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Post by NWTHabsFan on Jul 14, 2019 12:46:12 GMT -5
Norlinder’s coach at Modo has some great things to say about him.
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Post by folatre on Jul 14, 2019 17:57:57 GMT -5
It is nice to hear about Norlinder. There are certainly elements of his game which make him more than a long-shot type NHL prospect.
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Post by NWTHabsFan on Jul 15, 2019 11:35:34 GMT -5
TSN will be showing games from the U20 Summer Showcase again this year. Here are the games and the possible prospects that could be featured in the games (note: Canada and the USA have invited a lot of players, so game lineups with those two teams will not include all the players invited to camp).
Wednesday July 31 CAN (McShane, Fonstad) vs FIN 1:00pm ET
Wednesday July 31 USA (Caufield, Harris) vs SWE (Olofsson) 4:00pm ET
Friday August 2 SWE (Olofsson) vs CAN (McShane, Fonstad) 1:00pm ET
Friday August 2 FIN vs USA (Caufield, Harris) 4:00pm ET
Saturday August 3 SWE (Olofsson) vs FIN 1:00pm ET
Saturday August 3 USA (Caufield, Harris) vs CAN (McShane, Fonstad) 4:00pm ET
Two of our newest draft picks, Struble (groin) and Norlinder (hand), will miss the camp due to their injuries.
It is weird not to have a representative on the Finnish side. Ylonen is a late 1999 birthday, so he ages out, as does Ikonen who missed the team last year due to his off season training injury. KK would still be age eligible for the team, but the Habs did not release him for last year's team and most certainly will not again this year.
TSN will also be showing games from the Hlinka-Gretzky that starts shortly after this U20 tournament ends. The Hlinka-Gretzky is the summer U18 tournament that features a lot of the kids expected to be drafted in the 2020 draft (and beyond in a few cases). The USA does not send their USNDP team but makes up a team from their best CHL, USHL and high school kids. This is a draft-watchers tournament!! Starting last year, it will alternate between Edmonton and Czech Republic/Slovakia for a while, so this year it returns to Europe where is has been for most of its existence. Next year is pretty good international junior hockey watching in Edmonton with the Hlinka-Gretzky in August and the WJC in December.
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Post by folatre on Jul 15, 2019 15:00:12 GMT -5
Thanks, NW. It is a shame that Struble was injured in the Rookie camp because for a guy that has basically only been playing high school hockey it would have been a great testing ground for him.
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Post by GNick99 on Jul 15, 2019 19:11:20 GMT -5
Primeau is prospect I am watching this coming season. If he has a good season in AHL, then a successful callup to Montreal for a cup of coffee. Price is the guy for long term, but Primeau could have high trade value in a few years. He was a standout WJC. Had an even better year in the NCAA on weaker team. It's going to be very interesting to see how Northeastern fairs without him as they rode him almost the entire way.
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Post by NWTHabsFan on Jul 15, 2019 22:24:59 GMT -5
Another great video scouting report from this individual. A bit more about college defender Jordan Harris.
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Post by frozone on Jul 16, 2019 17:09:34 GMT -5
In addition to looking like Taylor Hall Jr, I find he kinda skates like him too with his low center of gravity. Less explosive, but still I'm very impressed with his movement. And good to hear that his defense is rock solid. Most prospects with his profile are still very much works in progress in their own end.
I'm hoping he can double his production of 13 points next season. Maybe that's ambitious, but I don't think it's impossible. There were only 2 defensemen with higher point totals than Harris last season: Jeremy Davies (36 pts) and Ryan Shea (16 pts). Both are 22 year old LHD's. Davies has now turned pro, and Shea's production hasn't really changed for 3 seasons. I'm betting Harris's offensive and PP opportunities will get a good boost next season.
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Post by NWTHabsFan on Jul 16, 2019 18:40:40 GMT -5
Harris played on the top pairing with Davies, who played like a rover. Harris was the guy holding the fort to let Davies roam. Harris tended to be on the PK rather than the PP. They loaded their PP with more experienced guys like Davies, Shea, etc.
