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Prospects Hall, Poddubnyi have Phantoms excited
By BRIAN DZENIS
BOARDMAN
If there’s an elite hockey player within an hour’s drive to Youngstown, Jason Koehler is going to try and lock him up.
The Youngstown Phantoms general manager was quick to pull the trigger on signing 16-year-old Curtis Hall of Chagrin Falls on Feb 24. It cost Koehler a first-round draft pick in May, but to him, it was worth it.
“To me, the Pittsburgh and Cleveland area is somewhere where we don’t want to screw up an elite-level player if we can get him,” Koehler said. “To me, he’s one of the best NHL prospects to come out of those two cities in the past five years.”
Hall and fellow first-round draft choice German Poddubnyi are two of the Phantoms’ most exciting prospects to come out of the team’s selection camp, which ended Sunday.
The tender Hall signed in February guarantees he’ll be on the Phantoms’ roster in the fall. Hall, who is committed to Yale, said the Phantoms were the first junior team to reach out to him.
“I thought it was great that I can be in the best junior league in the country and only live an hour from home. That’s one of the big points of me coming to this organization,” Hall said. “Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve wanted to play in this league and especially this team, since it’s so close. Once I got in contact, I just came here and fell in love with it.”
The teen will have to go at players anywhere from one to four years older than than he is in the United States Hockey League.
“Some teams look at it as you’re taking a 2000-born player and they have to play on your team next year,” Koehler said. “hey have to dress and play in 55 percent of your games. There’s some coaches and organizations that don’t want young players. They don’t want to babysit. They don’t want to hold hands. They don’t have the patience to work with young kids.
“If you look at our history, we haven’t been afraid to do that. Some of those players have been among the best in our organization.”
Hall played his bantam hockey with the Cleveland Barons, scoring 10 goals and 24 assists in 32 regular-season games last year.
Podubbnyi hails from Sarov, Russia. He spent the past three years in the Philadelphia Junior Flyers system.
“The first year was really hard. It was completely different hockey,” Podubbnyi said. “European hockey is different. It’s less physical, but I caught up after that first year and it was a lot of fun.
“You have more time to think [in Europe] and on a smaller rink you have to think faster, move the puck faster.”
He said he spoke no English in his first year in the United States as he struggled in his first season abroad, but once he got past the culture shock, he’s been on a tear in each level he’s played.
“Gera” went from 18 totals points in year one to 75 the next. Last season, he scored 46 goals and 17 assists in just 18 games for Bishop Shanahan high school and scored 51 points for the Flyer’s 16U team.
“Being drafted high does give you a lot of pressure to do good,” Podubbnyi said. “I call myself a playmaker, I have good vision, I can find people and I’m good on the ice.”
The Phantoms’ roster will come together at the end of August as players now scatter for the summer.
“Hit the gym and get on the ice,” Hall said of his summer plans. “It’s gonna be a cold summer.”