've been involved in youth hockey for years and years...but I'll mention it anyway for hockey families that haven't experienced it yet.

The good aspect of that situation is that most of the players know each other -- it's a team.

They know the pecking order and the coach knows exactly what each player brings. That's always an advantage...especially in tournaments like these where the rosters are generally a mishmosh of really skilled players that have barely met before.

The bad is that...well, if you're not part of that clique, you don't have a lot of time to showcase what you can do and you often get painted into a role that might not be a great fit.

We fell into that second group -- third pairing on defense, short shifted, skipped over routinely, and scolded for "not keeping it simple".

Is what it is.

That said -- with limited ice time, he put up 7 points (only creditted for 5 -- outlet passes from the d-zone seldom get logged) in eight games.

The 5 point total put him seventh in scoring on the team and second for the defense.

Not bad -- solid numbers, for sure, at an event of this level -- and he outwardly accepted the role he was given but was ripping pissed at the limited opportunity one outside the rink due to the lack of confidence the bench had in him.

At one point, as a third pairing defenseman averaging less than 3 shifts per period, he was 5th in scoring and not getting any attention for it.

Dead last in ice time (out of 17 skaters) but fifth in scoring. That type of thing ruffles players' feathers at this level.

Really gets players with idealist traits worked up.

Meanwhile, the top blue liner was going every other shift, playing forward, and putting up points -- dude is a beast -- but also giving up goals with regularity.

At one point, our team had given up 9 goals and he'd been on the ice for seven of them. And it wasn't due to his inordinate ice time.

Great player, yes...and a huge liability. You need to balance that really carefully.

The other top pairing guy took a 5-minute major, away from the puck (ugh), which lead to elimination in semi-finals. Ugh.

I'm always taken aback by how many coaches this far up the ladder miss, or choose to overlook, things like that.

I mean, at a certain point, the bad outweighs the good.

But yeah, one was "his" guy...and the other had just recently signed to play for him next season.

Shiny new sports car. Showcase him.

I get it. 100%.

We've absolutely benefitted from the same treatment in the past -- experienced it from both ends.

Lot of other dynamics in play too -- coach is getting a chance to get his regular season team to gel early and you've always got that pressure to ensure the parents on your "regular season" team are as happy as they can be.

The rest of us are just fill-ins...and should expect to be treated as such.

I totally expected him to be an "extra".

No coach or program wants to deal with a parent upset that their kid was "placed" behind some spare kid that just rolled in.

Been there, done that.

You have to keep your existing "customers" happy. Makes running a team so much easier.

But here's the good spin on it for my son -- it was a perfect real-life example of how things work when you switch teams.

At the onset, you're on the bottom.

Show some flair right out of the gate, you can become the shiny new toy.

If you don't...you're stuck on the bottom and it's an uphill battle to move up the depth chart.

In some instances, your prior success and accolades don't precede you. This was one of those cases.

That's a huge learning moment.

I mean, I can tell him that sort of thing over and over but until he lives it...it's just more nonsense flowing out of dad's mouth.

This was a perfect setting for this lesson to sink in.

The tournament didn't last long enough for the bench bosses to realize what they had sitting idle at the end of the bench.

Not just for my son -- I saw a couple others not rocking Titans or Chiefs gear that were pretty clearly higher end players than some of the others getting a routine shift but that's hockey. I even see that happen in professional hockey.

Comically -- the kid from our league that knew Duncan since they played against one another probably fifteen times in league games over the past two seasons, couldn't understand why he wasn't getting any ice time during the final 8 minutes of one of the games.

He knew what the kid from New England brought to the table...

But, yeah, tournament teams or spring teams or even tryout scrimmages -- any time you're the player NOT with the same program as the guys around you...you're at a HUGE disadvantage.

Even moreso when the coaching staff comes from the program they all play for too.

Coaches and players prefer, err, trust players they already know. That's a smart move.

He either failed to showcase what he could contribute on his first few shifts or they just chose to ignore what they saw. Lesson to be learned, there.

As with so many things in hockey -- it's all about the connections.

So while he may have been under-utilized at this WSI tournament, we chose to play for this team because it creates connections OUTSIDE of our New England region.

This makes it the third off season in a row we've sought out teams or combines based out of the Atlantic region so from that perspective, it was a success.

No regrets.

So in the round robin portion, our team had three wins, one loss, and one shootout loss. Goals for was 19 and goals against was 17...so, all close games.

Exactly the types of outcomes every competitive hockey player should be seeking -- and it's sad...but that's really rare at tournaments over the past decade or so.

That 3-1-0-1 record ranked the team 6th out of 18 teams.

For once, it felt like we'd picked the "right" team. Teammates of Duncan landed on teams that finished 15th and 16th respectively.

