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Forums :: Blog World :: Justin Lowe: What Does This Team Really Need?
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Z3Hawk
Chicago Blackhawks
Joined: 05.04.2017

Jun 16 @ 5:19 PM ET
So for giggles if the Hawks were to sign JVR..

JVR Toews The Cat

Saad Schmaltz Kaner

That will do for top 6.

- z1990z


For the rest of his career Cat should only play his off-wing left wing. Also have always wanted Saad to play his off-wing but for Cat he must always be a LW.
z1990z
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: NW USA
Joined: 02.09.2012

Jun 16 @ 5:44 PM ET
For the rest of his career Cat should only play his off-wing left wing. Also have always wanted Saad to play his off-wing but for Cat he must always be a LW.
- Z3Hawk



Guess if I was going to go big I go the ROR route. Creates alot more flexibility for the top 6. And adds much needed C help.
Hawkytalk
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: Frankfort, IL
Joined: 06.26.2012

Jun 16 @ 5:57 PM ET

- L_B_R


And then how long before TVR follows ?
One of Q's favorites.
jhawk59
Chicago Blackhawks
Joined: 02.15.2013

Jun 16 @ 5:57 PM ET
And to further piggyback off your post z, thought the following from an Athletic article summed up the draft in easy to understand terms. I agree, after the first two picks anything can, and probably will, happen.

But this draft is fascinating because, after the top two, there’s a lot of uncertainty and there’s not a ton of separation among the prospects.

“The general consensus is they’re pretty clustered together,” said one amateur scout.

It’s also considered a deep draft. So teams without picks later might be inclined to move down in order to accumulate picks later on in the draft and acquire another player (my addition, is this the Hawks?). Teams without a first-round pick are eager to get back in. It sets up a fascinating draft weekend June 22-23 in Dallas.

“This is a weird draft,” said one Western Conference executive. “After the first couple of picks, people are all over the map.”

- Mr Ricochet


I am very curious whom reaches out ant takes Tzachuk a tad earlier. Arizona, after that trade maybe their GM who likes all the stat's will boldly throw a monkey wrench into the draft proceedings. Would Vancouver, not enthralled with Viryanen maturity or seeing enough scoring potential, try to push him off on someone and they drat Tzachuk?

Blackhawks trade for a grit or power forward type to play top six, or is Hayden with Martinsen on lower line. Roussel? Samuelson's kid at forward is depth? His other son is the behometh committed to Western Michigan.
Z3Hawk
Chicago Blackhawks
Joined: 05.04.2017

Jun 16 @ 7:06 PM ET
Guess if I was going to go big I go the ROR route. Creates alot more flexibility for the top 6. And adds much needed C help.
- z1990z


z - ROR - that is a fantastic dream. He would be an absolute monster in a Hawks’ jersey.
stonefire
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: Prague
Joined: 10.22.2006

Jun 16 @ 7:10 PM ET
Could totally be, though I worry with a line of two more pure shooters on it. JVR-Schmaltz-Kane could be an offensive 2nd line, as well. Would make the need for a checking line even bigger but still. I also really like the idea of Sikura-Debrincat being linemates, if only because it seems like a perfect balance of playmaker with scorer. Lots of potential options.

I know JVR isn't the "mean" guy that some on this board want, but he's been one of the most productive guys at scoring in-close over the last few seasons, which is something the Hawks have lacked a lot. He can play top to 3rd line (as that vet like Hossa his final season) and on the PP, which is useful. And he's the second best UFA forward this summer imo.

I'm not going to hold my breath for him, though - I think he'll want more than the Hawks can offer.

- L_B_R


It depends on the makeup of the 4th line, but I also would like to see ADB on a line with Sikura.

Saad-Toews-Hino?
X-Schmaltz-Kane
ADB-X-Sikura

How about Plekanec on a cheap short term deal to provide cover in between ADB and Sikura? JVR helps A LOT, but I expect the contract to be too rich and/or too long for the Hawks.

