So we get to draft one of the 18 finalists from Making The Cut this Tuesday. Any preferences on who we should take? I like the idea of taking a defenseman best, so I'll start by listing the D first:
I'm leaning towards Jacob or Demone myself. Get a big monster D, and see how they develop. Mind you, I wish either of those guys had the intensity of Kivell or Periard.
(FWIW, I wonder how Hubbauer fits into the process anymore, since the Leafs have already grabbed him, and how could he go to another team's camp?)
never really watched it, but do you seriously think that there's nhl potential in those guys???
No.
At best, I could see one or two of them step up after a few years of minor league conditioning to be bit players, 7th D/spare forwards. That would surprise me. So it's not like it's a crucial draft for our future or anything.
Most likely, whoever we take would be like any other unsigned training camp invitee, the majority of whom we cut and never see again. We invited half a dozen guys like this to our rookie camp, and only kept Sanford on in Long Beach. At best, I think that's what we'd get: a guy who could start in the ECHL, then maybe grind his way up to Hamilton. A few of the guys there are playing in the ECHL or AHL now, and several of them attended the Florida Panthers camp this year and are playing with Texas in the ECHL, courtesy of the show's link to Mike Keenan and his impressions of the players.
But hey, it might be the only draft we get to watch on TV for a while, so it's fun to check out the "prospects" all the same... if you're as much a hockey geek as I am, anyway.
Well, I heard that Jacob has a nice shot and he's solid defensively. He could be a 6/7th blueliner with the bulldogs maybe? I would take him, mainly because he's a local guy and that's about the only reason.
I'm also leaning towards Jacob or Demone. Both are very solid defensively while still possessing good hockey sense. I'd also be happy with Lou Dickenson. I think he has a good nose for the net and he is kind of gritty.
never really watched it, but do you seriously think that there's nhl potential in those guys???
I like how you admit that you've never really seen it, yet you already go to "worse-case scenario" on all the player's. Makes me wonder how much you really know about anything of what you speak of on here.
Nobody's is going to be a superstar, I think everyone could agree on that. But, if you don't think that there is hidden talent out there that could surprise and become a solid 5-6-7 D man, or a 3rd-4th liner, you don't understand the difficulty of the entire scouting process.
I think I would look long and hard at Jacob, Sonnenberg, and Mole.
I like how you admit that you've never really seen it, yet you already go to "worse-case scenario" on all the player's. Makes me wonder how much you really know about anything of what you speak of on here.
Nobody's is going to be a superstar, I think everyone could agree on that. But, if you don't think that there is hidden talent out there that could surprise and become a solid 5-6-7 D man, or a 3rd-4th liner, you don't understand the difficulty of the entire scouting process.
I think I would look long and hard at Jacob, Sonnenberg, and Mole.
Maybe, but there's so many teams in the nhl, ahl, echl, etc and the talent pool isn't unlimited. There's so many guys given the chance that it would surprise me a lot that there's that hidden talent you're talking about.
Mike Keenan said in a show that the "all-star team of Making the Cut" would easily beat an AHL team.
And yet, most of the best of these guys are playing in the East Coast league, while Hubbauer and Dickenson have produced almost nothing in the AHL. Those two are basically spare forwards in the AHL. Jeff Brown is a regular depth guy in the AHL now, but they chose not to take him in their final-18.
Basically, I think that quote from Keenan was a bit of drama, but was obviously untrue.
However, I think that IF the commitment and effort that some of the players showed over the course of the short MTC camp could be sustained for months on end, a good number of the finalists could manage to develop enough to hold their own as grinders and soldiers in the AHL, much as Hubbauer is doing now. But it's rare to get the chance to keep that kind of sustained effort up, so most of these guys will fade away into lower-tier minor pro careers or fall back on the education that several of them are currently pursuing in the CIS.
But hopefully Jacob or Demone will become a bruising #6 d-man for the Habs in a couple of years.
I would like us to draft Jacob or Periard. I don't know if any of you noticed that but Periard played 4 games with the Hamilton Bulldogs . He's a real beast! For the fowards, Noel seems to be very good.
Has anyone seen Jonathan Robert play in making the cut ?
What's your thoughs on him ?
It's pretty tough to tell from watching the show, because all you get is little clips here and there, and you really have no idea how the players are performing overall.
My vague impressions of Robert was that he was something of an agitator, and I sort of thought he was playing mostly forward, although they list him on D on the MTC website. He seemed to be stirring up trouble a lot. I could have him confused with somebody else, though.
Lou Dickenson, he was the best player the few times I watched the show. Great speed, great hands and great shot.
Agreed, at least from what little bits we were able to see, Dickenson seemed like the best.
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But since it would be a better idea to add some D to our team I wouldn't mind picking Periard (a bigger Bouillon-type player if you ask me).
That's a pretty good comparison for Periard. He was a nasty d-man back there, who was always playing with an edge. I wonder if you could get him to the show by turning him into a forward enforcer/disturber? But I also wonder how much "upside" he has. For no real concrete reason I can point to, it just seemed to me that maybe guys like Demone, Jacob, and Kivell were late bloomers who might yet have some room to develop, whereas for equally vague reasons I wonder if Periard has a little less room to grow? FWIW.
It's tough to compare these guys because the AHL and ECHL are much tougher leagues this year, and they are all still quite young and haven't had much experience in the higher leagues (most have none). It'd be interesting to see how these guys did without the locked out NHL players on the top lines of the AHL teams.
For preferences, I liked the Wetaskawin boys (Demone and Sonnenberg) quite a bit.
On a side note, it isn't surprising that the number of d-men is higher than the number of forwards in the final group. D-men take longer to develop, usually because they are bigger players and can have balance issues, but also because the position is more difficult to play. They are more likely to "slip through the cracks", which is the show's premise.
. He's a real beast! For the fowards, Noel seems to be very good.
