2023-24 Senators Prospect Watch

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Sens of Anarchy

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Jul 9, 2013
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Without watching, does this mean that he doesn't like him much? I know you aren't high on him.
Just watch it and make up your own mind. No to answer your question. By asking vs watching are you trying to avoid something you don't want to hear?
 

OD99

Registered User
Oct 13, 2012
5,182
4,391
Just watch it and make up your own mind. No to answer your question. By asking vs watching are you trying to avoid something you don't want to hear?
The mystery wrapped inside an enigma?

Geez, no. I was quickly skimming on here before doing other things and this caught my attention. I know you aren't high on him so thought I would ask. I know better now.
 

aragorn

Do The Right Thing
Aug 8, 2004
29,281
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The Habs are going to be small & soft again, they have been shitty for a while which is why they get a better drafting position, but that doesn't mean they draft well they have plenty of misses. Time will tell, but they are as annoying as Leafs fans who are going to win the Cup every yr for over 50 yrs now & counting.
 

Xspyrit

DJ Dorion
Jun 29, 2008
31,641
10,553
Montreal, Canada
Is their pool better than ours? Yes. I agree with you on that. Their top 5 are definitely better than our top 5.

But I am sticking with what I said. After their top 5, their pool looks ordinary. More so, it is unproven. When their guys actually start playing in the NHL and prove themselves, then I'll give them some respect.

It goes beyond the Top-5 IMO, I would say their Top-13 is particularly strong and reminds me of the pool we had around 2020 & 2021 (see below)

This was JUST after the 2020 draft :

1- Tim Stuetzle
2- Jake Sanderson
3- Drake Batherson
4- Josh Norris
5- Erik Brannstrom
6- Logan Brown
7- Jacob Bernard-Docker
8- Alex Formenton
9- Shane Pinto
10- Ridly Greig
11- Roby Jarventie
12- Rudolfs Balcers
13- Vitali Abramov
14- Joey Daccord
15- Lassi Thomson
16- Egor Sokolov
17- Tyler Kleven
18- Filip Chlapik
19- Mads Søgaard
20- Filip Gustavsson

Ok that pool was absolutely stacked, look at the players to close out the Top-20 damn. The Habs pool is not as good but it's starting to look like this. Problem is they don't have inept management and I don't think they will screw things up like our management did. We were a million years ahead just 3 years ago. It has shrunk A LOT since. This is annoying, we had the opportunity to pull away from the competition. With the wealth we had at the start of the rebuild and the time we had to stack high end picks since, we should be CONTENDERS by now.
 

Dan Patrick

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Mar 11, 2020
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It goes beyond the Top-5 IMO, I would say their Top-13 is particularly strong and reminds me of the pool we had around 2020 & 2021 (see below)

This was JUST after the 2020 draft :

1- Tim Stuetzle
2- Jake Sanderson
3- Drake Batherson
4- Josh Norris
5- Erik Brannstrom
6- Logan Brown
7- Jacob Bernard-Docker
8- Alex Formenton
9- Shane Pinto
10- Ridly Greig
11- Roby Jarventie
12- Rudolfs Balcers
13- Vitali Abramov
14- Joey Daccord
15- Lassi Thomson
16- Egor Sokolov
17- Tyler Kleven
18- Filip Chlapik
19- Mads Søgaard
20- Filip Gustavsson

Ok that pool was absolutely stacked, look at the players to close out the Top-20 damn. The Habs pool is not as good but it's starting to look like this. Problem is they don't have inept management and I don't think they will screw things up like our management did. We were a million years ahead just 3 years ago. It has shrunk A LOT since. This is annoying, we had the opportunity to pull away from the competition. With the wealth we had at the start of the rebuild and the time we had to stack high end picks since, we should be CONTENDERS by now.

Pretty crazy that more than a quarter of that was one draft. Good to know that all it takes is smashing one very good year. The last few years have been pretty brutal for the prospect pool but turning the pool around can be done very quickly with some solid drafting and an above average year of young players.
 

Micklebot

Moderator
Apr 27, 2010
56,709
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Wheeler 2021 re-draft.
I was curious where Boucher would go.
Wyatt Johnston, Logan Stankoven, Ollen Zellweger, Matthew Knies, Joshua Roy, Scott Morrow, JJ Moser, Jackson Blake, Ethan Del Mastro and Aatu Raty all take leaps from their actual draft spot.
Boucher was mentioned in the article..
I'd love to know how Boucher's career would have gone in an alternate timeline where he managed to stay healthy. I still think we likely took him too high, but you have to imagine he'd be at least a little further ahead...
 

