Player Discussion Alex Newhook

[Estimated_Prophet]

Why not? It's not like anyone was blocking him?

He lost the 2C role to JT Compher of all people, and despite all their injuries still couldn't crack the top 6 on the wing.

And why not trade him for a vet who could help instead of picks?

They saw the best value they were ever going to get for him and decided to pull the trigger.

The Avs were in a tough spot with Newhook as his talent was going to price him out of his production in Colorado and they wanted to spend money on a big #2 center. I would not define Newhook's trade as them "giving up on him" as the return was significant and they hardly just flippantly discarded him.

I think this looks more like a shrewd move by Hughes to target a player who was not put in a position to produce but was not looking to be paid like a bottom six grinder on a team that just didn't have the cap space to pay him any more than that.

This will be interesting for sure as Newhook was a stud prospect in his draft year and only proved it again in college. Buried in a stacked Av's lineup with limited offensive opportunities his production was very good for a player who didn't turn 22 until mid way through this season. Most bottom six forwards main job is to not get scored on and to turn the lineup back over to the top. Let's just sit back and wait to see what he can do when he is expected to push for more offence and the shackles are removed.

 

[Playmaker09]

Your evaluation of Newhook is shaped by your narrative. You summarize him as a small second line winger but leave out the fact that his speed is elite and he is exceptionally strong for his size, He is not what I would describe as small either as he was measured at the combine in 2019 at 5'10.5" and 192 lbs. Most players round up their height once they get to within half an inch, apparently he doesn't care to. There is a very good chance that he is closer to 5'11" 200lbs at this point which is not a big player but hardly what would be considered small either. Rounding up of course doesn't make him bigger just like rounding him down doesn't make him smaller.

Yot are comparing apples and oranges by using UFA vets on the backend of their careers as comparables to a 22 year old talented speedster looking to blossom. There is a good reason that those vets are cheap, because they can fall off a cliff at any moment and nobody wants to invest in them. There is a good chance that Newhook will be exactly that in his 30+ years but that isn't who Hughes acquired is it?

I could say the same things about Max Domi who's now on his 7th team at age 28.

I saw plenty of Newhook as a draft eligible prospect, I've seen plenty as an AV. Wasn't a fan then, still not now.
In no way would I classify him as exceptionally strong for his size, on that we'll have to strongly disagree.

Drouin is also 6'0 200lbs yet still can't play through contact.

The numbers aren't the be-all-end-all and he has struggled to adapt his game to the NHL, with less time, space, and more physical opposition. While a strong skater, he's not an exceptional one, and it's certainly not strong enough to make up for his other deficiencies.

 

[Playmaker09]

The Avs were in a tough spot with Newhook as his talent was going to price him out of his production in Colorado and they wanted to spend money on a big #2 center. I would not define Newhook's trade as them "giving up on him" as the return was significant and they hardly just flippantly discarded him.

I think this looks more like a shrewd move by Hughes to target a player who was not put in a position to produce but was not looking to be paid like a bottom six grinder on a team that just didn't have the cap space to pay him any more than that.

This will be interesting for sure as Newhook was a stud prospect in his draft year and only proved it again in college. Buried in a stacked Av's lineup with limited offensive opportunities his production was very good for a player who didn't turn 22 until mid way through this season. Most bottom six forwards main job is to not get scored on and to turn the lineup back over to the top. Let's just sit back and wait to see what he can do when he is expected to push for more offence and the shackles are removed.

I'd argue the door was left wide open for him in Colorado with Kadri gone and Landeskog out for the season. He just couldn't hack it.

As le_sean mentioned, they went out and spent his money on Miles Wood. They 100% gave up on him.

 

[domiwroze]

Newhook couldn't hang in a great organization with a history of developing talent, on a cup-winning team so insanely desperate for a 2nd line C that they'd probably have taken any warm body to fill the void left by Kadri.

Because Newhook isn't an NHL Center, he's way more fit as a winger, which Colorado has more than enough.
My understanding of the whole trade situation was this :

Montreal -> Looking for a young and capable forward that can already play top 9 minutes and is projected to be a top 6 player soon.

