Prospect Info: [2024 - 21st] Michael Hage, Chicago Steel (USHL), Committed to U of Michigan

[Boss Man Hughes]

The later picks, yes they're pretty much all the same.

The goalies (aside from Fowler) are very meh and/or often injured.

And yes, we're counting Mittlestadt and Merrill.

Merrill is playing inna weaker league and isn't doing well.a weak team.

Mittlestadt is in his 3rd year (?) And still doesn't seem to be processing.

Thorpe I'd like to see be a bit more productive.

But you can look at a lot of them and want more from them in their current league.

Nothing wrong with Thorpe. He is doing pretty well playing on

I forgot Bogdan and Sam Harris.

So 5 and Xhekaj, who's gone.

Has had 19 picks those two drafts. Let's add Reinbacher and Protz, who is hurt and a defensive dman.

That's 8 of 19 that are just playing meh.

You use 19 picks you're hoping around 15 are playing well, or surprising.

Any pick after the 3rd round you are thrilled if they turn into anything.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

Without being partisan, there does seem to be some mitigating factor where on the whole I think generally athletes are in better shape now but it’s not this runaway advantage that it should be.

I see basketball highlights and Shawn Kemp’s in game dunks still feel especially explosive or rookie Jordan’s freakish athleticism would likely still be a site to behold even today.

You disregard specialization. We've been running, jumping and handling balls for eons. Even the Mayans played ball. Basketball uses specialties that have been long engrained in us, whereas handling a hockey stick and skating are relatively new and each subsequent generation gets better at both. The training culture in basketball also dates back farther than hockey.

The difference in speed and space between 50 years ago and today is far greater in hockey than basketball.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

You guys that put today’s athletes on a pedestal beside Zeus are crazy. You think Cy Young was tossing a 64mph fastball or something? Because he didn’t have access to BioSteel? Bobby Hull’s clapper shattered that post just because it wasn’t tempered or what?

Testosterone levels are down across the board over decades, and, no, it’s not just among the fat, unsporty swath of society. Exhibit A.Z.69:

Testosterone levels have been going down for 80k years. It's the process of neotenization and the reason we have the longest period of social learning of any creature on earth. There was an uptick of testosterone in the last 8k to 15k years, since we came out of the disastrous climate change of the Younger Dryas period, but modernization has started quelling that uptick and we're once again further neotenizing.

Hockey is a specialization of things we haven't been doing for long. Skating and handling a hockey stick to control a puck on ice is not natural to us and is very new compared to the attributes needed for other sports (except baseball, maybe). The average player today is faster and handles the puck better. Just need to go watch a game in the 70's and 80's to see the difference.

 

[skidcells]

Every time I have seen highlights, aside from being continuously impressed by his skill level, I come out impressed by his size. Is Michigan that small that 6’1 Hage looks like he’s 6’3?

He towers over his teammates ..

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

Nothing wrong with Thorpe. He is doing pretty well playing on


Any pick after the 3rd round you are thrilled if they turn into anything.

Yeah, I'm not expecting a bunch to make the NHL, or even be good AHLers, but to be good on their team/in their league.

Another night of pretty much no production, or anything positive from the prospects.

They should be fairly consistently having solid nights, but they're not.

 

[windycity]

You disregard specialization. We've been running, jumping and handling balls for eons. Even the Mayans played ball. Basketball uses specialties that have been long engrained in us, whereas handling a hockey stick and skating are relatively new and each subsequent generation gets better at both. The training culture in basketball also dates back farther than hockey.

The difference in speed and space between 50 years ago and today is far greater in hockey than basketball.

Soccer is also much faster than it was 50 years ago and space has also shrunk due to increased athleticism and tactics. It's not just hockey that's faster with more space.

 

[KFlint]

Anyone complaining with our prospect pool right now must be unable to ever feel joy about anything I guess… We had Poehling as our « best » prospect not so long ago! And we will draft top 10 and perhaps top 20…

People are writing off Reinbacher way too quickly. Him not panning out could end up being a problem though. We need this kind of RD badly.

 

[bsl]

I liked Doug Harvey, he was deceivingly fast: you had to see everybody trying to catch up to him to realize how fast he was. And, as far as I'm concerned, he was the original spin-O-rama guy, so he could turn on a dime.

Acceleration wise, Cournoyer was the best; he did get the knickname Roadrunner for a reason.

Lafleur was the best all over the ice skater, I mean like now you see him now you don't type of skater. He would be behind you and get the puck on the board bedore you get there. He would be on your left and then shooting on you right. You would enter the Habs zone all alone and the he would steal your puck.

The Artist reminded me of him at times but those were too few.

And nobody could beat Ralph Backstrom on a race behind the opponent's net: he would go around defencemen like they were pylons. Too bad he couldn't make it his office like Gretzky did.

I was surprised by Biron's acceleration quite a few times, like he had a switch that got on when he touched the puck at the O zone blue line.

And the fastest I ever saw on a loose puck was Steve Shutt: loose a puck on the vicinity of the the O net and there he has been, the red light was on before you realize he had been there.

On the fastest moves on a not so fast skater, Hutson is trying to outplay J.C. Tremblay, which is real delight to me. I once saw Rod Gilbert cutting a pass at his blueline on PK and going full speed for a breakaway less for J.C.: he got passed J.C., alone with Vachon and just when he went to shoot, Vachon uncrouched because J.C. had pickpocketed the puck and was at center ice.

