Hockey's Future Top 50 and the Habs

[habsask]

I don't know if this has been discussed before; if it has could someone point me to the right thread. If not a few comments.

Although the Habs are ranked as #2 in HF's Organizational rankings, in terms of HF's Top 50 Players, in their 17 Sept 2007 rankings, the Habs have one:

- Price at #5

- A. Kostitsyn, who was on their spring Top 50, failed to make it this time.


Anaheim has - Bobby Ryan (RW) #10

Atlanta has - Ondrej Pavelec G) #35, Bryan Little (C) #42

Boston has - Tuukka Rask (G) #6, David Krejci (C) #32, Matt Lashoff (D) #48, Zach
Hamill (C) #49

Buffalo has - Drew Stafford (RW) #16

Calgary has - Dustin Boyd (C) #26, Leland Irving (G) #37

Chicago has - Jonathan Toews (C) #2, Patrick Kane (RW) #7, Cam Baker (D) #15

Colorado has - T J Hensick (C) #46

Columbus has - Jakub Voracek (F) #24, Derick Brassard (C)

Detroit has - Jimmy Howard (G) #33

Edmonton has - Sam Gagner (C) #19, Andrew Cogliano (C) #29

Florida has - Michael Frolik (C) #30

LA has - Jack Johnson (D) #3, Jonathan Bernier (G) #22, Patrick O'Sullivan
#25

Minnesota has - Josh Harding (G) #20, Benoit Pouliot (LW) #47

Nashville has - Cody Franson (D) #21

NJ has - Nicklas Bergfors (RW) #34

NYI have - Kyle Okposo (RW) #12

NYR have - Al Montoya (G) #9, Marc Staal (D) #13, Alexei Cherepanov (RW) #18

Phili has - James van Riemsdyk (LW) #14, Steve Downie (C) #27

Phoenix has - Kyle Turris (C) #8, Peter Mueller (C) #11, Martin Hanzal (LW) #43

Pittsburgh has - Angelo Esposito (C) #36, Kristopher Letang (D) #38

San Jose has - Logan Couture (C) #40

St Louis has - Erik Johnson (D) #1, T J Oshie (C) #23, Marek Schwarz (C) #39

Toronto has - Justin Pogge (G) #44

Vancouver has - Cory Schneider (G) #31, Alexander Edler (D) #45, Luc Bourdon (D)
#50

Washington has - Niklas Backstrom (C) #4, Karl Alzner (D) #17, Eric Fehr (RW) #41


I realize that the HF projections are just that, projections which may pan out to a greater or lesser extent. Having said that I have to say that this tends to confirm my view that, while the Habs’ prospects system has a lot of depth, outside of Price it doesn’t have any blue chip prospects on defence and at forward. In other words no potential difference makers but for Price.

This does not bode well for the Habs’ future.

[CentreHice]

Wonder if the Leafs are wishing they'd gone through last year without Raycroft and had kept Rask in the system.

habsask....all I hear is what a wonderful job Timmins and co. are doing. Are you telling me to not drink the Kool-Aid?

Fischer is too young to make the rankings, I guess.

[seventeen]

I was checking those rankings myself for our guys, and when I found so few of them there, I began to question the thinking. Can't help it, Esposito, who has proved nothing, in the 30's? Valentenko, who was Russia's best defenseman at the World Juniours, nowhere to be found? And believe me, many, many of the guys on that list are not going to be impact players. There's an awful lot of weight given to the most recent draft. While it remains to be seen if Andrei Kostitsyn turns into the player he can be, leaving him off the list and adding a number of other guys who are even less likely to become the players they may be, takes away from the believability of the rankings. Of course I could be off in left field somewhere, but I know I'm not crazy about them. If I paid even more attention to other teams' prospects I could probably find some from many teams who should be on that list and aren't.

[habsask]

Yea CentreHice, I'm also thinking it's time to get off the Kool-Aid. Depth is all well and good but if you don't have any Top guys, in the end....so what? I'd rather have 3 or 4 guys in the Top 50. A lot of good to pretty good guys by itself just won't get it done.

As to the Habs minor league team winning a championship, depending on the above, in the end that may be just another so whatter.

WRT Fischer & McDonagh, ranked by HF as the Habs #7 # 2 prospects, they could move up as they get older but Toews, for eg, is not much older so I wouldn't count on it.

[habsask]

I agree Seventeen that others would have other players on the list. But I'm skeptical that, outside of Price, any other Habs prospect would be included in many top 10-15 lists or even 15-30 lists. That could all change of course since these lists are pretty nebulous things and kids' development is highly unpredictable. Guys can come out of no where. It's just that the lower down the pecking order the worse the odds are.

As far as the Habs prospects,

- Price, definite blue chip prospect.

- A. Kostitsyn is taking a really long time to come around. Will he ever be anything more than another good to pretty good player. Right now I really doubt it.