(BTW if Bruins are taking calls on Krejci, it is a pity that he is not a bit younger and making a bit less, he would be the perfect center for Kane IMO)
stonefire
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: Prague
Joined: 10.22.2006

Jun 16 @ 7:17 PM ET
Samuelson's kid at forward is depth? His other son is the behometh committed to Western Michigan.
- jhawk59


That is Kjell's son, Mattias. Or you mean one of Ulf's sons, Adam, who is commited to Boston College?

Another one of Ulf's sons, Henrik, played well in a limited role for the Hogs, I think, but he is far away from the NHL. And Philip is playing in Charlotte (hey, if there is another trade with Carolina in the making why not throw him in…).

Way too many Samuelssons to sort them out!
EnzoD
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: Denver, CO
Joined: 02.19.2014

Jun 16 @ 7:30 PM ET
JVR is probably looking for $7mil x 7 years and that’s gunna be yet another bad contract in 3 years.
ikeane
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: Jacksonville, FL
Joined: 11.04.2005

Jun 16 @ 7:36 PM ET
Every draft pick is a coin flip. Highly rated guys flop. Some undrafted FA becomes a stud. Maybe they roll back a few spots, draft Veleno and pick up another pick. We will find out very soon.
- z1990z


Great point, I remember the "Fail for Nail", Dipietro #1 to the Isles, Daigle #1 to Sens, and who could forget the great Eric LeCompte? haha
wiz1901
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: DraftSite com, IL
Joined: 05.14.2008

Jun 16 @ 7:45 PM ET
I’m not saying he didn’t fight an injury but players that have been injured keep their high draft standing all the time.
- Z3Hawk


Not with Saad, because the injury worsened, and it is not something that you can right the ship on with taking a couple weeks off.

Saad was in my top four when I started my list in the beginning of his 2011 draft year.

The scouting staffs don't ignore lack of production, and more importantly a change in the way a prospect looks to be playing and trending...if the points are down, and the eyeball test is failing, the fact he is big, quick and skilled doesn't get the prospect tom the top two or three on a team's list...
they become "Ryan Merkley's" viewed as huge bargains after you get someone higher on your want list who has shown all the things Saad lack in his draft year...

I am just trying to give a good look at the process of drops in the draft...
wiz1901
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: DraftSite com, IL
Joined: 05.14.2008

Jun 16 @ 7:46 PM ET
A further point about Brady Tkackuk. Austin Matthews’ birthday is September 17. He missed being draft-eligible a year earlier by 2 days as September 15 is the cut-off date to turn 18. It was thought by everyone that he should have been eligible. He played this technical artificial extra year as an older undrafted player as a pro in Europe and was dominant.
Tkackuk’s birthday is September 16. He missed by only a day. So Tkachuk also had this technical artificial extra year where he was as old as an undrafted player can be. You would have expected that he would have been very dominant during a year which arguably should have been the year following his draft year but he really wasn’t. Obviously the NHL gets criticized in these instances. Tkachuk will be drafted this year as old as it is possible to be after qualification.
By comparison someone like Merkley is very young for a draftee. He will not turn 18 until after the Gretsky Hlinka Tournament on August 14. Consequently someone like Tkachuk has had almost an entire extra year to develop.

- Z3Hawk


I said I get back to this one...

I saw this post two nights back while out and I painstaking answered in an eloquent and lengthy fashion, using BUZZ on my phone and when almost finished, it disappeared.

I have heard this idea of the how tough it is to adequately gauge and project the later birth year selections in comparison to the earlier (“older”) ones.

I totally understand the late birthday and early bitrthday concept that gets used to try and be a weight balance in prospect evaluation.
It is ten to eleven months….and IF the draft was closed to 18 year olds, that would be the leveling factor.

The idea that because Adam Boqvist is ten months younger in his draft year than Quinn Hughes, that the reason Hughes jumps out at you is that he is older more experienced, stronger, etc., and the Boqvist of the extra 10 months is a different player than the one all the scouts have to judge….

It is nice to think that a Boqvist is a precocious younger guy who eventually equals and passes an older Hughes as time goes on.
I mam not sure an extra year is the antidote to catching up to the older guy who might at this point be a tad better in every scout’s eyes. Still they are in the same draft class, no matter, just as are all the second and third year eligible “Andrew Shaws,” who it took longer for the world to see had something to give the NHL.

