Frank Nazar helped boost his profile with strong World Junior Championship

Daily Faceoff prospect guru Steven Ellis joined Daily Faceoff Live to discuss the impact that USA forward Frank Nazar has had and how his strong play in Gothenburg has boosted his profile and impressed everyone.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Let’s take a bigger look here at the tournament and recap everything. From the perspective of prospects who impressed you the most these last couple weeks? 

Steven Ellis: Well, I would have to go with Frank Nazar, Chicago Blackhawks prospect. He enters this gold medal game with eight assists and a lot of those did come in the game against Switzerland but he’s a lot more than a playmaker. For a guy that I do expect to score a lot of goals, he actually had a hat trick in the summer showcase tournament that the USA was part of, he just hasn’t scored yet but has done everything else well. This is the best defensive hockey I’ve seen from him, he threw some huge hits and ended a Swedish player’s tournament in the pre-tournament games with a clean but very powerful hit.

Steven Ellis: From a well-rounded perspective, I’ve never seen Nazar play as effectively as he did. I think Blackhawks fans need to be excited, a lot of people probably dropped Nazar in their prospect rankings because he missed most of last season and wasn’t great by any means but entered this season with a chip on his shoulder and wanted to prove he’s one of the better Hawks prospects in this tournament, even though it’s a couple of games he’s proven why he’s a talent prospect. 

Frank Seravalli: It’s funny you say that, I was talking to someone in Chicago yesterday and I said ‘What if Bedard wasn’t there, who would be the Blackhawks all-star representative this year’ You’d have a field day trying to pick that, but the answer and maybe the correct one was Frank Nazar. I doubt he’d be playing there but still nonetheless speaks to how well he has played at this tournament that he would even be on the radar.