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2022 NHL DRAFT :WHL – Kevin Korchinski, D, Seattle Thunderbirds

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Kevin Korchinski is a fascinating prospect that likely has a wide range of opinions among scouts. His skating and offensive skills are tantalizing. Although his shot isn’t a plus weapon, Korchinski’s mobility, puck handling and passing make him an ideal option to run a powerplay and a solid asset at even strength who can play an up-tempo game. Korchinski projects anywhere from a solid top-four defenseman who can put up points in the NHL, to a guy that ends up a career all-star in the AHL and that’s simply because of his decision making.
His reads and ability to process his options with the puck are a giant question mark and will leave scouts debating whether or not that is something that can be developed and coached after the fact. A team falling in love with his elite skating and offensive upside could reach for him as early as the top ten, whereas others may not see him as a first-round pick at all. Korchinski’s stock is rising as his second half of the season was much improved over the first, which is almost always a good sign. He helped lead a young Thunderbirds squad to a playoff spot and home-ice advantage in round one. It will be very interesting to see where he lands in the draft.

Kevin Korchinski. Photo by Brian Liesse
Kevin Korchinski 2022 NHL Draft Eligible
Position: D, Shoots L H/W: 6-2", 180 lbs
Stats to date (GP-G-A-PTS-PIMS) Seattle Thunderbirds, WHL (67-4-61-65-40)

Skating

Korchinski’s bread and butter are his feet. Mobility is the number one adjective that comes to mind when trying to describe his game. His stride is long and efficient and he doesn’t require much effort to escape checkers and find open ice. When caught up ice, it feels like he is never out of the play and is able to make it back to break up a rush. The first three steps are excellent, and his top end speed is already NHL-caliber. Korchinski’s edgework and crossovers aren’t necessarily elite but definitely above average, and his backwards skating and turning ability are very good as well. Where you see Korchinski’s skating shine is when manning the powerplay. He loves to walk the blueline with the puck and every time he receives a pass at the point, his feet are moving as he tries to open passing or shooting lanes for himself or others. He makes this part of the game look easy. Grade: 60

Here we see Korchinski go from almost a standstill to full flight in just four strides, easily breaking away from the defender and making a strong outlet pass to set up the zone entry on the powerplay. This is anything but a routine play but Korchinski makes it look easy.

This looks like a powerplay but it’s not. Korchinski accepts the D to D pass and smoothly beats his man with a great cut to his weak side before circling back away from pressure. After looking off his D partner, he executes an effortless stop while swiveling the hips to open up a strong-side pass to the teammate that was behind him just previously.

Shot

Korchinski would be an even more dominant force on the powerplay if his shot were plus-caliber, but alas that isn’t the case. The clapper is his best option when he keeps it low and on target, as the velocity isn’t bad at all, but the wrist shot is where improvement needs to be made. Simply put, it’s a muffin on a good day and on a bad day, Korchinski will fan on it and struggle to get it off at all. Although he’s good at using his feet to open shooting lanes, he doesn’t do a good job getting the shot through traffic and if he does, it’s often wide of the net. The lack of velocity from the wrister leads to easy blocks and clears or even counter-rushes the other way. This may be an overly harsh assessment but with today’s modern umbrella powerplay setup that most teams use, the lone defenseman up top needs to have enough of a shot that the defending forward is forced to respect it, pulling him up higher and opening space in behind. The good news is this is a part of Korchinski’s game that likely can be improved fairly easily; perhaps even something as simple as a switch to a stick with a different curve could help. Grade: 50

Here’s one of Korchinski’s four goals on the year. As mentioned, the shot can be a weapon when he manages to keep it low and on target. This just needs to occur more often.

Here Korchinski gets the puck at the point and with all four penalty killers caught down low, has all day to walk in and blast one, but instead doesn’t utilize his space and floats a weak wrister in. It’s obvious he’s trying for a deflection here and took something off the shot, but it’s lacking so much velocity that even with the tip, the goaltender has time to adjust and make the save without a second chance.

