Player Discussion Kirby Dach: Welcome to Montreal

[CAUFIELD]

Happy with slaf.

Im not sold with Dach tho. Very risky. He was brought too early by the Hawks.

Can’t believed we lost Romanov, a sure thing, for him. He was one of only specimen.

Very physical and solid. Great 1st pass. It would have been nice to have Romanov, Anderson , Slaf, Ghule all at the same time on the team. All physically dominant for once .

I think Romanov was already a 4th D with a good chance of becoming a good 3rd D .

It’s better be working with Dach !

 

[ChesterNimitz]

Isn't Dach a speedster?

Hardly. Unless he picks up his speed and pace he will join a long line of high draft choices whose game didn’t ( couldn’t) translate to the faster pace they experienced at the NHL level. The same reason that many of us didn’t want the team to draft Wright. And why Wright dropped to 4th. It was all too predictable.

Hertl and Couturier produced at a young age in the Czech league and the Q respectively. Dach was not a great pt producer even in junior. He was also drafted because of his size. Chicago knew that and that's why they traded him away and drafted 5"9 Nazar instead.

What you see is what you get. A player won't start gaining skills that they never had to begin with. I really hope that I'm wrong but I don't think Dach (or Slaf) will become point producers in the NHL because they've never done it before. Hughes might have screwed us over more than Bergevin ever did if Wright or Cooley become elite scorers.

Any time you get nostalgic, I have two thoughts: Alzner for 5 years and Gallagher for 6 years.

 

[Kudo Shinichi]

The indifference to the loss of Dach over on the Hawks' board is really something, given this site's adoration of young prospects. Nobody seems to particularly think the Hawks will miss him.

They are used to having their good young players being traded.
See Danault, Teravainen, Panarin, Jokiharju, Schmaltz, Boqvist, Debrincat and now Dach.
They also gave up the 12th pick (Sillinger) and the 6th pick (Jiricek) in the Jones trade.

They lost all of these trades.

 

[River Meadow]

McCagg says if Dach was 18yrs old, and in this draft, he would probably go #1 or #2 OA.

 

[Team_Spirit]

So after his rookie season, he went back to jr during covid to go to the WJC, got hurt vs Russia then struggled last year.

Why is the main narrative about being rushed instead of this major injury?

 

[SirClintonPortis]

Some injuries never really go away.

Not liking the vibe. Could be an effective third liner but top lines...a long shot.

 

[Seb]

So after his rookie season, he went back to jr during covid to go to the WJC, got hurt vs Russia then struggled last year.

Why is the main narrative about being rushed instead of this major injury?

Holy Jesus f*** no wonder he has been struggling.

Can he open a pickle jar? This needs to be mandatory before trading for a player ever since we signed Alzner.

 

[ChesterNimitz]

Some injuries never really go away.

Not liking the vibe. Could be an effective third liner but top lines...a long shot.

I see at a minimum, a Radem Bonk clone.

 

[DramaticGloveSave]

Was looking for some Dach highlights and stumbled across this. A great refresher to what type of prospect was in Caufields draft.

 

[417]

I watched a few more videos of Dach

1. He has a wicked backhand. Like really nicd
2. Not a fan of his shot. Maybe related to his wrist injury. Takes a while to get the puck off his stick
3. He’s really effective at using his long reach to keep the puck away from defenders
4. He’s so young yet is able to use his body to shield the puck. A lot of defenders seem to have trouble knocking him off the puck.
5. Defenders have trouble containing him when he gains an edge.
6. His decision making seems to be like 1 second too slow. Like there is a slight hesitation before deciding to make the play that he sees


The tools are there. Good hands, great skater, uses his frame to shield the puck. We’ll see

Good canvas to work from...the last center we poached from the Hawks didn't turn out too bad, hopefully that repeats itself.

 

[ArtPeur]

So after his rookie season, he went back to jr during covid to go to the WJC, got hurt vs Russia then struggled last year.

Why is the main narrative about being rushed instead of this major injury?

It's probably a bit of both

 

[themilosh]

Holy Jesus f*** no wonder he has been struggling.

Can he open a pickle jar? This needs to be mandatory before trading for a player ever since we signed Alzner.

I imagine CH have all his medical records.. lol

But ask yourself, if he hadn't broken his wrist we wouldnt have been able to afford him. We got him at that crazy low price because of it.