Colorado -> Looking for help down the middle for 2C and 3C roles.

Tampa Bay -> Made Colton available due to cap issues.

Colorado now with Johansen, used Newhook for value, AKA draft picks, to get Colton while he was cheap on the trade market. They now have their 1-2-3 down the middle. They didn't sell Newhook because he was bad at all, they just couldn't fit him anymore since they added 4M for Johansen and RFA's Colton contract to secure their C depth. I doubt that Newhook was looking for 2.5x6. Plus, they gain a late 1st + and early 2nd instead of leaving Newhook stuck on the 3rd line. Put simply: Their priority was their C depth.

Unless we have a bunch of injuries to Suzuki, Monahan, Dvorak and Dach, I'm 100% sure that Newhook's role will be on the wing.

 

[Heffyhoof]

Suzuki's a legit top 6 C, playoff proven, defensively responsible, physically strong in possession and cycle. He doesn't NEED to hit 70 to bring value, though I think he should.

Again, if Newhook only brings 55 points, what makes him different than Drouin or Hoffman? Would you trade a 1st and 2nd for that type of player?
He's a one-dimensional scorer off the rush.

The fact you don't know that he plays a different game then both Drouin and Hoffman tells me what I need to know. Those two are probably in the top 10 softest players and most useless defensively. It's what makes them awful despite their decent production. Newhook is much better in both those categories.

 

[Playmaker09]

The fact you don't know that he plays a different game then both Drouin and Hoffman tells me what I need to know. Those two are probably in the top 10 softest players and most useless defensively. It's what makes them awful despite their decent production. Newhook is much better in both those categories.

Then why was he benched in their cup run and demoted to the 4th line in this year's playoffs - averaging 9:15 TOI per game?

Colorado loves good two-way players who can skate, even if they're small. They prize players like Lehkonen, Cogliano, Helm, Compher. Yet not Newhook, why?

I guess we'll see come October, but I don't see how he's much different than those two.

I don't think he offers much of anything outside of transition scoring.

 

[Estimated_Prophet]

I'd argue the door was left wide open for him in Colorado with Kadri gone and Landeskog out for the season. He just couldn't hack it.

As le_sean mentioned, they went out and spent his money on Miles Wood. They 100% gave up on him.

They didn't spend his money on Wood, that is ludicrous. They locked up Wood for 6 years at 2.5 million, do you honestly think Newhook would sign that? Newhook is likely looking for more than that right now and definitely expects to earn a lot more than Wood over the next 6 seasons.

They signed Rodrigues to fill Landeskog's spot and promoted Compher to fill Kadri's spot. These are both proven vets who were given first crack at the jobs and did well enough to keep them. To imply that at the start of the season they identified this as a sh*t of get off the pot season for a 21 year old that had been nothing but great since being drafted 3 years earlier is ridiculous. The Av's want to return to the Finals this season and Newhook is still developing and the Av's decided that Newhook might not fit the 2023-24 roster from a financial and developmental perspective they were convinced to risk letting him go for a strong offer. It is nothing more than that.....

 

[Shred]

He didn't create offense as expected. He turned into a checking winger by the end of the year.

He doesn't drive offense and lacks vision. But he is very skilled.

Might top out as a 3rd line winger in my view on the Habs.

Feels like you’re describing Lehkonen.

 

[Playmaker09]

They didn't spend his money on Wood, that is ludicrous. They locked up Wood for 6 years at 2.5 million, do you honestly think Newhook would sign that? Newhook is likely looking for more than that right now and definitely expects to earn a lot more than Wood over the next 6 seasons.

They signed Rodrigues to fill Landeskog's spot and promoted Compher to fill Kadri's spot. These are both proven vets who were given first crack at the jobs and did well enough to keep them. To imply that at the start of the season they identified this as a sh*t of get off the pot season for a 21 year old that had been nothing but great since being drafted 3 years earlier is ridiculous. The Av's want to return to the Finals this season and Newhook is still developing and the Av's decided that Newhook might not fit the 2023-24 roster from a financial and developmental perspective they were convinced to risk letting him go for a strong offer. It is nothing more than that.....