Xspyrit

DJ Dorion
Jun 29, 2008
31,641
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Montreal, Canada
Can't stress enough about the drop in quality of our pool 3 years ago vs today.

Søgaard and Gustavsson were voted 19th and 20th... this year Søgaard and Merilainen were voted 5th and 6th. That's pretty telling IMO

Pretty crazy that more than a quarter of that was one draft. Good to know that all it takes is smashing one very good year. The last few years have been pretty brutal for the prospect pool but turning the pool around can be done very quickly with some solid drafting and an above average year of young players.

Yeah but it was mainly due to having the 3rd and a 5th OA picks. One was because we were a lottery team and the other was because we traded a 27 y/o guy that won 3 Norris trophies

Greig was the perfect late 1st round pick but after that, nothing is an homerun yet. I think Kleven ends up a good NHL player, Jarventie and Merilainen have a chance but that's where it stops. Sokolov and Reinhardt might be cup of coffee guys at best. I liked the Daoust pick but the guy is more injury prone than Matt Murray and Tyler Boucher combined.

2021, 2022 and 2023 sucked but that was mainly due to the Boucher reach and the DeBrincat/Chychrun fiascos. Outside of that, we'll have a player for 2021 in Ostapchuk and despite not drafting before 64th OA in 2022 and 108th OA in 2023, we have several interesting prospects from these 2 drafts (Halliday, Donovan, Andonovski, Stanley, Reidler, Pettersson, etc)
 

Micklebot

Moderator
Apr 27, 2010
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Can't stress enough about the drop in quality of our pool 3 years ago vs today.

Søgaard and Gustavsson were voted 19th and 20th... this year Søgaard and Merilainen were voted 5th and 6th. That's pretty telling IMO
It's pretty normal for goalie prospects to start way down the list of prospects until the start to show promise.

In 2020, Sogaard was still in the WHL, and Gustavsson was 22 with a sub 900 sv% in the AHL.
Right now, Sogaard is 23 with a .908 sv% in the AHL, and Merilainen 21 with a 911 sv% in the AHL

It's not particularly surprising that our current goalies are higher up the rankings than in 2020, they've both proven more.

Now, that's not to say our prospect pool is as good as it was in 2020, that's obviously not true, but 2020 was considered a top 10 farm system, we had just picked Stu, Sanderson, Greig and Jarventie in the first 33 picks, and still had Pinto, and Thomson from the first 32 picks in the previous draft. So 6 top 33 picks in the last two years, vs 1 in the current system. Add to that we still had Brannstrom from the Stone trade, and Norris from the Karlsson trade considered prospects.

It is interesting that you skipped over Daccord when comparing goalie prospects, who is probably the more comparable goalie prospect in terms of how much he'd proven at that time, he was 23 turning 24 with a single AHL season at .915 sv%, and we ranked him 14th.
 
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aragorn

Do The Right Thing
Aug 8, 2004
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Drop off on the prospect pool is obvious due to the rebuild our best young players are already on the team. Unfortunately during rebuilds they traded their best players & started to replace them with their best young players which they acquired due to their draft position from being crappy during the yr. This happens with every team, it's not a new revelation. Ann was a pretty good team once upon a time, so was SJ & Nashville, this happen all the time, it's nothing new or unique to this team.

Given that our best prospects are now on the team what is left are players that are going to help the bottom of the order, the bottom six & bottom D pairing, although we did get a top 4 D in this past draft. If this team improves than the scale by which we get more good players starts to diminish as we move down the leaderboard. That's what happens & trades become more important to improve the main team further. They also need to get lucky with a couple of these prospects that they turn into real good players that help the team be successful, such as Kleven, Ostapchuk, Halliday, Yakemchuk & a goalie. IMO the top of the order is set & it's the bottom of the order they are now trying to improve.
 

BondraTime

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Nov 20, 2005
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Drop off on the prospect pool is obvious due to the rebuild our best young players are already on the team. Unfortunately during rebuilds they traded their best players & started to replace them with their best young players which they acquired due to their draft position from being crappy during the yr. This happens with every team, it's not a new revelation. Ann was a pretty good team once upon a time, so was SJ & Nashville, this happen all the time, it's nothing new or unique to this team.

