Midweek Roundup 6.7.23: Draft Profile Edition
On Adam Fantilli & Gavin Brindley as NHL prospects and four more years of a UM-less GLI
With Gavin Brindley and Adam Fantilli passing the week in Buffalo for the NHL’s scouting combine, it felt an opportune time to discuss the pair as professional prospects. I cannot claim any expertise in scouting, nor an especially broad knowledge of the field of available players for the draft later this month, but I don’t think I’m overstepping my bounds in claiming a familiarity with both players.
I won’t try to offer a projection as to where they will be selected (though in Fantilli’s case that work seems to be done already) but hopefully a portrait of what each can bring to a prospective NHL suitor. After that, we’ll close for the week with a quick word on the recent announcement concerning the future of the Great Lakes Invitational.
Adam Fantilli
Adam Fantilli is so good at hockey that it’s difficult to talk about. Whatever the particulars of the hockey equivalent to the five-tool player, it applies to Fantilli. He is quick and powerful on his skates. He can one time the puck or fire it in stride with equal ferocity and precision. He can anticipate the next play and manipulate the game with his poise and vision. He is an avid forechecker, accomplished pickpocket, and willing defender.
The combination of it all makes you stumble into platitudes—well-rounded, 200-foot player, has that dog in him—when you try to pinpoint what makes him so special (that he is special can be of no doubt).
If I had to settle on a signature skill for Adam Fantilli, it would be less an attribute or ability and more a mindset, a style, a statement of fact: Adam Fantilli is always going to the net.
When he arrived in Ann Arbor, expectations couldn’t have been much higher. At the season opening presser, his head coach described him as a combining Brendan Brisson’s shot, Matty Beniers’ two-way game, and Thomas Bordeleau’s vision; to anyone who watched the ‘21-22 Wolverines it bordered on the preposterous, seeming to burden an eighteen-year-old with an anvil of unattainable projection.
Before he took a shift, the comparison points were established as Paul Kariya, Jack Eichel, and perhaps Kyle Connor—in other words the most productive freshmen in the modern history of college hockey were to be his peers.
With thirty goals and thirty-five assists in thirty-six games, Fantilli surpassed all the noise. He made the diversity of his skillset undeniably clear. He did everything, but most of all, he got to the net. And he scored once he got there.
With all the standard caveats about the perils of comparisons—there are no true equivalencies, this isn’t to say that the prospect will have the same career as the established reference point, etc.—Fantilli’s game reminds me of that of a young Evgeni Malkin.
Like Malkin, Fantilli can dominate a game with his overwhelming physical presence and diverse toolkit. No one skill stands out because they are all so sharp. He is somewhere between a power forward with elite skill and a sniper with an ax to grind. I’m not sure even a young Malkin could hunt on the forecheck quite the way Fantilli did as a freshman at U of M.
Of course, there is also a hint of a negative connotation to the comparison to Malkin. As the Philadelphia Flyers knew well, Malkin—in his early days—was susceptible to being lured off his game through post-whistle pleasantries. Scott Hartnell and company managed to push the right buttons and goad Malkin into taking reckless penalties instead of scoring devastating goals.
For Fantilli, the obvious analogue to this phenomenon came against Michigan State in East Lansing in February. In the first, the Wolverines, led by Fantilli, were imperious, turning the Spartan defensive zone into a playground. Fantilli notched a goal and an assist, and the Wolverines led 3-0. In the second, Fantilli earned seventeen minutes in penalties for his role in a ruckus that broke out in the Spartan zone (where I remind you the entire game was played), which left him suspended for the following night’s Duel in the D.
However, in the postseason, Fantilli did an admirable job of steeling himself against such advances. In the NCAA Tournament, both Colgate and Quinnipiac showed a clear interest in playing that game with Fantilli, but the freshman ignored all invitations.
When he played in the USHL, the knock on Fantilli was that he had a tendency to force things or ignore his teammates on the rare occasions where the going got tough. Perhaps there were hints of this in the early days of his time in Ann Arbor, but, on aggregate, Fantilli had no such issues.
Over the course of the year, Fantilli operated between two different sets of wingers. Through January, it was Dylan Duke and Mackie Samoskevich. From late January until the Frozen Four, it was Rutger McGroarty and Gavin Brindley. With the former duo, Fantilli could lean upon pre-established chemistry and complementary skillsets to form one of the most formidable operations in the country; the line’s only deficiency was that the Wolverines became too dependent on it. With the latter pairing, Fantilli and his fellow freshmen helped re-establish Michigan’s commitment to sowing chaos in the offensive zone through puck possession. All three brought the best out of one another through their shared commitment to winning battles and races as they made their way to the net.
All of which is to say that as dominant as Fantilli was, he didn’t achieve his obscene counting stats through a contrived offense that force fed him; instead, he operated within a structure that would maximize his own individual success and that of his team and teammates.
From a mentality perspective, Fantilli is everything you could want in a top-of-the-draft prospect: mature, authentic, balancing humility with a supreme belief in his own and his team’s agency (in this regard, he seemed to mirror his head coach at Michigan). He overcame a hysterical storm of national media concerning his World Junior debut to win a pair of gold medals with Team Canada in his draft-eligible season.
In Fantilli, an NHL team can expect a franchise player, the kind of prospect around whom you can plan your entire future. That’s not to say there won’t be growing pains in his eventual transition to pro hockey (whether that comes next season or not), but, as his freshman season in maize and blue proved, this is a player more than capable of shouldering heavy cargo for his team—age be damned.
There is little doubt to me that Fantilli could play in the NHL next season; the question is whether he will want to. To play professionally, I suspect Fantilli would want to tack on a bit more weight to his frame, and the context (i.e. who his coach is, the development infrastructure of the organization he joins, prospective role in the lineup) will matter, but, in broad strokes, I think you would be foolish to suggest that he won’t be good enough for the NHL come September. Of course, whatever team does select him should feel a certain obligation to sign Luca in two or three years time.
