Seth Jarvis shift-by-shift and scouting notes -- January 24, 2020
Video and notes for every shift of Seth Jarvis' five point outing versus the Tri-City Americans on January 24, 2020
Seth Jarvis is one of the 2020 NHL Draft’s biggest risers, exploding offensively for the Portland Winterhawks after the New Year and raising his draft stock from a fringe first rounder to possible top 15 status. I dove into Jarvis’ overall skillset and body of work in my prospect profile on the winger for theprospectnetwork.ca earlier this year, and I would encourage anybody unfamiliar with his game to read that first for a detailed introduction. But for a quick synopsis, here’s a paragraph from that profile’s conclusion:
Jarvis is a shifty, highly-skilled offensive talent that absolutely decimated the WHL in the year 2020. His agility, edgework, and puck skills are all top-tier and allow him to attack the slot on an extremely frequent basis. A quick, accurate release allows him to finish seemingly at will from the range, and he excels at identifying open teammates and finding cross-seam lanes as a playmaker as well.
This following post serves two purposes:
I wanted to try my hand at making shift-by-shift videos. We’ll go through every one of Jarvis’ shifts individually here, but I also compiled all eighteen of them into one video for your enjoyment. Not everyone has the time or expensive subscription package to watch the Winterhawks play (I do not own any of this video, nobody sue me please).
As well, I wanted to provide a look at my thought process when I’m watching a player play. The traits I look for, the plays that stand out to me, etcetera. Large sample sizes are important when you’re evaluating a player, but it doesn’t take several games to pick up on their general strength and weaknesses. For anyone reading this that hasn’t seen Jarvis play, I think that you’ll have a decent introductory understanding of his game if you stick around for the entire article and pay particular attention to the video.
If you enjoy what you see below and would like to see more of this kind of stuff, feel free to let me know on Twitter or in the comments and please consider subscribing to the newsletter. Interest becomes motivation. This will probably be the platform where I publish my final 2020 NHL Draft rankings in late June(unless somebody wants to host it on their site, winky emoji), which will be well over 15,000 words of analysis, strength/weakness profiles, and explanations of my rankings, so I wanted to hopefully establish a bit of a following on this medium beforehand.
Jarvis has five points in this game— four of them all in the first period. He reaches 100 career WHL points in this one too, a promising accomplishment for a player his age. Jarvis’ minutes diminished over the course of the game as his team took a sizable lead; presumably because his coach wanted to save him for Portland’s game the following day. where Seth had four points. Jarvis is #24 in white, playing the right wing.
Below is the full shift-by-shift. Still refining how I do this so it might be a little hard to follow with the transitions, but that should improve if I continue to make these. Let me know if there’s anything wrong with the video.
Keep scrolling afterwards for my analysis of each individual shift (excluding a few especially uneventful ones).
Jarvis’ first involvement comes as he flares out to the opposing blueline and almost cleanly receives a stretch pass, but the opposing defenceman is able to knock the puck off his stick. Jarvis, standing at 5’10” and 172 pounds, isn’t a noticeably physical player, but he uses his body well along the boards, pinning the defender so his teammate can collect the loose puck unchecked.
His second shift is on the powerplay. Jarvis plays the right wing as a right-shooting forward at even strength, but he moves across to his off-side on the left flank on the man advantage. Jarvis isn’t a massive one-time threat, but you’ll see him signalling for the cross-seam pass with his stick in the air on most powerplays. Jarvis wasted no time getting on the board in this game, recording a primary assist a minute into the match on a high-slot feed to a teammate. Notice how much attention Jarvis garners when he has the puck— the thumbnail of the video shows it quite well— as both Tri-City penalty killers on that side of the ice provide fairly aggressive puck pressure but fail to maintain heads-up stick positioning while they do so, creating the lane for Jarvis to move the puck into the slot for an assist.
Jarvis starts off on the forecheck, forcing the defender up the wall and into making a low-percentage chip play that ends up surrendering possession back to the Winterhawks. That’s a successful forecheck— channel the carrier towards the boards and into an area where he has little means of escape and then close in, forcing a poor play. As Portland breaks out of their zone afterwards, the team’s transitional gameplan becomes evident: the two wingers leak out high for long passes, the centre swings down the middle to ultimately become a support man for the wingers if the puck is moved to them (he’s of little direct use to the defender making the pass as most teams will have a forechecker right in that area), and the other defenceman finds open space in the corner to act as a safety valve if the wingers aren’t a viable option. This system is beneficial to Jarvis and one of the areas where it helps him that he plays the wing; a player with his quickness and elusiveness is very dangerous of the zone entry, so it only makes sense to have him leak out high to typically be among the first members of his team to gain the offensive zone. Common sense: when a player is dangerous off the rush, you put them in positions where they’ll possess the puck on the break.
The Winterhawks struggle to break out of their zone early in this shift, but Tri-City ends up overcommitting low and opening up tons of space in the neutral zone. That’s perfect for Jarvis, who gets plenty of runway to build up speed on the rush. He’s just too fast for the defender, quickly getting a step on the bigger, slow opponent and establishing hip position, keeping the defender behind him. First attempt doesn’t go, but his follow up shot finds the back of the net for a goal. Jarvis’ speed is what creates the opportunity, but establishing body positioning like he does is key for holding off bigger defenders and creating space to finish.
Shift 4 is a largely uneventful powerplay sequence, with Jarvis only playing the puck once on the far wall. I like the play on the zone entry near the end of the shift though: Jarvis doesn’t have the puck, but he takes a hard route towards the net and drives the defence back to create space for the puck carrier and then stations himself in front for a potential rebound.