Given that our best prospects are now on the team what is left are players that are going to help the bottom of the order, the bottom six & bottom D pairing, although we did get a top 4 D in this past draft. If this team improves than the scale by which we get more good players starts to diminish as we move down the leaderboard. That's what happens & trades become more important to improve the main team further. They also need to get lucky with a couple of these prospects that they turn into real good players that help the team be successful, such as Kleven, Ostapchuk, Halliday, Yakemchuk & a goalie. IMO the top of the order is set & it's the bottom of the order they are now trying to improve.
That's not entirely true, there is nobody from the past 3 drafts on the team, and very little in the pool. For the most part every other teams top prospects are all 21 or younger, barring guys like Nikushkin. Their pool is so bad beacuse they pissed away so many picks that "should" have brought high end and depth to their pool.

The drop in the prospect pool is primarily because they have absolutely no top prospects from 3 drafts in a row for guys that would be 21, 20 and 19.

They traded away or missed on Boucher and Roger from 2021, 7th overall for DBC, 39th overall for DBC and Nordberg from 2022, and then in 2023 missed out on 12th for Chych, their 2nd for Zaitsev.

For those drafts, they basically have nothing to show from:
10th - Boucher
49th - Roger
7th - DBC
39th - DBC
64th - Nordberg
12th - Chychrun
44th - Zaitsev


That's what's messed up the pool. That's 7 high picks from 2021-2023 that were essentailly pissed away. Having 3 additional 1st round picks and 3 additional 2nd round picks would make an absolutely gigantic difference in this prospect pool.
 
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Micklebot

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Apr 27, 2010
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For those drafts, they basically have nothing to show from:
10th - Boucher
49th - Roger
7th - DBC
39th - DBC
64th - Nordberg
12th - Chychrun
44th - Zaitsev

Could have been:

Sillinger?
Nikita Chibrikov?
Marco Kasper?
Paul Ludwinski?
Calle Odelius?
Daniil But?
Roman Kantserov?
 
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aragorn

Do The Right Thing
Aug 8, 2004
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That's not entirely true, there is nobody from the past 3 drafts on the team, and very little in the pool. For the most part every other teams top prospects are all 21 or younger, barring guys like Nikushkin. Their pool is so bad beacuse they pissed away so many picks that "should" have brought high end and depth to their pool.

The drop in the prospect pool is primarily because they have absolutely no top prospects from 3 drafts in a row for guys that would be 21, 20 and 19.

They traded away or missed on Boucher and Roger from 2021, 7th overall for DBC, 39th overall for DBC and Nordberg from 2022, and then in 2023 missed out on 12th for Chych, their 2nd for Zaitsev.

For those drafts, they basically have nothing to show from:
10th - Boucher
49th - Roger
7th - DBC
39th - DBC
64th - Nordberg
12th - Chychrun
44th - Zaitsev


That's what's messed up the pool. That's 7 high picks from 2021-2023 that were essentailly pissed away. Having 3 additional 1st round picks and 3 additional 2nd round picks would make an absolutely gigantic difference in this prospect pool.
Sanderson is 22 yrs old, Stutzle is 22 yrs old, Greig is 21 yrs old, Kleven is 22 yrs old & others are under 25. Boucher hasn't developed because of injuries not because of where he was drafted, that's a myth started on here. People blame the scouting staff because he has been injury prone over the last number of yrs. Sometimes & you know this, players get hurt & lose significant development time & sometimes it ends their careers & injuries don't care where you were drafted or what team drafted you.

Thompson was a shit #1 pick, but Pinto clearly from the same draft could have been their #1 pick in hindsight. Boucher is injury prone, but Ostapchuk could be on the team this yr & looks like he could be a player from that same draft. Stanley & Andonovski could turn into players, so could Donovan, Halliday & Petersson. People are always talking about elite prospects which IMO is individual thinking & this is a team game. I much prefer to build a successful team & plug players in which improve the team. I don't care about elite because I think we have enough good young players who have elite potential already. Bowers was a shit pick, but Formenton & Batherson from that same draft turned out to be good & could have been 1st rd picks in hindsight, glass half full.

You can blame Dorion for trades where he gave away the first rders in trades in 2022 & 2023 which corelates to why we don't have anyone on the team from those two drafts yet & then Boucher in 2021 has yet to recover from his injury plagued career & may never. In 2023 Ott did not make a pick until the 4th rd that is on Dorion trading those picks away, it has nothing to do with the prospect pool or scouting, it's a fact. I agree that Dorion has hurt the pool in trading away 1st rders in drafts & made some shit picks that didn't turn out, but every team has made some shit trades & shit picks. There are players in our prospect pool that IMO will improve the team & most likely are all in our top 10 list, but again that's likely the case with a lot of teams. I would guess 80% of most team's prospect pools don't become full time NHLers, there are probably less than 800 full time jobs in the NHL & the bottom of the order is constantly changing.
 