Skills

Korchinski is a good, crisp passer. He is able to complete the stretch pass with ease and is a good distributor of the puck. His puck skills are smooth and he also has the ability to accept poor passes and make it look easy. He is extremely confident carrying the puck and can dictate the pace of the game. Although Korchinski prefers to pass the puck up ice rather than skate with it most of the time, he is always looking for opportunities to join the rush and jump up into the play. His skillset is an obvious weapon on the powerplay and ideal when playing with skilled teammates as he can find them in dangerous ice and let them finish. One area that is still under construction is puck retrievals, an important detail in a defenseman’s game. Grade: 60

Korchinski shows off his great passing abilities here by starting the play with a little head fake, then picks up the puck and fires a terrific stretch pass to his strong-side winger, catching the defense napping, leading to a goal.

Smarts

This is the area that will determine Korchinski’s trajectory as he continues to develop post-draft. To be clear, Kevin Korchinski is not a dumb player or low on hockey IQ. But there are some points of concern. To begin with, his reads with the puck are questionable at times. The game doesn’t feel like it’s slowed down enough for him yet. He doesn’t panic with the puck (in fact quite the opposite) but at times Korchinski will hold onto it too long and get himself into trouble. The timing on his passes is sometimes a bit late as well, where a teammate will be open and Korchinski will delay a split second and invite pressure before dishing the puck, but that split second puts the recipient into a tough situation where they no longer have time and space to make a good play. From this, one might surmise that perhaps he is trying to make the low-percentage play too often but that isn’t really the case either. Korchinski will almost always opt for the most obvious read and in fact doesn’t look for the cross-seam play often enough. The best comparison would be to a football quarterback with elite footwork and escapability from the pocket who throws well but goes to his primary read too often, especially when under pressure.

The game only gets faster at the pro level, so Korchinski’s inability to properly assess his options with the puck will likely leave doubt in the minds of some scouts on draft day. On the defensive side, Korchinski struggles with positioning as well, although this can likely be corrected with good coaching. It’s likely that he is a victim of his own success when it comes to skating ability here, as Korchinski has been able to get away with subpar positioning and reads at previous and current levels, as his feet will allow him to recover and prevent chances against most of the time. This however won’t be the case in the pros, so where Korchinski lands in the draft will come down to which team believes his decision-making can be coached and developed after the fact. Grade: 50

Here we see Korchinski hold onto the puck too long and then try and force a pass into the middle, which gets turned over for a shorthanded goal.

After a loss of possession in the offensive zone, Korchinski gets the puck back and has time to pick out his options (plus the ability to use his feet to buy more time and space) with only one checker to deal with, but doesn’t even look up; instead he blindly throws it into the forechecker’s feet, a play that doesn’t put his team into any real danger but could have caught the opposition on a line change for another rush. A missed opportunity.

Korchinski is positioned way too wide defending a 3 on 2 rush, turning it into an essential 2 on 1 play and putting his partner in an extremely difficult spot. He realizes his mistake and rushes over to help defend the middle lane, but by then has lost the angle and is too late to prevent the goal against.

Another poor decision with the puck for Korchinski, turning the puck over deep in his own end and leading to a chance against.

Physicality

This isn’t really a big part of Korchinski’s game. He has decent size and is able to use his frame to protect the puck and separate opponents from it, but usually chooses to go with the stick check instead. In fact, he frequently uses the one-hand chop to golf at loose pucks rather than pin them to the boards. As he continues to add muscle and fill out, Korchinski will be able to better handle opponents in front of his crease and in the high-traffic areas, but his game will always be primarily one based around his skating and offensive abilities. Grade: 50

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vsUfwWvlEqcUY1mnzfjGwfnYA8tuBp_c/view?usp=sharing

A perfect example of Korchinski choosing to use his stick rather than engaging his opponent physically. The puck goes to the boards, where Korchinski is able to make a play before getting pinned or teammates arrive to create a scrum situation.

Overall Future Projection (OFP): 54

A note on the 20-80 scale used above. We look at five attributes (skating, shooting, puck skills, hockey IQ and physicality) for skaters and six for goalies (athleticism/quickness, compete/temperament, vision/play reading, technique/style, rebound control and puck handling). Each individual attribute is graded along the 20-80 scales, which includes half-grades. The idea is that a projection of 50 in a given attribute meant that our observer believed that the player could get to roughly NHL average at that attribute at maturity


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