Prospect Info: Prospect Info and Discussion VIII - Future Canes and other Jurcos

[vorbis]

for you gooble gobble types, this is a damn good writeup on Necas' game that makes the case for him as an impact player who is prominently and consistently pass-first. with numerous video clips from the Calder Cup playoffs to back up the assertions.

The Gifted: Breaking down Hurricanes prospect Martin Necas'...

quotes will not be as helpful as usual because they are often describing and analyzing the video clips. but here's a handful.

If you watch Necas for long enough, you quickly learn that scoring isn’t the first, second or even third thought that enters his mind when he has the puck on his stick.
Necas tends to shoot only when it’s the clear choice.

Because while Necas will chip in with the occasional goal, it’s everything else that makes him special.
Those skills contribute to this brilliant 30-second sequence, which features, in order:

1. A Necas entry with speed.
2. A Necas pass when he draws the defenders.
3. A Necas burst through the hole as soon as that pass is made to complete the give-and-go with a chance in front.
4. A Necas burst up the wall with the puck, with a display of his handling ability to stop up, curl, and leave the pass a teammate after drawing attention.
5. A Necas burst of speed back down the wall and a cut to set up …
6. A Necas cross-ice pass.

Is Necas ever going to be a dominant scorer? Nope. Will that hold him back like it sometimes holds other pass-first players back (Jeremy Bracco comes to mind)? Nope.
You don’t have to want to be a scorer if you can find other ways to contribute to a lot of scoring. And while that’s easier said than done, Necas has it figured out.

 

[geehaad]

BRB...RENEWING MY SUBSCRIPTION TO THE ATHLETIC FOR 100 YEARS

 

[SlavinAway]

for you gooble gobble types, this is a damn good writeup on Necas' game that makes the case for him as an impact player who is prominently and consistently pass-first. with numerous video clips from the Calder Cup playoffs to back up the assertions.

The Gifted: Breaking down Hurricanes prospect Martin Necas'...

quotes will not be as helpful as usual because they are often describing and analyzing the video clips. but here's a handful.

This makes me excited to see a potential Necas-Svech combo down the road.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

That is a freaking outstanding article.

For those who don’t have a sub to The Athletic, 1) come on what are you doing and 2) the screenshot below summarizes the level of breakdown you get from the article (and is a pretty incredible highlight for Necas).

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

Any one remember the game where Necas put a saucer pass right on a moving player with a defender draped on his back for a goal? After reading that article I couldnt help but think about that pass. I cant remember the game though. Might have been late in the season or post season.

 

[tarheelhockey]

BRB...RENEWING MY SUBSCRIPTION TO THE ATHLETIC FOR 100 YEARS

An Athletic subscription is easily the best value in sports media right now.

 

[Svechhammer]

Its pretty crazy that we've had such a monumental offseason that Necas' arrival is being largely overlooked. This kid appears to be the real deal, and combined with all the other guys we have, could have a huge impact on the team this year.

 

[The Faulker 27]

Its pretty crazy that we've had such a monumental offseason that Necas' arrival is being largely overlooked. This kid appears to be the real deal, and combined with all the other guys we have, could have a huge impact on the team this year.

He has to arrive first though. That's not even guaranteed with how stacked we are. Not to mention if a trade brings back yet another skilled forward.

 

[geehaad]

Every line has a guy who can feed his linemates -- Aho, TT, Wallmark -- and the third line would be missing one without Necas. Who else fills that role?

The only question in my mind is whether Brind'Amour will be happy with Necas as a pass-first forward. Based on what we've heard with TT, it's possible he will not be, but I don't know how much of the push to get TT to shoot more came directly from RBA.

 

[My Special Purpose]

Every line has a guy who can feed his linemates -- Aho, TT, Wallmark -- and the third line would be missing one without Necas. Who else fills that role?

Yeah, you can see the makeup of the lines ... one playmaker on each line (Aho, TT, Necas, Wallmark), one shoot-first guy (Dzingel, Svech, Haula, McGinn) and one guy strong on the boards (Nino, Staal, Foegele, Martinook). It may not work, but it's easy to see the plan.

 

[NotOpie]

Yeah, you can see the makeup of the lines ... one playmaker on each line (Aho, TT, Necas, Wallmark), one shoot-first guy (Dzingel, Svech, Haula, McGinn) and one guy strong on the boards (Nino, Staal, Foegele, Martinook). It may not work, but it's easy to see the plan.

That's easily been my favorite line construction for a while now - a distributor, a sniper, and a disruptor.

 

[Vagrant]

An Athletic subscription is easily the best value in sports media right now.

how many articles are there about the hurricanes that sara doesn't write? part of me worries that a subscription to the athletic is just a subscription to her thoughts on the roster of which.... and forgive me for saying.... just simply aren't interesting to me.

