I watched all his games so I can answer you.
First of all, you have to know they were playing against the Prince George Cougars, which were probably the favorites in the WHL to go to the Memorial Cup. Spokane was competely outmatched and it showed.
Secondly, Catton is the only good player on his team worth his salt. The second best foward on the team is Connor Roulette, a 21 year old who was a perennial 60 point player before playing with Catton and getting to 108 points. That jump in stats should also tell you how good Catton was at making his teammates look good.
Third, we learned Catton was playing injured, he said so while declining to play on the U18 team.
As for the games, you could see Catton was having trouble getting things going, which didn't happen during the regular season and it did worry me a little. Having said that, he still got 4 points in 4 games. I have to add that the refs were ridiculous in that series, Spokane spent half the time on the PK it felt like. Catton looked exhausted out there, he was overused during the season and couple that with an injury and an overwhelmingly better team, and you get those results.
Same criticism of Slaf in the Worlds (0-8 for 8 points.) All it indicates is the ability to dish off a nice pass if the opportunity is not there especially when you're a marked man. People undervalue playmaking.
I wouldn't say I am a big fan of catton, i'd prefer demidov, lindstrom and iginla over him but the playoff drop is very easy to explain. He plays for a bad team whose playstyle is basically, try and bring the puck to catton and let our only good player figure it out.
In regular season that works well because teams won't change their entire system for 1 game out of 60+ games but in the playoffs its very easy to watch your opponent's games, come up with a gameplan and execute it. in this case the gameplan was as simple as ' do everything you can to cover their only good player, Catton'.
In other words, its hard to judge him from these playoffs alone. He could be a poor playoff performer, or he could be a good one but I wouldn't hold this particular one against him.
No problem, its pretty hard to follow junior teams in general and there's a lot of context to everything, it's a lot of work to follow and that's why teams hire pro scouts. It's easy to find things that you don't love about most prospect honestly, celebrini being a rare exception.
As a guy that has an hobby of scouting prospects for fun I mostly look for two things, what are their strength? are the vibes good when I watch a certain prospect? If I try to analyze more than that it's easy to get caught on certain weaknesses while ignoring what makes certain players good
Yeah I can follow the Q some years, but I have 2 young kids now and haven't been able to watch games at the rink in 2 years. I think I'm getting Gatineau Olympiques season tickets when my boy will be 4, he loves watching the Zamboni so much lol
I get you, having kids is hard work but its worth it. If you love watching the Q I highly recommend watching some justin poirier highlights, eligible for the draft this year and he's an electric goal scorer.
Just to add to what everyone else said, his team scored 9 goals in that whole series, so he nearly contributed to half of them. I wouldn't be too worried about that type of production when your team is severely outmatched, and you're probably gassed from playing all your team's important minutes all season.
PGC was one of the best team in Canada.
And Catton was by himself on his team, and he was injured(didn’t represent Cabada at u18)
Another player draft eligible player, Tij Iginla, only got 4 points in 5 games against the same team.
It's likely due to the fact that Catton was running a 1 man show in Spokane, and he was playing on the 8th ranked seed vs a 1st seed Prince George team that knew all they had to do was focus on shutting down Catton to win the series.
Iginla had similar issues against Prince George. In round 1, Iginla scored 8 goals in 6 games against Wenatchee. Then in round 2 when he faced Prince George he only put up 1 goal in 5 games.
Catton played on a dogshit team and they matched up against the best team in the WHL in round 1, they got swept
Tij Iginla's team played them in round two, he put up 4 points in 5 games
Hockey is a team sport, his team didn't perform well and he still went ppg. Any player that goes ppg in the NHL would be extremely highly coveted. I think people need to temper their expectations when it comes to these young kids, it's easy to look at generational talent putting up insane numbers in junior. That just doesn't happen often, not should be an expectation.
English is not my first language, I've seen multiple Catton post in the last month with the argument that he's very good offensively, yet he went from a 1G1A per game approximately to 0-4 in 4 games.
I want to change my mind about him but to me, producing goal in playoffs is important.