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OD99

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Oct 13, 2012
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Sanderson is 22 yrs old, Stutzle is 22 yrs old, Greig is 21 yrs old, Kleven is 22 yrs old & others are under 25. Boucher hasn't developed because of injuries not because of where he was drafted, that's a myth started on here. People blame the scouting staff because he has been injury prone over the last number of yrs. Sometimes & you know this, players get hurt & lose significant development time & sometimes it ends their careers & injuries don't care where you were drafted or what team drafted you.

Thompson was a shit #1 pick, but Pinto clearly from the same draft could have been their #1 pick in hindsight. Boucher is injury prone, but Ostapchuk could be on the team this yr & looks like he could be a player from that same draft. Stanley & Andonovski could turn into players, so could Donovan, Halliday & Petersson. People are always talking about elite prospects which IMO is individual thinking & this is a team game. I much prefer to build a successful team & plug players in which improve the team. I don't care about elite because I think we have enough good young players who have elite potential already. Bowers was a shit pick, but Formenton & Batherson from that same draft turned out to be good & could have been 1st rd picks in hindsight, glass half full.

You can blame Dorion for trades where he gave away the first rders in trades in 2022 & 2023 which corelates to why we don't have anyone on the team from those two drafts yet & then Boucher in 2021 has yet to recover from his injury plagued career & may never. In 2023 Ott did not make a pick until the 4th rd that is on Dorion trading those picks away, it has nothing to do with the prospect pool or scouting, it's a fact. I agree that Dorion has hurt the pool in trading away 1st rders in drafts & made some shit picks that didn't turn out, but every team has made some shit trades & shit picks. There are players in our prospect pool that IMO will improve the team & most likely are all in our top 10 list, but again that's likely the case with a lot of teams. I would guess 80% of most team's prospect pools don't become full time NHLers, there are probably less than 800 full time jobs in the NHL & the bottom of the order is constantly changing.
You need high end talent to win and then good bottom 6/bottom pairing players to thrive.

I agree that we have a bunch of players that look like they fill the complimentary players required, but we have no star power (that we know of) waiting in the wings.

We have been rebuilding for years, with high draft positions, and don't have anything in the last 3 years to show for it. I disagree on Boucher - it wasn't just injuries, and if it was, it goes back to before the draft.

Look at his numbers for his junior career, there is nothing to indicate he could be successful at the NHL level relative to a 10th overall pick. Injuries have hampered his development, but he couldn't cut it in college and wasn't doing all that great in the OHL. That said, he may still end up an energy guy for us, if he can get medical clearance.
 
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Xspyrit

DJ Dorion
Jun 29, 2008
31,641
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Montreal, Canada
It's pretty normal for goalie prospects to start way down the list of prospects until the start to show promise.

In 2020, Sogaard was still in the WHL, and Gustavsson was 22 with a sub 900 sv% in the AHL.
Right now, Sogaard is 23 with a .908 sv% in the AHL, and Merilainen 21 with a 911 sv% in the AHL

It's not particularly surprising that our current goalies are higher up the rankings than in 2020, they've both proven more.

Hmmm, I don't know. I think I was overall as high on Sogaard/Gustavsson in December 2020 (the 2020 draft was later in the year due to Covid) than I am on Sogaard/Merilainen right now. Sogaard was a recent high 2nd round pick 6'7 athletic goalie with a lot of promise. Gustavsson had a lot of pedigree and while I was not a huge believer at that point, many still believed in him. He kinda broke out the season just after. I did a 180 on Gus so a few months later that poll, it wouldn't have been even close which duo I would have taken

Now, that's not to say our prospect pool is as good as it was in 2020, that's obviously not true, but 2020 was considered a top 10 farm system, we had just picked Stu, Sanderson, Greig and Jarventie in the first 33 picks, and still had Pinto, and Thomson from the first 32 picks in the previous draft. So 6 top 33 picks in the last two years, vs 1 in the current system. Add to that we still had Brannstrom from the Stone trade, and Norris from the Karlsson trade considered prospects.

It is interesting that you skipped over Daccord when comparing goalie prospects, who is probably the more comparable goalie prospect in terms of how much he'd proven at that time, he was 23 turning 24 with a single AHL season at .915 sv%, and we ranked him 14th.