 

[My Special Purpose]

how many articles are there about the hurricanes that sara doesn't write? part of me worries that a subscription to the athletic is just a subscription to her thoughts on the roster of which.... and forgive me for saying.... just simply aren't interesting to me.

There's a lot. The national guys (LeBrun, Custance) always include us. There's an amazing detailed look at Necas out today by Scott Wheeler. The stats guy (Luszczyszyn) loves us. The prospects guy (Pronman) loves us. Down Goes Brown is very fair to us. My biggest complaint right now is that I badly want to dive into Dom's ultra-deep season preview, but since he releases them in reverse order of projected points, he hasn't gotten to us yet.

Note: The last four have been: 13, Colorado 93.9; 12, San Jose 94.1; 11, Dallas 95.9; 10. Calgary 96.0.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

how many articles are there about the hurricanes that sara doesn't write? part of me worries that a subscription to the athletic is just a subscription to her thoughts on the roster of which.... and forgive me for saying.... just simply aren't interesting to me.

If you’re just a Canes fan, maybe skip it.

If you’re an NHL fan, their national stuff is outstanding and fun (Dom L’s and Corey P’s lists, Sean McIndoe’s everything he writes), and other teams’ coverage is great as well.

But you’re right that 50-75% of Canes-related articles will be written by Sara, and while she’s a good writer and I enjoy her pieces she doesn’t bring much new to the table.

 

[geehaad]

how many articles are there about the hurricanes that sara doesn't write?

Going down the CAR feed on The Athletic right now, authors:
Scott Wheeler
Sara Civian
Scott Wheeler
Sara Civian
Sean McIndoe
Scott Wheeler
Sara Civian
Sara Civian
Sara Civian
Craig Custance
Sara Civian
Dom Luszczyszyn
Eric Stephens

Now, it's true that any mention of CAR will cause the article to appear in a CAR feed, so you'll get articles like McIndoe's "The Bizarro-meter looks back on the Eastern Conference offseason", where they touch on every EC team.

But, if I may, you seem like a consumer of hockey news that's not just about CAR, so a subscription seems like it would be of value to you. Heck, I am entirely disinterested in news about other NHL teams, and I think it's money well-spent...but then again, a large part of what sold me on The Athletic was the Twitter presence of Civian, Alison Lukan, and Cat Silverman. YMMV

 

[vorbis]

how many articles are there about the hurricanes that sara doesn't write? part of me worries that a subscription to the athletic is just a subscription to her thoughts on the roster of which.... and forgive me for saying.... just simply aren't interesting to me.

at least a couple per month, between Craig Custance, the Down Goes Brown guy, Pronman prospect articles, and stuff like this. but honestly just do what you want to do. I'll reference stuff like this that I find on there in this forum when I can. but the quality of writing overall is consistently some of, if not the best available for North American sports. with hockey being maybe the most well-represented sport available right now.

 

[geehaad]

Canes-related articles will be written by Sara, and while she’s a good writer and I enjoy her pieces she doesn’t bring much new to the table.

There's no one covering CAR in the way she does. Period. You may not like it, you may not find value in it, but it's entirely different from anything else. Like, ever.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

There's no one covering CAR in the way she does. Period. You may not like it, you may not find value in it, but it's entirely different from anything else. Like, ever.

I mean “new to the table” in terms of game analysis, breaking news, etc. You’re absolutely right that from a journalism perspective no one has covered the team from a human interest sense like she has before, and it was the perfect match for a very interesting team last year. In that sense she is absolutely bringing something new to the table.

Was not a knock, was more like she’s not going to provide a ton of game insight to this very knowledgeable group of fans about who’s playing well and poorly, etc. She’s not really trying to, if her “what are the lines?” Twitter jokes are any indication.

 

[tarheelhockey]

how many articles are there about the hurricanes that sara doesn't write? part of me worries that a subscription to the athletic is just a subscription to her thoughts on the roster of which.... and forgive me for saying.... just simply aren't interesting to me.

I was late on the draw responding to this, but just to reiterate what others said -- the beauty of the Athletic is you have all kinds of overlapping coverage from different perspectives.

I don't have a huge problem with Sara, but if I'm being honest I usually don't do more than skim her articles. I'll give them a glance, but I'm a lot more interested in how the leaguewide sources see us, and how they see other teams in comparison. It's high quality stuff, especially given the price point.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I mean “new to the table” in terms of game analysis, breaking news, etc. You’re absolutely right that from a journalism perspective no one has covered the team from a human interest sense like she has before, and it was the perfect match for a very interesting team last year. In that sense she is absolutely bringing something new to the table.

