With a few more inches of height and a bit more strength, Jeremy Loranger would be a sure-fire first round pick in this draft. In spite of his size and sometimes apparent strength, Loranger is a reliable puck handler who incorporates the right amount of skill and complexity for every task. He's not the type of player to kill a fly with a sledgehammer, but rather is extremely pragmatic and efficient in how he manages the play. His ability to resist defenders is respectable, all factors considered,  which is another reason for optimism regarding his future development with the potential for added size and strength. He is particularly shrewd when it comes to his positioning away from the puck, both in an offensive and defensive context. He gives his check very limited room to breathe or escape for a pass, and in contrast, is very adept at using nimble and evasive maneuvers to find space to make himself an outlet. He anticipates and acts upon loose pucks rapidly, giving himself the opportunity to earn possession  with space to play. He has an excellent formula for acceleration, consisting of tightly wound and agile crossovers to build speed, gradually ramping into a fully elongated stride with integrated crossovers to deceive and maneuver through obstacles. Because he doesn't have as much size and strength as many of his peers, there's not as much of a cushion for him to have a bad game - when he takes unnecessary risks, the consequences stand to bite him quickly. Fortunately, over the course of a season I only encountered this version of him on one or two instances among 15+.  The greatest risk with Loranger is that the strength gap grows instead of shrinks, in which case he'll need to continue compensating by being sharp in every outing.

Lorangers stride and legs are super long considering his overall size despite his apparent gangliness, his balance, stride and quickness are very refined. He's able to get power to his legs very quickly. It's important to note in this game that I've recognized just how small he is relative to his peers. He makes short efficient passes to moving teammates to make the transition more effective and integrate movement and speed changes. It also serves to improve the quality of the puck so he can get it back on the rush. He really recognizes the value of giving good pucks so he can get good pucks. Had an interesting goal off of the rush in which he shot from the top of the circle while crossing a defenseman. The shot was to the far corner and found it's way over the goalie. I can see how his size could be troublesome if he isn't able to add some length and top speed. He really has to outsmart his opponents to get into open ice otherwise risks being edged out. He generally showed great utilization of open space on the powerplay to set up and see his opportunities.

On his shift of the game I was reminded of one of the key things that excites me about Loranger, which is the speed at which he processes loose pucks and turns them into an opportunity. When they’re in his or someone else's feet he's so quick to recover them, read and make something happen with good balance and awareness. He's quick and relatively evasive, but when the puck comes loose he's not at all shy to line up a hit on the right side of the puck so that the play flows back in the right direction. His transition game is not built for the wide-open ice because it gives big opponents too much time and space to build speed and pinch him off. In these instances he will need to make quicker plays in transition to really have transition success at any level, but it will be particularly important for him to rely on teammates when transitioning in open ice.

On a number of instances in this game Loranger displayed a high level of puck skill in transition to slip his way though the neutral zone along the boards with possession. For a smaller guy he uses the broad extents of his reach in dekes making his puck handling quite evasive as well as effective in terms of maintaining possession. He acts very quick in the offensive zone, taking advantage of his time and space to devise an attack sequence and then execute it very tactically.  I did find he could be a bit casual with possession at times.

The performance of Jeremy Loranger really jumped out at me early in this camp. His game seemed to be so versatile throughout the week and he was always offering something different and valuable to his line when he was on the ice. With the puck he offered good speed and creativity, using crosscuts to build and manipulate his speed in transition. He demonstrated a strong work ethic consistently throughout the camp and positioned himself well to skate into pucks rather than having to trip himself into possession. He played with masterful confidence in open ice, and while I thought he struggled a bit to create space for himself on zone entries, he was able to find space in so many other areas that I think this is something he should be able to improve upon. He was a persistent penalty killer and was generally effective at creating turnovers away from the puck. He was strong on his stick which meant that his ability to create meaningful possessions from loose pucks was often quite efficient. If he wasn’t already, Loranger has certainly earned a spot in the discussion for the top of this class.