Player Discussion Tyler Kleven (D) at 44th Overall (Sens traded up)

[Micklebot]

Yes, I just like to isolate the USHL games. It just feels like a standard grouping, but that is just my preference. I probably should have presented the data more clearly.

But yeah, in the end, you were right that they had the same amount of points.

But by doing that you end up with a really small sample, less than 20 games is hard to get a read off, particularly with a low event stat like defenseman scoring...

 

[ijif]

But by doing that you end up with a really small sample, less than 20 games is hard to get a read off, particularly with a low event stat like defenseman scoring...

Sure, I never said that isn't true. By all means, look at all of his games.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Why are we are arguing Faber vs Kleven using points. Neither of these guys are known or sought after for the points they put up.
We have Kleven lets see what he can do. Its nice to hear from people on the inside that he has shown more skill in practice than what he perhaps has shown in games and although that is a positive it still needs to translate to games .. I'm sure some of us have seen some pretty dynamite practice players before that could never quite get to the same level in games. Anyway .. not saying that is Kleven and I hope by the time he's here he is ready to emerge as a top 4 quality shut down D man. We get a good chance to see him over a stretch of games and he has lots more time after that.

 

[Johnny Hanson]

One game in to his collegiate career and it’s safe to say he doesn’t lack puck skills whatsoever. While they might never be seen as elite, he can definitely handle the puck, make passes and boy can he shoot.

And he might already be the most feared defender in the bubble.

 

[BoardsofCanada]

I love these reports about his hands and movement; the two areas I was worried about. The short highlight I saw backs up these impressions. I want more highlights!

 

[Sweatred]

Anyone know how close he is to making the USA u20 roster ?

 

[Micklebot]

Anyone know how close he is to making the USA u20 roster ?

Idk, but i found it odd that the prelim roster had something like 7 LHD and only 2 RHD when the US system tended to produce more RHD.

I think if he were a righty he'd have had a good chance to make it.

 

[Tuna99]

If Tyler Kleven can become a good player, it'll be a good pick. In other news, the sky is blue.

dear Admin, please shut down this website, we have no further need to discuss anything that is not currently happening. There is no hockey and we don’t know if there ever will be so shut it down, absolutely no point in carrying on this charade of talking about hockey when the future is undertmerni f. Only the present moment matters, the past the future are irrelevant.

Dorion, Fire the scouts amd the development coaches, only NHL players matter. Trade your picks for current NHL players

 

[Tuna99]

If Tyler Kleven can become a good player, it'll be a good pick. In other news, the sky is blue.

I can see you’re one of those preferred Thanksgiving dinner guests, being so conversational and agreeable and all. Keep up these incredible insights, there are 2 year olds on this website and they need to know your ‘real’ takes.

I also can’t believe you’re not already an NHL GM. To tell us that Chris Pronger was a better draft pick then Brian Lee is what I’m here. Keep up these well developed thoughts, can’t wait to see what comes next.

 

[Sweatred]

Idk, but i found it odd that the prelim roster had something like 7 LHD and only 2 RHD when the US system tended to produce more RHD.

I think if he were a righty he'd have had a good chance to make it.

He is a legit threat to any opposing forwards, does the US have anyone else who can play that physical? He could be a Phaneuf or Tootoo type WJC weapon.

 

[Nosswor]

I for one welcome the second coming of Anton Volchenkov.

 

[Micklebot]

I for one welcome the second coming of Anton Volchenkov.

Not a bad comparison, hopefully he has the same knack for welcoming rookies to the league with a devistating open ice hit.

 

[Tuna99]

Not a bad comparison, hopefully he has the same knack for welcoming rookies to the league with a devistating open ice hit.

legend has it the Sens didn’t have Volcheknkov rated as high as they did until they started interviewing the Russian prospects and they asked them all the question “who’s the one teammate you’d want on your team” and they all said Anton Volcenkov (I think he was the ‘C’ of his WJC team. Opened the scouts eyes and they drafted him

Kleven has that feeling, the player who does all the hard and leadership Ginga your teammates love - take on the teams best player, lay some hurt down, stick up for your teammates, never ever back down.