Was not a knock, was more like she’s not going to provide a ton of insight to this very knowledgeable group of fans about who’s playing well and poorly, etc. She’s not really trying to, if her “what are the lines?” Twitter jokes are any indication.

I think this is a fair take on her. She brings a pop culture perspective and a social media element that we have never had before. When news is breaking, I'm more interested in her off-the-cuff snark than in anything Luke or Chip bring to the table. And I'm grateful to have someone who actually makes a ripple in the national conversation other than getting his name made fun of or getting hung up on by a shock jock.

But in terms of the deep-dive stuff, 9 times out of 10 we've already discussed it to death on HF before she gets around to it. The only time she really brings the heat in article format is when she scores an exclusive interview. That stuff is more Luke and Chip's domain, but they still don't bring the quality of analysis that we see in the non-local Athletic writers.

 

[vorbis]

one thing I've been impressed with Sara about is that I do think she's going about the hard journalistic work of cultivating sources pretty nicely, one year in. she had her ear to the ground during the draft and got ahead of the Chase Priskie story that nobody saw coming. and given what she likely knows and what she reveals (both as "reporting" and as "hearsay") tells me she's building whisper relationships with legit stakeholders. so if I'm right on that, her reporting and breaking news aspects are only going to get better. at least, until Don Waddell is up for another contract and finds a new gig.

 

[Jamie Craig]

I mean “new to the table” in terms of game analysis, breaking news, etc. You’re absolutely right that from a journalism perspective no one has covered the team from a human interest sense like she has before, and it was the perfect match for a very interesting team last year. In that sense she is absolutely bringing something new to the table.

Was not a knock, was more like she’s not going to provide a ton of game insight to this very knowledgeable group of fans about who’s playing well and poorly, etc. She’s not really trying to, if her “what are the lines?” Twitter jokes are any indication.

I mean she broke Priskie and the original Faulk talks. When's the last time in market reporters other than DeCock did that? And IIRC those jokes were about non-Hurricanes fans who wanted the fantasy lines.

 

[Vagrant]

thanks for all the helpful responses, folks. it sounds like it might be a good choice for me regardless. trust me, i have tried to pull the trigger a few times. but sara combined with the idea of reading joe person articles about the panthers behind a paywall just struck me as incongruous with my expectations for journalism. not to turn this into a bash sara thread, but there have been several things she has said on twitter that were just blatantly ignorant to her job description that keyed me into the idea that she wasn't the type of journalist that would be consistently worth my time. at one point saying that she sees no reason why her reporting can't be positive all the time kind of cracked me up. it was basically like saying "who cares if i'm afraid to ask tough questions in scrums because i want everyone to like me?" she seems like she would be good at getting the players to act naturally around her and that will help her human interest stories, but her defiance about her role in delivering the frustration of the fanbase to the people that matter hurt her journalistic integrity. people want the truth and people want reporters that won't wilt from saying something that requires saying even if it doesn't sit 100% right with who they're interviewing. i'm not interested in dougie hamilton's favorite color and why it's such a mood.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

I mean she broke Priskie and the original Faulk talks. When's the last time in market reporters other than DeCock did that? And IIRC those jokes were about non-Hurricanes fans who wanted the fantasy lines.

She broke it immediately on Twitter which doesn’t require an Athletic subscription. And as she gets more plugged in I expect to see that much more, which is exciting and a good sign for a young, promising reporter.

I really really like Civian’s work, my point is not that she’s not a good reporter or writer. My point is that some of the very high-end, in-depth stuff like the Wheeler article mentioned above is not something she’s doing because it’s not really her job. She takes a fun, fresh approach to the team that makes her articles more enjoyable than Luke’s or Chip’s in my opinion, but I wouldn’t pay solely for Luke or Chip in the same way I wouldn’t pay for The Athletic solely for Sara. That’s not really a knock, I probably wouldn’t pay solely for any one writer. Hence my original comment, if you’re only looking for Canes coverage, Sara is the majority of it, and there’s not a ton behind the paywall from Sara that you wouldn’t eventually get anyway from other sources except the human interest takes (or, as THH said, if she gets an exclusive interview). If the human interest pieces interest you, go for it. They’re well written and well done and I read every single one. But if I was ONLY looking for Canes coverage I probably wouldn’t join just for Sara.

 

[Big Daddy Cane]

You have to be realistic. Beat reporting isn't geared to the type of hardcore fan that posts on HF. We want deep analysis and inside scoops on personnel movement.

To the latter, she has gotten the FO to leak to her. For that, she makes the overall coverage of the team better than it was before.