Prospect Info: Filip Mesar

[McGuires Corndog]

I mean the path for him to be a Montreal Canadiens is difficult regardless if he makes strides or not. We've added Laine and Newhook since we drafted Mesar. We drafted Demidov and Hage. We will likely be taking another high rated forward in the top 10 of this years draft. There's the development of Eriksson, Kapanen, and Roy.

Would be great for him to have a development spike in the AHL this season to at the very least restore his value as a trade chip. You can never have too many good young assets.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Would be great for him to have a development spike in the AHL this season to at the very least restore his value as a trade chip. You can never have too many good young assets.

Matt Savoie a former top 10 pick went for a 3rd liner.. his trade value won't ever be much unless he was ripping up the AHL and looking like a surefire NHL top 6er.

He's just someone to set and forget, see what happens. He's not critical to anything the way a late 1st would be critical to the Bergevin regime as he never brought in additional 1st round picks.

 

[SannywithoutCompy]

Let's look at #26 draftees from 10 years prior to Mesar:
2012 Brendan Gaunce, rotation/ backup center.
2013 Shea Theodore, good NHL dman
2014 Nikita Scherbak, playing 3rd tier Euro leagues now.
2015 Noah Juulsen, 7th dman in Canucks
2016 Tage Thompson, great player that didn't break into the NHL until D+6 season.
2017 Jake Oettinger, good NHL goalie for Stars
2018 Jacob Bernard-Docker, 3rd pair dman with the Sens
2019 Jakob Pelletier, still in rotation with the Flames
2020 Jake Neighbours, had a promising second season with the Blues
2021 Carson Cambros, had a quiet first season in the AHL

So out of these 10 players:
- one is now a star forward but was traded away from the team that drafted him after unassuming first handful of seasons
- one is a starting goalie, Dallas have hit the jackpot with this one
- 2 are mid tier NHL players
- 1 still in development
- 4 are NHL backups
- 1 is not good enough for the Slovak league

All in all Mesar fits into the mold above. Only three players did better than him in their D+2 seasons: Tage Thompson scoring 0.6 PPG in the AHL, Neighbors posting 1.5 PPG in WHL and Oettinger posting .926 SV% in college.

I'd say give him a stint at the AHL and see whether he can play with the big boys. The problem with him is that he's never going to be a 4th line type of player. He's either going to have to prove he's good enough for the middle six or he's going back to Europe. I wouldn't be that surprised if he did well in the AHL. He had already played 2 full seasons pro league back home and did great for a 17 year old. Maybe his slightly underwhelming performance in North America is due to adjusting to life abroad.

Are you categorizing Theodore as a mid-tier NHL player? He's a first pairing dman lol.

As for Mesar, best to just imagine it was Hutson who was taken at 26 (I had him at 10 and was pissed seeing us pass on him twice), with Mesar at 62.

 

[Treb]

Probably have to give the 87 draft the nod.

In terms of their careers:

LeClaire > Pacioretty
Desjardins > McDonagh
Schneider > Subban
Cassells >>>> Y. Weber

1984
Svoboda, Corson, Richer and Patrick Roy

 

[montreal]

People often rush to call someone a bust and in the end who gives a f*** what anyone calls anything since it matters not as we are in a results business so you either win or you lose.

What many don't seem to get is that for the non Crosby, McDavid's of the world, development is often a long process that has ups and downs. Some guys take longer to get there, and others will never get the message, as there's a reason why the stats on success of NHL draft picks per round is insanely low outside the 1st round. Most just don't make it, so to me fans shouldn't get upset if fans point out flaws early on, but they also shouldn't give up hope as NO ONE knows how these kids will react to the situation they end up in.

 

[WeThreeKings]

People often rush to call someone a bust and in the end who gives a f*** what anyone calls anything since it matters not as we are in a results business so you either win or you lose.

What many don't seem to get is that for the non Crosby, McDavid's of the world, development is often a long process that has ups and downs. Some guys take longer to get there, and others will never get the message, as there's a reason why the stats on success of NHL draft picks per round is insanely low outside the 1st round. Most just don't make it, so to me fans shouldn't get upset if fans point out flaws early on, but they also shouldn't give up hope as NO ONE knows how these kids will react to the situation they end up in.

I never have any problems with people pointing out flaws, those should be recognized and discussed. It's the sensationalism and rush to be 'right' and calling people busts before anything has really played out.

Call every drafted player a bust and you will be right far more often than you will be wrong. Personally, calling someone a bust and having it come true isn't impressive. Calling someone who makes it is far more impressive because in scouting, getting it right on a player who contributes is the goal.. making the call on who won't make it, isn't so much.

I would've taken Kulich too but I had Mesar right there and really liked Mesar. He's also had enough flashes and stretches of play to justify why he was taken so high and there's still a lot that needs to go right for him to do anything at the NHL level.

As cheesy and shit as the movie Draft Day is.. I do like the quote when they are looking at the top rated QB in the class, "everybody's got something. People said Peyton Manning didn't have the arm strength and he couldn't throw deep. Elway was too strong and he couldn't throw with touch. But it didn't matter. We gotta find out what Bo's something is and find out if it matters or not."

You'll find flaws with most prospects, it's whether they can overcome it through developing and fixing the issues, or if the sum of the other parts are so good that that 'thing' doesn't matter.

