FlamesNation Darkhorse Targets: Logan Brown
By Kent Wilson
7 years agoLogan Brown is a kid who has crept up a lot of prospect lists and mock drafts this summer. He was already on the radar to start the season thanks to his huge frame: at 6’6″ and 220 pounds, he’s the biggest first round forward available. However, it’s Brown’s offensive outburst, going from 43 in his rookie season to 74 points this year, that has really pushed him into the spotlight.
Because of his size, playmaking ability and style of play, some are comparing Brown to players like Joe Thornton and Ryan Getzlaf. Is it possible the Flames could take him at sixth overall?
Scouting Reports
Every report obviously mentions Brown’s massive frame first and foremost. There seems to be some disagreement about his potential as a true “power forward”, however. While all seem to agree he is good at using his size to protect the puck, some scouts don’t see the necessary intensity or aggression to apply the “power” label.
Skating is usually a concern for big players, but aside from his first couple of steps, scouts agree this is not a problem for Brown. He is also considered more of a playmaker than a sniper by most; a guy who slows the pace of play and uses good vision to find other players in traffic. This tendency is reflected in his numbers: 51 of Brown’s 74 points were assists and he only fired 154 shots on net (the least of any probable first round OHL forwards).
From Future Considerations:
He is not afraid to use his frame to muscle his way to the net or work the boards. Possesses impressive vision and playmaking ability from the outside and has the unique blend of imposing Big Rig size with solid speed although improvement to his first two steps is required.
From Brock Otten’s OHL Prospects:
At 6’6” and 225 pounds you have to love his size. He needs to improve his first step speed but once he hits top speed he can move. Brown protects the puck very well. He has excellent vision and can make plays at top speed, usually successfully. Brown definitely needs to work on a couple of things, mainly his play without the puck and his defensive game. Those can be taught, but his offensive skills cannot.…Teams looking for a potential number one centre can look to Logan Brown. Brown is a playmaking centre with size and is a powerful and agile skater. He uses his height to protect the puck and is strong along the boards dominating puck possession. His great vision makes players on his wings better and he has defensive awareness as well. Potential first line centre with Joe Thornton or Ryan Getzlaf upside.
The two knocks that crop up with Brown are consistency and his defensive game. Of course, those are the two knocks on almost all prospects outside of the top three every year, so take them for what they are worth.
The Numbers
Of course, size doesn’t matter as much as what you do with it. Brown is big, but did he put up the sort of results that justify a top 10 pick?
As noted, Brown scored 74 points in 59 games this year, one of the better point-per-game rates amongst draft eligible players in the OHL. To add context to his results, I went through Prospect-Stats.com and rated Brown against his peers according to a collection of key factors, including primary points (goals + first assists), even strength primary points, percentage of team scoring, and NHL Equivalency.
The entire spreadsheet can be viewed here for those interested, but the ranking broke down this way:
- Alex DeBrincat
- Matthew Tkachuk
- Adam Mascherin
- Alex Nylander
- Logan Brown
According to offensive results, these five guys is the top “tier” for OHL forwards this season. Debrincat runs away a bit, leading or placing top two in every category you can name.
Brown only marginally trails probable top six pick Alex Nylander in things like NHLE (33 to 35) and primary points per game (0.97 to 0.86). An area when Nylander is clearly superior is percentage of team scoring – he managed to contribute to approximately 42% of his club’s offense, whereas Brown fell down to about 36%. This is reflected in the fact that Nylander led his club in scoring by a full 14 points, whereas Brown was 16 points back of first place on his club.
Nevertheless, Brown’s results are very good. He was one of only five OHLers to break the 30 NHLE threshold, which is worth considering because as Byron notes here, a player expected to be scorer at the NHL level almost certainly has to reach an NHLE of 30 or better, usually in his draft year.
Conclusion
Logan Brown is an intriguing player. His size and offensive totals are hard to ignore, which is why a lot of scouts are starting to compare him to some of the best “big body” pivots in the NHL.
But is he a good bet at sixth overall? I’m not quite convinced. Some mock drafts have Brown going in the top five while others bump him back to the mid teens. His output this year was notable, but falls behind a few of the other noteworthy top 10 guys, as well as a couple of other OHLers like DeBrincat and Adam Mascherin (who are ranked below him thanks to their lesser stature).
Brown would be a bit of a reach for the Flames with their first selection this year, but it wouldn’t surprise me if his name called inside the top 10.
Previous draft targets: Alexander Nylander | Pierre-Luc Dubois | Matthew Tkachuk | Jakob Chychrun | Olli Juolevi | Clayton Keller | Alex DeBrincat | Sam Steel | Vitalii Abramov | Jake Bean | Tyson Jost | Mikhail Sergachev | Tyler Benson | Griffin Luce
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