The first thing that jumps out about Peyton Kettles is his imposing figure. At 6\u20195\u201d and almost 200 pounds, Kettles commands a large swath of the ice in front of him courtesy of his wingspan and long reach. I think defensive-minded is the correct category for Kettles, but this isn\u2019t your prototypical \u201cstay-at-home and don\u2019t touch the puck\u201d style of defensive defenseman. Kettles can skate well in both directions, exhibits a lot of raw talent, is comfortable with the puck on his stick, and was one of the youngest defensemen in the WHL last year, courtesy of his late birthday.<\/p>\n
We should probably begin with that rawness. For me, it sort of defines the Kettles\u2019 viewing experience. This is a player with a professional future, but he\u2019s so young and so raw that it\u2019s hard to predict what route that\u2019s going to take and what it\u2019ll look like two to three years from now. You\u2019re often left wanting a bit more from him. I\u2019d use the word initiative; I think he\u2019s becoming more comfortable in his minutes and role designation, and you\u2019re starting to see that in the form of increased confidence in his first decision as well as an uptick in physicality.<\/p>\n
\u2026<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve said his skating is sound, and I\u2019ll stand by that. He\u2019s arguably better backwards than he is forwards as far as agility is concerned. What he lacks is a discernible sense of \u201cpop,\u201d or explosiveness, in his stride. He\u2019s agile, can cut and edge well for how big he is, and his top speed is probably a touch underrated. You\u2019d almost expect him to look a little bit clumsy given his size, but I never see that from him; he\u2019s excellent on his feet. Where the explosiveness affects him most is in tight spaces. He lacks that explosive edgework needed to make effective transitions or recoveries after he stops moving.<\/p>\n
\u2026<\/p>\n
The one thing I want to see from Kettles is initiative. When he is engaged and playing proactively rather than passively, he can tip the game over on its head. This involves using his size, which is something I find myself yearning for him to do more of when watching his performances. His gap control and physical engagement wax and wane throughout a game, and I chalk that up to how young he is right now. As he matures, I expect we\u2019ll see more proactive attacks from him in all three zones.<\/p>\n
\u2026<\/p>\n
Overall, it\u2019s tough for me to watch Kettles and not think of Brian Dumoulin. That\u2019s a real stretch goal here, and while I don\u2019t believe Kettles has a ceiling that\u2019s relatively as high as the top pairing guy, Dumoulin was, the play styles have a lot of similarities. I look at Kettles as a defense-first guy who isn\u2019t afraid to carry the puck and doesn\u2019t handle it like a grenade. I do think there\u2019s upside to his point contribution totals, given how comfortable he is with the puck and his still-developing game sense.<\/p>\n
Overall, I like Kettles a good bit. I do think there\u2019s a value discussion to be had here. Kettles is quite obviously someone the Penguins coveted highly, but his consensus rankings had him in the 50+ range for most outlets. I think he\u2019s going to grow into a strong bottom-pairing, jack-of-all-trades type of defenseman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first thing that jumps out about Peyton Kettles is his imposing figure. At 6\u20195\u201d and almost 200…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,46636,99,33094],"class_list":["post-74751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-pittsburgh-penguins-prospects","tag-sports","tag-top-25-under-25"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}