I like Newhook but right now he his faster then the puck, like Cournoyer was in his early years: he would turn on the speed just to drop the puck between his skates.

Beliveau said he never saw leg muscles like cournoyers. Another thing about Yvan was that he might be the last player to play with a straight blade. His backanders were deadly. My favourite hab all time.

 

[Habs]

The Ukraine and the Middle East.

I was thinking closer to home in Ottawa

Beliveau said he never saw leg muscles like cournoyers. Another thing about Yvan was that he might be the last player to play with a straight blade. His backanders were deadly. My favourite hab all time.

One of mine too, I actually recently found his rookie card for sale a 9.5 so I grabbed it.

 

[LaP]

Dwight King

Invoking the forbidden name should be a banable offence on this board ...

 

[Vachon23]

Invoking the forbidden name should be a banable offence on this board ...

Hey respect for one of the best line changer in team history

 

[dackelljuneaubulis02]

Anyone complaining with our prospect pool right now must be unable to ever feel joy about anything I guess… We had Poehling as our « best » prospect not so long ago! And we will draft top 10 and perhaps top 20…

People are writing off Reinbacher way too quickly. Him not panning out could end up being a problem though. We need this kind of RD badly.

The injury to RB is just so unfortunate. People need to remember how well he did last year in Laval. Showing more offense than advertised. Horrible horrible luck.

He's a potentially massive piece. At worst he still gives us some stability in the right side which would help us immensely.

 

[SpeedyPotato]

The injury to RB is just so unfortunate. People need to remember how well he did last year in Laval. Showing more offense than advertised. Horrible horrible luck.

He's a potentially massive piece. At worst he still gives us some stability in the right side which would help us immensely.

Agreed, let’s just imagine having a mobile 25 minute top pair RD on this team and it already makes us much better. He’s one of the most important pieces in our system, can’t wait for him to be back

 

[Redux91]

Thought it went in argh

 

[1909]

Leave him in College for another year, please !

 

[ChikN]

Man if only Primeau stopped something...

 

[HuGort]

Lafleur is an example ( if not an exceedingly rare one) of a player materially improving his skating ability once he entered the NHL.

I’m probably one of the few people still alive who actually saw Lafleur play his first NHL exhibition game in person. Readers have to understand that in the early 1970’s we didn’t have the luxury of the internet or much television coverage of junior hockey. So the excitement Canadiens fans were feeling about the drafting of Lafleur was based on written reports and statistical evidence. Most of us had never seen Lafleur play except in short video snippets.

That exhibition game so long ago was my first time I had an opportunity to watch this supposed budding superstar ( the anointed successor to the recently retired Beliveau) play. What I saw was a tall thin player who had, at best, a clunky skating style. He showed great hockey skills, but like many, I wondered what the true upside was to this supposed superstar who lacked good skating, let alone elite skating.

Lafleur’s first three years in the league reflected his deficit in skating as he did not become the play driver / superstar so many had hoped. His elite hockey skills allowed him to score an average of 28 goals per year, but his overall play was a real disappointment to the fan base. It was a disappointment that led to many fans considering/ calling for the trading of Lafleur by the end of his third season.

Then, in the offseason after his third season, Lafleur shed his helmet, and commencing the 1974-1975, there was a transformation in Lafleur’s level of play and skating where he became the NHL’s most dynamic player and the superstar that is now imbedded in every fan’s memory. I’ve been watching this game for close to 70 years and Lafleur’s transfiguration remains a mystery to this writer. Some say it was based on Lafleur’s growing confidence. I just don’t know.

This thread has devolved into a comparative assessment As to the best skaters over the years. I would suggest that such an assessment is fraught with difficulties as the game and the athletic abilities of the players who played over this span has changed dramatically over the decades. The game is now international with the players today being bigger, stronger and faster than the players who played in the 1950s and the 1960s. Most players who played in that era would not have been drafted today let alone play or star in the League.

The stars of forty years ago ( Orr, Hull, Perreault, Lafleur, etc.) would star today. But the average player, would really struggle against today’s bigger, faster, stronger and better trained players.

Mark Napier was fast skater

 

[FrankMTL]

There was a batch of USNDTP/USHL hockey players picked one after the other in the first round of the NHL draft. They all look pretty good but Hage had been a stand out of the bunch.

18. Chicago- Sacha Boisvert = (North Dakota)= 15 GP, 6 G, 6 A- 12 PTS -1
19. Las Vegas- Trevor Connelly= (Providence)= 10 GP, 2 G, 8 A- 10 PTS -5
20. NYI- Cole Eiserman= (Univ. Boston)= 14 GP, 9 G, 4 A- 13 PTS +3
21. Montreal- Michael Hage= (Michigan)= 13 GP, 9 G, 8 A- 17 PTS +6

There seems to be a drop off of the quality of players drafted after these 4 in the first round (an argument can be made for Liam Greentree). The rest of the first round seems a little underwhelming for now.

 

[Saundies]

Anyone complaining with our prospect pool right now must be unable to ever feel joy about anything I guess… We had Poehling as our « best » prospect not so long ago! And we will draft top 10 and perhaps top 20…

People are writing off Reinbacher way too quickly. Him not panning out could end up being a problem though. We need this kind of RD badly.

With Dach's noticeable regression, I'd argue Hage is the more important prospect right now. We find ourselves awfully thin at C again (no way, not the Habs!!) and we need talent in that area.