He still has top IQ, incredible mobility for his size, quick moves and reads.. but he'll never be the 1C he was destined to become, chop his goals in half, hes just going to have to set up more.. i figure he is exactly the perfect long term 2C to suzuki... like a 1a 1b goalie tandem.

 

[FourQuarters]

Clearly, Dach doesn’t realize what he’s getting into.



We have seen your enemy, Kirby. It is us.


Is it the very tall people seeing eye to eye thing?

Blackhawks’ Kirby Dach has ‘improved a lot’ with managing frustration, staying positive

Derek King said Tuesday that Dach has lately done a “much better job of not slamming doors, breaking sticks and looking so frustrated.”

chicago.suntimes.com

He deleted social media apps from his phone last season.

 

[themilosh]

My prediction for Dach is a Danault replacement at half the price, and bigger... for the next 10 years

 

[CoopersFalls]

I'm not too optimistic Dach will be anything more than a 2C at very best, but I'm interested to see how St. Louis and the development staff bring him along. At this point, I don't see much difference in his production and KK.

 

[BenchBrawl]

So after his rookie season, he went back to jr during covid to go to the WJC, got hurt vs Russia then struggled last year.

Why is the main narrative about being rushed instead of this major injury?

Thankfully it's his right wrist. Since he's a right-handed player, his left wrist is the one on top, so is the most important for puck control.

 

[ewfwgfwahbger]

Dach score. Dach defend.

 

[DailyKaizen]

The difference is Anderson had shown more before getting traded, scoring 25+ 2 years prior and cost much less, while Dach has shown very little.

As I've said before, I like Dach and think MSL is good enough to turn him into an impactful player, but the cost was way too high when considering both injury history and past-performance vs draft pedigree.

Great points @Ozymandias
Thanks for enlightening me, in hindsight, I let that run to final, make me use the rose coloured glasses a little bit too much.

Fingers crossed, knock on wood, Dach and Anderson under a full season of MSL can evolve.

MSL' coaching style + concepts strategy he uses is very good for player development, plus he has alot of gravitas

 

[Natey]

McCagg likes Dach a lot.

Thinks he could even overtake Suzuki to be a 1C over him, potentially.

f***. He really is a bust.

 

[SOLR]

McCagg says if Dach was 18yrs old, and in this draft, he would probably go #1 or #2 OA.

1st easy. Slaf went first bcause of his rare body - Dach has that and he's a center.

 

[River Meadow]

1st easy. Slaf went first bcause of his rare body - Dach has that and he's a center.

I don't doubt it.

Clips of Dach's play and skating from juniors looks incredible too, tbh.

 

[Milhouse40]

Depth in positional prospects. Lots of potential defencemen. Few viable forward prospects. When management concluded that Romanov was not pivotal to the team’s re-build ; he became expendable.

Yes. On D. With all the prospects, especially those who will be in the pros next year.

I really should have put the sarcasm emoji on this one.

 

[blarneylad]

The kid is going to be great for us. We already have a 1st line center locked up. Dach will fit in perfectly as a playmaking 2nd line center.

You guys and your sky is falling mentality make me laugh. Nezar 5’9” could easily bust too. At the very least we have a big body with a floor of 40 points and a ceiling of 60-70 points. He was never a big scorer always a playmaker. His wrist will heal up fine my goodness we need the season to start already so the psycho analysis can stop

 

[NotProkofievian]

The kid is going to be great for us. We already have a 1st line center locked up. Dach will fit in perfectly as a playmaking 2nd line center.

You guys and your sky is falling mentality make me laugh. Nezar 5’9” could easily bust too. At the very least we have a big body with a floor of 40 points and a ceiling of 60-70 points. He was never a big scorer always a playmaker. His wrist will heal up fine my goodness we need the season to start already so the psycho analysis can stop

He has a floor of a point total that he's not yet achieved?

 

[26Mats]

They’ve staked a good chunk of the goodwill and benefit of the doubt that fans afforded them, on those two moves. They’re definitely going to do everything to see them succeed.

I think HuGo will get a certain leash in general from fans.

In these two cases, we're talking about projecting young players. Not every projection works out. We'll have many more lottery picks and trades for young players. We need to wait to see how they do overall. There will be many individual busts.