GDT: 2017 - Traverse City Prospect Tourney

[MinJaBen]

Canes should have a great team for Traverse City.

Team Announcement

Click to read more...

 

[DaveG]

Thilander, interesting. He's one of the guys that I was surprised that nobody took a late round flyer on this past draft. Kid was ridiculously hyped a couple years back and was supposed to compete for the #1 spot in this past draft.

 

[Cardiac Jerks]

Should be a killer team. Some really big boys on that roster. Excited to see how Fleury looks.

Usually don't care for anyone we invite but I'm stoked to see Adam Thilander. He was once very highly touted. Not too sure what happened with him.

 

[DaveG]

Should be a killer team. Some really big boys on that roster. Excited to see how Fleury looks.

Usually don't care for anyone we invite but I'm stoked to see Adam Thilander. He was once very highly touted. Not too sure what happened with him.

From the sounds of it he was on a ****** team and his skating issues are pretty noticeable. Still shouldn't have kept him from being drafted but it is what it is I guess. We've seen players with serious skating issues drafted before, though most of them are significantly bigger then he was.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Seems like a good group for this tournament. I'm interested to see how Necas looks against other top prospects in an NHL-like environment.

Weird to see McKeown still showing up for this sort of thing.

 

[DaveG]

Forget McKeown, Fleury being there is the one that has me going "wait... REALLY?"

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

Fleury's tryout starts there.

He better be a man among boys and utterly dominate.

 

[WreckingCrew]

From the sounds of it he was on a ****** team and his skating issues are pretty noticeable. Still shouldn't have kept him from being drafted but it is what it is I guess. We've seen players with serious skating issues drafted before, though most of them are significantly bigger then he was.

Was actually reading a bit on this and it sounds like perhaps he was an "early bloomer" and was able to be more dominant because he was physically more mature than his peers...then once they caught up his dominance went away. I do remember a lot of hype about him for a while though and he just fell off the radar completely.

 

[Unsustainable]

Fluery will look like a professional player at this point. I forget at times how solid he is.

 

[DaveG]

Was actually reading a bit on this and it sounds like perhaps he was an "early bloomer" and was able to be more dominant because he was physically more mature than his peers...then once they caught up his dominance went away. I do remember a lot of hype about him for a while though and he just fell off the radar completely.

Also likely. That said that never stopped players Jesse Joensuu or Sean Day from getting drafted. Or even Nic Roy looking at our own group. Sometimes these guys are just literally men amongst boys out there, but sometimes they do end up panning out to be high level prospects anyway.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Fleury's tryout starts there.

He better be a man among boys and utterly dominate.

Fluery will look like a professional player at this point. I forget at times how solid he is.

I would like to see him take the opportunity to really stretch himself offensively. He seems a fair bet to be an NHL player one way or another, but there's at least a defensive pairing's worth of difference if he can find an offensive game.

 

[cptjeff]

Fleury's tryout starts there.

He better be a man among boys and utterly dominate.

Fluery will look like a professional player at this point. I forget at times how solid he is.

So, exactly what he did last year? Every tournament needs a ringer.

I suspect Fleury is primarily there to be veteran leadership in the locker room and help the fresh draftees adapt to a professional environment. The Canes have a pretty good idea of what he can do already, he's almost certainly there just to get reps and to help others out.

The one I'm curious about is Saarela. Is his shoulder still recovering? If so, does anyone know if he'll be ready for training camp?

 

[CandyCanes]

I always forget why are the NCAA players not able to play in this tournament?

 

[DaveG]

I always forget why are the NCAA players not able to play in this tournament?

Could swear I've seen some in the past, but the only thing I can figure is two-fold.

1 - NCAA players would have to pay their own way for everything

and

2 - NCAA players aren't allowed to play in organized games/tournaments against players that are on professional contracts. This is most notable in NCAA basketball where there are many cases where players like Deniz Kilicli are suspended long amounts of the season if not outright forbidden to play because they have played on teams where one or more players is on a professional contract, or even against teams with a player on a professional contract.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

So, exactly what he did last year?

