It is not always so much of the player's fault. There are quite many players in Europe who could easily be playing in the NHL, but they have never been because they never became "trending" players for various reasons. Of course NHL is the best league in the world with the biggest stars and so on, but still the teams' selection is made by humans, so it isn't 100 % objective (what is?). There has been certain widespread fan idea that each and every player in the NHL is better than each and every player in Europe but that's definitely not true. There are quite many players in Europe who could easily play, say, 3rd line in the NHL and would be good but never really got the chance, and vice versa, some players who are playing 3rd-4th lines in the NHL wouldn't make any significant impact in Europe. Also, NHL is specific regarding the quantity of games per season, some players can have difficulties with regeneration and can't quite adapt themselves for that, while in a league with, say, 50-60 games per the regular season they can be excellent, as well as in a short-term tournament. Then there are players who like to play under the pressure, compete for their spot, and that is what makes them better, while many others are performing best when they are assigned a key role in the team, can feel the trust from the coach and know they have their spot more or less secured. Which is what they get in Europe but ever in the North America. And so on, we could find multiple other factors why some players never make a NHL career despite proving their class repeatedly, for example in the international confrontation.
Czechs in North America
- Thread starter Czechboy
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Czechboy
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and the undefeated Jiri Patera is back to the AHL. It's a conspiracy.. change my mind.lol
Czechboy
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Up to 7 goalies in the NHL. Rittich started last night and did great... he's been quite good in AHL. LA is a very good team. Maybe he gets some traction? Patera is still the backup in LV and I expect him to get another start until the injuries are healed up.
Would've been 8 but Francouz is out for season. I can't think of any other goalies that may be getting called up? Not looking good for Stezka unfortunately.
If I were to rank our goalies based on who I'd want to start a best on best today:
1. Dostal
2. Mrazek
3. Vlejmelka
Although, it's very hard to argue that this trio is any better than
1. Vanecek
2. Vladar
3. Rittich
My point? We don't have a tippy top guy but we have a lot of good goalies. .902 is the average save percentage in the NHL this season.
Czechboy
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I've noticed an uptick in Czech goalies. Rittich is doing great! LA is a great team with a goalie issue.
Patera is going down soon but has been pretty good.
Mrazek is killing it at .911.
Vej is getting starts again and resurging.
Dostal is bouncing back.
Vanecek has stabilized and they just sent down Schmid.
Feels like, every night, we have at least 2 Czechs in the nets.
Vladar has been okay too but needs a trade to happen (him or someone else).
czechcanadian
Registered User
Good crop for sure. Wonder how it compares to recent years. We’ve always produced good goalies over the years.
Suchanek looks poised to get there in the next couple years as well.
Who else could make it to NHL in the next couple years?
Czechboy
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I want to say Skarek but it he has struggled.
I love Dobes and am not concerned about his current AHL stats as it is year 1 of AHL.
I still hope Stezka figures it out.
Malek is doing well in Finland.
Malik was doing well in Finland.
They all fit the profile of a 'typical' NHL goalie. Get drafted in rounds 3 to 6. Disappear in Europe/AHL/ECHL and reappear about 5 years later.
Not saying it's a lock by any stretch but they are following the Vanecek/Vladar/Vejmelka curve quite well. Vej went unsigned and eventually became a starter. Vanecek was in ECHL at one point.
Or my Oilers Skinner who had a similar path. Time will tell though.. goalies are voodoo. No one would've predicted Rittich making the All Star team out of the Czech league.
With goalies, to me, it is important to have a lot of them and hope one takes off!
Rousek's heating up again for the Amerks after a bit of a disappointing season thus far. He was not the active, try-hard player we saw last season in his time up on recall to the NHL... he was downright terrible. But after a few weeks to get himself back together, he's getting back on track (3-2-5 in his last five games).
I Loveallsports
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So last 5 games from our "top" guys:
Pasta: 3+1
Hronek: 0+2
Hertl: 1+0
Necas: 0+2
Zacha: 0+2
That is some serious christmas slump lol. Looks like our guys overdid with potato salad this year.
Pasta: 3+1
Hronek: 0+2
Hertl: 1+0
Necas: 0+2
Zacha: 0+2
That is some serious christmas slump lol. Looks like our guys overdid with potato salad this year.
czechcanadian
Registered User
Expected way more from Necas tbh. Thought he was primed for a huge season. But that Carolina team is stacked. And with Svech back, he doesn’t even get PP1 and playing 2nd line.