 

[Joeyjoejoe]

The way that the blog boys talked about this kid, I was expecting Ben Harpur like player. Except this dude can skate, handle the puck and has an accurate nasty shot.

It’s almost like scouting from the couch looking at points and some videos of a player isn’t the proper way to evaluate 17 year olds and project them as NHLers.

 

[BondraTime]

Anyone know how close he is to making the USA u20 roster ?

Numbers game with him being a left D, they are stock full there with 19 year olds on the left side, along with Sanderson. The only guys they have on the right side are Faber and Helleson. He wouldn’t look out of place whatsoever on the team this year.

The only guy I question being invited over him is McDonald, though it’s not strange for US to invite undrafted 19 year olds.

He will be there next year.

 

[JungleBeat]

Cowen had a hard slap shot. Accuracy and puck skills are needed to get it off and on net.

 

[Alf Silfversson]

Cowen had a hard slap shot. Accuracy and puck skills are needed to get it off and on net.

Yeah. Loads of junior and college players have hard shots. The questions are more:

Can they one-time it?
Can they get it on net with little to no setup time?
Are they able to find lanes?
Do they time it well? For example do they just blast away or do they have the sense to wait for traffic to arrive?

Hopefully Kleven can do those things when he becomes a finished product.

 

[Xspyrit]

I have admitted in numerous posts that adding a draft position to any sort of model will increase predictive value. Of course, given two equal players, the one drafted higher is likely to be the better player, but that also brings up the fact that Kleven will be given more opportunity to succeed simply because he is a high pick. That can skew the results to look better for higher picks.

In the end, no two players are the same. Every stat will have some sort of misleading numbers or incomplete results or context. If we had perfect information, we would not need stats. With that being said, defenders that score like Tyler Kleven are unlikely to make the NHL or be good players in the NHL. That does not mean he cannot be a good player. It does not mean he needs to score points at the NHL level for me to consider him good. It means we likely should not have traded two picks for this player.

In the end, I think that people who have done this job for a while draft more with their guts than based on probabilities made out of an analysis on paper that says this guy scored that much at that age in that league. I mean, they see the guy play, they watch him practice, they watch him train, check his combine results, interview him, check his bloodlines, his character, his numbers, etc discuss about him several times around the table and then they fit him in their internal ranking. Yes numbers are a factor but I don't think it's even close to being the whole thing. In the case of a D-man that is good defensively, numbers are really not as important

Of course if they are looking after a scoring winger, numbers have to be there, but sometimes it can also be contextual and a matter of opportunity. Look at Connor Brown last year. People think he's a 30 pts guy? Give him more ice-time in a more offensive role and boom, 50 pts pace

Sens seem like a very good scouting/drafting team because they don't seem to care much about what the player has done before but more what they project him to do in the future. It worked pretty well on picks like Batherson, Formenton, Pinto, etc. Pinto didn't even start taking hockey seriously until he was like 15 y/o, many teams (and fans) might have seen him as a reach where they took him. Sens identified him as guy that will continue to rise big time. Looks like they were not that crazy. This guy screams NHL player.

Kleven was most likely seen in the same kind of light and worth it to them as they think he's going to continue to rise on a steeper development curve than other picks they could have made at that spot. And I think they see some untapped offensive potential like coaches and some other people seem to think

I'm totally on board with their draft mentally. guys on a big rise that not everybody saw coming. That's exactly how you find gems, outside of drafting really high. Which is great about this draft is we had 2 top-5 picks (so 2 very high chances at gems) and then they went on with several other guys that could be big risers, like Jarventie, Sokolov, Kleven and even Daoust. Greig seem like the only "safe bet" but there might be unclear potential here

 

[aragorn]

Even a defensive dman need to be able to move the puck quickly and effectively, i think pts production gets used as a bit of a proxy for that. If you produce nothing at the lower levels its a potential flag that you lack the skills needed so i get why people look to it, but imo its more just a flag and actually watching how he handles the puck in his end and under pressure is far more important.

I agree with that, but from everything I have read about the guy & the few videos I have seen he seems to handle the puck alright & can make a pretty good first pass. He's big enough to handle himself in his own zone & won't get pushed off the puck easily & if he can learn that the glass is his friend early that should help him get the puck out more often then not.