I think that using Brady Tkachuk birthdate (older) as the negative criteria I his evaluation is what I have problems with in this process on many levels,and I call complete bull feathers on Auston Matthews and Brady Tkachuk with regards to where their birthdays fall on two levels.
Matthews was always ranked as a top draft pick top centre.

And sure, his departure to Swiss pro league was one viewed as nothing left to prove in junior…

Brady Matthews was never ever thought of as the top forward of his class, and plays an entirely different position / role on the ice than Matthews was drafted to play.
From the start of his NHL career, Brady Tkachuk will be asked, shift upon shift, to play with unbridled physicality, unearth pucks, make constant contact and room for his linemates to finish.
Matthew’s skills were never regarded in terms of future potential, but more like “now potential” as he lead the class, at centre, scoring centre.

Matthews will never be put in a position where that is his every shift responsibility; sure, his skills will provide opportunities to lend hand in some areas, but not what his team is looking for shift after shift.

When you draft a power winger, you are judging his body of work in that area, but are projecting down the road, that he starts to relax, slow the game down in his head, (and plays faster in his head) gains confidence in his ability to become a dominant scoring player, along with the confidence that he not only belongs but can be dominant.

So this argument that the power winger prospect has to be dominant based on his birthday fall flat for me.
And playing against older college guys doesn’t retard a budding power forward either.

With Ryan Merkley (who btw, was in my top 12 for along time), you are working the precocious younger birthdate idea in the other direction, because it is a lot more easily to shrug his lack of maturity, on and off the ice, the quitting on the game and situations on being young…that “oh, he’s young, he will grow up, we will iron out his deficits, we will get the defense play there because we love those feet and passes…”

How about if player Jacques Madeuppe is an older member of the first year eligibles and he compares similarly in warts to Merkley…do we write him off because he had an extra year of competition where he is an old dog that didn’t learn new “good tricks?”
All players who will be 18 years old on or before September 15 and not older than 20 years old before December 31…
You are eligible for three years…so I think this idea as part of the criteria is evaluation, but not to the extent all these draft writers are making it to be. A lot of scouts get paid and are able to have job security because they make the correct evaluations through the range of the years


stonefire
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: Prague
Joined: 10.22.2006

Jun 16 @ 7:50 PM ET
Great point, I remember the "Fail for Nail", Dipietro #1 to the Isles, Daigle #1 to Sens, and who could forget the great Eric LeCompte? haha
- ikeane


You are correct, but:



Can I link TSN articles here? The chart is from Travis Yost, 2015.
https://www.tsn.ca/playin...in-the-nhl-draft-1.206144

Also: https://www.tsn.ca/statis...draft-pick-value-1.786131
wiz1901
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: DraftSite com, IL
Joined: 05.14.2008

Jun 16 @ 8:04 PM ET
I am very curious on the Tkachuk falling spot. Would Vancouver, not enthralled with Jake Virtanen's maturity or seeing enough scoring potential, try to push him off on someone and they draft Tkachuk?
- jhawk59


I worried somewhat about this some time back (3 days ago, lol) because I thought it was a really bad selection of Jake Virtanen taking him sixth overall because when I saw him, he just was not good, not dynamic or didn't look like he COULD ascend and be exactly what my last post believes Brady can be.
They passed on William Nylander and Nikolaj Ehlers and if you wanted a power player when you put the blinders on, Nick Ritchie even.

Yeah, would day try to get Brady Tkachuk or hope Jake gets better...
I think that that Vancouver pick is the one I worried about, more if Oliver Wahlstrom was dropping, but everyone seems to think that they are comfortable with the forward group and feel that defense is more worrisome...I just really hope so.

There was some talk that if really offered a solid player they would move back some, but after slot 9, wherever Ty Smith or the next defenseman gets picked (in that 12-16 range) you are not getting the lock of that very good defenseman bringing a quality, maybe not can't miss but pretty close to yeah get a defender who plays up to slot nine.

I really see no trades where other teams move into the slot above the hawks.

But I can't put my hyperactive brain to rest that Montreal, Ottawa, Arizona, Detroit AND Vancouver MAY make a selection I don't want them to IF the guy they originally locked in on surprisingly gets taken a slot ahead of them...

That's why I love this draft...
wiz1901
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: DraftSite com, IL
Joined: 05.14.2008

Jun 16 @ 8:08 PM ET

https://www.tsn.ca/playin...in-the-nhl-draft-1.206144

Also: https://www.tsn.ca/statis...draft-pick-value-1.786131

- stonefire


The stats don't lie but see how they flatten out there?

And believe me, year to year the draft classes vary in strength, some are simply ones that the group think makes themselves think some guy is gonna be the guy...

this class as I have said all along is strong...into pick 40-70 is where good scouting gets teams NHLers in this one...

Other years you have to draft develop and get lucky after about 40-50....
onehundredlevel
Joined: 10.27.2015

Jun 16 @ 8:30 PM ET
It doesn't hurt to sign him - it doesn't mean he'll play unless he's good enough. It's just not letting an asset walk for nothing. If Jurco can't hack it, he'll go the way of Morin or McNeill or any number of guys.
- L_B_R


Bowman traded a third round pick for him...so it looks bad if Jurco walks after playing so crappy. But it's even worse to re-sign him instead of admitting a mistake and cutting bait.
onehundredlevel
Joined: 10.27.2015

Jun 16 @ 8:35 PM ET
I am gonna state this in terms of ability (unrelated to CAP vs ability) one time: all this idea that Keith & Seabrook were the defensive detriment in last years season that caused a further tumble of the group is simply poppycock in my opinion; they were still the best two on the club, the others equaling them all around or reaching their game in game out abilities...this idea that a significant slippage in ability (production I will give you) has plunged in their games - in a nhl world w/o a CAP both would be guys teams would teams would BE CALLING for...certainly the Cap lessens their trade value but not their nhl abilities. It infuriates me when I keep reading the contrary in posts that advocate lists of lesser lights with lower abilities and eyeball track records.
- wiz1901


Well since the salary cap is an extremely large portion of building a team...I am going to say $6.8 million for a third pairing d-man is just dumb. If you want to pair him with Keith and have them be your 2nd unit...fine, I guess. You better get Faulk as your 1RD in that scenario. But if we are relying on Seabs as 1RD...we are in a world of trouble.
Ogilthorpe2
Season Ticket Holder
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: 37,000 FT
Joined: 07.09.2009

Jun 16 @ 8:41 PM ET
Bowman traded a third round pick for him...so it looks bad if Jurco walks after playing so crappy. But it's even worse to re-sign him instead of admitting a mistake and cutting bait.
- onehundredlevel

He looked pretty good at the end of the year. No harm in seeing if it was a fluke or not. He showed more promise than Duclair IMO, though I probably wouldn’t have brought either of them back.
Z3Hawk
Chicago Blackhawks
Joined: 05.04.2017

Jun 16 @ 9:50 PM ET
Not weit Saal, because the injury worsened, and it is not something that you can right the ship on with taking a couple weeks off.

Saad was in my top four when I started my list in the beginning of his 2011 draft year.

The scouting staffs don't ignore lack of production, and more importantly a change in the way a prospect looks to be playing and trending...if the points are down, and the eyeball test is failing, the fact he is big, quick and skilled doesn't get the prospect tom the top two or three on a team's list...
they become "Ryan Merkley's" viewed as huge bargains after you get someone higher on your want list who has shown all the things Saad lack in his draft year...

I am just trying to give a good look at the process of drops in the draft...

- wiz1901


Well as you confirm you and others were totally wrong rating Saad. As a rule players do not and should not fall in the draft because of injury. Nolan Patrick is a very recent example of this was taken 2nd overall after playing only 33 games in his draft year. A player doesn’t lose his already acknowledged skill and skill set because he gets injured. When Kane got seriously injured at the end of the season I didn’t fear that he would return in the play-offs minus some skill.