This year he should get more opportunities. It will be interesting to see how his offensive IQ plays out with more chances. His hockey IQ in his own end is already impressive for a guy one year out of high school hockey.
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Post by NWTHabsFan on Jul 16, 2019 18:49:29 GMT -5
Thanks, NW. It is a shame that Struble was injured in the Rookie camp because for a guy that has basically only been playing high school hockey it would have been a great testing ground for him. I was quite looking forward to seeing both Struble and Norlinder against WJC calibre players. That will have to wait. If TSN carries on with its NCAA coverage, we should be able to see Struble and Harris this season. TSN shows the Beanpot and an exhibition tourney in Belfast that NE is attending again this year. That is in addition to regular games featuring NE. Struble is working on finishing up his schooling to be able to play in college this fall. Hopefully, that pans out. I am hoping that Norlinder makes the Swedish WJC team, otherwise I will have to find a stream or two for Modo games just to get a better looksie. |
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Post by Cranky on Jul 16, 2019 19:14:31 GMT -5
When these kids are so far away from AHL level, never mind NHL, one has to have a lot of "faith" that it's going to be vertical progress to the next level.
TT got it right with McDonough and horribly wrong with Fischer, a very long shot high schooler. Giroux was available and was already a 17 year old, 103 point phenom in the QMJHL. Stupid scouting when the guy was right in his back door.
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Jul 21, 2019 20:10:27 GMT -5
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Post by NWTHabsFan on Jul 24, 2019 12:02:56 GMT -5
The uncertainty is over, looks like Struble has committed to Northeastern for this fall. Good news.
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Post by NWTHabsFan on Jul 24, 2019 12:05:39 GMT -5
Another invited prospect will miss the world junior Summer Showcase due to injury. Games start next Wednesday on TSN. I posted the schedule up above.
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Jul 28, 2019 21:14:43 GMT -5
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Post by NWTHabsFan on Jul 29, 2019 7:39:12 GMT -5
Very nice play. He needs to do a lot more of this! |
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Jul 30, 2019 19:26:29 GMT -5
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Jul 31, 2019 5:01:34 GMT -5
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Post by NWTHabsFan on Jul 31, 2019 9:12:08 GMT -5
WJSS games start on TSN today. A good matchup for Habs watchers is the 4:00 pm ET game between the USA and Sweden. Possible to see three of our guys in action: Caufield, Harris and Olofsson.
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Post by NWTHabsFan on Aug 2, 2019 9:29:09 GMT -5
Pre-season has started for some Euro prospects. Ylonen with his first action had a 1+1 game, getting in on both his team’s goals. On the PP goal, he makes a nice move to find a soft spot on the ice and fire home his shot quickly. Good offensive IQ. I look forward to see how his development grows this season.
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Post by NWTHabsFan on Aug 2, 2019 16:51:45 GMT -5
More Ylonen.
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Post by seventeen on Aug 3, 2019 13:38:02 GMT -5
A really good article from Marc Dumont in The Athletic on Nick Suzuki and where he might stand as a prospect based on other players with similar stats at similar ages.
A different look at Nick Suzuki’s potential and NHL readiness
By Marc Dumont Aug 1, 2019
I was once convinced Alexander Avtsin had all the necessary tools to make an impact in the NHL. Those were the days of judging prospects mostly by word of mouth.
Ah, youth. It wasn’t the first time I was wrong, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
Lesson learned here: if we base our projections solely on opinions, we’re bound to find several players that meet or exceed their given value. We’ll also find many more cases of players failing to reach their potential. In other words, empiricism is our friend.
As we’re given more access to brand new statistical prospect analysis tools and more relevant historical data, we’re starting to get a better idea of the odds behind every player’s NHL potential. That’s not to say we should discount scouting – it’s still and will continue to be a vital aspect to the process – but as it is in all businesses, making decisions with as much information as possible in hand is the best way to go.
The Canadiens have two prospects in particular that have driven the conversation this summer. Well, three if you count Cole Caufield and his ridiculous release, which will give NCAA goaltenders nightmares throughout the upcoming season.
