Film Room: Why late-riser power forward Václav Nestrašil is a coach’s dream
What makes the ideal NHL power forward?
Size, tenacity, middle-drive, checking skills, and a mean streak quickly come to mind. Skill, scoring instincts, and pacy processing are necessities for clicking with elite linemates and scoring at a high rate, alongside a plethora of details to earn a coach’s trust in all situations.
But how does a player reach that ceiling?
Some mature quickly physically and bully adult competition in their teens, learning to lead with their physicality and build the rest of their games around this key strength. Others are the inverse: spending many of their development years building out their tools and habits to compete with heavier and stronger opponents before their own growth spurts transform them into a frame with significant physical advantages compared to their peers.
Recent Clark Cup champion with the Muskegon Lumberjacks, Václav Nestrašil, fits the latter mould. A nearly six-foot-six, 190-pound right-shot winger, the imposing Czech hasn’t always loomed over his teammates.
Until the past three seasons, Nestrašil’s size and physicality were average, at best, amongst his peers. To stand out and entrench himself as one of Czechia’s most exciting 2007-born players, he developed an impressive level of engagement, competitiveness, intelligence, and skill.
With newfound heft and a versatile and solid foundation, the Prague native established himself as one of his coach’s most trusted soldiers in all situations on a championship run, gaining more and more steam as the season progressed.
By diving into his playoff game tape and highlighting key details and habits, we’ll shine a light on his reliable qualities, physical projection, and translatable skill that could carry him all the way to a top-six NHL capacity, making the lives of elite linemates easier every night.
Mentality
With the score at 1-0 with just over seven minutes to go in the first period against the Dubuque Fighting Saints, Nestrašil lines up for a defensive zone draw. He is No. 24 in white.
As soon as the puck hits the ice, he gets straight to the fray to compete for possession. Once Dubuque comes out with the puck at the blue line, he identifies the set-play one-timer threat from the opposite defenceman backing into the high slot quicker than any teammate and – with gleeful desperation – threw his body and face into the shooting lane.
Fortunately for him, the shot whiffed. He came out unscathed this time but didn’t hesitate once in the entire postseason to put his body on the line to help his team. Whether by absorbing pucks or cross-checks, it is Nestrašil’s buy-in and competitiveness that form the basis of why he played a huge role on the penalty kill and was among Coach Parker Burgess’ most trusted players defending late leads.
It means something for a high-skill power forward whose brightest flashes have come with the puck on his stick to rise into such a trusted role in all phases of play, especially when his team is most vulnerable. Without such a level of engagement, an absorbent mind, or defensive physical habits, Nestrašil wouldn’t be as special a prospect as he is, meriting stylistic comparisons to blossoming Washington Capitals power forward Alexei Protas and booming 2024 Draft selection Igor Chernyshov from our scouting staff.
The University of Massachusetts commit’ puck battling grew into a clear strength in the postseason. He is adaptable in his habits. With an anticipative edge alongside deliberate bursts of intensity at the right moment, and varied approach — sometimes bumping his opponent before going for the puck, other times faking to do so. Moreover, with range, strength, and deft hands, Nestrašil has the ability to project as a puck recovery machine low in the offensive zone.
Though his consistency in execution, especially under pressure, and his variable stride mechanics and depth will need a few years of targeted development to mature to an NHL level, Nestrašil has all the surrounding habits to excel in a bottom-six checking role, regardless of how far his offensive creativity takes him.
A projectable floor provides a feeling of – relative – safety on draft day. Imaginative offence, however, with the skill to carry ideas out, brings excitement.
Skill
In the conference finals, with a 1-0 series lead, Nestrašil pounced on the opportunity to execute a play from his warmup ritual. With confidence and deft hands, the Sparta Praha product identified a passive Dubuque defence and went for the Michigan. It very nearly worked.
Though he still displayed a tendency of overhandling pucks when plays weren’t clicking and holding onto possession for too long, Nestrašil’s impact saw significant growth this season in employing his skill opportunistically to solve problems rather than going out of his way to find them.
With impressive on-puck resourcefulness and creativity, the Czech winger uses his environment to solve problems. One of my favourite plays of his this campaign came against the U18 NTDP. As I wrote in my game report for that April 4th performance:
“His flashes of imaginative on-puck skill were the brightest of any player in this contest. In the first period, he used the back of the net as a backboard, chipping the puck against it and spinning his check before retrieving the puck, wrapping around the net, and sending a dangerous pass to the slot all in one motion. While his habits still leave a lot of room for ironing out warts, Nestrašil continued to display an appealing combination of violence, intensity, and high-end creativity to bolster his skill.”
With the creativity to solve problems at pace and the deft hands, powerful frame, and playmaking skill to exploit time and space down low, Nestrašil makes the lives of opposing defenders difficult in a multitude of ways.
At speed, charging downhill, his unlocked top hand and puck control in tight spaces featured bright flashes. His execution wasn’t always polished, but the ideas were sound, his skill translatable, and dare impressive. Even in playoff overtime, Nestrašil sported the confidence to take on the defence on his own, driving wide before cutting inside with deft handling.
NHL teams are sure to be tempted by his pacy middle-driven skill, accompanied by off-puck drives to the dangerous areas that resulted in multiple goals scored in tight. While his release has some weight to it and is a threat to score from medium range, it is – on its own – the most standard tool among his puck skills, creating more threat through well-timed routes, net-front battles, and quick reflexes at the net front than any special mechanical quality.
Nestrašil’s playmaking creativity and passing skill saw his brightest flashes of offensive skill this season. Manipulative eyes, good utilization of his reach to connect on hook and slip passes, and the ability to thread the needle at speed: he flashed top-six NHL skill.
The primary concern? Consistent execution.
There were games this season where Nestrašil repeatedly tried to force plays, hesitating under heavy pressure, and getting smothered in possession. When things get frazzled on-puck, his skill can break down. Still, this area saw growth this season and the exploration of his limitations is precisely what you want to see from a skilled 18-year-old in junior hockey.
Physicality
If Nestrašil’s motor is the glue that binds his game, his physicality represents the element that could rapidly accelerate his development in the coming seasons. With a still lanky frame and having been told by his coaches to focus on leveraging his size and physicality for the first time in his career this season – by his own admission in an insightful interview with Anthony Donati of Draft Prospects Hockey – the Czech winger is just getting started in learning proactive contact habits and the physical edge it takes to become an NHL power forward.
With the mindset to charge the middle lane, battle hard, and throw his body into shooting lanes, and a big frame still in the process of filling out, Nestrašil has clear developmental runway. With added strength, refined mechanics – particularly in getting low to not be so easily out-leveraged – and a growing punishing streak, the Czech winger could revel at the college level as of next season and take strides toward a complementary top-six NHL spot.
His engagement, defensive details, and problem-solving ability at pace will likely get him to a bottom-six capacity on their own. Few players outside the top 20 on draft day can match Nestrašil’s combination of projectable floor and tangible upside. He will require patience. Filling out his frame, ironing out inconsistencies and hesitant reads, and leaning into his mean streak some more will be necessary. With these – likely – developments, he represents a uniquely gifted and intense power forward in the 2025 class.