Player Discussion What went wrong with Galchenyuk's and Kotkaniemi's development and progress that won't go wrong with Slafkovsky's?

[HabsWhiteKnightLOL]

They both were awful picks and also were rushed in the nhl caus our bozovin never knew how to manage prospects.

 

[StCaufield]

It was discussed in one of the linked articles.

Bergevin (control freak) forbade Scherbak from having a downtown Montreal apartment, and demanded that he commute several hours a day.

I understand keeping him away from the tempting downtown life but they wouldn’t keep him away anyway lol

 

[MonkeyBusiness]

It was discussed in one of the linked articles.

Bergevin (control freak) forbade Scherbak from having a downtown Montreal apartment, and demanded that he commute several hours a day.

Your post made me dig a bit and, after reading the bardown article, that's a horrible way to treat a prospect. Glad that nightmare is over with. Bergevin has shit for brains and doesn't know to treat human beings with basic decency; it seems he especially had a hard time with Russians. What a xenophobic prick. P.S: Slava Malamud who conducted the Scherbak interview was also the one who interviewed Panarin when he (Panarin) spoke about Putin. He's a pretty interesting interviewer and poses good questions to his guests.

 

[japhi]

I don’t think we helped Galchenyuk in any way and likely made things way worse than they had to be. I think he had the skill to score 30 in the league on a semi regular basis, but I never saw 1st line center potential. His hands were good, but his feet couldn’t keep up. I agree with you that I never saw a star player, but we turned him into a guy who is barely an NHLer. Come on now, he was good enough to carve out a top 6 career imo, now he jumps from team to team and is basically a spare part. He was better than that.

He had a few good years, his development was on pace, then he gets demoted and can never get his career back on track? So we turned him into a 30 goal guy then turned him off? I just don't believe that is how dev works, believe it or not, sometimes the player has responsibility in his own dev, how he trains in the offseason, how he lives outside the rink. Guy got slower as his career progressed and always seemed out of shape to me, had zero stamina.

And I think the injury in 2016 really set him back, a guy that was slow became an absolute slug. He was traded to AZ after a 52 point season.....and got worse. Guy he was traded for, got significantly better. Galch had his ONLY good years in MTL, seems strange to blame them for his dev, when it's clear he never had the chops. A poor mans Glen Murray. He just didn't have the game and that seemed obvious to me from the first time I saw him try and keep up with the play as a RC. I'm actually amazed he scored 30, that was clearly the outlier.

 

[dasahgah]

It's somehow never the player's fault

 

[DAChampion]

It's somehow never the player's fault

It's somehow never the management's fault.

 

[BehindTheTimes]

It's somehow never the player's fault

Obviously the player is largely responsible too, but our management and especially coaches have all been the regressive/dinosaur types that don’t put young players in a position to succeed. The really, really good ones like Subban can overcome a Michel Therrien, but many kids can’t. The object is to give them the best chance at success, not get in the way and make the path to success as difficult as possible. Our coaches in all ranks, AHL/NHL have been putrid.

 

[WeThreeKings]

It's somehow never the player's fault

The only players that made it during that era were the ones that bypassed the Habs development system completely. Like come on. No one ever said the player had no part, or drafting had no part, but they didn't value development at all and they got exactly what they put into it.

 

[Habnot]

This post reeks to high heaven of revisionism.

Gallagher doesn't count because well just because he doesn't. Bergevin's antics didn't seem to get in the way of Gallagher's development - a fifth-round pick.

As for Suzuki well you're just plain not remembering or were not spending much time on this forum during his first year with the Habs. His world junior year. Almost everyone was whining about Suzuki's lack of intensity, speed, and game involvement. It was plain to anyone who saw him play that the Suzuki who came over in the trade, if he didn't take leaps and bounds in his development, would not be an NHLer. Guess what? He developed and it was under Bergevin.

Now I'm not responding to your post to defend Bergevin. God knows he had lots of flaws. But I ask you to pick a few years of Hab drafting and you'll see the overwhelming majority of prospects crashed and burned before Bergevin's development team could get their grubby hands on them.

