Mission defenseman Ethan Potempa is a player who didn’t really jump off the page for me, but as a defenseman that isn’t exactly a bad thing. I thought he did a nice job at cutting out passes along the boards through anticipating the opposition’s intentions. He moved swiftly and was able to eliminate passing lanes and get his stick in lanes to break up potentially threatening movements. He was efficient in getting the puck out of his hands and comfortably finding one of his forwards’ sticks and shifting the play up ice. It was an effectively executed gameplan that made life for the opposing puck carriers difficult and forced a number of turnovers.

Ethan Potempa’s passing ability was one of his biggest assets in this contest, it stood out fairly quickly as he was able to stretch the play with lengthy outlet passes to tape that were able to jumpstart offensive opportunities. His short passing was sound as well, playing the point effectively and linking plays together and providing a bit of cohesion to the offense at the top of the zone. He was quick to shade over and provide support for teammates when they were being pressured, giving them a passing outlet to reset and look for another area to attack. He crept into shooting areas nicely where he offered a scoring threat through the use of his one-timers, creating rebounds out front and alerting the defense that he needed to be kept an eye on as well.

He had a great one on one battle down low for a loose puck, showed the usage of a longer stride and longer stick, and gets great whip on his shot releases when he has the time to step into them from the middle of the high slot. He’s got a lot of potential purely due to his posture, skating stride, and his skating jump. I’d be looking to see how some growth and physical maturity might really add to his already excellent mobility. I didn’t make a lot of notes about little plays of his so on the next watch I’d be trying to find out a bit more how he manages the puck through the defensive zone and neutral zone. I made notes of a couple of dumps along the boards when pressure was low.