Pope Francis Prospect Scouting Report

[nurx 908]

Wait a minute... I said no scouting so stop reading this!

 

Pope Francis is a defensively minded defenseman who will most likely make a huge impact in the own end of any VHL team. The old stud from Argentina had a league leading 238 SBs 55 SBs above 2nd place. The Pope doesn't suffer on the offensive end where he was successful being 2nd place in defenseman points in the M last season with 95 points only 6 points behind the leader. While awards haven't been announced yet, it would hard to see a world where Pope Francis doesn't at least get a deep look for the Ryan Sullivan Trophy. Interestingly, Pope Francis led the league in PP goals with 16 with only 25 goals on the season the system that Halifax ran on the PP obviously allowed the Pope to use his strength to power in some hard clappers from the point to either get a goal or a quick rebound goal from a teammate because the Pope had a point in 73% of all PP goals during the regular seasons for the Halifax 21st.

 

Unfortunately, there are a few downsides to the Popes way of playing the game. While using his body as a tool, he led the league in PIMs which led to his Halifax 21st struggling on the PK without their top and for a long time only defenseman.  This is especially evident when you consider that the Pope put his team down a man 64 times and without him their bad PK dropped to worst in the league. If the Pope wants to live a successful career in the VHL he will certainly need to figure out how to reduce his time sitting in the no-no box. Also while he led the league in SBs and had a very successful offensive season he still had a poor +/- with only +5. While it is true that +/- relies heavily on teammates, it does still depend on your ability to stop chances. The Pope uses his body and gets a lot of hits, but in a league where hits don't necessarily lead to turnovers it doesn't really help your team when you look at what it does to inflating your PIMs. Discipline is definitely the biggest problem for the Pope and it will be looked at closely by teams as they look to draft this player.

 

The reality is the Pope isn't a perfect player, but the upside can be great when you get such a strong defensive player.