I'm sure a lot of parents feel like they're always picking the "wrong" path for their childen when it comes to this sort of thing.

This was one of the few times where I was like, wow, this was a winner.

A program that reached out to us last year, and then ghosted us, landed in 17th. We'll never play for them. They went 0-5. One of the few punching bags at the tournament. Karma.

I shouldn't say that.

Good players on their roster, still, just not enough to compete at this level. Dodged a bullet on that one.

Now, as the single elimination playoff rounds began, I don't think that Between the Bucket was really seen as a threat and weren't regarded as really being worthy of their 6th place ranking.

I mean, I loved the uniforms...but I also think they were seen as just another one of those teams wearing pink that travels around with a full social media crew creating reels of one dirty hit after another. All hype, zero substance.

There's at least one at every single New England based tournament. Ugh.

The beauty of that, though, is that BTB didn't have a strong social media presence...and not a single Clanko wannabe filming every shift in tow.

It WAS about the hockey.

They even had a couple team video sessions between games. Not to watch stupid hits...but actually discuss game play and seal holes in the strategy.

Won our first round elimination game pretty handily. Dominated our second game, as an underdog, against the fourth ranked team...and that put us in the final four to face the number one seed.

On paper, no, we didn't belong there.

The social media stuff -- from the tournament itself -- swirling around the arenas didn't support our relevance -- I actually didn't see the Bucket team showcased anywhere...but our record said otherwise.

We didn't get lucky -- we played well.

I'm not gonna name drop names or mention some of the helmets and shells I saw on the top seeded team...but, yeah, they'd allowed 3 goals total through seven games.

They were the top team -- zero question.

On paper and in reality.

But we had them scared...putting up four goals on them...but they eliminated us with a 7-4 score.

That 5-minute major I mentioned earlier (we gave up two goals on that PK) and then an empty netter at the end...made it look like less of a game than it was.

They went on to win the championship the following day having given up 8 goals total over 9 games.

Our team scored four of them. Yeah -- it was a pretty solid performance.

On a personal level, while Duncan didn't get the ice time he thought he'd showcased or earned or whatever, getting to play 8 games in a tournament of this level looks good on paper all on it's own.

Putting up five points also looks good on paper. Had he not been overlooked on the additional two points (one was credited to a kid with zero points, so I'm good with that), that would have been even better...but it doesn't really matter.

It's a decent stat line, as-is, in a highly regarded tournament.

Eight games showcases he was on a top team.

Second highest scoring defenseman gives the impression he was on the top pairing.

And, frankly, that's all these tournaments are actually for -- another line on your EP profile.

Another feather in the cap.

Something notable on the hockey resume.

Yes, I played in the WSI.

Went pretty deep.

Scored a few points.

Checks a box that recruiters ever so briefly glance at.

I want to expand on the "reality" vs. "on paper" thing a bit more.

On paper, 5 points as a defenseman in 8 games at a tournament of this level is respectable.

It's not jump-off-the-page "sign this guy to tender right now" level but it's respectable.

The reality of it, though, is that he was on the third pairing and even when a defenseman above him got a game misconduct, he became the 5th defenseman. The spare. The extra.

I come from a professional hockey background -- spent 20 years within the New York Rangers organization -- and some of the decisions made at that level used to baffle me.

The number of players that I had pegged as sure-fire NHL talent that the folks far above me missed used to baffle me.

Of note, in my opinion, the Rangers completely whiffed on Marc Savard, Jamie Lundmark, and Jonathan Marchessault.

Savard and Marchessault enjoyed long, long, long successful NHL careers...AFTER they'd been passed up by the Rangers. Lundmark just kept getting stuck on the wrong teams under the wrong systems. That's a conversation for another day...

But... I get it now.

Back then, I was guilty of surveying talent from a fan's point of view. I've found that 95% of youth hockey coaches do the same.

Once you start dipping into junior levels, that changes.

I mean, I still see coaches that see a kid with a big frame that scores lots of goals get all starry eyed...but I've also, finally, started to encounter coaches that see it the way NHL level general managers do.

That NAHL Combine a few years back, where Duncan garnered all kinds of attention while "on paper" doing nothing on a terrible doormat of a team, re-enstilled my confidence in the direction that this all starts to lead as the players get older.

This isn't an analytics thing.

I mean, that's part of it...but there's a lot more to being a top flight player than just running people over and scoring lots of goals.

The minor leagues -- all the way down to the bottom -- are overflowing with guys like that...but there's a reason they're not in the NHL.

I've long said that the top scorer on any youth hockey team is seldom the BEST player on the team.

On paper, sure, they're the best and that alone draws a lot of attention.

