Maple Leafs Prospect Report: Brody Pepoy

After the draft this past summer, when I was writing my thoughts on the various players Toronto selected, one that stood out to me quite a bit was Pepoy. He wasn't someone I had a profile on going into the draft, but only because he just didn't make the cut – he was definitely on my radar for a good chunk of the season. When I wrote a full profile on him after the draft, I noted that he had some real fun highlights and was a bit like Nansi in that he showed a lot of potential.

A quick refresher:

Getting to Know Brody Pepoy

One of the Weasel Boys is bringing his weasely talents to the Maple Leafs organization, and he may be this year’s Harry Nansi prospect that’s a long term project with big potential.

PPP LeafsBrian S

Pepoy's problem was his consistency, and his role. He wasn't getting a lot of playing time, and almost none on either special teams. The role is something that is somewhat out of his control, especially for his age last season, and could be resolved as he got older and earned more trust from his coaches. The consistency came from two issues I identified – his mechanical and decision making inconsistencies, and his somewhat chaotic skating mechanics.

I've been watching Pepoy pretty closely at the rookie camp, the prospect tournament, the OHL pre-season and now his four OHL regular season games to start the year. So how has he looked now compared to last season?

STATS AND CONTEXT

• Position: Right-shot winger
• League(s): OHL
• Height: 6'2"
• Weight: 190 lbs
• Birthdate: Nov 5th, 2007
• Drafted: 169th overall (6th round)

So let's start with Pepoy's role, because that's already shown a big change from last season. Simply put, he's become one of the top all situations forwards for Saginaw so far. He's on the top powerplay unit, he's on the secondary penalty kill unit, and when they've been playing from behind he's been bumped to the top line or double shifted with them as they push for the comeback goal.

With the increased role and ice time, especially on the powerplay, Pepoy has started the season on fire. He has a point in all four games he's played in the regular season, with five points in total. Two of his points have come with the man advantage, where he had only three in all of last year. Needless to say, with bigger opportunity comes bigger production.

But it's not just that he's getting more ice time, he's also doing more with the time he has. He's tied for 3rd on the team in points, behind two of their main offensive stars who make up the top line at even strength and the third guy from that top line. Where he has five points, here are his linemates at evens:

• Ryan Hanrahan, his center for all four games, has one assist
• Drew Bate, the other winger in his first two games, has one goal
• Sawyer Schmidt, the other winger for his last two games, has one goal and one assist

In short, Pepoy has been the main driver of his line so far – both offensive and defensively. He has more points combined than all of his other linemates, and he has more shots on goal than those three linemates combined (15 vs collective 13). In fact, his 15 shots on goal are second on the team behind only their top offensive star Dima Zhilkin. And defensively, he's the only one of his linemates who is not a negative rating player.

Now, it's not too surprising to say he's the best of his linemates, because all three of those players I mentioned above are 16 years old. Pepoy is the seasoned veteran compared to all of them, but he's being 'dragged down' by any of them due to inexperience or lack of quality.

THE EYE TEST

Everything that I wrote about Pepoy in the post-draft profile are still immediately obvious when you watch him. He has a power forward element to his game, and he does great work coming off the boards and attacking the middle of the ice with aggression and physicality. He will throw his weight around and cause chaos on the forecheck, keeping plays and possessions alive by not letting the other team get the puck out of their own end cleanly.

Pepoy is also an intelligent off puck player, on both offense and defense. He has a high motor but also a keen sense of where he should be or where he should be moving to in order to be able to have the most influence on the play. He takes smart routes into dangerous areas of the ice, with good timing to receive a pass, set picks, create more space for his linemates, things like that.

I'd dare say that all of those elements do look improved already from last year, but the biggest difference I've seen is that his skill plays are already much more consistent. In the profile, I said this when noting the biggest issues I thought he needed to work on:

From what I can see, I think Pepoy will need to both refine his skill so he isn't just improvising things where he looks like he's pulling anything out of his ass and seeing if it works. It needs to get to a point where, even if it's instinctual at some level, there is some deliberate-ness to what he does where he's trying something he thinks/knows can actually work because he's practiced it thousands of times to the point he can pull off that move in his sleep. The other thing he needs to improve on is his decision making, where he learns through experience what he can try that will work, and when he shouldn't try to be fancy and just make the simple but effective play. This will be especially true if he can't wind up playing above the bottom six, which is his more likely outcome.

As a final note to this area of weakness, Pepoy needs to refine his mechanics when it comes to handling the puck. He'll lose the puck as he's trying to handle it, mishandle a pass, and just show a general lack of precision and control too often for his offensive skill to project very well – at least as of now.