Our pool in 2020 (the one after the 2020 draft), was not only a Top-10 pool, it was easily the best IMO. I mean, Stutzle, Sanderson, Batherson, Norris, Brannstrom, Formenton, Pinto, Greig, Daccord, Kleven, Gustavsson. Mark Kastelic was our 30th best prospect.

I didn't "skip" Daccord, I took Sogaard/Gustavsson because I was comparing positions in the rankings (5+6 vs 19+20), nothing more.
 
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Xspyrit

DJ Dorion
Jun 29, 2008
31,641
10,553
Montreal, Canada
Drop off on the prospect pool is obvious due to the rebuild our best young players are already on the team. Unfortunately during rebuilds they traded their best players & started to replace them with their best young players which they acquired due to their draft position from being crappy during the yr. This happens with every team, it's not a new revelation. Ann was a pretty good team once upon a time, so was SJ & Nashville, this happen all the time, it's nothing new or unique to this team.

Please find me a team that dilapidated even close to as much asset wealth as we did between the 2020 draft and today. Or even just 50%

For those drafts, they basically have nothing to show from:
10th - Boucher
49th - Roger
7th - DBC
39th - DBC
64th - Nordberg
12th - Chychrun
44th - Zaitsev

That's what's messed up the pool. That's 7 high picks from 2021-2023 that were essentailly pissed away. Having 3 additional 1st round picks and 3 additional 2nd round picks would make an absolutely gigantic difference in this prospect pool.

Thank you, this is the perfect way to demonstrate it

We also lost a 3rd and 7th from dumping 75% of Murray's contract.

We also traded good top-9 forwards in Nick Paul, Connor Brown and Mathieu Joseph for just 2nd + 4th minus a 3rd (to dump Joseph). We also used that 2nd round pick in the trade to acquire Chychrun. Only thing we have left from trading a whole 3rd line that could be very good IMO (Joseph-Paul-Brown) is Blake Montgomery that we picked with Tampa's pick. Hopefully he becomes a good player

The thing is we could go farther than that and start listing the picks wasted away on Stepan (2nd), Hamonic (3rd), Josh Brown (4th), etc.

There is absolutely NOTHING NORMAL about how this rebuild was handled. It was a PURE SABOTAGE
 
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Micklebot

Moderator
Apr 27, 2010
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I didn't "skip" Daccord, I took Sogaard/Gustavsson because I was comparing positions in the rankings (5+6 vs 19+20), nothing more.
this is a meaningless statement, had you chose to compare Dacoord and Sogaard in 2020 to Sogaard and Marilainen today (5+6 vs 14+19) you'd still be comparing position in the rankings and nothing more. If your only purpose was to show that 2020 we also had two goalies ranked consecutively, why would you say it was pretty telling? Telling about what? Unless you are trying to suggest those goalies were similar caliber, it tells us nothing to know where they were ranked relative to their respective draft years.
 
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Sens of Anarchy

Registered User
Jul 9, 2013
67,142
52,862
That's not entirely true, there is nobody from the past 3 drafts on the team, and very little in the pool. For the most part every other teams top prospects are all 21 or younger, barring guys like Nikushkin. Their pool is so bad beacuse they pissed away so many picks that "should" have brought high end and depth to their pool.

The drop in the prospect pool is primarily because they have absolutely no top prospects from 3 drafts in a row for guys that would be 21, 20 and 19.

They traded away or missed on Boucher and Roger from 2021, 7th overall for DBC, 39th overall for DBC and Nordberg from 2022, and then in 2023 missed out on 12th for Chych, their 2nd for Zaitsev.

For those drafts, they basically have nothing to show from:
10th - Boucher
49th - Roger
7th - DBC
39th - DBC
64th - Nordberg
12th - Chychrun
44th - Zaitsev


That's what's messed up the pool. That's 7 high picks from 2021-2023 that were essentailly pissed away. Having 3 additional 1st round picks and 3 additional 2nd round picks would make an absolutely gigantic difference in this prospect pool.
Well the 2021 outside Ostapchuk was brutal.
Then giving up great assets for Debrincat and Chychrun only to really be forced to trade them for the good of the team at a big loss.
The Zaitsev thing was a screw up right from the start in more ways than one and again we end up paying to be rid of him.

Its made a huge difference in the quality of assets the team could have to develop, graduate or turn into more valuable capital for other trades.

Dorion had no idea what he was doing wrt rebuilding this team. What a shame.
 
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