off topic, but interesting article here on Carl Dahlstrom and possible disconnect between Blackhawks management, pro and amateur scouting staffs.:http://thethirdmanin.com/...-amateur-scouting-staffs/
- jv526
Maybe you all want to read this before you read my answer.
http://thethirdmanin.com/...-amateur-scouting-staffs/
I have never been a Blackhawk organizational apologist, in fact it was their years of inadequate scouting combined with horse manure scouting that molded me into the prospect fanatic I am.
This is basically an article questioning the moves and drafting of players by the present organization.
I too enjoyed the article, like JV, but after reading through it completely, what creeped in was many problems with Chris Block's logic, emphasis, and maybe biased.
It started after I read a later section that was going after the second round selections in 2010, and he says..."
Going back to 2010, the first Stan Bowman led draft, the Hawks had four picks. The last, Stephen Johns, provided this year’s bout of injuries is largely an anomaly, will be a star for the Blackhawks."
Tell you what, when I was in my 20's I would look at the first round and second round selections and also say stupid things like Tony Tanti going to be a star..."
My youth and exuberance like Block's had canonized a player before he
EVER played an NHL game. He says STAR. Personally, I love the upside of Stephen Johns and all the tools and toolbox he has does trend towards the NHL, but I also know that over the course of his development he has had troubles playing attackers breaking in and his feet in many cases save his repeated body positioning issues.
There are so many points I want to make in terms of the article and as most of you know I tend to jump around in my stream of conscientious like the current is changing and I will start with addressing what I have always thought most of these statisticians and as Block himself put it, the “who they shoulda drafted game” are doing incorrectly when looking at drafts/draft position.
Each draft is so different, and all the stats saying when you draft at say pick 40, you chance is so & so % to get an nhl regular...just
cannot be applied year by year, even though everyone seems to align their thinking that way. Good organizations are going to scout & grade the prospects and make sure they not only
rank them inside the particular draft but also
against the years before. If your team thinks it has a need say at an attacking defenseman, they are going to not only know what’s there in the year’s draft but how it ranks against other years in terms of when the well ran dry in other drafts. Teams break a draft’s prospects in tiers and you may be the 5th tier by the second round in weak draft classes. if a team is pretty set on taking an offenseman before the second tier is over, they may in fact reach.
With a Carl Dahlström type defender, you are drafting bigger man with the hopes his offensive side and feet and aggression all come together at a later date. You start with assumption you see parts, upside and are hoping the actual mesh of improvement blossoms you a defenseman for the parent club.
Some draft years go really quiet early and even the bigger long term potential prospects dry early. (This year I think you get really good chances at potential NHL past the third round.) Many years teams will stay away from high potential guys like Saad after severe groin problems persist...teams would rather take a healthier propsect who might have just made great jumps in the final months of his draft year (like Jake Virtanen, Julius Honka, or Travis Sanheim as last draft examples in even the first round of a thin crop) over guys who might have "looked like early picks for two years prior to the draft, and didn't show overall jumps and developmental "flatlined" so to speak...
Teams has over the course of a decade, have made radical changes in their ideas with the first rounder. Some teams ignored small, even reached for position, size, grit or the "promise of skill"
ala the hawks trading up to land a player who still is physically developed enough to as yet be a factor in college as they hawks did with Nick Schmaltz.
So you cannot just go backwards and say the hawks should selected this guy instead.
whether you talking about Carl Dahlström or anybody. Sure it's easy to do for any of us.
The difference between Block and me, is my picks are documented.
I had Boone Jenner the the 34th best player to Islanders and Clendening going 40th overall and saad going 25th overall to Toronto (don't they wish!).
In 2010, I thought Stephan Johns would go 39th overall (Justin Holl & Kent Simpson as third rounders) ahead of Charlie Coyle (40) Tyler Toffoli (57) and Teemu Puikkinen (58) and Nobles & Greenough H.S. student Kevin Hayes at slot 52...oh and by adding to the article how Kevin Hayes was wasted draft pick, well, the collegiate entry draft rules are what they are and they young men have are able through the loophole to slip into UFA status.
So any player drafted by any team who is in college might be called a wasted draft pick. It just seems like a not thought out swipe at Bowman & company, because they didn’t control the situation, there was no gun (or nephew Hayes used as a facsimile of a automatic weapon)- find the video…they could put to Kevin Haye’s head.
This is the very reason not so polished European players are going to popular as draft options in the second on, like Carl Dahlström.
My point is there is faulty logic in the “who they shoulda drafted game” because we as outsiders don't know exactly what the Hawks or any team is thinking.
Maybe when drafting Clendening, they thought he was the last of the more offensivemen available and figured you take a shot there over a grit Jenner who maybe scores 20 some year....and the passes on Saad?
