Glenn Gawdin and Luke Philp: the under-estimated prospects
By Ryan Pike
4 years agoAs we’re looked back on last summer’s Top 20 Prospect Rankings, you might notice a pair of prominent Stockton Heat players that weren’t mentioned. Two of the top scorers in the American Hockey League – Glenn Gawdin and Luke Philp – didn’t crack the list. That was our bad.
Here’s why they weren’t on the list in the summer, and how they’ve defied these expectations this season.
Luke Philp
Philp’s a bit of an easier one: nobody had a good sense of how his transition would be. Appearing on just three of our nine ballots – placing 20th, 19th and 18th – Philp was transitioning to the AHL from U-Sports (Canadian university hockey) and the list of successful recent players making that transition is basically one name: Derek Ryan.
That said, Philp’s final two seasons at the University of Alberta were more productive (on a points-per-game basis) than Ryan’s were, so many we should’ve seen this coming. Ryan turned 29 early in a first AHL season that saw him put up a 31.3 NHLE. Philp, at age 25, has a 24.8 NHLE – and that includes a 10 game stretch where he was figuring the pro game out and didn’t hit the scoresheet.
We chatted with Stockton head coach Cail MacLean and he provided a quick assessment of Philp’s adjustments to the AHL:
His rate of adjustment was really good in terms of he did really have some struggles early as he tried to figure out where his skill-set fit in based on the pace and the demands of the AHL level, but as a goal-scorer you could see his confidence grow once he found the back of the net in game 11 for him [after] about 10 games of not much success and limited ice time. As he started to find the back of the net and he started to learn how to apply his skill, the pace that he had to play at, he’s come leaps and bounds over a short time. He’s gained lots of confidence. He continues to keep trying to increase the pace at which he plays, and as a result he’s had a lot of offensive success since then.
When we chatted prior to the All-Star Break, Ryan shared that the challenges of jumping to pro hockey is adapting not only to the skill level of the new league, but also to the style of play in the league. So far, Philp seems to be adapting very nicely.
Glenn Gawdin
Okay, Philp’s defensible since nobody could figure out how he’d transition. Gawdin we probably should’ve known better. He was 21st on our list, just a smidge below the cut-off, and he was on seven of nine ballots (though never reaching higher than 17th).
Offensively, Gawdin has only exploded once – in a 2017-18 WHL season where he played with Tyler Steenbergen and Alexei Heponiemi and won a championship with Swift Current – but he’s always been a smart two-way player. He had a very solid first AHL season, but some adjustments have helped him unlock his full potential.
Here’s MacLean again:
I think that one of the keys with Glenn that he deserves a lot of credit for, is he’s interested in pushing himself. We talked this year about how to find ways to make sure his success he’s had on the power play at the AHL level, how he can expand upon that and do some more damage offensively at even strength and he’s put some real effort into that. I think with that increased focus in that department, he’s grown a lot in that area so he deserves credit for wanting and understanding that it’s necessary to grow his game.
It’s tough to project Gawdin at the NHL level – he probably won’t put up 125 points like he did in his overage season in the Dub – but he’s a smart player that has shown he can play a complementary role with skill players or be a driver in his own right.
“To sum it all up, he’s got really good hockey sense,” said MacLean. “He’s solid on both sides of the puck, he understands the flow of the game, and he has a good feel for what’s around him at any given moment. So it makes him a really good passer and he doesn’t come across as a really flashy dynamic player in terms of taking on guys one on one, but he’s a really steady, consistent intelligent hockey player – and one that has the skill to go along with his vision.”
He’ll probably make the 2020 Top 20 Prospects list.
Recent articles from Ryan Pike