But it's the evaluators that take in the reality of the situation that really secure the best players.

Sure...that guy scored four tap-in goals this period. That's awesome.

The better player, though, is clearly the player that set that play up.

Lots of folks "miss" that part.

Referees frequently miss who made the pass. It's not exciting. It's not highlight reel material.

I've mentioned in the past that a coach once called my son "invisible"...and it was a compliment.

Think about that.

I was talking to one of the skills guys my son frequently works with last night -- he'd asked how the WSI went and I told him pretty much what I mentioned above...on paper it turned out okay but the reality wasn't the role he'd hoped for.

He knows my son is a bit of a slow burn.

He's not going to blow some kid up with a high hit, go down the ice, toe-drag two defenders, and put one in bar down. That's not gonna happen.

That's precisely why the NeutralZone profile feather eludes us.

He's NOT going to wow someone in a single game.

Tryouts and off-season tournaments have never been a strength and he's fully aware that he's often regarded or side-eyed in one of those "how is this kid on that team?" glances by other players at these types of events.

And that's okay.

See, over the span of, say, two weeks...we've always had coaches come to realize, "Holy sh!t...this kid is good."

At every program he's ever played for, he's played up a birth year or two.

And it's certainly not his size. Or his shot. Or his Michigan.

It's the brain.

He sees the ice.

He sees the game.

I'm not saying for a moment he's NHL bound, no, not at all...but he does share one of the lesser common hockey traits with those guys.

In a game overflowing with high scoring puck chasers...the top end guys behind the benches start to see where the real value lies, who the real prospects are, who is still getting better, who has the highest ceiling, and who makes the players around them better...

Top players rise above the situations they're dropped in to.

That's how I'll look back on this WSI experience. He had a limited role, accepted it (reluctantly)...but still quietly put up nearly a point per game.

It's the slow burn -- if this were his "new" regular season team, at a certain point they'd notice...how does the blow hard at the end of the bench have so many points?

Why is he in every goal celebration hug?

He's in every post-goal bench fly by.

You ever notice how he doesn't get burned?

Maybe he should be out there for the PK...

That's where "on paper" and "reality" really start to deviate.

A couple of seasons ago we had two bonafide studs on our regular roster.

Both were easily point per game level players overflowing with skill and confidence.

It was really something to watch -- best season and roster we've ever been a part of. My son is still proud those guys acknowledge him to this day. Learned so much from both of them.

One kid was the shiny new toy, had a ton of hype lifting him upward, while the other, in many circles, was seen as a falling star.

On paper...they were damn near equal. Both...awesome.

My old self would have been all up-and-up on the hyped player....you know, following the hype.

My wiser and more experienced self saw the "falling star" as the superior player.

And it was blindingly obvious if you knew what you were watching.

See, to the untrained eye, they were both one-trick ponies. Scoring machines.

One had more size and aggression than the other...and that's what was supporting the additional hype.

Reality of the situation, though, was that our opponents KNEW these were the two studs.

They were clearly being coached that if you could stop them, you'd stop our entire team. They were the offense -- neutralize them and they've got nothing.

And this is where the two players' values diverged for me...

One, when put into a position that wasn't to his advantage would still find a way to produce. The other would just try to do it all himself.

Falling star, keen to the fact that the opposition was line-matching him, would hold the puck just a little bit longer to draw two defenders way too far in before moving the puck to our second wave of offense.

We'd win more often than not and, on paper, it'd look like he had an off game. Zero goals. Maybe one assist.

Fact is, though, he was the reason we'd won...even if the other kid had potted a couple or a second liner had a hat trick.

You don't need to score the most points to be the best player on the ice.

It's an awareness, poise, and demeanor thing. His "overall" game was, err, is superior to the other.

Just look around the NHL -- the top players usually aren't the biggest. Excluding McDavid, they're often not the fasted either. Everyone in the NHL has skills that are off the charts -- the differentiator is always how smart they are.

You know..."between the bucket".

That's why we narrowed in on the team we did for this.

They might not have noticed 82's overall play, in the moment, as it was happening, in his limited ice time...but I do believe that if it were a longer format type of thing, or if it was worth the time to go back and re-watch the video, they'd notice something...

That seldom used 82 seemed to be on the ice for an unusual abundance of offense and never had a defensive gaffe that lead to a goal against. Hm.

Five different hockey programs and ten seasons in, at this point, it doesn't really qualify as a coincidence any more.

It's just a slow burn.

All that said -- we'd definitely skate for Between the Bucket again in the future. It wasn't just the team success they had, going as deep as they did, no, it was the "extras" like the video sessions and the seriousness with which it appeared everyone on the roster approached the game.

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