The other two, Nick Suzuki and Ryan Poehling, are forwards that are right at the cusp of making an impact in the NHL.
The first question we must answer is whether they should be considered NHL-level players heading into next season.
In order to do that, we turn to Sean Tierney and Emmanuel Perry’s prospect projection tools. Wins Above Replacement value, or WAR, is a statistic that has its origins in baseball but has since been modified to project a hockey player’s value. To get more information about WAR, here’s the first of a three-part series explaining the metric.
If we take a look at Poehling and Suzuki’s projected WAR versus their probability of making it to the NHL, we can see that they both stand out as players that have a very high probability of making the NHL next year, at 88.2 percent and 78.7 percent, respectively.
Keep in mind that “making the NHL” in this chart means playing 41 games next season. It’s not a career projection and it doesn’t take NHL rosters into account, but rather, it’s an indication based purely on the statistical value of both players that they are indeed ready to take the next step.
Poehling has higher odds of making it, though Suzuki is projected to make a bigger impact once he does reach the NHL. Suzuki has a projected WAR of 0.51, whereas Poehling’s projected WAR is 0.28.
Overall projections for Canadiens prospects seem to line up quite accurately. Caufield is not going to make the team next season, and seeing how often he scored last season, there are no valid historical comparisons, so we can give the algorithm a little bit of leeway in his case. The more interesting and accurate projection will come next year.
But let’s turn our attention more specifically towards Suzuki (I will explore Poehling’s value in the near future). Now that we’ve established that Suzuki is deemed to be ready for the NHL at some point this season, what can we expect from him afterward from a production standpoint? Historical data can provide us with a sense of his future value.
To get an idea of his potential, I examined the points-per-game data from all the first-round picks who spent at least three years in the CHL between 2008 and 2016.
And here are their results from year to year.
OK, I’ll admit it, it’s a mess. And it’s probably the perfect example of a chart that, at a glance, gives little to no information. But it’s just the first step. We need to weed out the players that produced much more and much less than Suzuki throughout his CHL career.
However, before we do that, we can establish a few things. First off, the thick blue bar in the middle is Suzuki’s points-per-game pace, which was 0.6 in his rookie season, 1.47 in Year 2, 1.56 in Year 3 and 1.59 in his final season.
Oh, and that purple bar at the top of the chart? It’s Connor McDavid, standing out as ever.
Suzuki is closer to the top than the bottom of the pack, but he’s also much closer to the middle than either extreme, which should perhaps temper the most ambitious expectations surrounding the Canadiens prospect.
The main finding here is that there seems to be a clear divide between the players that managed to score at least 1.5 points per game by their third year in the CHL compared to those that did not.
Here’s the list of most of the forwards that failed to achieve a 1.5 PPG scoring rate:
Lawson Crouse, Jake DeBrusk, Nick Merkley, Jake Virtanen, Nick Ritchie, Brandon Perlini, Josh Ho-Sang, Kerby Rychel, Emile Poirier, Hunter Shinkaruk, Tom Wilson, Matt Puempel, Austin Watson, Zack Kassian, Jordan Caron, Carter Ashton, Justin Bailey, Kyle Beach and Tyler Ennis, Quinton Howden, Michael McLeod, Logan Brown, Jared McCann, John Quenneville, Julien Gauthier, Curtis Lazar, Sean Monahan, Frederik Gauthier, Jason Dickinson, Radek Faksa, Henrik Samuelsson, Mark McNeill, Phillip Danault, Zack Phillips, Joey Hishon, Brett Howden, Nazem Kadri, Scott Glennie, Peter Holland, Cody Hodgson, Rickard Rakell, Zach Boychuk, Greg Nemisz, Bo Horvat, Brendan Gaunce, Scott Laughton, Jordan Eberle, Phillipe Paradis and Conner Bleackley.