Not for 6 years no, but on a two-year bridge it should be about the same. The cap hit is all that matters to Colorado's ability to field a roster.

Dach was more expensive as we bought an additional two years. But:
Max Comtois signed a two-year 2 mil AAV bridge in 2021 after a season of 33 points in 55 games.
Sonny Milano signed at 1.7 AAV after 23 in 55.
Ryan Donato signed at 1.9 AAV after 25 in 56.
Danton Heinen signed at 2.8 AAV after back to back seasons of 47 and 34 points with a solid playoff run.

He scored 30 points this year and 1 in the playoffs. How much do you think he's going to get? And with what leverage is he going to *expect* more dollars and term? Kakko also signed a two-year bridge at 2.1 AAV as a 2nd overall pick.

As for the rest, did Colorado hesitate to displace Sam Girard for Bowen Byram?
The fact he couldn't displace journeyman Evan Rodrigues and career 3rd liner JT Compher is all that needs to be said.
Nick Suzuki would have tossed them aside in his D+3 let alone D+4 with half the skating ability.

It's just mental gymnastics to try and explain why one of the most highly prized members of their organization couldn't get it done when the answer is simply he was bad and needs to turn it around starting in October.

 

[Estimated_Prophet]

Not for 6 years no, but on a two-year bridge it should be about the same. The cap hit is all that matters to Colorado's ability to field a roster.

Dach was more expensive as we bought an additional two years. But:
Max Comtois signed a two-year 2 mil AAV bridge in 2021 after a season of 33 points in 55 games.
Sonny Milano signed at 1.7 AAV after 23 in 55.
Ryan Donato signed at 1.9 AAV after 25 in 56.
Danton Heinen signed at 2.8 AAV after back to back seasons of 47 and 34 points with a solid playoff run.

He scored 30 points this year and 1 in the playoffs. How much do you think he's going to get? And with what leverage is he going to *expect* more dollars and term? Kakko also signed a two-year bridge at 2.1 AAV as a 2nd overall pick.

As for the rest, did Colorado hesitate to displace Sam Girard for Bowen Byram?
The fact he couldn't displace journeyman Evan Rodrigues and career 3rd liner JT Compher is all that needs to be said.
Nick Suzuki would have tossed them aside in his D+3 let alone D+4 with half the skating ability.

It's just mental gymnastics to try and explain why one of the most highly prized members of their organization couldn't get it done when the answer is simply he was bad and needs to turn it around starting in October.

Once again it it just grotesque intellectual dishonesty to claim that anyone expected a 21 year old kid to win a top 6 role over vets that they had specifically targeted to take those spots. You are also comparing players who were put in far better offensive situations than Newhook has experienced. Kakko was younger than Newhook at the time as was Dach but in your haste to produce data tailored to carefully your curated narrative you conveniently left out Kirby Dach and his 3.36 AAV (or at the very least dismissed it). Heinen was in 2019 and was significantly older and was expected to play higher in the lineup, his bridge was also to UFA, not to RFA. Sonny Milano is a bum and everyone in the industry knows it. He was given prime icetime with Zegras and was carried until he entirely stopped producing. Donato is like Heinen where he signed as a 25 year old which brought him to UFA status as a 27 year old. Comtois is former 50th OA selection who is two years older and it took him 4 years before landing a full time job in the NHL.

You want to talk about mental gymnastics and you mention entirely irrelevant comparisons in Donato and Heinen and a very poor one in Comtois yet you intentionally ignore the most recent and relative comparison in Kirby Dach......

I like having honest an discussion/debate but to gloss over Dach and even mention some of the others is a flag for me. This is not a discussion that is following an honest attempt to uncover the truth and therefore does not interest myself to pursue it any further.

