With the NHL’s adaptation to a quicker style of game, the importance of strong transitional play has skyrocketed. The purely one-dimensional defencemen stay at home defenceman has been more or less eradicated from the league, with keener offensive players who can start the breakout take their spots on the roster.

Nowadays, the ideal NHL defenceman is quick, smart, and mobile. They can advance the puck up ice through intelligent passing, and involve themselves in their team’s offence.

Thomas Harley, a left-shot defenceman for the Mississauga Steelheads of the OHL, exemplifies a lot of those traits. He’s a fantastic skater, an exceptional passer, and a threatening shooter. His offensive instincts are terrific, and he loves to activate into open areas in the offensive zone. With his combination of playmaking and shooting ability, he’s a significant offensive threat in those situations.

Harley recorded 58 points in 68 contests, good for 11th among OHL defencemen by points per game. Historically, that production is similar to Dougie Hamilton, Alex Pietrangelo, P.K. Subban, Mikhail Sergachev, Jakob Chychrun, and AHL standout rookie Rasmus Sandin. That is outstanding company.

This play right here is an excellent introduction to Harley’s toolbox.

He brings the puck out of his own end, gives it to a teammate, and immediately moves into space. Taking the return pass, he attacks the net and finds a teammate for an easy tap-in. It’s a terrific offensive play, displaying his skating, vision, and most importantly, his offensive instincts. Harley recognizes the open lane to the net and does not hesitate to take advantage. This offensive mindset is exactly what you want out of a modern NHL defenceman.

The skill that allows Harley to play this offensive-leaning style of game is his skating. The 6’3” blueliner has terrific mobility, able to move quickly in every direction. He can win races, beat forecheckers with his feet, and move well laterally across the blueline. Harley is an effortless skater— it doesn’t always look like he’s moving particularly quickly, but appearances can be deceptive.

This end-to-end rush is a terrific display of his mobility.

When Harley has room to move, he’s a force in transition. A long and powerful stride allows Harley to accelerate quickly to his menacing top speed. He’s able to beat the first defender wide and finishes the play with a well-placed shot.

Harley’s shot is a significant offensive weapon. He has made significant strides as a scoring option since last year, improving from 1 goal in 62 games as a D-1 to 11 in 68 this season. His shot has evolved from a weakness to a powerful, accurate weapon that teams must respect. Harley recorded 2.29 shots per game this season, 18th among OHL blueliners and the most of any draft-eligible defenceman in the league. He ranks 20th by Expected Goals per game (a measure of shot quality), the top draft-eligible once again. (prospect-stats.com).

We can see that the majority of Harley’s shots come from the left point, as would be expected. He creeps up for higher quality shots from the top of the circle semi-frequently as well, and occasionally finds space in the low slot to get a shot off.

One way we can try to estimate shooting talent (in a statistical sense), is to compare a player’s goal total to their Expected Goals from prospect-stats.com.

For those who aren’t familiar with the metric, Charlie O’Connor explains it very well here:

”The models behind xG (shorthand for Expected Goals) weigh each unblocked shot for a number of factors. Shot location is the main one, but the models also recognize events like rebounds and rush chances as well. It then assigns a value to each shot, based on the likelihood of the shot resulting in a goal. A point shot may have an xG value of 0.02, while a rebound chance directly in front of the goalie might be worth 0.40.”

Harley outperformed his expected total by 2.17 goals, which puts him 32nd among OHL defencemen by this “Shooting Talent” metric. For a first-time draft-eligible (and a very young one, for that matter), that is quite impressive.

Let’s look at some video of his shot. Here is a well-placed slapshot from the low point:

For example #2, an exceptional play by Harley to jump up into the play and finish off the play with another good shot:

And finally, an absolute snipe:

Bardown special courtesy Thomas Harley! 1-1 Mississauga vs Hamilton pic.twitter.com/zrga1I2HXJ — Darius (@DariusDomingues) October 13, 2018

Besides shooting to score, Harley still has several options to make plays from the blueline. He’s an intelligent player with a clever eye for traffic and deflection opportunities in the slot, as evidenced in the clip below:

His heads-up game from the blueline also creates opportunities for Harley to act as a playmaker in the offensive zone, finding teammates in prime scoring areas with smart passes.