Looks like everybody passed on him and no team went out and tried to trade up to acquire a pick and get him earlier, right?
Let’s move on to Chris’ opinion of scratching of regulars for the IceHogs regular season finale at home, which COULD have helped them with the AHL Midwest Division.
So…
is that the goal, first place, or winning the Calder Cup?
In past years even the NHL clubs like the Blackhawks rest players in the games before the REAL season the post season. Oh, and I am sure they all probably wanted to play.
So teams at every level use that last game that truly don’t matter as games to get a look-see at others.
You plan your entire organization’s future based upon if you have the horses to compete at every league and every single rung, and better there be snippets of evaluation now, than scrambling later if things go South (which they do more than occasionally).
Even more disheartening is how the article seems to say that through Chris’ “internal digging,” he knows the Blackhawks have negative impressions Carl Dahlström.
Believe me, I have trouble swallowing that any member of any front office of any regard is disclosing dissatisfaction with prospects to anyone in public. And any comments made may be what someone or someones think about the guy in terms of the areas they have to improve.
Think about Kyle Beach-throughout the entire tenure we heard the company line, or tempered criticism and no hands pounding on desks in disgust and rants to the press.
So this “No puck skills” internal performance review. The Hawks would also like to see Dahlstrom be more assertive in his play. Not just more physical, but showing more willingness to step up and make more puck plays. So the hawks were not happy at Dahlström in one game, and being an organization that is impatient with it’s picks have soured.
If the rest of you want to buy that kook-aid, you can, but I don’t.
Did Block ever think that was review that was no necessarily long term but a one game evaluation, just like the coaching staffs do on most call-ups and not a cut and dried long term one?
I always use the eyeball test. And then even go back and look again. And then you document areas of strengths and weaknesses. I went back to Chris Block’s mid-season evaluation of hawk prospects and while throughtout, it was far from the way I see the organizational rankings.
He certainly didn’t agree with all the posters her who thought Dahlbeck’s loss via trade was devastating…
he had him as the 16th best organizational prospect, and Garret Ross and 14th.
and Nick Schmaltz SECOND? That seems based on the fact the moved up to 20 to get him, but in no way representative of anything anybody has seen in the college game. Maybe I have to see SOME dominance as a collegiate hockey play first-or you just pulled rah-rah very similar to my youth Tony Tanti projections when a 32 year Wiz was rah-rahing…
So I guess after the looking over those rankings and
finding little actual scouting positives and negatives in them, I don’t know if I trust his or anybody’s opinion beside my own eyeballs.
But let’s go back to Dahlström “possible disconnect between Blackhawks management, pro and amateur scouting staffs…in my 2013 on DraftSite.com, I had Dahlström as the 83rd best player and 26th best prospect on defense. in that 2013 I really likes Tom Vanelli a USA-NTDP with good size who in my eyes was the last good one left in the second round and he was off the board at 47 to St. Louis. I was disappointed. When the Blackhawks were on the clock, I thought it was a slam dunk that they take Kelowna’s defender Madison Bowey. He was tad over six foot and looked good in international competitions but was never gonna be big.
If you look at all the players drafted AFTER Dahlström, you won’t see a prominent defender except maybe for Brett Pesce, who had already played a year at the University of New Hampshire prior to his selection in the early third round by Carolina.
So that to tells me that the Blackhawk organization might have felt secure that they had strong organizational depth at the forward position from previous years and were hoping that maybe a few more of the quality prospects on defense were available. They were gone, and they very well might have reached due to the fact Dahlström (a)he was big (b) he did show he didn’t long term developing to do which gave the hawks time to be patient, and (c) his play at the lower Swedish levels consisted of a hard shot,he was strong on the puck, fluid with his carries and had an active stick, clear the front and was playing big minutes which speaks to his endurance. He then moved on to Swedish pro and even there everyone who saw him would tell you he was “refinining his game and a work in progress.”
There was no huge disconnect between the facts I just stated and expectations.
Of course he was drafted TO get better, and the new rules on reduced European exclusivity are different if he STAYS in Europe or comes over and plays say junior. If a European Player moves to the United States or Canada to play junior hockey, the NHL clubs are required to sign the player to a contract within a two year window; whereas, if the same player were to remain in Europe for his junior hockey, the NHL clubs would not have to extend a contract for up to four years.
So the Blackhawks are not up against the wall with Carl Dahlström.
They are simply going out of their way to fly in a few of their Euro defenseman, kicking their tires and writing “progress reports” just like in school.
There was no reason that I can see anyone would make it into a huge stretch of "organizational disconnectivity."
Or why it would stir me enough to answer with as many words as the article contained.
...3rd can be easy and ANYONE would give up a low 1 for Saad. 