Cheers

 

[Metallo]

Your evaluation of Newhook is shaped by your narrative. You summarize him as a small second line winger but leave out the fact that his speed is elite and he is exceptionally strong for his size, He is not what I would describe as small either as he was measured at the combine in 2019 at 5'10.5" and 192 lbs. Most players round up their height once they get to within half an inch, apparently he doesn't care to. There is a very good chance that he is closer to 5'11" 200lbs at this point which is not a big player but hardly what would be considered small either. Rounding up of course doesn't make him bigger just like rounding him down doesn't make him smaller.

Yot are comparing apples and oranges by using UFA vets on the backend of their careers as comparables to a 22 year old talented speedster looking to blossom. There is a good reason that those vets are cheap, because they can fall off a cliff at any moment and nobody wants to invest in them. There is a good chance that Newhook will be exactly that in his 30+ years but that isn't who Hughes acquired is it?

Newhook does not have elite speed, it's just good, and he's not strong, he gets muscled off the puck all the time.

Don't get your hopes too high.

 

[Estimated_Prophet]

Newhook does not have elite speed, it's just good, and he's not strong, he gets muscled off the puck all the time.

Don't get your hopes too high.

He has elite speed and has a very strong lower body....these are facts.

 

[The Great Weal]

Newhook needs to become a 70+ point player for this trade to not be a total waste.

We gave up picks 31+37, not the 5th OA. You aren't getting a guaranteed 70+ point player in his early 20s for 2 early 2nds.

 

[Playmaker09]

Once again it it just grotesque intellectual dishonesty to claim that anyone expected a 21 year old kid to win a top 6 role over vets that they had specifically targeted to take those spots. You are also comparing players who were put in far better offensive situations than Newhook has experienced. Kakko was younger than Newhook at the time as was Dach but in your haste to produce data tailored to carefully your curated narrative you conveniently left out Kirby Dach and his 3.36 AAV (or at the very least dismissed it). Heinen was in 2019 and was significantly older and was expected to play higher in the lineup, his bridge was also to UFA, not to RFA. Sonny Milano is a bum and everyone in the industry knows it. He was given prime icetime with Zegras and was carried until he entirely stopped producing. Donato is like Heinen where he signed as a 25 year old which brought him to UFA status as a 27 year old. Comtois is former 50th OA selection who is two years older and it took him 4 years before landing a full time job in the NHL.

You want to talk about mental gymnastics and you mention entirely irrelevant comparisons in Donato and Heinen and a very poor one in Comtois yet you intentionally ignore the most recent and relative comparison in Kirby Dach......

I like having honest an discussion/debate but to gloss over Dach and even mention some of the others is a flag for me. This is not a discussion that is following an honest attempt to uncover the truth and therefore does not interest myself to pursue it any further.

Cheers

I DID mention Dach and the fact that his AAV is higher due to the 4 year contact vs 2. If you want to buy additional years off Newhook (and I would even advise it for the Habs) it's going to cost extra as well, but Colorado were not in any way forced to.

Newhook is a mid-first round pick that half the teams in the league passed on. He doesn't have the same pedigree as Dach or Kakko who you also conveniently ignored. I compared him to to others who were also coming off a ~30 point season.

You want higher pedigree comparisons off their ELC? (other than the already mentioned Kakko and Dach who I cannot even find a comparable player who signed a 4 year deal)

Zadina signed a 3 year 1.85 million extension coming off a 24 point season and was a higher pick.
Boqvist signed a 3 year 2.6 million extension coming off a 22 point season as a D and was a higher pick.
Liljegren signed a 2 year 1.4 million extension coming off a 23 point season as a D in 61 games.
Mittelstadt signed a 3 year 2.5 million extension coming off a 22 point season in 41 games and was a higher pick.
Cody Glass just signed a 2 year 2.5 million extension this July 1st coming off a 35 point season and was a higher pick.

All this to nitpick the idea that comparing his next contract to Miles Wood's 2.5 million AAV was "ludicrous" in your words.
Honest discussion my ass.

It's also intellectual dishonesty to blame Newhook's demotion to Colorado's 11th most used forward in the playoffs even with Landeskog and Nichushkin out, on two career bottom 6 veterans, especially when having those two in the top 6 is the very reason they couldn't get out of the 1st round. And it must be a wonder to you why they they let them both walk in FA if they were being so highly valued and locked in for top 6 duty over Newhook...

