Jarmo Kekalainen Assesses Blues Top Amateur Prospects

[Nick Blue]

http://www.stlouisblues.com/columnists/gc_home.html

[puckyou21]

It's always good to read honest assessments of where these guys stand in the organization and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Good read, thanks for the link.

[Hossa]

Juha-Matti Aaltonen could be a very good pick. His comments were quite positive here and I can tell you as a Sens fan that he knows Finland extremely well. I bet Aaltonen plays well on the WJC team next year (although he may be an 84 birthday, and if so, obviously not).

[eh]

Originally Posted by Hossa

I bet Aaltonen plays well on the WJC team next year (although he may be an 84 birthday, and if so, obviously not).

Nope, born in June 85, so he's eligible for the WJC next year. Kärpät has been doing amazing job in developing their youth lately and I'm sure Aaltonen will not be an exception. He might not crack the Kärpät roster next year (as Kekäläinen seems to expect), but they are in fact the only SM-liiga team that has a well-working "farm team" affiliation in Mestis, the second tier league. They let their youth (who are too good/old for the juniors but not good/complete enough to play regularly in SM-liiga) play one or two years in their Mestis affiliation Kajaanin Hokki.

One good example is the rookie of the year front runner Janne Pesonen: he played in Hokki last year and has already made his national team debut this year. Aaltonen still has a year of junior eligibility left, so he could still play junior games next year if the SM-liiga lineup of Kärpät is too deep, or they could get him some tough games by assigning him to Hokki every now and then.

[c-carp]

Very good read.

[Hossa]

Originally Posted by eh

Nope, born in June 85, so he's eligible for the WJC next year. Kärpät has been doing amazing job in developing their youth lately and I'm sure Aaltonen will not be an exception. He might not crack the Kärpät roster next year (as Kekäläinen seems to expect), but they are in fact the only SM-liiga team that has a well-working "farm team" affiliation in Mestis, the second tier league. They let their youth (who are too good/old for the juniors but not good/complete enough to play regularly in SM-liiga) play one or two years in their Mestis affiliation Kajaanin Hokki.

One good example is the rookie of the year front runner Janne Pesonen: he played in Hokki last year and has already made his national team debut this year. Aaltonen still has a year of junior eligibility left, so he could still play junior games next year if the SM-liiga lineup of Kärpät is too deep, or they could get him some tough games by assigning him to Hokki every now and then.

Thanks for the info. Kekalainen knows what he's doing, although he's not always right of course. He picked Artuu Luutinen who hasn't proved he was worth a 3rd so far.

[Oilers Chick]

...in college where he plays in Dartmouth, they only play two games a week. He has plenty of time to work on his strength.

This is part of what Kekalainen said about Stempniak......problem with this quote is that he's forgetting that Dartmouth is also an ivy league school where academic standards are extremely high. So in essence, Stempniak doesn't have as much time as Kekalainen says he does. That said, Stempniak should invest more of the time he DOES have to work on the weaker aspects of his game.

Just thought I'd point that out.

Otherwise, he's right on of much of what he stated about the kids in the NCAA (especially his assessment of MacMurchy).

[CuSa_1]

Originally Posted by Oilers Chick

This is part of what Kekalainen said about Stempniak......problem with this quote is that he's forgetting that Dartmouth is also an ivy league school where academic standards are extremely high. So in essence, Stempniak doesn't have as much time as Kekalainen says he does. That said, Stempniak should invest more of the time he DOES have to work on the weaker aspects of his game.

Just thought I'd point that out.

Otherwise, he's right on of much of what he stated about the kids in the NCAA (especially his assessment of MacMurchy).

No offense, but I hope that he's right on with his assesments of our prospects, he is the director of our amateur scouting.

[Nick Blue]

Originally Posted by CuSa_1

No offense, but I hope that he's right on with his assesments of our prospects, he is the director of our amateur scouting.

ZING!