And here are most of the forwards that hit the 1.5 PPG mark by their third year in the CHL:
Mitch Marner, Timo Meier, Travis Konecny, Anthony Beauvillier, Anthony Mantha, Jonathan Drouin, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Sam Steel, Connor McDavid, Ryan Strome, Mathew Barzal, Leon Draisaitl, Sam Bennett, Robby Fabbri, Dylan Strome, Max Domi, Alex Galchenyuk, Mikhail Grigorenko, Mark Scheifele, Sean Couturier, John Tavares, Brayden Schenn, Taylor Hall, Emerson Etem, Jonathan Huberdeau and Nick Suzuki.
Though I chose a fairly arbitrary cutoff line, you’d be hard-pressed to argue that Suzuki finds himself in the wrong group.
There are a few exceptions on both sides, notably Danault, Monahan, Kadri, Eberle, Horvat, Rakell and DeBrusk in the first group. But for the most part, if your prospect isn’t producing at a 1.5 points-per-game rate by his third year in the CHL, there are decent odds he will not end up playing in your top six for a sustained period of time at any point in his career. There are even better odds he will be quickly forgotten.
It’s also worth noting the two groups also share fairly distinctive average draft positions. Most of the players in the first group were drafted in the bottom half of the first round and their average draft position was 19th, whereas the vast majority of the players who made an impact were drafted in the top half, with an average draft position of ninth.
So the sharp drop off in the first round of the draft everybody refers to each year expresses itself even before those prospects have reached the pros.
So we’ve established Suzuki is in the right group, but there’s way too much data involved to get a good idea of the best comparable scoring rates in the CHL. Since he played four seasons, shared between Owen Sound and Guelph, we can start by cutting out all the players that only played three seasons (we’ll get back to them a little later). Then we can eliminate the players who don’t align with Suzuki’s points-per-game pace.
Here’s what the chart looks like when we narrow it down to the five closest comparables. For the record, Max Domi was also in the mix, but he just missed the cut.
There’s a good mix of talented players, though there certainly are some underwhelming players, notably Hodgson and Laughton. With that in mind, if Suzuki can emulate Danault or Kadri’s NHL production, the Canadiens will be in good shape.
Now let’s bring the players that only spent three years in the CHL back into the fold. This particular grouping shines a much brighter light on Suzuki’s potential.
Other than Etem, who still managed to play 173 games in the NHL, you’re looking at a list of very talented NHL players, though that’s to be expected given that most of those players were fast-tracked to the NHL. However, they certainly match quite well to Suzuki’s points-per-game pace.
And finally, once we combine the closest comparable CHL careers from both the three and four-year group, we get our final list.
Huberdeau didn’t follow a similar path, though he did end up producing at more or less the same rate as Suzuki in his final year. Couturier’s production was almost identical, as was Meier’s. Laughton and Danault ended up very close to Suzuki in their fourth year, but unlike Suzuki, it took them four years to get going.
Judging by their CHL production from year to year, the closest comparable Nick Suzuki is . . . *drumroll please* . . . Nazem Kadri, a back-to-back 30-goal scorer who has put up 387 points in 561 games.
Final Word
There’s no guarantee Suzuki will ever match Kadri’s eminently respectable production in the NHL. Hell, there’s no guarantee Suzuki will make it to the NHL.
Nonetheless, we can state with confidence that all available signs point to a player that will have a very good NHL career, though the numbers suggest it probably won’t be an elite NHL career. His performance in the OHL playoffs last year seems like the outlier in that sense.
Of course, the points-per-game results include a bevy of variables in every case, whether it be date of birth, style of play, team strength, usage, trades or health. But given the amount of data we’re working with, it’s fair to assume that Suzuki is well above average when it comes to NHL prospects.
There should be some concern in regards to his production plateauing after his third year in the CHL. That said, his paltry improvement from Year 3 to Year 4 could be explained by a late-season trade and by the fact Suzuki was instructed to play a style that is more conducive to NHL hockey following his arrival in Guelph.
As for his destination next season, there are very few examples of leaving a high-end prospect in the minors too long, but there are endless horror stories about graduating them too early. If you need examples, the general managers that drafted most of the players listed in the first group mentioned earlier in the article would be happy to provide them.
