Jets Nation Prospect Profile 2015: #11 Michael Spacek

If there is one pattern in the prospect series, it is that we like players who score, and especially when they score against tough competition.

The 5’11, right wing Michael Spacek has a long standing history of scoring, and has done consistently against those far older and bigger than himself. We were high enough on him to rank him 25th overall at 2015’s NHL Entry draft, and we are high on him once again.

We continue our summer prospect profile series, checking in at #11.

Here is Spacek’s Player Cohort Success over the since his pre-draft eligible season:

PCS% is the percentage of similar players in height, league, scoring, and age that made the NHL, while PCS points per game is the production typical of those that did make it.

As mentioned earlier, Spacek has consistently scored against older, bigger, and more mature competition than himself.

At 14 Spacek scored 45 points in the Czechs U16 league, and moved up to the U18 where he scored 4 goals in 7 games against 16 and 17-year-olds. Then at 15 he was once again moved quickly to the U18 league, where he scored a comfortable 50 points in 39 games.

At 16, Spacek was again quickly moved up, this time to the U20 league. He there scored 28 points in 31 games against 18 and 19-year-olds. He even was given a four game trial to play in the Czech’s premier men’s league.

Then in his draft year Spacek played 40 games, scoring 12 points, against some of the best players in the world.

It says something about Spacek’s ability that the coach and management trusted the young forward to play against grown men in a league that has no care for development and is in a “win-now” mode.

In fact, here are the only under-18 forwards to play in the Czech league for more than 20 games and score more than 5 points over the last 10 years (in highest to lowest scoring): Spacek, Dmitrij Jaskin, Jiri Tlusty, David Kveton, Michael Frolik, Nathan Walker, Pavel Zacha. End list.

Spacek has done so well relative to his Czech peers that PCS has difficulty in evaluating him, and we have to cheat by including cohorts from other European leagues of similar competition levels.

It will be interesting to see how Spacek does moving over to the North American ice, as he moves to the WHL to play for the Memorial Cup hosts in Red Deer. Spacek will be thrust immediately into a primary role and will be looked at to add scoring to a team making a run.

Here are some highlights of Michael Spacek’s 2014-2015 season, courtesy of Jets Nations’ own Anthony Lenting: