Getting to Know William Belle

When you look at the scouting reports and the profiles for all of Toronto's picks in this year's draft, and listen to what Toronto has said about them since then, some themes emerge. One is size, with Tyler Hopkins (6'1") being the only player shorter than 6'3". The other is their role and archetype as players, where all of them seem to be guys who get good grades for skating, physical play, and defensive impacts. William Belle, Toronto's fifth round pick, certainly seems to fit those two main themes.

Now, there are certainly some variations for the degree of proficiency in each area, plus other skills, each of the players have. Koblar is a physical force of nature with a natural power forward game when it comes to board play and net front play. Hopkins is more of a speedy guy with flashy offensive skill.

So what's the situation like for Belle?

THE BASICS: STATS AND CONTEXT

Position: Right-shot winger
League: US NTDP
Height: 6'4"
Weight: 225 lbs
Birth date: January 14th, 2007

Belle has an interesting history as a child. Per Joshua Kloke's mini profile on him, he was born in China to an American father who met his Chinese wife while he worked in the country. Will learned to skate in shopping malls in skates that were too small, and had to travel by train or plane to Beijing and Hong Kong to play hockey. His family moved to the United States when he was 7 years old.

When he was a teenager, he played for Shattuck St. Mary's, the most prestigious high school hockey program in the USA. He wasn't at the top tier for point production on the team or in the high school circuit for his age group, but he was a 30ish goal scorer in two straight years.

Ahead of the 2023/24 season, Belle tried out for the US National Development program and was selected – a noteworthy achievement given the quality of the program and how many good players have gone through it in recent years. With other top prospects in America, Belle's role was mostly in the middle six as either a supporting power/defensive forward and PK specialist. His production on the team in the past two years reflects that. He had 12 goals and 19 points in 85 games last year, then 6 goals and 26 points in 83 games this year. He played for the USA's national team at the World U17 Hockey Challenge where he had 2 goals and 3 points in 7 games. He was left off their rosters this year.

So, Belle has never been a top offensive forward but he has been good enough to make some of the top, most competitive programs in the United States for the past several years. So let's talk about what those teams saw in him.

THE GOOD: SIZE, SPEED, DEFENSIVE PLAY

The first things that stand out watching Belle play is the obvious: he's big, strong, and he can skate pretty darn fast in a straight line. He's naturally athletic, which you could see in the draft combine fitness results. He finished 2nd in the horizontal jump and no arm jump, 4th in the vertical jump, 11th in the bench press at 50% of body weight, and in the top 20 for both left and right hand grip force. Aside from that, there are two areas of play that are at a legitimately good level.

First is his physicality, especially when forechecking. Belle is consistently praised by his coaches and scouts for his hard-hitting, physical play. He can be a relentless and aggressive forechecker who throws big hits to force turnovers and cause chaos. In post-draft interviews he's talked about how he likes to model his game after Miles Woods and Tom Wilson, and he can throw some heavy hits on the forecheck and in the neutral zone.

Belle can be very intimidating as a defenseman to see someone like him closing on you with speed during retrievals. The benefit of his forechecking is that his biggest impact on the ice is arguably on transitions, even though he isn't that great of a puck carrier or passer. He's good at driving transitions in the Mikheyev sense: lob the puck over the defenseman and let him beat them to it in the neutral zone, or dump it in after you cross centre ice and watch him maul defensemen trying to retrieve it and get it back out before he crushes them. He can help achieve positive transition impacts through a dump and chase, legitimately. Not a huge one, but still positive.

The other area this helps is on defense, which is the main thing his coaches praise him for. He was on the US NTDP's top penalty kill unit in the games I watched. What drives his defensive strength is, again, his physical play, athleticism, and his work rate/motor or whatever you want to call it. His size, speed and reach (tied for 17th biggest wingspan at the draft combine at 78 inches) means he can cover a lot of ground and take up a lot of space in passing lanes. He also just has good habits. He almost acts like a centre at times with how he circles back to cover for defensemen and swing low on breakouts.

Belle is a determined defensive player who works hard to get above the puck, push attacks wide, and apply back pressure on the rush. He also uses his reach for effective stick-first defending, getting under sticks and connecting on long lunges for the puck. He can be an effective defender at guiding opponents into the wall for hits. He's also noted for his good work as a penalty killer, using his energy and reach to apply pressure.

After that is the question of his offensive skills. He definitely lags behind both Koblar and Hopkins in this area, both in terms of the likely ceiling for his offensive abilities and in terms of his refinement and consistency. If there are two areas I think show some flashes of potential, but are a long way off because they're more rare to see, it's his playmaking and his puck handling. I've seen multiple scouts remark that he is, occasionally, capable of flashing some of the best puck handling skills for guys his size. But I've also watched some of his games where I never saw it at all, only one or two flashes in a couple of games.