Gavin Brindley
If there is a brilliance to Gavin Brindley’s game (and having watched his freshman year at the University of Michigan I’m inclined to believe that there is) it lies in contrast.
He is often the shortest player on the ice and always its most intense. He grew up on Florida’s Gulf Coast, but he was a rink rat—local ice around the corner from his house, his former pro father helping to usher his journey into the world of hockey. He is a powerful skater, slick stickhandler, and dangerous threat as a shooter or player, and he is insatiable in board battles. As a freshman, he was eighteen years old and his head coach’s first choice forward in 3-on-5 situations.
In his first season for the Wolverines, Brindley scored twelve goals, and gave thirty-eight assists in forty-one games. His combination of an elite motor and high-end skill, all of it supplemented by outstanding skating (not just pure speed, but also deception and a decisive burst in small areas) made him one of the most effective and consistent Wolverines.
Beyond those skills, Brindley has the mentality you might expect is necessary to make a World Junior team as a 5’9” eighteen-year-old. In March, when asked about his improvement from the first half to the second, Brindley said “I just think being in places to succeed all the time has helped me a ton in just trying myself and having the confidence to do anything out there. And I think ever since I got back from World Juniors, just clicked and kind of dominating every night. I think our line has done a great job of it, and individually I feel like I’ve been one of the best players in college hockey since I’ve been back, so it’s been pretty fun, and hopefully we get a good playoff push going here.” A player who wants for self-belief this is not.
When you put it all together, it’s not hard to see why Brindley would appeal to an NHL franchise. To me, the most compelling reason to select him in the first round is his high floor. At the very least, Gavin Brindley will be able to work his way into utility in your bottom six. From there, it’s not hard to imagine him forcing his way up the lineup or at least into more ice time. That’s what he did with Rand Pecknold and Team USA at the WJC. And to boot, after his freshman year at Michigan, there can be little doubt that he is a capable scorer.
Entering the draft, there are two knocks against Brindley: His size and the correlation of his peak production with playing alongside Adam Fantilli. It is a fact that at 5’9” Brindley won’t intimidate anybody with imposing stature and perhaps that fact will preclude him from playing center at the NHL level, but it also seems just as often that Brindley’s small stature provides him with an advantage. Because of his height, Brindley can play with outstanding leverage, and it helps him win battles, steal pucks, and slip past or between defenders into open ice. He is a bit like an undersized running back who can hide behind a hulking offensive line but one with no compunction about delivering a blow himself when he has to.
As to the idea that his most productive stretch of the season came after being united with Fantilli and Rutger McGroarty to Michigan’s top line, once again this is an accurate but incomplete picture. All but one of Brindley’s twelve goals came in the season’s second half, but, as discussed above, all three of Fantilli, McGroarty, and Brindley benefitted from their coming together and mutual commitment to playing hard hockey to take advantage of their skill. Of course, playing with the best player in the country provided a boost, but the process of discovering his offensive touch was well underway for Brindley by the Harvard series in late November, some two months before he joined Fantilli on the Wolverines’ top line.
As a comparable for Brindley, I would submit a perhaps unlikely candidate: eighteen-year-old Barcelona midfielder Pablo Gavira, better known as Gavi. In an article for The Athletic, John Muller described Gavi as “a flaming arrow in search of a target.” The Andalusian plays most of each match with his shoelaces untied and brings a unique combination of Taz the Tasmanian Devil’s chaotic energy with elite talent. He is as likely to fly in for a challenge with his head as he his to deliver a pinpoint pass with the outside of his foot or pull a ball out of heavy traffic with a deft touch.
Like Brindley, Gavi is a player who always seems involved and always makes something happen. On Barcelona and Spain teams occasionally dogged by passivity, Gavi is anything but. He has boundless energy, and the efficacy and non-stop nature of his movement away from the ball also evoke Brindley. Because of his snarl, it can be easy to lose sight of his skill, but the combination of the two makes him a rare commodity. As the minimum threshold for skill and skating climbs in the NHL, players who can layer a bit of edge atop their talent will remain in high demand. To me, Brindley is just such a player, and I have no doubt that he will become a fan favorite for this reason with whichever NHL team he eventually finds himself representing.
If, like me, you are inclined to believe that the importance (or perhaps necessity) of size is overrated, there can be little doubt that Gavin Brindley has the potential to be a special NHL player.
The GLI Commits to Grand Rapids through 2026
Last week, the Great Lakes Invitational announced an agreement to remain at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids through 2026 (a four-year extension). As part of the agreement, the GLI also named the fields for those four showcases, and all but one (the 2024 edition) features a non-Michigan team (Alaska-Fairbanks, Miami (Oh.), and Notre Dame). None of the four events include the University of Michigan.
To Gulo Gulo readers, this news shouldn’t come as a surprise. I reported in January that Brandon Naurato did not see the showcase as a productive option for his team as long as it remained in its traditional holiday time slot.
At the time, Naurato cited the preponderance of Wolverines called up to WJC action and the physical and mental benefits of a hard break for the majority of the roster at the middle of a long season as causes for Michigan to remain on the event’s sidelines.
This is an outcome Adam Nightingale and Michigan State suffered from a year ago, with GLI losses to Ferris State and Michigan Tech (in OT) a not so insignificant factor in winding up the first team on the outside looking in come the NCAA Tournament.
It is, of course, a shame to see Michigan distance itself from an in-state college hockey institution, but the difficult to dispute. I would be curious to learn whether after 2026 the GLI might be interested in moving off the traditional late December time slot into the October non-conference season.
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