Didn't he get injured in the 1st game last year, or was it later on?

 

[cptjeff]

Didn't he get injured in the 1st game last year, or was it later on?

Hmm, you're right. Maybe I'm remembering the year before? Or maybe I'm just remembering some of his preseason games.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Hmm, you're right. Maybe I'm remembering the year before? Or maybe I'm just remembering some of his preseason games.

IIRC though, people were saying he did look good before getting hurt, albeit a small sample. I hope he trained hard this offseason. The statement from Ulf that he wasn't in good enough shape to start last season was disappointing, but maybe the injury at Traverse City and then missing some of training camp played a role.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Could swear I've seen some in the past, but the only thing I can figure is two-fold.

1 - NCAA players would have to pay their own way for everything

and

2 - NCAA players aren't allowed to play in organized games/tournaments against players that are on professional contracts. This is most notable in NCAA basketball where there are many cases where players like Deniz Kilicli are suspended long amounts of the season if not outright forbidden to play because they have played on teams where one or more players is on a professional contract, or even against teams with a player on a professional contract.

Re: #2, How do they get away with it for international play? Aren't there always cases of college kids going against players with professional contracts?

 

[DaveG]

not sure especially re the WJC

 

[MinJaBen]

Weird to see McKeown still showing up for this sort of thing.

Forget McKeown, Fleury being there is the one that has me going "wait... REALLY?"

Fleury's tryout starts there.

He better be a man among boys and utterly dominate.

With all of our best defensive prospects being in attendance, I wonder if this tournament roster was put together to highlight them in one last attempt to entice Sakic to come down on his top-4 defender requirement and go with futures. If one or both of Bean and Fleury look really good, maybe a Duchene move happens before camp starts...something I think the Avs would really want to do.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

To think that McKeown could somehow net us Duchene (even if he's not the centerpiece) is spectacular.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I just can't see him coming THAT far down in his demands. Replacing their top center with a Fleury/Bean/McKeown would leave that franchise in even worse shambles and likely cost Sakic his job and any future prospects of working as a GM again. He has to return a cornerstone player in that deal.

 

[MinJaBen]

To think that McKeown could somehow net us Duchene (even if he's not the centerpiece) is spectacular.

This makes little sense to me. For example, you are saying that an offer of Aho, Hanifin and McKeown netting us Duchene would be "spectacular" because McKeown was involved?

 

[WreckingCrew]

I just can't see him coming THAT far down in his demands. Replacing their top center with a Fleury/Bean/McKeown would leave that franchise in even worse shambles and likely cost Sakic his job and any future prospects of working as a GM again. He has to return a cornerstone player in that deal.

Sakic's problem at this point is there are only 2 ways he won't come out of this badly: 1) Duchene returns to peak performance, is happy in Colorado, and resigns, 2) He nets a big return in a trade. It seems unlikely Duchene will suddenly be happy as long as Sakic is in charge. And if he continues to underperform AND wants to be traded, Sakic is not going to get a "fair value" return on a trade. It just doesn't seem likely Sakic is going to come out of this anything other than worse off.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

This makes little sense to me. For example, you are saying that an offer of Aho, Hanifin and McKeown netting us Duchene would be "spectacular" because McKeown was involved?

This makes little sense to me.

Hanifin for Duchene has been debated to this point. Aho, Hanifin, and McKeown for Duchene would be so spectacularly stupid it's not worth discussing.

My idea of it being "spectacular" is that I consider McKeown to have very little value at this point. If somehow we were able to boost his value to the point that he is that add that pushes whatever we offer over the edge to be accepted by Sakic, that represents more value than I believe he will ever have.

Obviously, in your ridiculous example, he is not the piece that pushes it over the edge. Aho is probably that piece, without Hanifin or McKeown entering the convo.