I'm not the one trying to re-write history. He simply sucked last year.

 

[Playmaker09]

We gave up picks 31+37, not the 5th OA. You aren't getting a guaranteed 70+ point player in his early 20s for 2 early 2nds.

It's a matter of what his value is as an asset.

If he becomes a 55 point winger like Zucker, Arvidsson, Granlund and Rakell, it's not worth it. Those guys can be had for free as a UFA (and don't cost a premium like bigger players do) or can be had for pretty much a late second in a trade.

If he's a 70 point winger like Necas or Bratt, then he's well worth it and then some and is a core piece moving forward.

The difference may only be 15 points but it's the difference between being a dime-a-dozen replaceable complementary top 6 forward and a core forward that is very difficult and expensive to acquire.

 

[Mister Hab]

Articles (below) for any Hab fan interested (I'll read both articles soon! probably quick reads...saved them for later!):

Canadiens Cost For Newhook Contract Extension Becoming Clear (msn.com)


https://www.msn.com/en-ca/sports/nhl/canadiens-newhook-deal-likely-to-take-page-out-of-dach-s/ar-AA1dBt7d?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=e62263148ede4b4b897fc5645817744f&ei=4

 

[The Great Weal]

It's a matter of what his value is as an asset.

If he becomes a 55 point winger like Zucker, Arvidsson, Granlund and Rakell, it's not worth it. Those guys can be had for free as a UFA (and don't cost a premium like bigger players do) or can be had for pretty much a late second in a trade.

If he's a 70 point winger like Necas or Bratt, then he's well worth it and then some and is a core piece moving forward.

The difference may only be 15 points but it's the difference between being a dime-a-dozen replaceable complementary top 6 forward and a core forward that is very difficult and expensive to acquire.

Most players can technically be had in free agency. Should we not give up assets for a Pietrangelo or Panarin because they can be had in free agency? It's a really bad argument. The best UFA we have signed with term in like a decade is Toffoli who just got traded for a middle 6 winger. Not to mention that Newhook is 22 years old, those 55 point wingers aren't so I don't even see how they are comparable in your eyes.

 

[Playmaker09]

Most players can technically be had in free agency. Should we not give up assets for a Pietrangelo or Panarin because they can be had in free agency? It's a really bad argument. The best UFA we have signed with term in like a decade is Toffoli who just got traded for a middle 6 winger. Not to mention that Newhook is 22 years old, those 55 point wingers aren't so I don't even see how they are comparable in your eyes.

With what frequency?

The players I mentioned are available every year, sometimes several of them, and there isn't usually much competition or a bidding war to sign them because not many teams can accommodate another small forward in their top 6. The Habs have had reasonable success signing Cammalleri, Gionta, Radulov, Toffoli, etc.

Players like Pietrangelo, Panarin, Chara choose where they want to go. And history tells us that's not Montreal.

Secondly, what value does his age hold when we shouldn't ever have a problem replacing the first class of UFA's above. There's no point developing players who you can easily get in their primes and continually replace with other players also in their primes 4 years down the road.

The NHL will never be short on small, complementary top 6 wingers in their primes that are available.
As we've seen many times before, any time a team is in a cap crunch, or an expansion draft is looming, they are the first players on the chopping block and can be had for a song.

If he's a 70 point player on the other hand, that's something where there's value in having him on board early and locked in for as long as possible, because he's not easy to replace.

 

[Heffyhoof]

Then why was he benched in their cup run and demoted to the 4th line in this year's playoffs - averaging 9:15 TOI per game?

Colorado loves good two-way players who can skate, even if they're small. They prize players like Lehkonen, Cogliano, Helm, Compher. Yet not Newhook, why?

I guess we'll see come October, but I don't see how he's much different than those two.

I don't think he offers much of anything outside of transition scoring.

