Film Room: Elton Hermansson's playmaking skill makes for an intriguing first round bet

Outside of the consensus top-10 names in this year's class, Elton Hermansson stands out as one of the most dynamic options.

Already debuting with Sweden's U18 national team as an underager last season, Hermansson decided to make the switch from Örebro to MoDo over the course of the off-season. With the latter club having been just been relegated back to the HockeyAllsvenskan, this was a key decision in helping him graduate to the professional level for his draft year, having already been close to a point-per-game player at the U20 level in his draft-minus-one season.

It's fair to say that Hermansson's plan worked. He made his HockeyAllsvenskan debut in late September, spent the next two months alternating between the professional and junior ranks, before becoming a full-time fit with MoDo's men's team. In the end, he finished the regular season with 11 goals and 21 points in 38 games, which gives him the ninth-most productive draft-eligible season in HockeyAllsvenskan history, beating out recent top prospects like Michael Brandsegg-Nygård and Dalibor Dvorský.

Against his peers, Hermansson has been dominant. He started off the season with 11 points in five games at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, then added six points in four games at November's Five Nations event, arguably being Sweden's top contributor at both tournaments. Currently up to 19 points in 10 games in total and being pencilled in to play a key role at the U18s, it's very much in the cards that he becomes the first skater to average two points per game in a season with the U18 national team during this century.

The breakdown

When he plays against his peers, Hermansson is an offensive creator first and foremost. Whether with MoDo's U20 team or Sweden's U18 squad, he's been the main driver of his line in almost all of the viewings we've had this season.

A lot of it comes down to his ability to carry the puck. While not a truly high-end mover due to some mechanical quirks in his stride, Hermansson still blends a good amount of quickness with a wide variety of different moves on his edges. Along the walls, he can create space by opening his hips, but also shake off back pressure with powerful cutbacks and change his direction on a dime when manoeuvring through checks to enter the zone.

As a handler, Hermansson is even more impressive. With his hands and feet operating independently, the puck stays glued on his stick as he weaves across the neutral zone, and the rapid-fire moves allow him to sneak past defenders by sliding pucks through their triangles and between their skates. He's got a wide array of tricks in his bag, too, capable of pulling perfect toe drags at high speeds or sliding the puck between his legs with the toe of his blade as he stops or cuts inside, with the latter being his signature move given how often he utilizes it.

As seen in the clips above, when everything clicks, Hermansson is capable of chaining together impressive skill moves into offensive creation, pulling off some of the more imaginative plays by any European in this year's class.

Hermansson doesn't shy away from holding onto the puck as long as he feels like he needs to, often dodging checks and escaping pressure on the perimeter until he sees a worthy passing lane to take advantage of. But he can also make plays with more pace, racking up a number of impressive one-touch playmaking moments from behind the net between his professional and junior appearances.

Off the rush, he varies his speed and either takes advantage of a trailer option or threads a pass through the defender to a teammate rushing the net. Off the cycle, he sees cross-slot openings and has the skill to pull off tricky feeds through objectives, with the rapid-fire handling helping him in adjusting the angle of the pass accordingly. By scanning before retrieving pucks, he's in position to quickly capitalize on potential openings.

When you combine Hermansson's production across his professional and international play from this season, though, he's scored more goals than he's added assists. There are a few reasons why.

At the Hlinka Gretzky Cup and November's Five Nations tournament, Hermansson's skill and transition prowess allowed him to create chances at will, being an eager shooter off the rush when getting to try to leverage defenders as a screen. He also played a key role on Sweden's power play, scoring five out of his eight goals on the man-advantage by possessing both a solid one-timer and a proficient angle-changing wrister from his outside leg.

In HockeyAllsvenskan, Hermansson's chance and expected goal generation have remained at a high level, but the ways of creating have been different. It didn't take him too long to adapt by starting to put emphasis on his off-puck game. He became better at playing off his teammates, timing his movements to the slot and to the backdoor, and even battling for rebounds. He showed himself to be a capable finisher from awkward angles, too.

Finishing is not the only area where the 6-foot-1 winger was able to showcase adaptability when he jumped to the professional environment.

On many nights, he adopted more of a checking mindset, simplifying his decision-making and opting for a more dump-and-chase style of hockey. While still lacking raw strength and not necessarily being the most natural in such a role, he showed projectable elements in the process, including a willingness to retrieve contested pucks.

There's no denying Hermansson's offensive talent and natural skill. However, there are some areas and details that he needs to iron out and improve upon to increase his odds of playing regular NHL games.

As we touched on earlier, Hermansson's physical play, especially his willingness to engage, improved throughout the season, but there's still a lot of room for further improvements. Building up more strength will be a key factor in this, but there were stretches when his battle level also raised concerns. While his motor earned more favourable reviews from our scouts in the second half of the season, it's fair to wonder how much defensive utility he's going to bring at the NHL level.

Offensively, Hermansson does have a few red flags, too. At times, he can be a rather inefficient creator and a bit of a puck hog, hanging onto the puck for too long while missing opportunities to get his teammates involved. This has been more of a theme when playing against his peers, but not exclusively. At the pro level, there were also times when his play selection under pressure left to be desired, whether he rushed certain plays or started to spam low-percentage shots. You'd ideally want to see him taking an extra step as a skater, too.

It's hard to argue with the results he's produced this season, though, with the upcoming U18s providing him with one last opportunity to showcase the full extent of his skill set. Having spent all of his time in the professional ranks since he last played internationally, it'll be interesting to see if he's able to showcase some of the more projectable aspects more, or whether he reverts back to the more individualistic, carry-heavy style he's had great success with previously.

In the end, forwards with top-six upside are at a premium after the very first picks, and if everything breaks right, Hermansson could have the offensive prowess to reach that status. More realistically, you could be looking at an offensively-minded middle-six winger who could bring finishing ability, perimeter playmaking, supporting habits, and notable power play utility.

While he has some marks of a boom-or-bust prospect, his HockeyAllsvenskan play has given us more hope in this regard; turning into a third-line energy presence as a fallback option isn't out of the question, provided he's able to make certain tweaks and improvements.

As such, Hermansson is a reasonable bet to make for any team looking to bolster their forward pipeline with skill in the second half of the first round.