Isaac Ratcliffe

Position:  LW
Current Team: Guelph Storm (OHL)
Date of Birth: February 15, 1999
Hometown: London, Ontario (Canada)
Height: 6’6″
Weight: 204 lbs.
Shoots: Left

One of the adages you always hear when it comes to NHL prospects is ‘you can’t teach size.’

Based on that alone, a lot of teams are likely to give Isaac Ratcliffe a look, but his play over the last two seasons brings up a lot of questions about if size is the ONLY thing Ratcliffe has to help him make it to the NHL level.

He’s got some great scoring ability, and could develop into one hell of a power forward in the Rick Nash mold, but at the same time his physical game is fairly underdeveloped, he still needs to build up his strength, and he’s shown a tendency to disappear just when he’s needed most.

How much of that can be placed at the feet of playing for an incredibly craptastic Guelph team? How much of that is simply coming into his size and filling out his frame a bit ahead of the curve compared to a lot of the players he’s faced, so he hasn’t needed to use his body to the same degree? Good questions to ask, and ones without easy answers.

He’s gotten praise for his ability to protect the puck, and when he is on he is on. Wins were few and far between for the Storm this year, but when Ratcliffe was on his game, a lot of the credit for those victories went to him.

With the right development and a little patience, he could graduate into the kind of gamebreaker that every team desperately wants.

Or he could turn to a massive disappointment, never quite able to find the gears to consistently use all of his talents at their full potential, and disappear to Europe or elsewhere like so many other NHL prospects who never quite made the leap.

It will be interesting to see where he falls, and who decides to roll the dice.

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