Do you see how this response is totally disconnected to saying Newhook, even with 50-60 points, will just be a Drouin or Hoffman and therefore my pushback against it? Which began with pushback against you claiming he'd need 70+ points to be worth a 31st and 37th pick?

 

[Archijerej]

And? Why is a 5'10 2nd line winger worth giving up valuable assets for?

Zuccarello, Perron, Zucker, Johansson were all cheap FA.
FLA had to pay Vegas to take Marchessault. Ditto McCann from the Leafs/Pens. Eberle let go for free also (who the hell did NYI even protect up front?).
Vegas had to pay us to take Tatar and Dadonov, they were negative assets.
Granlund, Rakell, Arvidsson and Burakovsky cost a late 2nd. Bjorkstrand even less.

You could throw a rock in the free agent pool every offseason and accidentally hit one of these guys. The supply is way way way more than the demand. Why trade essentially two late firsts for this type of player?

Vancouver is willing to pay teams to take Garland off their hands right now. What does Newhook do better?

Newhook needs to become a 70+ point player for this trade to not be a total waste.

I'm all for turning picks into established players with potential, but I believe this is a legitimate question. What exactly are they expecting Newhook to develop into, that's not readily available on the market every offseason?

LOL. What a terrible take. He already has more career points than Jacob De La Rose, Sebastian Collberg, Nikita Scherbak and Michael McCarron have combined. You know, the type of garbage we tend to take in the late 1st and early 2nd.

I'm not sure a "we're shit at this, so we may as well trade our picks" is the best way to express confidence in the management.

 

[Kudo Shinichi]

Newhook couldn't hang in a great organization with a history of developing talent, on a cup winning team so insanely desperate for a 2nd line C that they'd probably have taken any warm body to fill the void left by Kadri.

Why exactly do you think Joe Sakic, one of the best GMs in the league with a team ready to win NOW wanted two draft picks for a young legitimate NHLer in Newhook? If they traded him for an established vet I'd understand. But for picks?

Sounds a lot similar to what people were saying about the Dach trade.
"Why is a rebuilding team trading their 21 year old 3rd overall pick"

 

[Playmaker09]

Do you see how this response is totally disconnected to saying Newhook, even with 50-60 points, will just be a Drouin or Hoffman and therefore my pushback against it? Which began with pushback against you claiming he'd need 70+ points to be worth a 31st and 37th pick?

How so? Are you misunderstanding my post?

The point was Newhook in not a good two-way player. If he was, Colorado would be playing him and valuing him more, like they have others. He does not fit the mold of Lehkonen, Cogliano, Nichushkin who Colorado do value highly.

You believe Newhook brings value in more ways than points, I do not.
I do not think he plays a "very different game than Hoffman or Drouin" at all. He's a negative defensively, not strong on the puck, and entirely reliant on transition offense.

 

[Archijerej]

Sounds a lot similar to what people were saying about the Dach trade.
"Why is a rebuilding team trading their 21 year old 3rd overall pick"

I don't think so. Dach was always a good idea, provided he could develop into a genuine top 6 center.

It's different with Newhook. Wingers are usually readily available. So the question is what kind of a winger he has to develop into to make this trade worthwhile.

 

[Playmaker09]

Sounds a lot similar to what people were saying about the Dach trade.
"Why is a rebuilding team trading their 21 year old 3rd overall pick"

I disagreed with the Dach trade from Chicago's standpoint. I don't know why they felt the need to go full scorched earth with he and Debrincat, yet kept Kane and Toews.

But I can at least understand why they would make trades for futures. They're rebuilding.
Colorado is trying to win. Why are they dumping young, controlled, NHL players for picks? That makes little sense unless they just want to move on for hockey reasons.

 

[Jaynki]

So you sign Zucker for 4 years. Then when that's up, you sign another for 4 years. Then another.

How many different versions of Pascal Dupuis and Bill Guerin did Pittsburgh go through in the past 15 years?

These are not the types of players you need to pay a premium to lock in from 22 y/o. It's breakout or a waste of assets.

31 and 37 is not a premium. Those pick are the most traded asset. Thats mid value for mid player.

13OV for Dach is a premium.