He’s also excellent at walking the offensive blueline, finding open space and lanes to make offensive plays. In this example, he escapes the initial defender with a shot fake, finds open space towards the middle of the ice, and manages to get a quick shot off. The attempt is blocked, but that’s not the point. Escaping the initial defender and getting into position for an open shot takes a lot of skill— most of it skating and footwork, but also exceptional intelligence and lane manipulation.

Now, let’s talk about some of the weak spots in Harley’s game. As a fast-paced offensive blueliner, Harley can be subject to some ugly turnovers— like this one at the U18s last month.

Phenomenal assist from Jan Mysak on Marcel Barinka’s goal to make it 2-0 Czechs over Canada. Harley with the brutal turnover, but what a play by Mysak. Jan Mysak is my #12 for the #2020NHLDraft. pic.twitter.com/UHl6O644xZ — TPEHockey (@TPEHockey) April 23, 2019

This particular turnover isn’t pretty at all, but it’s a small mistake that doesn’t represent any larger mental issues in his game. I’ve found that the majority of his turnovers are of this mold— small, technical hiccups that don’t signal any sort of significant issue.

In addition to the turnovers, Harley’s defensive play has been a topic of debate this season. I’ve seen his defensive play praised by some people, while others have gone as far as to liken him to Ryan Merkley, whose defensive issues (combined with attitude concerns) made him one of the most controversial prospects in the 2018 draft. However, most of these individuals manage to agree that Harley has a strong defensive stick, but he needs to keep a tighter gap in transition and improve his physical play in his own end. I don’t feel that this will be an issue long-term either, since Harley’s reach and defensive stick give him a strong base as a defender, even if some of the other areas of his defensive game still need work.

One of the reasons why I think some people look unfavourably on Harley’s defensive play is because of something I like to call “the Dougie Hamilton effect”. Standing at 6’6”, Hamilton is massive, but he doesn’t play the physical, defensively-oriented game we typically expect from a player his size. Someone once described him as “a 6’6 defencemen who plays like he’s 5’11.” For coaches, fans, and scouts, this lack of physicality from a player with so much obvious physical potential can be frustrating, but should Hamilton’s defensive play be looked at in a more negative light than if he was 5’11? I don’t think it should. Harley is similar. At 6’3, he isn’t as intimidating of a specimen as Hamilton, but his lack of physicality still isn’t what you would necessarily expect from a blueliner his size. I don’t think this should be any sort of significant knock— Harley should be treated the same as a smaller defenceman with similar physicality issues. He’s still an offensive defenceman, and should be treated as one, even if he has the physical profile of a shutdown player.

If you still aren’t convinced, it’s important to acknowledge how raw of a prospect Harley is before dismissing him as a one-dimensional turnover machine. Born on August 19, Harley is less than a month away from being eligible for the 2020 draft. He’s one of the youngest top prospects in the draft this year. His game is still quite rough around the edges, as would be expected of a prospect his age, but I would bet on the wrinkles ironing themselves out as he continues to develop.

As a very young draft-eligible with a terrific baseline of skills, Thomas Harley has tremendous upside as a two-way defenceman. He’s excellent in the offensive zone with excellent vision, a strong shot — with potential to become even better as the 6’3”, 187 pound blueliner continues to fill out — to go along with terrific offensive instincts. In transition, consistency is an issue— turnovers and the occasional sluggish play can overshadow his typically strong play on the breakout at times— but his skating ability, intelligence, and up-ice vision gives him remarkable upside in that area. Defensively, Harley’s play can be questionable at times, but there are plenty of positives and I think it’s fair to project him as— at the very least— an average defender at the NHL level.

Harley is seen as a bit of a wildcard at the draft, with some projecting him as a possibility to leave the board as early as 10th overall to the Vancouver Canucks, while others see a possibility of him dropping as far as the early 2nd. Most likely, he’ll land somewhere in the middle, probably getting called up to the stage somewhere between picks #15-25 on the first day of the draft. As far as blueliners go, there’s only one player— projected top 5 pick Bowen Byram— who clearly has more upside than Harley, so the left-handed defender is likely to be a coveted target for any team looking to add to their defensive corps in the first round.