My take is that during Bergevin's tenure there were two major disastrous faults with management: Bergevin really didn't know how to build a modern contender and Timmins sucked something fierce at drafting. Development was way, way down on the list.

Talk about revisionist history.

Bergevin did bupkis in terms of development - his famous line was "sooner or later it's up to the player". Right - like there is no science or process behind it.

Look at what HuGo has done since they took over.

- they had 13 development resources on the ice for Rookie initiation.
- Hired a skills coach
-Built an analytics department whose mandate also includes providing data to help development
-Built an NHL coaching staff that is focussed on player develop.

Bergevin's idea of development was Lefebvre ruining prospects in Laval, Ramage meeting with players and an NHL coaching staff that had no communication skills and lesser patience with young players. I can't believe this take - development was Bergevin's weakest area amongst many disasters. I bet that next you will tell me that cap management wasn't that bad either.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

It's somehow never the player's fault

If it were one player? Sure.

But... they all underperformed or failed. That is a SYSTEMIC problem. Look what was happening to Caufield before the coaching change...

 

[jrom]

They will probably keep JF Houle in place for now (because of the playoff run) but I'm not sure he has a long future here. Was fine that in the playoffs the focus was to win but let's see how he develops during the regular season. Couple of dubious decisions last year especially with Norlinder's management.

If the focus is really on player development, the head coach in Laval becomes a key resource for the Habs

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

They both were awful picks and also were rushed in the nhl caus our bozovin never knew how to manage prospects.

Bullshit.

Galchenyuk was a great pick. We simply f***ed him up just like we did with Leblanc and every other prospect we drafted apart from Gallagher.

 

[Riddum]

In Kotkaniemi's case, the problem was drafting him in the first place. He has some good attributes but he can't use them, the majority of the time, because he lacks: skating ability, agility, athleticism and pace.

That said, Kotkaniemi's game seems more suited for the big ice, where the pace of the game is slower and there is more time to make plays.

Kotkaniemi came into the league as a twig with no muscles. Dude was 6'2 and 182

Slafkovsky is already 230lbs at 6'4 and has developed legs. He's coming in with the body of a full grown man.

 

[Belial]

Obviously the player is largely responsible too, but our management and especially coaches have all been the regressive/dinosaur types that don’t put young players in a position to succeed. The really, really good ones like Subban can overcome a Michel Therrien, but many kids can’t. The object is to give them the best chance at success, not get in the way and make the path to success as difficult as possible. Our coaches in all ranks, AHL/NHL have been putrid.

Galchenyuk scored 30 goals and put up 56 points in 82 games as a 21-year-old under the horrible Therrien!

Cry me a river man...

 

[Sorinth]

Saying it's all on the player ignores the fact that we put a bunch of hurdles in their way that caused them to stumble. Saying they should've jumped over the hurdles is irrelevant because we shouldn't be putting up hurdles to begin with.

 

[Sorinth]

Galchenyuk scored 30 goals and put up 56 points in 82 games as a 21-year-old under the horrible Therrien!

Cry me a river man...

Which highlights how he wasn't in fact a bad pick and the problem was development because instead of getting better and developing as normal he regressed. That's what happens when you put people in a toxic environment, they become damaged and will turn to unhealthy ways of coping.

 

[Belial]

Saying it's all on the player ignores the fact that we put a bunch of hurdles in their way that caused them to stumble. Saying they should've jumped over the hurdles is irrelevant because we shouldn't be putting up hurdles to begin with.

How the hell does someone develop if he never gets hurdles on his path?

You need challenges/obstacles/hurdles if you hope to grow your game!

 

[Kojo]

What went wrong mostly is that Galchenyuk and Kotkaniemi were third overall picks, and the selectors were bad at their job. We don't know if Slaf is going to be a star but he was selected first overall and he's ours now.

 

[MasterD]

Scherbak was also ordered by Bergevin to have an extremely long commute, which interfered with his schedule, his sleep, and thus ability and time to develop himself.

I’d be very very curious to see the source on that. Tons of people commute an hour + to go to work and can still have great careers. Those guys have practice on some mornings, gym in other mornings, and games in the evening once in a while… a 45-60 minutes commute isn’t the reason he didn’t develop.