Now it may be that Saad struggled to a degree getting back on the beam after returning from injury and arguably had returned too quickly. If because of this you downgraded him you were simply wrong to have done so. Production goes down because a player fights through an injury and you downgraded him based on decreased production? That seems conpletely illogical. I follow hockey very, very closely - in any event there was a great amount of discussion about Saad’s attitude during his draft year. You seem to have completely missed this discussion somehow. Now it may have been that Saad became an attitudinal problem fighting through the injury but that doesn’t change the fact that there was still a perceived attitudinal problem. His “heart” and “work ethic” all part of attitude were questioned when he didn’t make the World Juniors and didn’t finish strong.

That is why he fell not because of lack of production tied to an injury.
onehundredlevel
Joined: 10.27.2015

Jun 16 @ 9:57 PM ET
He looked pretty good at the end of the year. No harm in seeing if it was a fluke or not. He showed more promise than Duclair IMO, though I probably wouldn’t have brought either of them back.
- Ogilthorpe2


yeah, that makes sense.
Ogilthorpe2
Season Ticket Holder
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: 37,000 FT
Joined: 07.09.2009

Jun 16 @ 10:01 PM ET
Well as you confirm you and others were totally wrong rating Saad. As a rule players do not and should not fall in the draft because of injury. Nolan Patrick is a very recent example of this was taken 2nd overall after playing only 33 games in his draft year. A player doesn’t lose his already acknowledged skill and skill set because he gets injured. When Kane got seriously injured at the end of the season I didn’t fear that he would return in the play-offs minus some skill.

Now it may be that Saad struggled to a degree getting back on the beam after returning from injury and arguably had returned too quickly. If because of this you downgraded him you were simply wrong to have done so. Production goes down because a player fights through an injury and you downgraded him based on decreased production? That seems conpletely illogical. I follow hockey very, very closely - in any event there was a great amount of discussion about Saad’s attitude during his draft year. You seem to have completely missed this discussion somehow. Now it may have been that Saad became an attitudinal problem fighting through the injury but that doesn’t change the fact that there was still a perceived attitudinal problem. His “heart” and “work ethic” all part of attitude were questioned when he didn’t make the World Juniors and didn’t finish strong.

That is why he fell not because of lack of production tied to an injury.

- Z3Hawk

I guess that settles it then
wiz1901
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: DraftSite com, IL
Joined: 05.14.2008

Jun 16 @ 10:08 PM ET
I said I get back to this one...

I saw this post two nights back while out and I painstaking answered in an eloquent and lengthy fashion, using BUZZ on my phone and when almost finished, it disappeared.

I have heard this idea of the how tough it is to adequately gauge and project the later birth year selections in comparison to the earlier (“older”) ones.

I totally understand the late birthday and early bitrthday concept that gets used to try and be a weight balance in prospect evaluation.
It is ten to eleven months….and IF the draft was closed to 18 year olds, that would be the leveling factor.

The idea that because Adam Boqvist is ten months younger in his draft year than Quinn Hughes, that the reason Hughes jumps out at you is that he is older more experienced, stronger, etc., and the Boqvist of the extra 10 months is a different player than the one all the scouts have to judge….

It is nice to think that a Boqvist is a precocious younger guy who eventually equals and passes an older Hughes as time goes on.
I mam not sure an extra year is the antidote to catching up to the older guy who might at this point be a tad better in every scout’s eyes. Still they are in the same draft class, no matter, just as are all the second and third year eligible “Andrew Shaws,” who it took longer for the world to see had something to give the NHL.

I think that using Brady Tkachuk birthdate (older) as the negative criteria I his evaluation is what I have problems with in this process on many levels,and I call complete bull feathers on Auston Matthews and Brady Tkachuk with regards to where their birthdays fall on two levels.
Matthews was always ranked as a top draft pick top centre.

And sure, his departure to Swiss pro league was one viewed as nothing left to prove in junior…

Brady Matthews was never ever thought of as the top forward of his class, and plays an entirely different position / role on the ice than Matthews was drafted to play.
From the start of his NHL career, Brady Tkachuk will be asked, shift upon shift, to play with unbridled physicality, unearth pucks, make constant contact and room for his linemates to finish.
Matthew’s skills were never regarded in terms of future potential, but more like “now potential” as he lead the class, at centre, scoring centre.

Matthews will never be put in a position where that is his every shift responsibility; sure, his skills will provide opportunities to lend hand in some areas, but not what his team is looking for shift after shift.