 

[26Mats]

1984
Svoboda, Corson, Richer and Patrick Roy

LeClaire > Pacioretty >? Richer. (hard to compare eras - when Richer scored 50 in 87-88 he was 8th in goals in the NHL. When Pacioretty scored 39, he was 4th)
Desjardins > McDonagh > Svoboda
Schneider > Subban > Corson
Cassells >>>> Y. Weber

But Patrick Roy >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the field. So yeah, 84 overtakes both 87 and 93 for me.

 

[montreal]

I never have any problems with people pointing out flaws, those should be recognized and discussed. It's the sensationalism and rush to be 'right' and calling people busts before anything has really played out.

Call every drafted player a bust and you will be right far more often than you will be wrong. Personally, calling someone a bust and having it come true isn't impressive. Calling someone who makes it is far more impressive because in scouting, getting it right on a player who contributes is the goal.. making the call on who won't make it, isn't so much.

I would've taken Kulich too but I had Mesar right there and really liked Mesar. He's also had enough flashes and stretches of play to justify why he was taken so high and there's still a lot that needs to go right for him to do anything at the NHL level.

As cheesy and shit as the movie Draft Day is.. I do like the quote when they are looking at the top rated QB in the class, "everybody's got something. People said Peyton Manning didn't have the arm strength and he couldn't throw deep. Elway was too strong and he couldn't throw with touch. But it didn't matter. We gotta find out what Bo's something is and find out if it matters or not."

You'll find flaws with most prospects, it's whether they can overcome it through developing and fixing the issues, or if the sum of the other parts are so good that that 'thing' doesn't matter.

Most fans don't understand things like development, the impacts of coaching, etc.. as we have seen it for years with how many comments from posters that are just all over the place from you are just born with it, to coaching doesn't matter, etc... So who cares what they call things since they clearly don't understand things as well as they think they do and how can they as how has time to follow all these leagues, players, coaches, prospects, it's a full time job.

It's just funny to me how some will bend over backwards to bash an 18, 19, 20 year old kid (just read any KK thread, or Slaf 1st year thread), or others that get offended because people point out bad things. As my example, I don't know if Grant was talking about me, but at the start of last season he was ranting about someone making videos of Reinbacher that showed his bad plays. I even had posters on here suggesting that I was editing out good stuff because the vids weren't as long as his TOI, yet oddly enough I haven't had a single complaint about showing any mistakes Demidov has made so far.

To me I will not listen to anyone in the world, I just watch these kids play and I offer my views, whatever they are and I know I will be wrong and I will be right as so will everyone that ever lived.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Most fans don't understand things like development, the impacts of coaching, etc.. as we have seen it for years with how many comments from posters that are just all over the place from you are just born with it, to coaching doesn't matter, etc... So who cares what they call things since they clearly don't understand things as well as they think they do and how can they as how has time to follow all these leagues, players, coaches, prospects, it's a full time job.

It's just funny to me how some will bend over backwards to bash an 18, 19, 20 year old kid (just read any KK thread, or Slaf 1st year thread), or others that get offended because people point out bad things. As my example, I don't know if Grant was talking about me, but at the start of last season he was ranting about someone making videos of Reinbacher that showed his bad plays. I even had posters on here suggesting that I was editing out good stuff because the vids weren't as long as his TOI, yet oddly enough I haven't had a single complaint about showing any mistakes Demidov has made so far.

To me I will not listen to anyone in the world, I just watch these kids play and I offer my views, whatever they are and I know I will be wrong and I will be right as so will everyone that ever lived.

Amen.

 

[Natey]

I never have any problems with people pointing out flaws, those should be recognized and discussed. It's the sensationalism and rush to be 'right' and calling people busts before anything has really played out.

Call every drafted player a bust and you will be right far more often than you will be wrong. Personally, calling someone a bust and having it come true isn't impressive. Calling someone who makes it is far more impressive because in scouting, getting it right on a player who contributes is the goal.. making the call on who won't make it, isn't so much.

I would've taken Kulich too but I had Mesar right there and really liked Mesar. He's also had enough flashes and stretches of play to justify why he was taken so high and there's still a lot that needs to go right for him to do anything at the NHL level.

As cheesy and shit as the movie Draft Day is.. I do like the quote when they are looking at the top rated QB in the class, "everybody's got something. People said Peyton Manning didn't have the arm strength and he couldn't throw deep. Elway was too strong and he couldn't throw with touch. But it didn't matter. We gotta find out what Bo's something is and find out if it matters or not."

You'll find flaws with most prospects, it's whether they can overcome it through developing and fixing the issues, or if the sum of the other parts are so good that that 'thing' doesn't matter.

And while it might not have mattered... Kulich got the development path that Mesar wanted. If Kulich comes over and goes to junior - does he take the same steps? In junior you have to be so disciplined. There's so many other distractions, less mature teammates, etc. Clearly it didn't work for Mesar. But he's not exactly the first player who's come across the pond and not had the success expected in junior hockey.

Kulich looks incredible but writing off players two years later who have still shown some incredible flashes... is wild to me.

When Mesar is challenged, he has still stepped up. The World Juniors and the playoffs. He was very good.

It's frustrating he doesn't have a 24/7 compete level, but we've had plenty of those players in the past. Doesn't always create a winning atmosphere either. You still need talent.