 

[ijif]

There are plenty of examples of shutdown D-men who went on to have good NHL careers without putting up a lot of offensive pts, Boro played 6 full seasons in Ottawa without scoring very much, same for Volchenkov & Luke Schenn just won a SC. No NHL team has just offensive defencemen who can put up offensive pts, some of them prevent pts from being scored against & play on the PK. While most will see those two examples as laughable, let's not forget that they have played in the NHL for several yrs earning big money while we sit at home watching on TV, they are still NHL players regardless of what people think & say about them who made it.

Ottawa won't need Kleven to put up pts, they will need him to make big hits, block shots, clear the front of the net, play on the PK, intimidate forwards & drop the gloves when required. They should have enough PMD to put up pts & we shouldn't be expecting this guy to do it, IMO he could be more like Gudbranson, hopefully better. Sometimes having a couple of players who are good defensively is important to stop other team's good players from scoring against & that becomes very valuable especially in the playoffs. IMO giving up a couple of picks to acquire a very good defensive defenceman who has plenty of upside is worth the gamble. I would bet the Leafs will be sorry they made this trade someday & didn't draft him themselves. Time will tell.

Nobody is suggesting to run only offensive players. This is the list of CHL drafted defenders that produced at least 0.55 PPG in their draft year (2005 draft to 2015 draft).

Sorry if I spelt some names wrong. My transcribing was not very neat.

PPG > 0.55	League
K. Russell	WHL
R. Macias	WHL
K. Cumiskey	WHL
L. Pyett	WHL
T. Hickey	WHL
K. Alzner	WHL
A. Plante	WHL
J. Blum	WHL
J. Niemi	WHL
J. Spurgeon	WHL
S. Elliot	WHL
T. Barrie	WHL
M. Mackenzie	WHL
T. Rutkowski	WHL
K. McFaull	WHL
T. Stahl	WHL
D. Siemens	WHL
J. Morrow	WHL
R. Murray	WHL
G. Reinhart	WHL
M. Rielly	WHL
M. Dumba	WHL
D. Pouliot	WHL
D. Thrower	WHL
D. Severson	WHL
S. Jones	WHL
J. Morrissey	WHL
R. Pulock	WHL
S. Theodore	WHL
H. Fleury	WHL
J. Honka	WHL
D. Mayo	WHL
I. Provorov	WHL
N. Juulsen	WHL
P. Wotherspoon	WHL
E. Bear	WHL
R. Pilon	WHL
B. Sanguinetti	OHL
B. Shutron	OHL
P. Subban	OHL
M. Katic	OHL
Y. Weber	OHL
D. Doughty	OHL
Z. Bogosian	OHL
A. Pietrangelo	OHL
M. Del Zotto	OHL
C. Gaunce	OHL
R. Ellis	OHL
C. De Haan	OHL
E. Gudbranson	OHL
C. Fowler	OHL
S. Silas	OHL
G. Schenitsch	OHL
D. Hamilton	OHL
R. Murphy	OHL
S. Koekkoek	OHL
C. Ceci	OHL
O. Maata	OHL
J. Graham	OHL
N. Ebert	OHL
D. Nurse	OHL
C. Bigras	OHL
J. Subban	OHL
A. Ekblad	OHL
T. DeAngelo	OHL
R. McKeown	OHL
T. Dermott	OHL
R. Andersson	OHL
V. Dunn	OHL
K. Capobianco	OHL
M. Vande Sompel	OHL
T. Schemitsch	OHL
G. Bouramanan	OHL
M. Garagnani	QMJHL
I. Vishnevsky	QMJHL
M. Carle	QMJHL
P. Lessard	QMJHL
T. Brennan	QMJHL
S. Lacroix	QMJHL
M. Bourdon	QMJHL
M. Barberio	QMJHL
D. Kulikov	QMJHL
C. Roussel	QMJHL
E. Gelinas	QMJHL
D. Savard	QMJHL
B. Gormley	QMJHL
J. Leduc	QMJHL
A. Janosik	QMJHL
J. Blain	QMJHL
S. Carrier	QMJHL
D. Fournier	QMJHL
J. Zboril	QMJHL
T. Chabot	QMJHL
J. Roy	QMJHL
N. Meloche	QMJHL
J. Lauzon	QMJHL
A. Carrier	QMJHL
A. Bourque	QMJHL

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Does that look like a list of offence only players?