There’s a reason he also didn’t make it in LA.

 

[Belial]

Which highlights how he wasn't in fact a bad pick and the problem was development because instead of getting better and developing as normal he regressed. That's what happens when you put people in a toxic environment, they become damaged and will turn to unhealthy ways of coping.

My man! just stop, please...

The next season Chucky put up 44 points in 61 games. That's almost 60 points per 82 games projection!

He was getting better in terms of production but he was as horrible defensively as he was at 18 years old!

He never learned how to be a positive influence on the ice.

I have no idea how people can blame stuff like this on coaches/development.

Do you think no one in the organization sit with him and rewatched his inexistent game away from the puck?

I mean even the year after that he still got 51 points in 82 games.

Galchenyuk is far from a bust.

He just reached his ceiling IMO.

He was never able to learn new stuff and evolve into a better player.

 

[Belial]

I’d be very very curious to see the source on that. Tons of people commute an hour + to go to work and can still have great careers. Those guys have practice on some mornings, gym in other mornings, and games in the evening once in a while… a 45-60 minutes commute isn’t the reason he didn’t develop.

There’s a reason he also didn’t make it in LA.

Yeah I mean that's some ridiculous bottom-of-the-barrel excuses diving going on.

When Scherbak returned to NA, after he failed on a couple of KHL teams, asking for another chance he admitted himself that HE was not committed enough and he didn't take his professional career seriously enough!

When the guy implicated says it himself but people on a discussion board still keep coming up with bad development stuff you just know that it's futile to even try and argue.

 

[Sorinth]

My man! just stop, please...

The next season Chucky put up 44 points in 61 games. That's almost 60 points per 82 games projection!

He was getting better in terms of production but he was as horrible defensively as he was at 18 years old!

He never learned how to be a positive influence on the ice.

I have no idea how people can blame stuff like this on coaches/development.

Do you think no one in the organization sit with him and rewatched his inexistent game away from the puck?

I mean even the year after that he still got 51 points in 82 games.

Galchenyuk is far from a bust.

He just reached his ceiling IMO.

He was never able to learn new stuff and evolve into a better player.

How the hell does someone develop if he never gets hurdles on his path?

You need challenges/obstacles/hurdles if you hope to grow your game!

lol

There's enough natural hurdles that we should be helping them overcome them rather then putting extra ones in their way. And the proof is right there for all to see, historically bad results.

And really your going to argue he wasn't good enough defensively to play more when we were using Desharnais as our #1 center. It's just so laughable, you say he was never able to learn new stuff, how is that surprising when Therrien is the coach when a player asks the coach what they are supposed to do as an answer they get a bunch of nonsensical yelling. Gee I wonder why he didn't learn new stuff from mr GRIND DA PUCK.

 

[Belial]

lol

There's enough natural hurdles that we should be helping them overcome them rather then putting extra ones in their way. And the proof is right there for all to see, historically bad results.

And really your going to argue he wasn't good enough defensively to play more when we were using Desharnais as our #1 center. It's just so laughable, you say he was never able to learn new stuff, how is that surprising when Therrien is the coach when a player asks the coach what they are supposed to do as an answer they get a bunch of nonsensical yelling. Gee I wonder why he didn't learn new stuff from mr GRIND DA PUCK.

Desharnais was not even in the portrait at this point!

The season he scored 30 goals Therrien gave him the #1 center spot with Pacioretty!

And he was only 21 years old at that point.

 

[Sorinth]

Desharnais was not even in the portrait at this point!

The season he scored 30 goals Therrien gave him the #1 center spot with Pacioretty!

Care to tell me how many games did he play in that #1 spot with Pacioretty? I'll give you a hint it was less then 20.

 

[Belial]

Care to tell me how many games did he play in that #1 spot with Pacioretty? I'll give you a hint it was less then 20.

It doesn't matter.

At that point, his development looked fantastic!

They cooked him a bit and finally, he got promoted to the first line! What's the problem?

Suzuki started on the 4th line as a winger when he made the team.