Last week, the Blue Jackets seemingly mortgaged the future by trading away a boatload of picks and prospects. In his post-deadline press conference, GM Jarmo Kekalainen assured that he still had an eye on the future, mentioning three prospects most inquired upon.
Jarmo says he hears from general managers all the time inquiring on #CBJ prospects Emil Bemstrom, Liam Foudy and Alex Texier. "We know were not overrating those guys because thats the first question they always ask is about one of those three guys. "
— Jeff Svoboda (@JacketsInsider) February 25, 2019
Kekalainen raved about Emil Bemstrom and his goal scoring prowess in the Swedish Hockey League, and how rare it is for a player of his age to be scoring goals like this. Bemstrom is tied for the league lead in goals with 20.
There have been only 10 seasons in the history of the SHL where a player under the age of 20 has scored 20 or more goals. Four of those seasons are from Markus Naslund, and Tomas Sanderson. The others include some of the best Swedish players in NHL history, Peter Forsberg, Daniel Sedin, and Kent Nilsson. The other two seasons come from solid NHL veteran Patric Hornqvist and top rookie Elias Pettersson.
This isn't to say Bemstrom is going to be a Forsberg or a Sedin type of player, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he becomes a Hornqvist type: a 20-25 goal scorer who can play anywhere in your top-nine forward group.
Bemstrm hittar ntet ur nstan ingen vinkel alls pic.twitter.com/czKSSaL8pX
— C More Sport (@cmoresport) February 23, 2019
Later on in the press conference, Kekalainen mentioned how these players may be ready to help sooner rather than later. Texier, who I wrote about early in January, is someone Kekalainen talked about (his team, Kalpa of Finland's Liiga, is in jeopardy of missing the playoffs). At the conclusion of that piece, I discussed how you'd like to see more offense from Texier who had a solid (but unspectacular) 16 points in 31 games.
Since then, his offense has taken off; he’s put up 19 points in 20 games. That's an impressive clip, as Liiga has historically been a tough league to score in. This season, there have only been six players in Liiga to eclipse 0.95 points per game.
Kekalainen also mentioned Foudy as a player who is on the rise. I would lean towards the latter. Foudy has had a nice season scoring 35 goals and 66 points in 56 games. This is a good step forward for him, but this wasn’t the massive step forward you would expect to see from a first rounder.
Prospect growth isn’t linear – as we saw firsthand with Pierre-Luc Dubois. Foudy’s offensive production isn’t there yet, though many parts of his toolkit may be. He has NHL speed that makes him such an enticing prospect, and the big thing for him this season is to refine the development of other areas. He’s become a better defensive player, regularly being used on London’s penalty kill, and it appears as though his hands and brain are slowly catching up to the speed of his feet.