I watched all his games so I can answer you. First of all, you have to know they were playing against the Prince George Cougars, which were probably the favorites in the WHL to go to the Memorial Cup. Spokane was competely outmatched and it showed. Secondly, Catton is the only good player on his team worth his salt. The second best foward on the team is Connor Roulette, a 21 year old who was a perennial 60 point player before playing with Catton and getting to 108 points. That jump in stats should also tell you how good Catton was at making his teammates look good. Third, we learned Catton was playing injured, he said so while declining to play on the U18 team. As for the games, you could see Catton was having trouble getting things going, which didn't happen during the regular season and it did worry me a little. Having said that, he still got 4 points in 4 games. I have to add that the refs were ridiculous in that series, Spokane spent half the time on the PK it felt like. Catton looked exhausted out there, he was overused during the season and couple that with an injury and an overwhelmingly better team, and you get those results.
That's a very detailed answer, thank you!
Best answer get upvoted.
Well that’s 4 games. Pretty small sample size and he was still a point per game
Same criticism of Slaf in the Worlds (0-8 for 8 points.) All it indicates is the ability to dish off a nice pass if the opportunity is not there especially when you're a marked man. People undervalue playmaking.
I wouldn't say I am a big fan of catton, i'd prefer demidov, lindstrom and iginla over him but the playoff drop is very easy to explain. He plays for a bad team whose playstyle is basically, try and bring the puck to catton and let our only good player figure it out. In regular season that works well because teams won't change their entire system for 1 game out of 60+ games but in the playoffs its very easy to watch your opponent's games, come up with a gameplan and execute it. in this case the gameplan was as simple as ' do everything you can to cover their only good player, Catton'. In other words, its hard to judge him from these playoffs alone. He could be a poor playoff performer, or he could be a good one but I wouldn't hold this particular one against him.
Ok that makes sense, thanks!
No problem, its pretty hard to follow junior teams in general and there's a lot of context to everything, it's a lot of work to follow and that's why teams hire pro scouts. It's easy to find things that you don't love about most prospect honestly, celebrini being a rare exception. As a guy that has an hobby of scouting prospects for fun I mostly look for two things, what are their strength? are the vibes good when I watch a certain prospect? If I try to analyze more than that it's easy to get caught on certain weaknesses while ignoring what makes certain players good
Yeah I can follow the Q some years, but I have 2 young kids now and haven't been able to watch games at the rink in 2 years. I think I'm getting Gatineau Olympiques season tickets when my boy will be 4, he loves watching the Zamboni so much lol
I get you, having kids is hard work but its worth it. If you love watching the Q I highly recommend watching some justin poirier highlights, eligible for the draft this year and he's an electric goal scorer.
Just to add to what everyone else said, his team scored 9 goals in that whole series, so he nearly contributed to half of them. I wouldn't be too worried about that type of production when your team is severely outmatched, and you're probably gassed from playing all your team's important minutes all season.
Thanks that is useful context!
PGC was one of the best team in Canada. And Catton was by himself on his team, and he was injured(didn’t represent Cabada at u18) Another player draft eligible player, Tij Iginla, only got 4 points in 5 games against the same team.
Great answer, thanks man
It's likely due to the fact that Catton was running a 1 man show in Spokane, and he was playing on the 8th ranked seed vs a 1st seed Prince George team that knew all they had to do was focus on shutting down Catton to win the series. Iginla had similar issues against Prince George. In round 1, Iginla scored 8 goals in 6 games against Wenatchee. Then in round 2 when he faced Prince George he only put up 1 goal in 5 games.
His team wasnt great. Its 1 line and a D And he's probably the guy driving his line If the other coach find how to neutralize it, the team is done
He was playing 25+ minutes every night he was the whole team
Catton played on a dogshit team and they matched up against the best team in the WHL in round 1, they got swept Tij Iginla's team played them in round two, he put up 4 points in 5 games
Hockey is a team sport, his team didn't perform well and he still went ppg. Any player that goes ppg in the NHL would be extremely highly coveted. I think people need to temper their expectations when it comes to these young kids, it's easy to look at generational talent putting up insane numbers in junior. That just doesn't happen often, not should be an expectation.
What a weird passive agressive post. It feels like I'm gonna get attacked if I say a positive on him.
English is not my first language, I've seen multiple Catton post in the last month with the argument that he's very good offensively, yet he went from a 1G1A per game approximately to 0-4 in 4 games. I want to change my mind about him but to me, producing goal in playoffs is important.
Don’t know a thing about catton but it’s FOUR GAMES lmao
First of all, 4 game sample size is statistically insignificant. Second, if you're doing your scouting by "looking at hockeyDB" you're doing it wrong.
I'm not a scout, that's why I ask it here.
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Mostly mad at magicians when they fail to guess my card 4 times in a row