As we close out our Top-20 and begin to start thinking about the range when the Flyers will be picking again, we arrive now at Michael Hage — a somewhat divisive forward who finished his season on an absolute tear, and might well be an answer to some of the Flyers’ forward depth questions.
Pre-draft rankings
No. 14 by The Athletic (Scott Wheeler)
No. 28 by Elite Prospects
No. 27 by FC Hockey
No. 23 by Sportsnet
Statistics
What’s there to like?
We tend to like to begin with the scoring numbers, and so too will we begin there today. After a season cut short by injury last year, in what would have been his rookie season in the USHL, Hage bounced back well, and even as pretty close to a rookie in that league still, he managed to be the top producer on what always feels to be a pretty loaded Chicago Steel team, and finished the season as the fourth highest points getter in the whole of the USHL.
It should be no surprise, then, that the offensive toolkit he has makes him quite efficient as a points producer. He has some issues relating to his skating and overall speed (more on that later), but that hasn’t overly hindered his impacts in transition, which are quite notable. He’s confident skating the puck into the offensive zone, and he’s slippery, elusive, against defenders. He does well to create chances in bulk, but particularly, he’s quite net focused and slot focused — that is, he prioritizes shooting from high danger areas and creating dangerous passing sequences through the slot.
In the offensive zone, he does a lot of things well to create space for himself to then create offense. His short distance burst is quite good, so he can be quick, even if he’s not an outright fast player. He’s deceptive in his movements when under direct pressure, and has a knack for finding the soft areas of the ice to shoot from (that shot, too, is a real weapon — deceptively quick off his stick and accurate, to boot). He’s a strong give-and-go passer as well, and keeps his line mates well involved in the cycle, rather than relying on himself to be something of a one-man offense generating machine.
And what’s also made Hage interesting his is development arc, if you will. It took a little bit of time for him to get going during the early part of the season — as was the case with his team as a whole — but once things started clicking for him at this level, there seemed to be no slowing him down. The offense was coming well for him, sure, but the other details of his game (particularly his forechecking game) took significant steps forward through the back half of the season, and that’s exactly what we like to see.
Combine that all with some of the finer physical details — good size and room to fill out his frame still — and this is a package that should be intriguing to a lot of organizations.
What’s not to like?
The biggest asterisk, if you will, that gets tossed around when it comes to Hage is the fact that he missed most of his 2021-22 season after a shoulder injury and subsequent surgery. Now, he hasn’t looked to have really missed a step in his return to action this season, one might argue, with that year missed, he’s a bit behind the curve developmentally. We don’t see this being a huge detriment to him – besides, he was always taking a longer developmental route anyway, as he decided to forgo the CHL path and spend some time in the USHL before moving on to the NCAA next season – but it’s still useful context for his situation. If he seems a little toolsy and unpolished, there’s a reason for that.
And there are a few finer points of his game that need some working on. For one, his skating stride is a little bit wonky – his angles are a bit curious and he can skate a bit hunched over – and he does tend to lose some overall quickness as a result.
We’d also like to see him play a bit more aggressively on the defensive side. His instincts overall seem good, and it’s not like he’s outright disengaged when he doesn’t have the puck, but often we can see him waiting for play to come to him and then reacting in turn, rather than taking an active role and manipulating play on his own. The encouraging flip side to this is that it isn’t an issue we see all of the time – that is, he is capable of playing an aggressive defensive game – but the consistency in this area will need to be coached out of him a bit more.
How would he fit in the Flyers’ system?
We’ve spoken about this at length so far in our draft and prospect chats, but the Flyers really need a center, and ideally a high-end center. It’s perhaps their biggest need on the organizational level, and it’s one that they’re going to need to address soon, if they really want to get this rebuild off the ground. Now, Hage might not be the first line center of their dreams, but he is still a center, and the positional fit there still addresses a need on the depth chart, and that’s certainly not nothing.
And as far as the stylistic fit goes, this is one that we could see working out. Hage is a bit incomplete as a player, but his well paced, well rounded offensive game is one that we can see fitting in well with the style the Flyers have been trying to build towards playing over the last season and change. A lot will depend on how he develops as he adds strength and continues to polish his game, but in the right developmental setting — and we’ve seen the work they can do out at the University of Michigan, where he’ll begin in the fall — there’s a real chance he will be able to out-perform his selection spot, assuming he does go somewhere in the late first round. He might not be the flashiest of players, but he could well be a bit of a steal, and an effective compliment to what the Flyers are trying to build here.
Could the Flyers actually get him?
It’s a pretty wide range of projections for where Hage is expected to go, with some pundits ranking him just past the Flyers’ 12th pick, and still others having him falling somewhere outside of the first round entirely. So Hage finds himself somewhere in the murky middle. He’ll certainly be on the board at 12 – though this would also certainly be a reach of a pick – but there’s also a good chance he’ll be in play for that 31st or 32nd pick (however it falls for the Flyers).
What scouts are saying
Hage is a natural center who has it all. He’s got pro size and skating, he’s got dual-threat skill as a shooter and passer, he’s naturally talented as a handler, he can create for himself or elevate a line, he plays hard, he stays on pucks, he battles, and he reads the game at an advanced level with an intelligent approach to the way he maneuvers around the ice. I like him in puck control/protection. He’s got detail and work ethic. He’s also, I’m told, taller by an inch or two than his NHL Central Scouting listing, with room to fill out his lean and athletic frame after lost time in the gym. And he has driven and produced offensively to stamp himself as one of the draft’s top prospects despite there being little around him with the Steel and after missing most of last season. I could see him following a path similar to the one Joshua Roy has followed in Montreal as a star minor hockey prospect who wasn’t drafted in the first round but worked his way back into that kind of cachet after the draft (Hage is going to be a mid-first round pick, though). He should have been on Team Canada at U18 worlds, but it’s my understanding that he wasn’t invited. With a good summer in the gym, I expect him to make an immediate impact as a freshman at Michigan. His blend of size, skating, skill, drive, scoring, playmaking and sense is hard to come by in a center.
Scott Wheeler, The Athletic
What I like about Hage are the defensive rotations, the way he was physically engaged in that game, his ability to catch and distribute pucks quickly, and his net-driving. He’s not that straight-line checker, but his game is better when he tries to have an impact in all three zones. He misses some plays and his instinct for moving without the puck offensively could improve, but there’s no denying that he’s skilled. He has the shooting and the handling and the passing skills, but he’s not as dynamic and creative as
David St-Louis, Elite Prospects Draft Guide
a Trevor Connelly or a Beckett Sennecke. The skill may become more secondary in his game at some point and the habits/motor/ engagement more important. He has the frame and enough defensive ability to project as a top-nine, two-way player. There’s potential for more, but there’s more uncertainty with him than other players currently ranked ahead of him on our board. I see him slotting in that early 20s range.
Welcome to the poll…
Emil Hemming! An interesting, if somewhat divisive, forward already making a bit of noise playing in the pros in Finland.
Hemming has fallen somewhat, but I still think there’s a neat player there. He’s got pace in his game, pursues puck carriers well, has a physical edge, a bit of skill and a heck of a mid-range release. He’s very much a catch-and-release player though and is often not much of a factor in play until he is. Plenty of areas of his game are perfectly fine, which for a player playing professional competition is notable. I can see a player who can be a secondary power play shooting threat and a complimentary power winger that should project fine to the NHL. It also should be noted that TPS is not putting a ton of pucks on net, but Hemming is responsible either for over 45% of their attempts, largely through his own shooting, they’re just often from a distance, when he has the strength, pace and skill to push deeper into scoring areas.
Will Scouch, Scouching
Previously on the draft board:
- Macklin Celebrini
- Ivan Demidov
- Artyom Levshunov
- Anton Silayev
- Cayden Lindstrom
- Sam Dickinson
- Zeev Buium
- Berkly Catton
- Zayne Parekh
- Konsta Helenius
- Tij Iginla
- Cole Eiserman
- Carter Yakemchuk
- Adam Jiricek
- Michael Brandsegg-Nygård
- Beckett Sennecke
- Liam Greentree
- Igor Chernyshov
- Sacha Boisvert
- Michael Hage
- ????
