Drafted 59th Overall By the New York Rangers.
Its often extremely difficult for us to see footage of players playing in the United States High School system. With Cristoval “Boo” Nieves this was a bit of a problem this year, as he played prep school hockey for Kent School in Connecticut. However fortunately for us, we were able to catch a glimpse of Nieves at the 2011 Ivan Hlinka Tournament, where the New York state native represented the United States. Nieves also finished the year playing for the Indiana Ice in the USHL, so there was an additional opportunity to view him at that level. Nieves is committed to become a Michigan Wolverine, and will be a future teammate of Phil DiGiuseppe and Jacob Trouba.
Centre/Left Wing
Born Jan 23 1994 — Baldwinsville, New York
Height 6.03 — Weight 176 — Shoots Left
Nieves has all the tools to be a top line player in the NHL. He has great size as he is already 6’3″ and may still be growing. He is a little skinny right now, at only 176 lbs, but he will have the time to pack some muscle on to his frame. Nieves is an elite skater. He has a beautiful stride, it is long and fluid. He generates great acceleration and top-end speed. He also has very good agility and edgework. He could use a little bit better balance, and to be stronger on the puck, but this should come with the additional muscle he needs to add to his frame.
In the offensive zone, Nieves is a terrific playmaker. He has elite level vision, and can thread tape to tape passes to teammates with ease. He has great puck control and soft hands which allow him to control the puck and make the patient effective play. He’s got a hard shot and a good release, but we are a little puzzled by his goal scoring totals (especially considering the level of competition at the US Prep School level). We’ve seen him score some nice goals in the Hlinka and a couple in the USHL, and he has shown that he has a nice shot, but overall the goal totals are far below what we would expect, and this is a bit of a concern.
Despite his ideal size, Nieves is not very physical. He does not engage in physical battles along the boards the way we would like to see from a player with his physical tools. We’d also like to see him use his speed and size to be more physical on the forecheck, and in the defensive end of the ice. He definitely also needs work on his defensive game, especially his positioning; however this is not unexpected. We would anticipate that he didn’t need to play much defense at the Prep School level as his line would probably be on the offense for most of his shifts. This is something often seen from a prospect coming out of a lower level league.
Nieves also needs to work on his consistency and effort level as these can vary greatly game to game, and even shift to shift. There were times he was an absolute force for Indiana, however there were also times he was completely invisible.
Nieves is a real boom or bust prospect. He’s a bit of a long term project, and will definitely need the time at Michigan to learn how to play against tougher competition, to develop consistency and to add size and strength to his frame. If he can do these things and develop properly he has a bright future in the NHL. We’d compare his career potential to being similar to bigger version of Marc Savard (currently on the LTIR of the Boston Bruins). However there is a big risk here, as there is a significant chance that Nieves could bust.
Nieves is also a bit of an internet superstar for this goal scored against Russia at last years Ivan Hlinka tournament.
Thanks to youtube user drpabloramirez for the upload, and to yahoo’s Puck-Daddy for featuring it.
… and thats the Last Word.