To be fair the whole team has had a slow start to the season. Starting to heat up now.
It seems to me that the season before last year is repeating itself a bit. I see the highlights, he has chances and he can create chances, but they don't convert them. And then it was a spasm and he was falling down the lineup.
Anyway, this season is mostly very bad from the point of view of Czech players.
Czechboy
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I can't defend it.. bad season with lots of problems.. Voracek out, Kase out too. Our failed NHL D back in Europe.
The goalies are doing much better though. .902 is the league average so these .898 type performances are not bad at all in 2023. Plus we have a lot of them playing now... Rittich is in the NHL for instance.. who saw that coming?
I think season is done for him
Hopefully he can recover and be back without some long term health issues.
Ok its starting to get completely ridiculous ... what happened to our guys, they all stopped playing like this?
Last 10 games:
Hronek 0+3
Hertl 4+0
Zacha 1+2
Necas 1+5 (dont look that bad but last 8 games are 0+3)
What the hell happened? all of them having good seasons till then and all of them went to shit at the same time lol. On top of that Palat and Necas got injured ....
Man this season is tragic. I really hope that this is a rock bottom, because the situation is getting critical in the NHL. In the span of three years we lost Krejci and Voras .. Kaut, Hajek, Galvas back in europe, Zboril and Simek done in NHL too. Zadina and Vrana are one foot out of NHL too it seems. Palat and Kubalik playing terrible. Except for Pasta we are struggling to get some guys into top 50 of scoring, hell even top 100. Its falling apart way too fast and its alarming.
On the other hand our future prospects brings a lot of optimism into this NHL depression. Some great results at major youth tournaments at U20 and U18 levels. Three years in a row with a round 1 prospects (Jiricek and/or Galvas will be round 1 imo and I am not worried) and it looks like 25 and 26 drafts we will have round 1 prospects too. Then a lot of prospects drafted in the 2nd a 3rd (or top 100) round and overall a lot of interesting youth players all around from the age of 21 all the way to 14-15. I would say we have the biggest prospect pool in the last 20 years or so.
So hopefully this is a rock bottom and brighter days are ahead of us. But those young guys really need to come through this time. And not just Kulich, Jiricek´s brothers, Sale, Benak etc. but also those guys from the later rounds, we need at least some of those guys like Svozil, Sapo, Hrabal, Dvorak etc. to make it and stabily play in the NHL. And of course at least few of those euro guys with NHL contracts too. Blumel, Rousek, Smejkal .. I think Tichacek or Rychlovsky for example are on a great pace to get NHL contract. Some of them need to make it too.
30-35 stable playing on field players in NHL. Of that number at least 8-10 defenders. And at least 4-5 Gks in the NHL. There is where we need to be if we want to be competitive in the top 5 (6) again.
Lets hope that in a span of lets say 5 years it will look closer to those numbers I worte then to those we have right now. We certainly have the players to do that now, but they have to come though and not flop like that cursed generation before.
Last 10 games:
Hronek 0+3
Hertl 4+0
Zacha 1+2
Necas 1+5 (dont look that bad but last 8 games are 0+3)
What the hell happened? all of them having good seasons till then and all of them went to shit at the same time lol. On top of that Palat and Necas got injured ....
Man this season is tragic. I really hope that this is a rock bottom, because the situation is getting critical in the NHL. In the span of three years we lost Krejci and Voras .. Kaut, Hajek, Galvas back in europe, Zboril and Simek done in NHL too. Zadina and Vrana are one foot out of NHL too it seems. Palat and Kubalik playing terrible. Except for Pasta we are struggling to get some guys into top 50 of scoring, hell even top 100. Its falling apart way too fast and its alarming.
On the other hand our future prospects brings a lot of optimism into this NHL depression. Some great results at major youth tournaments at U20 and U18 levels. Three years in a row with a round 1 prospects (Jiricek and/or Galvas will be round 1 imo and I am not worried) and it looks like 25 and 26 drafts we will have round 1 prospects too. Then a lot of prospects drafted in the 2nd a 3rd (or top 100) round and overall a lot of interesting youth players all around from the age of 21 all the way to 14-15. I would say we have the biggest prospect pool in the last 20 years or so.
So hopefully this is a rock bottom and brighter days are ahead of us. But those young guys really need to come through this time. And not just Kulich, Jiricek´s brothers, Sale, Benak etc. but also those guys from the later rounds, we need at least some of those guys like Svozil, Sapo, Hrabal, Dvorak etc. to make it and stabily play in the NHL. And of course at least few of those euro guys with NHL contracts too. Blumel, Rousek, Smejkal .. I think Tichacek or Rychlovsky for example are on a great pace to get NHL contract. Some of them need to make it too.
30-35 stable playing on field players in NHL. Of that number at least 8-10 defenders. And at least 4-5 Gks in the NHL. There is where we need to be if we want to be competitive in the top 5 (6) again.
Lets hope that in a span of lets say 5 years it will look closer to those numbers I worte then to those we have right now. We certainly have the players to do that now, but they have to come though and not flop like that cursed generation before.
Czechboy
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For comparison:
Czechs have had 25 skaters and 7 goalies play a game
Slovakia have had 9 skaters and 0 goalies
Switzerland have had 9 skaters and 1 goalie
Germany has had 7 skaters and 1 goalie
Finland has had 35 skaters and 7 goalies
Russia has had 43 skaters and 11 goalies
We continue to be in the weird 5 spot all to ourselves.lol
Slovakia + Switzerland + Germany = 25 skaters and 2 goalies to our 25 skaters and 7 goalies.
The draft totals have also been similarly telling.
Czechs have had 25 skaters and 7 goalies play a game
Slovakia have had 9 skaters and 0 goalies
Switzerland have had 9 skaters and 1 goalie
Germany has had 7 skaters and 1 goalie
Finland has had 35 skaters and 7 goalies
Russia has had 43 skaters and 11 goalies
We continue to be in the weird 5 spot all to ourselves.lol
Slovakia + Switzerland + Germany = 25 skaters and 2 goalies to our 25 skaters and 7 goalies.
The draft totals have also been similarly telling.
Swiss maybe only 9 players but if you look at players with at least 0,6ppg this season they are 5/5 with us ... also if you look at stable playing players we have like 16-17 ... Finns have around 28 and Russians arond 35 ... 17 stable players is too few ... you need at least around 30 imo
But if you look at for example 2010/11 season Finns had only around 18 or so stable players (fun fact we had around 31 that year lol ... fell almost by half since then) now they have almost 30 ... I am really hoping that we can go their way right now .. we have the prospects for it and thats great, they just need to make it .. and in 5-10 years we can be back on those numbers we were those 14-15 yrs ago
Czechboy
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I wasn't saying we are back and problem solved! This is a very bad season and most things are going poorly.
I only see 25 good Russians unless you are counting their goalies to get to 35?
Swiss have great players but not many and Schmidd is in AHL. No goalie and only a few guys drafted in last 5 years. They are what we were in 2005.
Just not enough... 1 first rounder since 2019. 2 guys in top 100 since 2019. But, yes, their current NHLers are excellent. No guys in 2020.
I do think we are on the rise as most our older guys are gone. But we do have a lot of guys that may not be back next season in the NHL/AHL... Zadina, Vrana, Smejkal, Blumel, Stezka, Zboril, Simek, Zohorna, Jenik, Rousek. It may actually drop significantly and then slowly rise back up to 30 useful NHL players. And that's after losing O. Kase, Kral, Galvas, Frk, Kaut, Krejci and Voracek this season.lol
Weird time for sure! Our future looks bright but our present is a bit scary. We may go from 30 to 15 and back to 30 in the next 4 years but those 30 will be much better than our current 30.
I was thinking more as a "stable" player a guy who played most games so far this season, lets say at least around 30 games, plus counting guys who played less but were or are just injured and you know they are stable if they are healthy (like Chytil for example).
I counted around 35 russians and 17 czechs (18 if we count Vrana)
And if you mean "good" players as players who has some ppg criteria then yeah maybe 25 russians but how many czechs? 10 maybe adn thats if I am being generous.
No the present really doesnt look good at all. And I completely forgot about O.Kase damn, another great player lost.
Agree with the Swiss, that they dont have much to go from, but somehow they top prospects always made it in the last 10 years whereas ours mostly floped lol.
Kinda wish to go to sleep and wake up in the 5 years and see 30 of our players stable playing in the NHL with at least 10-12 with > 0.7ppg lol. Hopefully it will come to that one day if we are patient, and we were nothing but patient in the last 15 years lol.
Czechboy
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I had previously written Stezka off... he's killing it now! He had an awful start so his stats are low.. but he seems to have figured it out. Very encouraging
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