As a follow-on to my last blog about Prospect Tourney Heroes (real and imagined), let's take a look at the upshot of the recently completed Traverse City Tourney, where the Hawk prospects placed 8th out of . . . eight teams.
My advice, my mantra, in situations like these is, don't get too excited about prospect tourneys or the performance of this player or that—and don't get too down. These are one-week snapshots of players and groups of players who are all, likely, 1-2 years minimum away from the NHL—if they even get there at all.
Still, eighth place out of eight teams is a bit sobering when, early on, most of the buzz surrounding the Hawks' entry in the tourney was pretty positive.
Some rhetorical thoughts:
- were the Hawks hurt by the absence (after Game 1) of Nick Schmaltz?
- there was some unattributed scuttlebutt that Swedish defenseman Gustav Forsling was the best player in the tournament. If he was, and the Hawks still finished last, what does that say about the rest of the team (acknowledging that it's just a handful of games)?
- finally, my own thought: if the Hawks did, in fact, have 2-3 "NHL ready" (and possibly to play key roles) players on this team, my personal belief is those players would have been clearly dominant in this tourney of 18-21 year olds—or nearly so. And really, it doesn't seem that they were dominant. Schmaltz, Tyler Motte and Forsling all showed well, but none were head and shoulders better than the competition, except possibly Forsling.
Which brings me to my Twitter feed today, where there is some back and forth among writers and bloggers about why the Hawks have not invited any PTO veterans to camp.
Some, apparently, are interpreting this as the front office sending "a message" to either the aforementioned prospects ("we need you to step up") or to Coach Joel Quenneville ("sorry, Ace, make the best of it").
Gee, I dunno.
I remain skeptical about force-fitting 20 and 21 year old pretty ok prospects who have like 5 pro games into key roles on a Cup contending team. Just a reminder, these aren't the 2004, perpetually re-building Hawks anymore, haven't been for about 8 years. But we seem to get confused now and then.
And let's be brutally honest (with ourselves at least): if the Hawks didn't have a bleeding hemorrhoid called a maxed-out salary cap, there would not be "a youth movement."
So, such as it is, this "movement" is borne out of necessity—some might say "desperation"—as in, no real dollars for reasonable veteran help.
OK, but PTOs are a no-lose, why not take a shot gambit, right? Right.
Well, one reason the Hawks have not gone down that path could be that they just didn't see anything available that really seemed worth bringing in. My recollection is not a lot of PTO guys (the last one I remember was Ray Emery) have made the Hawks out of camp anyway.
There could also be something to the notion that the Hawks see this as an opportunity to really see how much "step up" there is right now in some of these kids. Especially older "kids" like Ryan Hartman and Mark McNeill, two former first round picks.
Sticking it to Q? I am completely not buying that. Joel Quenneville has certainly earned the right to more respectful treatment than that. Further, the facts are—in spite of the narrative out there to the contrary—Q does like playing kids. But only kids who are actually ready to play in the NHL, like: Niklas Hjalmarsson in 2008, Marcus Kruger in 2011, Brandon Saad in 2013.
So, there will be a lot of opportunity for youngsters to step up and grab jobs in camp. But there will also be Martin Lundbergs and Dennis Rasmussens—and maybe some other yet to be determined acquisition of the front office—around as well. Maybe (and this is my suspicion) the Hawk front office has a Plan C, but are in no huge hurry to execute it right now.
It will all work itself out by early October.
All for now,
JJ
Chicago Blackhawks Blogger • 
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