While there’s a lot to be hopeful about in Suzuki’s case, there’s still a lot of room for growth. He didn’t finish his CHL career with the kind of overall production that would immediately translate into top-six ice time in the NHL, which is where you want a guy like Suzuki to be, but a year or two under Joël Bouchard’s tutelage in Laval is a reasonable time frame to prepare him for heavy minutes with the Canadiens.
(WAR prospect chart via Sean Tierney, Statistics via HockeyDB )
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Aug 3, 2019 16:37:25 GMT -5
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Post by NWTHabsFan on Aug 3, 2019 23:18:07 GMT -5
Love this quote from the CAN goalie Gravel on Caufield’s snipe that Dis posted above.
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Post by BadCompany on Aug 5, 2019 7:32:32 GMT -5
For the record, Alexis Gravel is 6'3.
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Post by NWTHabsFan on Aug 5, 2019 10:09:36 GMT -5
Romanov’s preseason started with the Sochi Cup, where he played for the Russian Olympic B team (essentially a bunch of their young stars and hopefuls) against KHL teams. He looks to have picked up where he left off last season. A few who watched the games mentioned that his speed and offensive confidence is growing. He ended the mini tourney with three helpers in two games. Here are a few little clips. He is #26.
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Post by BadCompany on Aug 5, 2019 10:48:15 GMT -5
I think that last play, the penalty-killing one, is the most impressive. Instead of instantly shooting the puck down the ice right off the faceoff, as 99% of players do, he has the confidence and initiative to see that he has one man to beat in a foot race to get out of the zone, and then only one other man to get around for a scoring chance at the other end. He has enough confidence in his own speed to outrace the attacking forward out of the zone, and then still more confidence to try and make a skill move around the other team's defenseman. Impressive.
Of course this is exactly the sort of play that 99% of coaches are going to beat out of you too. It's nice looking, and admirable for a variety of reasons, but it's also high-risk with little reward. If he doesn't get it out of the zone the power-play continues, and the odds of him actually beating somebody one-on-one are low for even the most skilled forwards, nevermind a "defensive" defenseman. So I'm pretty sure most coaches would tell him "ice the puck, <insert swear words here>".
Still, I like it.
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Post by Cranky on Aug 5, 2019 13:20:16 GMT -5
I don't know why the author chose Kadri as a comparable to Suzuki. Kadri is a 200 foot junkyard dog while Suzuki is a 10-15 PM saint. Danault career is of a borderline 2nd line center that ideally makes a really good third line center on a contender. IF and when KK moves up to a 1C and Domi proves he's not a one hit wonder, Danault falls to his 3rd line center spot......until Poehling claims that too.
As for the comparison to those two NHLers, who put the 200 foot game on top of the resume, I haven't read any glowing report of Suzukis super duper defensive playing.
Wait until Suzuki occupies the same time and space against man. Man with sticks, razors on their shoes, body odour and bad dispositions.
It's summer....
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Post by Cranky on Aug 5, 2019 13:54:46 GMT -5
I think that last play, the penalty-killing one, is the most impressive. Instead of instantly shooting the puck down the ice right off the faceoff, as 99% of players do, he has the confidence and initiative to see that he has one man to beat in a foot race to get out of the zone, and then only one other man to get around for a scoring chance at the other end. He has enough confidence in his own speed to outrace the attacking forward out of the zone, and then still more confidence to try and make a skill move around the other team's defenseman. Impressive. Of course this is exactly the sort of play that 99% of coaches are going to beat out of you too. It's nice looking, and admirable for a variety of reasons, but it's also high-risk with little reward. If he doesn't get it out of the zone the power-play continues, and the odds of him actually beating somebody one-on-one are low for even the most skilled forwards, nevermind a "defensive" defenseman. So I'm pretty sure most coaches would tell him "ice the puck, <insert swear words here>". Still, I like it. In the infamous wisdom of my beer league coach, even when inibriated.... .your job is to keep the man and the puck in front of you....if I wanted you to dance on the ice, I'd put you in a tutu.I don't look good in a tutu. Nor will Romanov when he's beaten like a rented mule trying to dance around an NHLer. Every time he beats a guy for a highlight reel, he will have given up at least two dozen scoring chances. Even if he fails and comes to a standstill with that guy, that guy has friends with bad intent. Defensmans job.....the puck must move forward as quickly and as safely as possible. No dancing allowed. Signed by, Every coach in hockey. Including drunk ones. |
