2024 NHL Draft: Ivan Demidov and Konsta Helenius
Now that I’ve covered some of the top North American microstatistical players, I’ll move on to the tracking data from Lassi Alanen from the top Russian and European forward.
These two players are quite different players so there’s not too much of a reason to compare one against the other, this breakdown is primarily served to detail their games from the microstats.
Ivan Demidov
Demidov is, on most lists, the clear second best player in the draft. His microstat profile is nearly unimpeachable.
He stands out in every offensive category, especially the degree to which he creates immense danger. Not only does he have high volumes of offensive creation but his xG/60 and xA1/60 stand even higher. Simply getting pucks on net isn’t enough for Demidov he has to improve the shot at all costs.
Similarly, his ability to improve the condition of the puck while building play also remains unmatched. The capstone score, xG Buildup/60, is off the charts. His capacity to get the puck off the wall, noted by Cycle Escapes to Inside/60, to beat the defenses with condition improving passes, Advantages for Mates/60, and his ability to drive a volume of entries and pair it with high level creation plays, Entry Delay Plays/60, mean he’s doing it all in a projectable way.
Put differently, he was simply too good for the MHL.
There are some relative points of concern. He’s primarily a puck-dominant creator, evidenced by his lack of Cross-Lane and Transition Inside Plays/60. He’s a quirky skater who projects to be slippery and creative enough to continue to make it work but sticking to outside lane transition efforts might not be so easy in more difficult leagues.
The fact that he didn’t create Advantages for Self/60 is probably a good sign but there’s some mild room for skepticism. Someone who is so elusive and slippery he’s having trouble consistently breaking down defenses and creating space for himself. On the flip side of that coin, he’s also not overly reliant on dangling around players.
To criticise this aspect, or to raise it as some sort of red flag, would be to split hairs. He’s extremely talented and creative.
Konsta Helenius
Konsta Helenius, in some regards, is the opposite of Ivan Demidov. Instead of wildly flashy, creative and a dynamic generative offensive presence, Helenius is a combative, straightforward and defensively oriented player.
That isn’t to say that he doesn’t have any offense but there are significantly more question marks around his offense than anywhere else.
Though he’s seen as a cerebral playmaker his actual playmaking offense was hard to come by. His shooting, both in terms of volume and danger, was much better than his xA1/60 or Shot Assists/60.
That his Slot Passes/60 were the highest volume of the bunch suggests there may be some system intentionality with his profile. Overall, it appears that he occupies the middle of the ice where it’s more often that the appropriate move is to put the puck on net from the high danger area.
Largely, his playmaking comes from other aspects of the game, namely his ability to distribute the puck in transition. He generates quite a lot of entries and also had good, but probably not create, Crosslane/60 and Transition Inside numbers.
His DZ Breakups/60, NZ Breakups/60 and Forechecking Entries/60 paint a player that does pretty much all of the defensive aspects of a center, one perhaps primed for the NHL playstyle.
His ability to create advantages for his teammates is… fine and he rarely gets off the wall with control. Those could be flags that indicate he really doesn’t have much dangerous offense but it could also just be an issue with role and/or Liiga which brings me to the next aspect of these two players.
League Translatability
In the case of both Konsta Helenius’ Liiga and Ivan Demidov’s MHL there are significant translatability risks as it pertains to the NHL style of play. To illustrate some of the issue I’ll use some advanced adjusted NHLe scored from Thibaud Chatel.
He’s an analyst who runs a company that provides advanced analytics packages for the NL, Switzerland’s top league. Within, he determined that the quality of leagues were changing over time and certain league’s reputations were not changing commensurate to the changes of league quality.
In any case, here are the current values. Points are a measure of the translation factor of points scored whereas Win Shares are more elegantly calculated and intended to be a measure of contributions outside of scoring.
In this case, Demidov’s MHL should be regarded as a sub-prime Junior league. While it’s significantly better than the Scandinavian Junior leagues it compares most favorable with the QMJHL.
This shouldn’t erase Demidov’s best all-time performance but can also put his high scoring into additional context. Just recently, the highly talented Matvei Michkov slipped in the draft. While it looks like there were some issues with his preferred places to play and smoke about his longer contract, Michkov was crushing the KHL whereas Demidov was stuck in Junior.
Both played in the MHL in their D-1 where they looked like highly comparable players.
Huge bards and performances. Michkov a higher volume shooter and more robust transitional player. Demidov the high volume playmaker, more dominant zone entry creator who also got off the walls and created more advantage across the ice.
Demidov, unfortunately, didn’t get the chance to dominate outside of a league he was too good for. He still looks like the second best player in the draft the same as Michkov still looks like he’ll be a superstar on arrival.
The contract concerns are not there for Demidov, whose current contract expires after 2024-25, but whether or not he’s a true gamebreaker or, as Corey Pronman describes, a Jeff Skinner type could be the difference at the Blue Jackets’ selection.
Konsta Helenius’ Liiga has also suffered in quality in recent years. It’s a step below the SHL and it’s defensive translatability has taken more of a hit than the pure point production.
His production puts him as a top 5 Finn all-time behind only Granlund, Barkov, Kakko and Laine. He was the top line center on his team and had a good playoff performance.
He, quite obviously, earned the role he played but at the same time, did the quality of his teammates have an effect on his overall production? Did he have similar time on ice as some of the previous lower producers?
Unfortunately, outside of Liiga he struggled to bring any dominant, or even great, performances to solidify himself as a highly offensive player. He plays a pro game, and is quite strong, with excellent and advanced defensive skills.
Against lesser competition, his offense didn’t show up in the same capacity. He remained deferential and played to his linemates. That’s not what you want out of a high draft pick but it might be a more honest playstyle that translates up well.
There are only so many Adam Fantilli’s, players that you want to be puck dominant, and many who can’t replicate their Junior games have to learn new skillsets to work amongst skilled linemates.
Furthermore, there are certain stylistic concerns about the hockey that they play in Liiga even aside from the larger ice. Perhaps the funky playstyle gives reason for some supposed deficiencies in Helenius’ game but perhaps he’s just not aggressive and/or skilled enough.
In comparison to the two most recent highly drafted Liiga players, Helenius remains more rounded but perhaps without the high peaks of the other players. Slafkovsky and Lundell are both very big bodies.
I don’t think size will remain an issue with Helenius, he’s quite strong and combative for his size and has no problem getting inside bodies and leveraging his frame inside contact to win battles.
Still, he’s not clearly as wall dominant as Slafkovsky and he’s not quite as good of a playmaker as Anton Lundell. Where he does have both beat it is in transition play. If his hockey sense translates up speed and Helenius goes to a team that needs a solid play-connecting, teammate elevating, play driving center he could be even better.