Especially through the four games in the OHL to start the season, I can already see that Pepoy has made big improvements in these areas. His puck handling and skill plays do not look so wild and chaotic, and when he makes a nifty play it definitely looks more deliberate. I don't want to say 'planned' because I recognize that in the milliseconds he has to pull off these plays and react to how defenses attack him he will rely on instinct. What I mean is more that his skill plays look smooth and calm, and when he evades a stick trying to poke the puck away it just seems like he's doing something he's already done thousands of times and he could do it again in the next moment.

At the same time, Pepoy's mechanical consistency in handling the puck, receiving passes, or making passes has also improved. He isn't bobbling the puck, mishandling it, or losing control in the middle of trying to make a move. More often, if he does lose the puck it's because the defense is knocking it away. Which is to say, it's not like he doesn't still have some issues with turnovers or trying to do too much. He could and will need to still make improvements, but I'm encouraged that one of the bigger problems I saw in his game has already gotten a lot better.

Then there's Pepoy's defensive play. I noted in that post-draft profile that his defensive and physical impacts were his biggest strengths last year. So I'm less sure if I can say now that he's also already showing a noticeable improvement in this area, or if I'm just seeing and appreciating it more now that I'm following him game to game up close. I also don't want to oversell how good I think he is defensively – I don't think he'll be a Selke candidate any time soon, he's not the next Mark Stone in that regard as a defensive/two-way winger. But I do think that he will be an above average winger in that regard.

Pepoy honestly almost plays like a center. In fact, he's usually his line's backup faceoff guy. He's taking a couple of faceoffs a game and winning half of them. But even after the faceoff, he's a guy that plays a smart positional game – this is where his intelligent off-puck game comes through on the defensive side. He shoulder checks to keep a strong awareness of where players are on the ice, he positions himself accordingly to cut off passing lanes and/or be in a good spot to receive a breakout pass from his defense, and he likes to stay above the puck in the middle of the ice when he doesn't have it himself.

The best way I can show an example of all of that is in this penalty killing sequence from him below. The funny thing is that, just watching it live, he doesn't really seem to do much. But it caught my attention because of the bits that I paused. He was occupying the middle of the ice as one of the two forwards, and you can see him with his head on a swivel to know where the high defenseman or the other forward behind him were positioned. Depending on who had the puck and where, he'd adjust his positioning and his stick to be perfectly blocking the cross-ice passing lanes that presents the most dangerous scoring chance opportunities.

In fact, you can see Pepoy reacting and starting to change his body and stick positioning before the puck carrier even moves it higher or lower. Now, I will say that him selling out on preventing the cross seam pass is great, but you can see him not particularly worried about shots coming from high or from his side of the ice.

If you want to nitpick, you could say that Pepoy could be a bit better about reacting to those shots and trying to block or dissuade them from taking a shot attempt if he anticipates that's what is coming, but I like this clip because a) he's acting to even prevent them from trying to create higher danger scoring chances, and b) he is actively succeeding in that in this one example, showing he can use good anticipation, awareness, and positioning to have a positive defensive impact. That kind of thing makes me believe in his projection as a legitimate penalty killer at the higher levels of hockey, not just in junior.

I play the clip once with multiple pauses, then run it through again with no pauses. Watch his stick, body positioning, and watch his head. It may take multiple views, but you can notice how all three of those are important elements that are almost all doing their own thing.

The last thing I want to address is Pepoy's skating, which was the second more serious issue I saw in his game when I wrote his previous profile. The good news is that I think he's also already made some improvements here. In particular, he looks pretty damn great when he's already at speed and especially when relying on his edges to make sudden cuts or sharp turns to evade a defender in open ice. That's one of the major reasons why he is able to dance through defenders and cut into the middle of the ice through multiple sticks in the offensive highlights I shared above.

However, I do still see an issue with his mechanics when it comes to his north-south skating and especially with his acceleration. His first couple of steps needs to get better so he can pull away from defenders or get onto opponents faster when they have the puck. I also find that the choppiness in his straight-line strides may cause him to use more energy. I've noticed that he is one of the quicker forwards on the team to get off the ice and end his shift relatively early, and that his energy and speed later in shifts and later in the game can start lagging.

Now, that might be because he's been used so much in all situations, especially when they're trying to push for a late goal and he's getting even more ice time. But I also can't help but think his mechanics could be smoothed out more so he can generate more power with less energy, even if I'm not a skating mechanics guy at all – it's just my suspicion.

Thanks for reading!

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