- McDonagh and Fischer? Who knows they're high school kids.

- Chips, a solid 3rd liner if we're lucky.

- Pacioretty intrigues me. Fast, OK size. Could he be a 35+ goal guy who plays with some toughness?

- Ben Maxwell, a smallish center, maybe but right now enhh.

- Lapierre, 4th line player.

- S. Kostitsyn. lit up the juniors but it's really early on him yet.

- Halak. Looks like a solid NHL tender but nothing special, a #2 guy.

And that's the Habs top 10 on HF. I could keep going down the list but outside of Price none of those guys really excite me. I don't yet see any All Star dmen or forwards.

As it's my contention that you need a top (All Star caliber) goalie, a top dman and a top center, that are most likely to come from Top 10-15 prospects (admittedly a wild assed guess), to be a real Cup contender you can see why something like the HF list just depresses me.

Even if Timmins and company are doing a great job given where they're picking there's only so much that you can do with middle of the order picks.


Edit PS

Maybe if the Habs get really, really lucky one of Fischer/McDonagh will turn out to be a dominant dman. But they'd still have a huge problem wrt center prospects.

[habmeister]

we're definetly woefully thin on top line forwards, i think we've got a lot of solid defence prospects that could turn into nhl regulars, valentenko, o'byrne, fischer, mcdonagh, emelin. we're set in goal, i think our forward prospects should make lines 2-4 solid for the forseeable future.

so it's about signing those big free agent forwards to fill in the top line.

[seventeen]

Or trading some of that d for o.

[Skilly]

seventeen said:

Or trading some of that d for o.

Now you are talking ...

[CentreHice]

The other side of the "trade D for O" argument is that we still need a composed D that can quarterback breakouts and transition.

Yes, we need a big-time fnisher up front who shows up every game.....but if we deplete the D too much, that forward will be spending his energy with everyone else: running around our own zone trying to get the puck back.

That aspect of our game is bad enough already, and a big reason we're so horrible 5-on-5. In that respect, I guess in trading some of them for some offensive help, what's it going to hurt? It can't get much worse.

Or do you trade away some O prospects (who aren't finishers on this team) and a goalie to get some high-quality D?

We're really in a Catch-22 right now.


Personally, I say keeping the puck away from/out of your own net is the way to go. The offense, if given the confidence to go for it because they know their D is capable, should improve. More time in the opponent's zone, should result in more goals. If not, at least we're not running around our zone like headless chickens.

A main reason I want O'Byrne to stay and Dandouillon/Brisebois to sit.

[seventeen]

skilly said:

seventeen said:

Or trading some of that d for o.

Now you are talking ...

But I didn't say trade K for O. D anytime; B anytime. Even some of the less proven prospects. We hold onto Komi.

[habsask]

"i think we've got a lot of solid defence prospects that could turn into nhl regulars"

H&C, nothing wrong with more solid dmen. Heavens knows we need a couple.

But what I'm looking for is better than solid, an All Star caliber A++ dman who can be the difference maker in a game, especially in a playoff game. Just one, that's all I want.

Please.

[Skilly]

seventeen said:

skilly said:

Now you are talking ...

D anytime; B anytime.

B and D well get us nothing in return .... and all they end up giving us is Bad-Dreams.

If we are going to get some O that is actually going to help us, then we got to let go of one of the highly touted prospects (McDonagh) or Komi. If not, then we suffer through we our offensive ineptitude and not complain, ...because we have such a good D. At least we can see the light at the end of the tunnel with the D ... so we lose Komi, but we have Emelin, McDonnagh, Fisher, O'Byrne and Valentenko all capable of stepping in and our D will be strong in a few years.

But losing now with Komi, and no offensive help in sight and losing out all the time on FA's because this team can't get a big named player to "prove" we want to win .... well that irks me.

I love Komi, and I'd hate to see him go ... but IF we need offensive help (and let's face it we do BIG time), the only player on our roster that is going to get us what we need is Komi.

[habmeister]

habsask said:

"i think we've got a lot of solid defence prospects that could turn into nhl regulars"

H&C, nothing wrong with more solid dmen. Heavens knows we need a couple.

But what I'm looking for is better than solid, an All Star caliber A++ dman who can be the difference maker in a game, especially in a playoff game. Just one, that's all I want.

Please.

from what all the experts are saying mcdonagh will be that guy. i loved emelin too when i saw him 2 years ago. look at what burke has done, gotten pronger, schneider and scott niedermayer, and none with draft picks.

drafting can fill in lines 2-4 and d-men 3-6, of course its also good to draft 1st line and top 2, but you can sign 1-2 first line players and 1-2 top 2 d-men. imo the most important thing is to draft well and make sure you have a lot of quality so that you can have them playing cheaply like komi/higgins and spend your bucks on 3-4 star players. exactly what anaheim has with perry, getzlaf, mcdonald, kunitz...