 

[aragorn]

Nobody is suggesting to run only offensive players. This is the list of CHL drafted defenders that produced at least 0.55 PPG in their draft year (2005 draft to 2015 draft).

Sorry if I spelt some names wrong. My transcribing was not very neat.

PPG > 0.55	League
K. Russell	WHL
R. Macias	WHL
K. Cumiskey	WHL
L. Pyett	WHL
T. Hickey	WHL
K. Alzner	WHL
A. Plante	WHL
J. Blum	WHL
J. Niemi	WHL
J. Spurgeon	WHL
S. Elliot	WHL
T. Barrie	WHL
M. Mackenzie	WHL
T. Rutkowski	WHL
K. McFaull	WHL
T. Stahl	WHL
D. Siemens	WHL
J. Morrow	WHL
R. Murray	WHL
G. Reinhart	WHL
M. Rielly	WHL
M. Dumba	WHL
D. Pouliot	WHL
D. Thrower	WHL
D. Severson	WHL
S. Jones	WHL
J. Morrissey	WHL
R. Pulock	WHL
S. Theodore	WHL
H. Fleury	WHL
J. Honka	WHL
D. Mayo	WHL
I. Provorov	WHL
N. Juulsen	WHL
P. Wotherspoon	WHL
E. Bear	WHL
R. Pilon	WHL
B. Sanguinetti	OHL
B. Shutron	OHL
P. Subban	OHL
M. Katic	OHL
Y. Weber	OHL
D. Doughty	OHL
Z. Bogosian	OHL
A. Pietrangelo	OHL
M. Del Zotto	OHL
C. Gaunce	OHL
R. Ellis	OHL
C. De Haan	OHL
E. Gudbranson	OHL
C. Fowler	OHL
S. Silas	OHL
G. Schenitsch	OHL
D. Hamilton	OHL
R. Murphy	OHL
S. Koekkoek	OHL
C. Ceci	OHL
O. Maata	OHL
J. Graham	OHL
N. Ebert	OHL
D. Nurse	OHL
C. Bigras	OHL
J. Subban	OHL
A. Ekblad	OHL
T. DeAngelo	OHL
R. McKeown	OHL
T. Dermott	OHL
R. Andersson	OHL
V. Dunn	OHL
K. Capobianco	OHL
M. Vande Sompel	OHL
T. Schemitsch	OHL
G. Bouramanan	OHL
M. Garagnani	QMJHL
I. Vishnevsky	QMJHL
M. Carle	QMJHL
P. Lessard	QMJHL
T. Brennan	QMJHL
S. Lacroix	QMJHL
M. Bourdon	QMJHL
M. Barberio	QMJHL
D. Kulikov	QMJHL
C. Roussel	QMJHL
E. Gelinas	QMJHL
D. Savard	QMJHL
B. Gormley	QMJHL
J. Leduc	QMJHL
A. Janosik	QMJHL
J. Blain	QMJHL
S. Carrier	QMJHL
D. Fournier	QMJHL
J. Zboril	QMJHL
T. Chabot	QMJHL
J. Roy	QMJHL
N. Meloche	QMJHL
J. Lauzon	QMJHL
A. Carrier	QMJHL
A. Bourque	QMJHL

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Does that look like a list of offence only players?

That's quite a list, sorry, I didn't mean for you to go through all that work. There are a few guys on that list that I've never heard of haha.

 

[RAFI BOMB]

Some older clips of Tyler Kleven.

 

[RAFI BOMB]

 

[Sweatred]

Why is there a notation that we “traded up for Klevin” in the title ... feels like a Shot at Dorion.
We have tonnes of prospects that we acquired through trades ....

 

[Bileur]

Why is there a notation that we “traded up for Klevin” in the title ... feels like a Shot at Dorion.
We have tonnes of prospects that we acquired through trades ....

It’s probably just that most on the boards were well aware of every pick the Sens had at the start of the draft and 44 wasn’t one of them.