Red Line Report @daredlinereport
How much are we loving the depth of this year's draft class? We now officially have 8 guys we'd like to rank in our top 5.
Hmmm:
Mac
Seth
Bark
Money
Lind
Drouin
Risto
Pulock
That was their top 8 in their last online edition, my guess those are the 8.
lets say we pick from 5-10: who is the main target?
Any of the big forwards that fall to us...otherwise I'd keep an eye on Adam Erne by the end of the year if he would be considered a top 10 pick. Curtis Lazar, I haven't seen enough of him but his offensive numbers doesn't show much.
lets say we pick from 5-10: who is the main target?
Whoever falls to us really, except for Mackinnon and Jones teams are going to once again have very different ideas of what they want. If you pick say say, 6, there is a slight chance Barkov, Drouin or Lindholm will be available depending on how they do the rest of the year.
lets say we pick from 5-10: who is the main target?
Unless one of Barkov, Drouin or Monahan are available I think there's a good chance we take a d-man, probably better odds then what a lot of posters here think. Pulock, Risto or Morrissey are players I'd be more than happy with.
Unless one of Barkov, Drouin or Monahan are available I think there's a good chance we take a d-man, probably better odds then what a lot of posters here think. Pulock, Risto or Morrissey are players I'd be more than happy with.
I went to the Blainville-Bathurst game yesterday afternoon but came away rather disappointed. Overall, it was a rather boring game although the score 6-2 would not seem to indicate that. Although he picked up a couple of points, Titan's Zach O'Brien was mostly invisible. I expected to see more. Other than O'Brien, there is not much more firepower on this team except for 17 year old C Raphael Lafontaine who appears to have all the tools to be a good one and Brandon Hynes.
As for Blainville, several of their top guys were scratched. They included Clapperton, Ouellet, and Paquette. Not sure if they simply wanted to rest them or if they are injured. Marcoux was on the bench as the Armada went with 17 year old Storm Phaneuf in net. I am not sure what the Rangers saw in Stephan Matteau. He's listed as 6-2, 215 but seldom used it to his advantage in this game. My son suggested he might have had an off-day. I was impressed by D Samuel Carrier, a Capital's 2010 pick. He has good vision, smooth skating and a half decent shot although he hesitated to use it. I was also impressed with both Hoyles and Bahl. The guy that really drew our attention, all game long, was C Samuel HodHod, a Montreal native. He is definitely on the smallish side listed as 5-7, 170 but he was noticeable each time he was on the ice yesterday. He has good vision, skates extremely well, is not afraid to get into heavy traffic and has an excellent shot.
Red Line Report @daredlinereport
How much are we loving the depth of this year's draft class? We now officially have 8 guys we'd like to rank in our top 5.
Hmmm:
Mac
Seth
Bark
Money
Lind
Drouin
Risto
Pulock
That was their top 8 in their last online edition, my guess those are the 8.
Red Line Report @daredlinereport
The player currently ranked #7 overall on Red Line's list would have been #2 overall on our rankings for last year's draft.
Other than drafting Drouin in the 1st,maybe the Habs can acquire another 1st round pick while retaining their 2nd round picks.This to optimize the odds of drafting one entire line from the group;Fred Gauthier C,Will Carrier LW,Tony Mantha LW/RW could be a great French line to follow in the footsteps of the Holland C,Bournival LW,Gallagher RW line from Hamilton when they move up to the Habs.If the Habs draft late in the 1st without acquiring another 1st round pick,possibly go for an all Swede line draft Burakowsky LW,Wennberg C to go with Collberg RW and still have two 2nd round picks left for the Russian line of Galchenyuk C,Buchnevich RW,Zykov LW.I totally forgot that Galchenyuk has dual citizenship therefore the USA line;Galchenyuk Center,Pacioretty LW,Kristo RW,no draft picks needed.
My thoughts on some of the draft eligible players from tonight's game:
Going to start with the best here out of the 4 players I was keeping a close eye on; Valentin Zykov. He was absolutely fantastic tonight. Right off the bat he showed some great hands and went right to the net. He picked an assist, and his goal came from a bullet of a shot. It's pretty evident that he's a goal scorer to me. He's got those great hands that he uses in unison with his quick first step acceleration to dart around defenders. His skating, more specifically his edge work is also very good. Very agile. I'm going to be keeping a close eye on him.
Anthony Mantha was also very good tonight. He played with purpose tonight, which is something I haven't consistently seen from him. He hit hard and was pretty fast as well. His acceleration isn't the best, but he's a good skater regardless. He had a nice heads up pass to create a good chance. He didn't look out of place at all with some of the bigger name players like MacKinnon and Huberdeau on the PP. He fired some bombs from the point too. I really like his game tonight, my biggest issue with him is his weak defensive game and consistency, but I thought he was solid in his own end and put out a consistent effort every shift.
Now on to Nathan MacKinnon. He didn't look comfortable at all on the wing during the first two periods. He was flying all over the ice and he also had some nice hits. However, he turned the puck over and the Russians ended up scoring. He also had a bad play where he tried to flatten one of the Russians in the neutral zone who was already covered by one of the defenders. MacKinnon ended up taking out the defender and the Russian and it results in a 1 on 1, and Shalunov buried it. In the third he won most of his faceoffs and had a beautiful spin pass on a 2 on 1. He showed good glimpses of skill, but had a rough night overall. They happen.
My biggest disappointment was William Carrier. From what I've of him in this young season was a scoring winger who brought a consistent effort to the rink every game. That effort just wasn't there tonight. He was invisible apart from one shift at the beginning of the game. He did play physical along the boards though.
Mantha is interesting, I wouldn't mind him if we aren't drafting top 10.
Not in the 1st round. Skating is not good enough and he doesn't play "big". He doesn't use his size without the puck at all. A smaller but better skating version of Dagenais.
If the Habs draft late in the 1st without acquiring another 1st round pick,possibly go for an all Swede line draft Burakowsky LW,Wennberg C to go with Collberg RW and still have two 2nd round picks left for the Russian line of Galchenyuk C,Buchnevich RW,Zykov LW.I totally forgot that Galchenyuk has dual citizenship therefore the USA line;Galchenyuk Center,Pacioretty LW,Kristo RW,no draft picks needed.