Jarvis records his third point of the game here, an assist on an excellent backdoor connection with a teammate. The assist is terrific, but pay attention to Jarvis’ puck support to create that opportunity. He’s F3, playing high in the zone and supporting the play as his two linemates fight for the puck. Jarvis keeps the puck in after his teammate loses the battle, curls off into a pocket of space for the return pass, and you can see the rest. The shiftiness and agility to navigate the initial pressure as well as the vision on the pass are exceptional.
Our target starts out of frame as the Winterhawks work to break the puck out of their own zone, but becomes involved about 25 seconds in. He gets the puck on the close wall and works the puck in towards the net. Notice how he’s able to get the defender onto his back hip— for a smaller player, Jarvis’ body positioning is terrific and allows him to effectively shield the puck and put defenders in spots where their size advantage isn’t overly useful. He probably gets a little too ambitious with the move in front; nobody’s going to have a high rate of success trying to dangle with a defender on their back and another right in front. Jarvis does have a bit of a tendency to overhandle the puck and take it into traffic sometimes, but he’s elusive enough to make it work quite frequently and I’d rather see a player his age attempt those high-skill plays than opt for more risk-averse options.
This one starts with Jarvis nearly teeing up a high slot one-timer after a faceoff, but he can’t connect. Tri-City ends up with a breakaway after Jarvis whiffs on a pass back to the point and the Portland defender falls on the two-on-one, but can’t connect. I like how hard Jarvis gets back to his own end; he isn’t able to disrupt the play, but he’s there to collect the puck and transition it back to the offensive end, creating an odd-man rush. Jarvis excels when the pace of the game is high, and plays like this accelerate the tempo and create odd-man situations where he can thrive. Jarvis attempts a backwards between-the-legs pass looking back door to cap off the rush— it doesn’t work out, but I love the creativity.
The Hawks start this shift on the forecheck off the draw. This is excellent team forechecking again— Jarvis, the first man in, forces the play back towards pressure and his teammate closes in, forcing an uncontrolled exit. Instantly, Portland goes into attack mode. Portland was the WHL’s best team because of their ability to effectively play an extremely high-tempo game, and this play is a flawless example. Aggressive forecheck, force uncontrolled entries, move the puck back up to the forwards as quickly as possible, and capitalize on the chaos that ensues. Not many teams can turn an offensive zone faceoff into an uncontrolled exit against and then into a two-on-one goal all within 25 seconds.
Back to Jarvis: pay particular attention to how he’s able to create a passing lane for this assist. The defender does a decent job taking away the initial lane, but by pulling the puck back Jarvis creates an unobstructed passing angle. That ability to create passing lanes is what makes the best playmakers so effective (if some of the more technical details of playmaking interests you, you might enjoy this article of mine on the five keys to creating offence as a passer).
The interesting part of this shift starts about fifteen seconds in. I’m not sure how the initial trip went uncalled, but Jarvis ends up with the puck in the neutral zone and carries it in offensively. Notice how quickly he can explode out of a slow glide— he pulls the puck across his body and just takes off, leaving the defender way behind him. He catches every one of the four TC defenders still in decent position by surprise too, and forces one to take a penalty and drag Jarvis down to avoid giving up a point-blank chance.
More powerplay action here. That’s a textbook backcheck by Jarvis when the puck turns the other way— hustles back and takes away the open man. Nearly connects on a pass to the top of the crease on the ensuing offensive possession.
Plenty of good things here. Begins with an excellent demonstration of his elusiveness as he spins off the defender and finds space for a shot, which is blocked. Jarvis makes another great play at the top of the zone later on, with a quick stick move into a pass. Every time I’ve watched him play, Jarvis’ confidence and creativity with the puck have stood out. And he’s ultimately rewarded for all the elusiveness and creativity to extend offensive possession on this shift with an easy tap in goal for his 100th WHL point.
This shift shows the importance of establishing body positioning with the hips when you’re driving on a bigger defender. Coming down the wing near the beginning of the shift, Jarvis fails to get his body in front of the defender and is subsequently forced off route. If you have a defender on your side, they’ll be able to push you off track; get them on your back and the only direction they can push you is towards the goal.
Jarvis loses the puck on the far wall in his own zone looking to break the puck out— just got a little ahead of himself trying to pick the puck up from the boards with one hand without using his body to launch back into the opposing player behind him and creating separation. Good leading pass to a teammate cutting through the slot about 20 seconds in, crashes the slot for a good chance right after. Tried to spin off another defender afterwards, but it was played well and Jarvis was knocked down. That’s the type of defence he’ll be meeting in the NHL, those spin moves and other plays won’t be as consistently effective but I’m confident that Jarvis, with all his creativity, will be able to figure out alternatives.
This is his final shift, not a lot of intensity from either team as the game is well out of reach for Tri-City. Almost pulls off the controlled zone entry about 20 seconds in, goes to the net to provide a screen afterwards, and then leaks out to the high slot for a shot. You can see that his shot isn’t much of a threat from that area. Jarvis’ scoring prowess— he buried 42 goals, it’s there— originates from the quickness of his release on the move and his ability to pick corners from the immediate slot. He’s more a finesse scorer than an Ovechkin-like gunslinger.
This was my first crack at this kind of thing. I hope it was enjoyable and informative. I appreciate feedback—if you liked it, tell me that! If there’s something I should tweak, tell me that. If you hated it and think I should never do this kind of thing again, you can even tell me that too. And please subscribe!