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Post by BadCompany on Aug 5, 2019 15:58:36 GMT -5
In the infamous wisdom of my beer league coach, even when inibriated.... .your job is to keep the man and the puck in front of you....if I wanted you to dance on the ice, I'd put you in a tutu.I don't look good in a tutu. Nor will Romanov when he's beaten like a rented mule trying to dance around an NHLer. Every time he beats a guy for a highlight reel, he will have given up at least two dozen scoring chances. Even if he fails and comes to a standstill with that guy, that guy has friends with bad intent. Defensmans job.....the puck must move forward as quickly and as safely as possible. No dancing allowed. Signed by, Every coach in hockey. Including drunk ones. True, you don’t want Romanov pulling off a dancing bear act in the NHL, because most NHLers are mosh-pit aficionados, and not waltzers. They’ll just knock you on you’re a** and then thank you for the puck. And no, you do not look good in a tutu. I've seen you in a tutu, and my therapist says I may never get over it. He says I'll just have to avoid the ballet from now on. But wasn't that a wild Moderator Party?? Good times, good times. Having said that, we’d have to know WHY Romanov took off like he did. It’s entirely possible that he looked at the forward across from him and thought “I’ve played against this guy all day/tournament/season/lifetime and I KNOW that I can beat him to the edge and down the ice”. In which case, go for it. If that’s Paul Byron getting the inside track on Karl Alzner I’m telling him to skate with it all day long. On the other hand, if it’s Alzner with the puck… well, he’d darn well better ice it, because they couldn’t make a broadcast delay long enough to bleep out the swears coming from my mouth if he didn't. We don’t know what Romanov was thinking in that moment, and indeed it would take a lot of actual scouting to see what kinds of decisions he normally makes. Does he pick his spots? Or is that just a positive highlight in a sea of Brisebois-esque brilliance? Here is why I liked that play; Everybody has been saying that Romanov is a “defensive defenseman”. Great. Defensemen are supposed to play defense. Rarely, if ever, have you heard somebody say “he takes too many risks, he’s too offensive”. People also always say “it’s a lot easier to teach defense than it is to teach offense” and while I don’t think that’s 100% true – some guys never learn how to play defense – it’s not completely false either. The scouting reports say he can do the defense thing, so if he’s experimenting – and succeeding – with some offensive instincts, then all the better. Let him push the boundaries in a meaningless tournament. It’s easier to coach that out of him if he clearly doesn’t know what he is doing, as opposed to trying to teach him how to do it in the first place. In that one play he looked fast, decisive, and offensively inclined. For a guy who some dismiss as the next Alexie Emelin that’s a very positive thing. |
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Post by Cranky on Aug 5, 2019 16:24:41 GMT -5
Yes..
On paper..defense is simple. Cut off the passing lane and keep/tie up the guy in front of you. When you have the puck, move it forward to someone facing the least resistence. The first part has to be on an instinctive level, the second part requires a degree of thinking.
And no..
I can tell you with certainty, Komisarek NEVER learned the instinctive part because he either overcommitted and got beaten like a mule...or he backed into his own zone and opened lanes. The difference between the two is far less then one lousy second. At 30mph, one second is 44 feet. So in half a second, the defensman has to choose. No one is going to do that by "thinking it through". Given that Komi learned the game from 12 years on, he never got the "instinctive" part down pat.
Someone like Weber, physically the same size as Komi, he owns that instinct.
Tinordi, Komi, etc, never seem to have it, or learn it. Which baffles me. On one hand, unlike developing skating or a better shot, you need time and a partner to do it. On the other hand, a thousand games a practices by their mid 20s.
Of course there is more to defensive play then that, which now requires teaching and thinking, which again baffles me why some don't learn it.
So i agree that you can teach defense, but only to a degree.
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