A good night’s sleep allowed me to separate my disappointment about the return from my true thoughts about a scouting report from Liam Greentree. Full disclosure: Greentree only became a Rangers prospect 24 hours ago, so I haven’t looked at him extensively. I plan to start that process soon – he has a game on Sunday at 2.05pm – and will prepare a more detailed scouting report from Liam Greentree in the coming weeks.
This response piece is my take on how respected public scouts view Greentree, as well as my take on some of the concerns and narratives that quickly formed in the wake of the Panarin trade.
Summary of the snapshot
Liam Greentree is a big 6ft 4in winger with a high skill level, excellent playmaking ability and a very dangerous shot. Pace is the main concern in his projection, although some scouts believe this is no longer the issue it used to be, and he has taken active steps to improve his skating (he has worked with a skating coach). EliteProspects’ player comparison for him was Wild star Matt Boldy, another big, highly skilled, scoring winger who skated slightly below average.
Greentree has captained Windsor since his draft season, a rare honor for a draft-eligible skater, and he led them through some dark days with 90 points in his first year as captain. He followed that up with a monstrous 119-point season, including 24 points in 11 playoff games. His production has dropped to a 90-point pace over a full 68-game season this year, but it’s worth noting that he was recovering from wrist surgery at the start of the year and his scores in the OHL are actually lower (7.28 GPG in 24/25 vs. 6.64 GPG in 25/26). He is currently 12th in the OHL in points per game.
He was a fringe player for Team Canada at the World Juniors this year. It’s worth noting that despite their disappointing tournament, Team Canada was considered the forward and was considered the runaway favorite going into the tournament (more so than most years). Greentree also missed the important World Junior Summer Showcase due to his wrist surgery. In short, it was their toughest team to play a meaningful role in for a while, and he started on the back foot due to injury.
Production problems
The summary of the snapshot addressed the two red flags many fans were clinging to in the aftermath: skating and a drop in production. But I have seen relatively serious claims that Greentree is an “Ilya Protas trader.” In my opinion this claim does not hold water. He was excellent in a very, very poor Spitfires team the year before Protas joined.
While a drop in D+2 production is concerning, he is still playing at a respectable 90-point pace against a team that is averaging 0.74 fewer goals per game. A strong final of ~20 games could easily increase that to a 100-point pace. The Spitfires are also allowing just 2.51 goals conceded per game, compared to the 3.28 they allowed per game last season. That could indicate they are playing a tighter defensive structure, although it seems their goalkeeper has been excellent this season.
“He’s not dominating the OHL” is the other common refrain, but I think it’s fair to say he’s actually dominated the OHL twice – finishing 12th in the OHL in his Draft Year and third last year – and had nothing left to prove going into this season. The point is, this isn’t a Brennan Othmann D+2 level production drop. The baseline for Greentree is much, much higher, and he has still been very productive this year despite extenuating circumstances.
As a whole, the overall picture of his production paints an impressive picture and, in my opinion, adds to his credibility as a legitimate top six candidate. He’s not the ‘one-season wonder, Ilya Protas trader’ some people portray him as.
Prospect Rankings
Summary
I won’t give a definitive look at his skating here because I simply haven’t seen him enough. In terms of upside, my gut reaction, based on his combination of skill/size and production data, is that this is a player with clear upside in the second line. I’ll be watching about 10 of his matches and reporting back with my Greentree eye test, supplemented with some publicly available tracking data, so stay tuned.
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