When you draft a power winger, you are judging his body of work in that area, but are projecting down the road, that he starts to relax, slow the game down in his head, (and plays faster in his head) gains confidence in his ability to become a dominant scoring player, along with the confidence that he not only belongs but can be dominant.

So this argument that the power winger prospect has to be dominant based on his birthday fall flat for me.
And playing against older college guys doesn’t retard a budding power forward either.

With Ryan Merkley (who btw, was in my top 12 for along time), you are working the precocious younger birthdate idea in the other direction, because it is a lot more easily to shrug his lack of maturity, on and off the ice, the quitting on the game and situations on being young…that “oh, he’s young, he will grow up, we will iron out his deficits, we will get the defense play there because we love those feet and passes…”

I don't see Ottawa 67s 6ft 7 inch defender Kevin Ball getting comments about comments about how he "is a youngster in the class" (less than two months older than Boqvist), "just that he has mobility issues." Nobody saying...yeah he is young and the mobility issues will dissipate..."
(I am throw this in here because I truly don't think the older guys get downgraded, and for that matter Bahl is a good skater at his size in my humble opinion and I have him ahead of some really nice prospects at slot 37...)

How about if player Jacques Madeuppe is an older member of the first year eligibles and he compares similarly in warts to Merkley…do we write him off because he had an extra year of competition where he is an old dog that didn’t learn new “good tricks?”
All players who will be 18 years old on or before September 15 and not older than 20 years old before December 31…
You are eligible for three years…so I think this idea as part of the criteria is evaluation, but not to the extent all these draft writers are making it to be. A lot of scouts get paid and are able to have job security because they make the correct evaluations through the range of the years

- wiz1901
wiz1901
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: DraftSite com, IL
Joined: 05.14.2008

Jun 16 @ 10:15 PM ET
and this Jurco juxapositioning:

I am not sure why it matters to any of us, one way or another.

It is like the Arizona - Montreal trade but lite.

They gave a 3rd for the ability to control the guys contract, to see if the skilled guy was going put it together.
It is a different type player than Duclair, because Duke teased with Rangers and 'totes after being a fast paced Q scorer.

Jurco was a good hand people, who Wings felt get something cause we are log jammed with same age and similar forward types.

As long as Jurco'd deal is NOT signing a freaking one way, wavier exempt, I don't. need to have an opinion, until they release him, use him as a throw in or he settles in with some success.

(I am fairly certain John Hayden's wavier exempt deal was a way of making things up for the late demotion, that he supposedly was extreme bothered by, after feeling he had been purposefully been flying through walls to please the staff and be a good nhl pro.
TTtime
Chicago Blackhawks
Joined: 06.17.2015

Jun 16 @ 10:21 PM ET
Better fans
TTtime
Chicago Blackhawks
Joined: 06.17.2015

Jun 16 @ 10:24 PM ET
and this Jurco juxapositioning:

I am not sure why it matters to any of us, one way or another.

It is like the Arizona - Montreal trade but lite.

They gave a 3rd for the ability to control the guys contract, to see if the skilled guy was going put it together.
It is a different type player than Duclair, because Duke teased with Rangers and 'totes after being a fast paced Q scorer.

Jurco was a good hand people, who Wings felt get something cause we are log jammed with same age and similar forward types.

As long as Jurco'd deal is NOT signing a freaking one way, I don't. need to have an opinion, until they release him, use him as a throw in or he settles in with some success.

- wiz1901


one way, two way doesn't matter in reality except to the team that has to pay the player. what is important is whether the whole contract can be buried in the minors. which is the max amount Jurco/Duclair should be sign for.
Though if it were me, I wouldn't sign either of them. They both suck for different reasons.
Hawkytalk
Chicago Blackhawks
Location: Frankfort, IL
Joined: 06.26.2012

Jun 16 @ 10:49 PM ET
For the rest of his career Cat should only play his off-wing left wing. Also have always wanted Saad to play his off-wing but for Cat he must always be a LW.
- Z3Hawk


100 % Agreement. It would be typical Quenneville to play ADB on RW though wouldn't it.
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