The PuckPedia Hockey Show Episode 39: McKenna or Stenberg? ft. Shane Malloy

Episode 39 of The PuckPedia Hockey Show features a very special guest, Shane Malloy: the host of Hockey Prospect Radio, co-host of the Hockey Data Show on SiriusXM with Timo Seppa, and a contributor with the Pro Hockey Group.

We start by diving into Shane's background and how he got his start in hockey media completely by accident (1:00), writing for free on hockey websites in the early 2000s, cold-emailing NHL contacts using a media guide his Finnish neighbor gave him, and landing a job at Fox Sports, building out prospect coverage before anyone in mainstream media cared about it. We talk about how Shane and Russ Cohen launched Hockey Prospect Radio on XM Satellite Radio in 2005 after boldly cold-calling the program director, and how Shane learned to scout by spending two hundred games a year sitting in the corner of the rink with NHL scouts rather than in the press box with media.

Then we get into the evolution of scouting and what has changed over his two decades in the industry (10:00). Shane breaks down his scouting process and what separates his rankings from the consensus, emphasizing the importance of a player's game, including how they compete and impact the game when things aren't going their way.

We dive deep into Shane's draft rankings and the top prospects in the 2026 class (16:30), including Gavin McKenna and Ivar Stenberg. We discuss the danger zone of picks twenty-three to thirty-two, where historically only fifty percent of players go on to play two hundred or more NHL games.

Then we discuss the 2026 draft class (23:00), including Caleb Malhotra's rise in the rankings as a Jonathan Toews and Nico Hischier hybrid, and what his future looks like at the NHL level.

We wrap up with the Coolbet question of the week (38:00). Shane's sleeper pick outside the top fifteen who he believes could shoot up into the top ten of any future redraft: Swedish centerman Alexander Command. Shane compares him to Sebastian Aho, seeing him as the anchor between two talented wingers at the U20 level.

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