Alexander Holtz

There is a friendly competition marking two Swedish wingers who are making runs to be top choices and the couts keep flipping in their opinbions on who will get drafted first. Holtz is a scorer with excellent vision, stick skills and jump to find the soft areas and capitalize. A finisher who plays strong in and around the net where he finishes plays with regularity. Strong on the puck, he has a good feel for getting in the right spots to capitalize. A responsible backchecker and player without the puck, his deceptive speed allows him to backcheck, and in support. Granted, he doesn't have that final gear in his acceleration, he, nonetheless, is difficult to catch around the net in tight, using his soft hands and vision to finish scoring chances or create them on the power play and even strength. Gets to loose pucks. His strong hands and dynamite release and strong edging are what allows him to surprise while faking shots, and instead, places pucks on his teammates sticks. Can cut in and rarely misses in close because of his terrific hands and natural scoring acumen. He is the bigger of the top two Swedish prospects and likes to finish, but also he reads the ice and might as easily set up a teammate. The great hands, dynamic release, and deceptive quickness and speed set him apart, no matter how we grade his quiet time in the Swedish Senior when he wasn't handed tons of power play minutes or quality minutes in general.
 

--Bill Placzek--