The bigger area of potential is his playmaking. His size helps him see the ice so he can know where his open teammates are while he deals with forecheckers. He can occasionally connect with nice cross-ice passes, slip pucks through defenders to spring teammates for scoring chances, and draw in pressure to pass around it. Some scouts have said he shows poise under pressure, allowing him to find passing lanes others don't. He's also described as a pass-first winger who sees the ice well and can set up goals by cutting back and passing into the slot or making backhand chips to the middle. The framework to become a legitimate playmaker is there. I just haven't seen it enough, or consistent enough, to take it that seriously. Not yet.

THE FLAWS: OFFENSIVE REFINEMENT, CONSISTENCY, DECISION MAKING

My biggest problem with Belle is that his game, as I saw it from a few games I watched, is very raw and unrefined. That's my polite way of saying he has major consistency issues and a lot more work to do to get his game to a good level. There's a reason he was a fifth round pick. There were a lot of scouts who seemed to expect and want more from him this year, but he had such a big problem being able to consistently maintain good details.

First, there's Belle's decision making. He can be very strong defensively and on the penalty kill, but he seems to be more driven by instinct than quick processing and anticipation. He can be late to recognize threats, he can wander way out of position, and he can chase hits with his stick off the ice so he does nothing to prevent a pass from being easily slipped past him.

Second, Belle's offensive consistency had similar problems, and could also come back to decision making issues. He can be disconnected from the game when he doesn’t have the puck offensively and sometimes fails to support the puck carrier if they're struggling to get free or pass it away from pressure. He can also run into his teammates' space and clog things up rather than giving them good passing outlets. Honestly, this could be why he tended to play higher to support defense even when his team was on offense, just to keep himself out of the way and in position to help where he's actually good.

Belle's on-puck game remains very raw, and he sometimes overestimates his handling abilities. He doesn't always use space effectively or consistently make plays in transition. His playmaking, while promising, is a ways away still because of consistency issues. He holds onto it too long and has the pass deflected away, he makes bad passes to teammates that are already defended, things like that. He can also default to shooting over passing on opportunities that might benefit from a pass. Some of his passes can be inaccurate and weak. He also didn't show any dynamic catch/reception ability. His skating also has issues. He can be speedy in a straight line, but he's slow to get up to speed and struggles to get around in close quarters.

I'll admit, I struggled watching Belle. Some of what was said about the good parts of the game by scouts are things I just never saw. So many of them also mentioned how he was really hit or miss on a game to game basis, with more misses than hits at various parts of the year.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT

So the good is that Belle has the framework for a useful fourth line winger. His size, physical play, straight line skating, defensive work and penalty killing are the things so many NHL coaches want from their depth guys. He's already pretty good in all of those areas, even if they could all use some improvement in specific ways as well.

The bad is that his ceiling is absolutely fixed. I cannot see a world where Belle figures out so many of those issues I mentioned, to such a degree that he could become better than a fourth line winger. His decision making problems, his big consistency issues, the bad parts of his skating, his lack of consistent offensive skill, all of that basically locks him into one role and one role only. I thought it was interesting that, at the development camp, many of the Leafs players and people like Wickenheiser talked about how they really stressed the importance of details being what separates pros from those who can't take that step.

I've just seen the ways and the degrees to which Toronto's development team has been able to help prospects improve. Their skating coaches can help with Belle's agility and explosiveness, but only to a certain extent. Their skills coaching can help him figure out some small things to help him improve his shot, make his passing more consistent, and get better at handling the puck. But I'm only expecting/hoping those to improve enough that he can avoid being a liability, and play with a simplified but effective game.

Belle is going to be jumping to the NCAA where college hockey as a whole is receiving a huge influx of talent to lift the quality of competition by a good amount. I'm expecting him to be used in the same way on his team as he was with the US NTDP – bottom six, defensive, kill penalties, and that's it. What I'm hoping is that he takes what he learns from the development camp, improves his details and decision making a lot, and can start earning a bigger role in college. I'm not expecting him to turn into a top six guy, but I'm hoping he can be more of a solid third line guy that can legitimately support his line with and without the puck.

Thanks for reading!

I put a lot of work into my prospect articles here, both for the draft and Toronto's prospects. I do it as a fun hobby for me, and I'd probably do it in some capacity even if PPP completely ceased to exist. But if you like reading my work, some support would go a long way! I pay for a few streaming services (CHL, NCAA, USHL, the occasional TSN options for international tournaments that are broadcast) to be able to reliably watch these prospects in good quality streams. I also pay for some prospect-specific resources, such as tracking data and scouting reports from outlets like Elite Prospects, Future Considerations, McKeen's Hockey, The Athletic, and more.

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