When the CHL playoffs started two weeks ago, the Edmonton Oilers had three prospects, Jake Chiasson, Matvey Petrov and Maximus Wanner participating. After the smoke cleared late last week, all three prospects’ teams had won their series. Each of the prospects had varying degrees of success in their first round series. This article is the first in what will be a regular feature that reviews each player after each round of the playoffs. On to the round one review!

Chiasson is a prospect I really want to be excited about. He’s got a pro-style body and some highly underrated offensive skills. His skating is not plus level, but it doesn’t hold him back. What tends to hold him back is his lack of willingness to drive play when he can do so. Now it is important to note this doesn’t Chiasson is a timid player as was some of the concern with Ryan McLeod in junior. He plays a hard game and plays inside well. He just seems more comfortable deferring to players around him instead of taking the initiative on his own. This was a pretty consistent them for Chiasson through the regular season although a mid-season trade to the Saskatoon Blades seemed revitalize Chiasson somewhat.

In the first round of the playoffs, Chiasson and the Blades defeated the Regina Pats, despite one of the most impressive playoff round performances I have ever seen in junior by Connor Bedard. For Chiasson, it was a series that felt a lot like his regular season. He really fell back into his habits of deferring to teammates for the most part until the very end of the series when his play was much better. He ended the series with two goals and one assist for three points in seven games.

To understand what I mean about Chiasson deferring on play, I have taken just one clip from the series. This video is an example of what Chiasson does far too often. The Blades exit the zone on a 3v2. Chiasson receives the puck and takes it outside. Now watch Chiasson’s head the whole time he skates through the neutral zone and into the offensive zone. He never takes it off his linemates telegraphing a pass to the middle. The result is the play is broken up. If we take a closer look at the offensive zone, he clearly has an opportunity to bring that puck to the middle and create a better scoring opportunity.

This is a very common play for Chiasson and one that stunts the offensive output of Chiasson in my opinion.

This isn’t to say you don’t see flashes with Chiasson. Here is the series winning goal. I like this decision to take the puck to a scoring area for a shot. The play starts as a 3v2, but due to Pats back pressure it closes down the cross-ice lane. The other Blade goes net drive through the mid-lane and that allows Chiasson to drag the puck into a scoring area.

Same idea on Chiasson’s overtime winner in game four. Here he clearly has the RD available for a pass, but instead he continues to walk the puck to the slot and beats the goalie with a good wrist shot.

One additional note of optimism is that Chiasson was far more involved in the last two games of the series and it showed up in stats with Chiasson having the series winning goal, but also nine shots on net.

The Blades are on to play the Red Deer Rebels. Chiasson will need to be more assertive against a very balanced and a very physical Rebels team who make the game hard on their opponents.

Petrov’s first series statistics were incredibly impressive. In the six games, Petrov had ten points. All ten points were assists and it placed him in a tie for seventh in playoff scoring in the OHL. The ten points were also as many points as Petrov had in the entire 2021/22 playoff season.

More impressively is that Petrov has really found a new element to his game. When Petrov came over to Canada, he was labelled as a shoot first winger with a tremendous release. In his first OHL season, he validated this assessment by scoring 40 goals. However, this year he has been much more pass focused. In only two more games than the prior season, Petrov had 16 more assists (66) this year.  Here is a couple of example of Petrov’s excellent puck skills and vision that led to Battalion goals in their first round against Missausauga.

So is there  problem? Well, Petrov lived off the powerplay in round one scoring five of his ten points there. How does this compare to his regular season? Thirty-five percent of his regular season points came on the powerplay, which is substantially lower than the 50 percent total in the the first round of playoffs.

I also have speculated publicly whether Petrov had an upper body injury later in the season that caused Petrov to focus more on passing then shooting. Early in the series that seemed to be the case as well, but Petrov did finish above his season average in shots per game so perhaps my speculation was unfounded.

Nevertheless, in Petrov’s next round, I am hoping to see more 5v5 scoring success with goals weighing more prominently than in the first round.

Of the three prospects, Wanner had the most impactful first round in my opinion. His Moose Jaw Warriors swept the Lethbridge Hurricanes in dominating fashion and Wanner was at the center of it. Wanner’s defensive game was on display immediately coming back from suspension. Wanner was not on for a goal against the entire series of any kind. He was also counted on heavily on the penalty kill and high leverage situations. He ended the four game series as a plus six at 5v5.

Where Wanner really took command was offensively. He was tied for the defense scoring lead on the Warriors going 1-3-4 in the four game series. This element of his game has really lifted his prospect potential. Wanner came to the WHL as a defensive defenseman who playing a hard game on his opponents. Almost immediately though, Wanner’s game showed an offensive flair that wasn’t prominent previously. This series we saw a lot of this development again.

Below is a goal and an assist from the series clinching game that illustrate some really great patience and puck skills.

Wanner now faces a very stiff challenge in the Winnipeg Ice. This team is loaded top to bottom with offensively gifted players who scored 325 goals this season. That total was 68 more than the next best scoring team in the WHL. Wanner will face a lot of pace and creatitvity in this series and it will be interesting to watch how he handles the situation.

Well that is it for the juniors report. We will see you Sunday with the regular edition of the Edmonton Oilers Prospect Report. See you then.