No wonder we were mediocre for so long.
My take has always been that many at HF under estimate how important proper development and coaching are to help players progress. When you see a lack of progress you blame the coach first, just as you would if it were a teacher and the student failed. Of course this goes down a path of many variables, some kids just don't want to be taught etc.. or some people that need extra tutoring but don't always end up getting it and it hurts their career.
So when I railed for years that Lefebvre was the worst HC for development i've seen from our AHL team, that MB was the worst GM at development, utterly clueless it appears imo but at the time I kept saying don't rush KK to the NHL and don't get caught up on his 1st seasons success as we saw with Galchenyuk that things can still go very far south despite putting up 30 goals.
I think we are seeing the impacts now of proper development, having a head coach that doesn't want to make you a better person by putting you in the press box because you made 1 mistake and we lost 2-1 because of it. We saw how Caufield was developing under Dom vs how it's going now. We see the big leap Slaf has had after a brutal start. Does anyone honestly believe that MT, Julien, Dom would have gotten the results Slaf, Caufield and Suzuki have shown under MSL?
That said, Timmins made too many mistakes and he shares a ton of the blame as well as MB and Molson, the staffs and of course the prospects as I hate to see the word ruin about any prospect that busts because of coaching, it's just a tool to help you get better that you have to put the work into in order to get something out of it but a good coach will be able to get it out of you and I think it's clear for years we didn't have good coaches.
This is fun, I'll just go top 10 in my eyes:
Reinbacher
Hutson
Beck
Mailloux
Volokhin
Farrell
Mesar
Engstrom
Heineman
Fowler
I think Reinbacher and/or Mailloux make the team out of camp and hutson starts the year in the ahl.
Guhle Mallioux
Matheson Reinbacher
Hutson/Xhekaj Barron/Savard
We have too many guys here. We need to make some room in the back end for forward depth. I would rather sink with these young guys and see how the cards fall.
They have too many but Hughes is also in a good spot that he doesn't need to do anything yet and can take his time if he doesn't get the right offers.
I think Davidson will play more NHL games than Farrell in his career, I really don't see NHL potential in Farrell at all
I would take that bet, as Farrell easily was much better then Davidson was this year. He just needs to add a good amount of speed, he's too slow for that size but Davidson isn't any quicker.
Hoping
Vinzenz Rohrer &
Riley Kidney can make a strong push at training camp to crack your top 15
They would need to show a ton more, so small need to get a lot stronger, add mass. Didn't get to see too much of Rohrer but Kidney is just way too easy to push off pucks, he'll need a huge off-season.
I have a hard time seeing Beck at 7, I think it's clear that he'll have quite a good career altering between 3C to 2C and be a shutdown/potentially pest type
I'm sold on the player and have him penciled in that 3C slot for a while unless we f*** up and trade him
Knock on wood tho
We might actually finally have a solid prospect list
The rankings mean nothing, it's all about how much each prospect progresses year to year or not. That's why I think so many posters just talk out their ass (not directed at anyone) but when posters say a 17, 18, 19, 20 year old is going to be this or that in 5 years, I know that there are so many variables and factors involved that there is no way in the world they could know that other then guessing likely outcomes.
To me I just watch them year to year and try and see where they show improvement and by how much vs any struggles. Beck has a great release on his shot so he will score some goals but I think he needs a good bit of work on it still to be more accurate and hopefully more of a sniper since I am not a big fan of his playmaking. But if he works on his shot, with his speed and skating maybe he could be a top 6, it's hard to say as again it's all about how much can he continue to progress or not.
I didn't come away impressed by Heineman in any of the Laval games I watched this year, but maybe I just chose the wrong ones to watch. I just didn't see much progression from last year or since the start of the year.
I hope I'm wrong, he'd fit the profile of a bottom sixer that we'd need but I just haven't seen the development I'd hoped for yet.
He certainly struggled with consistency at times but he does look like he will get more looks in the NHL as I like the physical game, skating, speed, effort and a decent shot. I would put him in Laval and try to work on the offense more.
Roy has already graduated?
I figured he won't be back down unless of injury plus I can't use any NHL games in my vids. I'm hoping from a big year from him next season.
By the looks of it people are going to be quite pleasantly surprised whenever Rohrer comes over to NA. He just won a championship in a good men's league playing 3rd line as a 19 year old. He doesn't even turn 20 until September. Could be a Lekhonen type impact (early Habs Lekh, not the current one obviously).
He'll need to work on getting bigger, stronger, as the NL is a far cry from the NHL.
