Where could Adam Fantilli play next season? (March 2020)
Early on in the season, Adam Fantilli moved from the GTHL’s Toronto Jr. Canadiens to play prep school hockey with Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire. Most notably, his brother, Luca, was the biggest reason why he ended up making the move there because he wanted to stay close to his family.
His Skillset
Fantilli is a very, very high IQ, well-rounded playmaking center who has elite upside at the NHL level with how advanced his style of play is. There are three high-end 04’s from Canada at the moment in Shane Wright (Kingston/OHL), Matthew Savoie (Winnipeg/WHL, currently Rink/CSSHL), and then Adam Fantilli to top it off, the main difference being that Fantilli is a late 04 meaning that he will be eligible for the 2023 draft instead of 2022 like Wright and Savoie will be.
Fantilli is a player who loves to have space with and without the puck. Pressure doesn’t phase him at all with the puck because he has the poise to find the right angles and lanes when passing or shooting, and when he does not have it he is using his hockey sense to adjust his positioning on the fly to create better passing options and passing lanes for his linemates. It’s easy to play on his line because he can enhance your game as a scorer or playmaker, a playmaker specifically because his puck control is elite and pretty much every bad pass can easily be handled by him.
Fantilli is a strong physical presence as well which is typically unusual for a player of his caliber. He has that compete level like a fourth line role player does with his energy, his willingness to go to the dirty areas, his ability to sometimes trap defensemen in their own zone and create forecheck retrievals on a dump in, and then his speed of course.
In terms of his skating, his stride is probably the biggest weapon he has. But, his edgework is also extremely good and he never stops moving his feet on his edges when the puck is on his stick. Going back to his stride, his form is pretty much spot on and it gives him more speed and power in that particular way. Typically what you want from players is for them to not cheat themselves, even though it is pretty normal honestly for this to happen, by lifting their leg up before getting a full leg extension in their stride because they end up getting less power and less speed out of it, along with an odd looking form sometimes.
The Breakdown
This play started off with a defensive zone draw for Canada, and right off the draw Fantilli cut towards the slot where the puck went because he knew that he had a good chance of breaking out easily, and that became easier to do with all three of Finland’s forwards collapsing around the slot, leaving two defensemen back for them. That eventually lead to him creating a scoring chance of his own with his breakaway speed off the rush, didn’t score, but Canada was able to maintain offensive zone possession for quite a bit of time afterwards.
The point with these pictures was to not only analyze one of his shifts in-depth, but to show how the form of his stride is nearly perfect (the second picture shows that specifically). The increase in the knee bend allows him to extend his back leg out further, and he pretty much has it perfect by bending his knee at a 90 degree angle. A technique he relies on for his pushes are C-cuts (creates upside down letter C on the ice) as you can sort of see in the last picture where he starts to tuck his back leg in, and it’s a good thing that helps him maintain balance while also increasing power at the same time as well.
There’s a lot of questions that have come of as of late regarding Fantilli and where he might play next season, and that’s because nobody really knows where he’ll play.
Fantilli, the slam dunk top prospect for this year’s OHL Draft and projected to be a top-2, top-3 minimum, prospect eligible for the 2023 NHL Draft, has talked about his desire to play college hockey multiple times before. So, if the OHL ends up being out of the conversation, could the USHL be an option?
The unique thing about the USHL is that it is an NCAA-protected league where players maintain their college eligibility, whereas in the CHL players can play just one game, an exhibition game or even a scrimmage at a CHL camp, and that would make them ineligible to play in the NCAA.
Another league that does this is the BCHL, and going from the BCHL to the NCAA is becoming a much more popular route with Canadian hockey players nowadays. I think we’ll be seeing more and more players end up going straight from the BCHL to the NCAA down the road as well rather than going over to the states to adjust to the USHL and then head to the NCAA, and most of that is because some kids don’t necessarily want to leave their family to play hockey elsewhere as teens.
Alex Newhook (Boston College) is obviously the most recent example with the route he took, but we’ll also be seeing top 2021 NHL Draft prospect, Kent Johnson, playing with Michigan next season after dominating the BCHL this year.
But, when it comes to Fantilli going to the BCHL, that just isn’t a route that truly makes any sense for his development at all because of how high-end of a player he is and because of the other options he will have on the table.
The biggest difference between the CHL and USHL is that the USHL itself has never had this caliber of a prospect in their league before. Yes, obviously the NTDP has produced some of the top talent in the United States before like Auston Matthews, Patrick Kane, Jack Eichel, and many others, BUT, technically the NTDP is separate from the USHL even though they regularly play against USHL teams on their schedule. The NTDP does not take part in the USHL draft and they pick their own team separately through their own evaluation camp, but unfortunately that won’t happen this year. They also do not trade or cut any players since their program is a two-year commitment. It’s an entirely different process compared to the rest of the league.
Unless he had dual citizenship, Fantilli wouldn’t be able to play with that program since he is Canadian, so he’d have to play on 1 of the 15 other teams if he were to play in the USHL, which correlates to my first sentence in the last paragraph.
Ok, so back to the USHL itself now…
Luca Fantilli, a University of Michigan commit, is currently a prospect of the Chicago Steel and was drafted by them in last year’s Phase 2 Draft. Since we know how tight the relationship between the brothers is already, I’m curious to see if Luca’s decision on where he plays next season (if that ends up being the USHL) might influence Adam’s decision once again.
Obviously it’s granted that they both miss their family a lot back in Canada, but since they’ve both been adjusting to life in the United States already, might that influence the family’s decision and trust to allow them to continue playing hockey and their development in the United States?
The USHL allows for an easier transition to the NCAA for players because of the physicality and speed, but it also allows younger players to have the opportunity of playing against stronger players to help further their development.
Fantilli can’t commit to a college until August if he were going to, so that makes things even more interesting with how the situation could turn out. Junior hockey league drafts typically occur anywhere between April-June, the OHL Draft taking place on April 4th while the USHL Phase 1 Draft will take place on May 4th, and that gives Fantilli plenty of time to make a decision on where he wants to play for the upcoming season before potentially committing in August.
The logic in me thinks that a choice between North Bay in the OHL, a team likely to be stuck in a rebuild for a couple of years even with Fantilli there, and the University of Michigan, a college with a bunch of high-end commits heading there and a team that will only get better every year, is obvious for Fantilli. With Luca already committed there, it only makes sense that Michigan is trying heavily to recruit Adam to their program, and he would obviously be a massive addition if they can end up luring him there.
Per Grand Forks Herald, Adam Fantilli and his parents recently visited the University of North Dakota for a recruiting visit, and it was quite surprising to say the least since it kind of came out of nowhere. Potentially a somewhat similar situation that could happen with Fantilli this year, Jonathan Toews made the decision to play with UND for two seasons rather than playing with the Tri-City Americans of the WHL, the team that picked him first overall in the 2003 WHL Bantam Draft.
I think the OHL and USHL are the two leagues to watch this year with Fantilli, especially the USHL, and I don’t have a real confident answer other than giving the slight edge to the USHL for now, but it’s honestly so tough to decide between the two because both leagues each make a lot of sense for him.
Both Adam and Luca Fantilli committed to the Chicago Steel (USHL) a few months ago and will continue their development in the United States for the upcoming season!
