The Rangers kicked off the first big trade of Drury’s “retool” with the acquisition of Windsor Spitfires winger Liam Greentree in exchange for Artemi Panarin. It’s hard to like this return, though it wasn’t a surprise as I had called out in my recent piece criticizing Chris Drury that Panarin’s NMC put major limitations on the return. But we move on, and we look to make the best of it. So let’s run through our Liam Greentree scouting report, as he’s better than most think, though definitely not a guaranteed NHLer.

A good night’s sleep has allowed me to separate my disappointment in the return from my true thoughts on a Liam Greentree scoutig report. Full disclosure: Greentree only became a Rangers prospect 24 hours ago, so I have not watched him extensively. I plan to start that process shortly – he has a game on Sunday at 2:05 pm – and will follow up with a more detailed Liam Greentree scouting report in the coming weeks.

This reaction piece is my take on how respected public scouts view Greentree, as well as my view on some of the concerns and narratives that formed quickly in the aftermath of the Panarin trade.

Snapshot Summary

Liam Greentree is a big 6’3″ winger with a high skill level, excellent playmaking ability, and a very dangerous shot. Pace is the primary concern in his projection, although some scouts believe they are no longer the issue they used to be, and he has taken active steps to improve his skating (he has worked with a skating coach). EliteProspects’ draft year player comparison for him was Wild star Matt Boldy, another big, highly skilled, scoring winger who had slightly below-average skating.

Greentree has captained Windsor since his draft season, which is a rare honor for a draft-eligible skater, and he led them through some dark days with 90 points in his first year as captain. He followed that up with a monster 119-point season, including 24 points in 11 playoff games. His production this year has slowed to a 90-point pace over a full 68-game season, but it is worth noting that he was recovering from wrist surgery at the start of the year, and scoring in the OHL is actually down (7.28 GPG in 24/25 vs. 6.64 GPG in 25/26). He currently sits 12th in the OHL in points per game.

He was a peripheral player on Team Canada at the World Juniors this year. It is worth noting that, despite their disappointing tournament, Team Canada was loaded at forward and considered the runaway favorite going into the tournament (moreso than most years). Greentree also missed the important World Junior Summer Showcase due to his wrist surgery. Basically, it was their toughest team in a while to crack in a meaningful role, and he started on the backfoot due to injury.

Production Concerns

The snapshot summary addressed the two red flags many fans have latched onto in the aftermath: skating and a drop in production. But I’ve seen relatively serious claims that Greentree is an “Ilya Protas merchant.” In my opinion, that claim does not hold up to scrutiny. He was outstanding on a really, really bad Spitfires team the year before Protas joined.

While a drop-off in D+2 production is concerning, he is still playing at a respectable 90-point pace on a team averaging .74 fewer goals per game. A strong final ~20 games could easily up that to a 100-point pace. The Spitfires are also allowing only 2.51 goals against per game, down from the 3.28 they allowed per game last season. That could indicate they are playing a tighter defensive structure, although it looks like their goalie has been outstanding this season.

“He’s not dominating the OHL” is the other common refrain, but I think it’s fair to say that he’s actually dominated the OHL twice – he finished 12th in OHL scoring in his Draft Year and 3rd last year – and had nothing left to prove there going into this season. The point is, this isn’t a Brennan Othmann D+2 level production drop-off. The baseline for Greentree is much, much higher, and he has still been very productive this year despite mitigating circumstances.

As a whole, the big picture view of his production paints an impressive picture and adds to his credibility as a legitimate top-six forward prospect, in my opinion. He’s not the “one-season-wonder, Ilya Protas merchant” some people are painting him as.

Prospect Rankings

Summary

I am not providing a definitive take on his skating here because I simply haven’t watched him enough yet. In terms of upside, my gut reaction, based on his skill/size combination and production data, is that this is a player with clear second-line upside. I am going to watch roughly 10 of his games and report back with my eye-test take on Greentree, supplemented by some publicly available tracking data, so stay tuned.

Mentioned in this article:

More About: