More about puck control, passing, and processing
His puck control goes beyond creating shots for himself, as when Greentree doesn’t have a chance to find twine, he’ll look for someone else who can, and it’s almost like he always knows where he needs to pass the puck. Greentree also has that uncanny ability to know when he needs to fire a hard pass or a simple touch pass, further putting him in sync with teammates.
Few prospects are also as gifted to consistently draw in opponents, but once again, we’re going back to the way he handles the puck. He’s going to wait until the absolute last fraction of a second before finding an open teammate and letting them do the rest. And if he doesn’t draw an opponent in, he’ll just take the shot, something you see in the video powered by NHL Draft Pros below.
Knowing where to go with the puck, whether to fire the shot or to pass to an open teammate, and knowing how much he needs to put onto the pass is a testament to how well Greentree knows the game already. If he processes it at the next level to the same degree he has in the OHL, he’s taking the AHL by storm one day.
It’s even more impressive when he sees a lane and calls his own number, skating toward the net and deking out opponents in the process. For a prospect slated to go in the middle of the first round, his jaw-dropping moves would make you think someone could “reach” for him earlier in the draft.
If you can point to any real negative here, and it’s common among high-skill prospects, he can get caught trying to do too much. Greentree doesn’t need to go into superhero mode when there’s nobody open to pass the puck to, but as his ability to create space improves, this flaw in his game should alleviate somewhat.