Young Guns - You Went with the Wrong Prospect

[Dr John Carlson]

My Moosehead viewings told me Jonathan Drouin just had too much skill and would be the next Patrick Kane, while MacKinnon would just be a solid #1 pick.

 

[Voight]

I couldn't understand why Price was being picked by the Habs either. Obviously Bob Gainey saw something I didn't. I mean they had Theodore. Why do they need a goalie. Theodore, they are set with him.

They had Cristobal Huet as well

 

[overpass]

I don't follow prospects so much, but when it comes to young players with the Sens, I thought Peter Regin would have a better career than Nick Foligno. I thought Regin had the size, skill, and vision to have a solid career in the top six, and rated Foligno as a grinder who worked himself into dead ends with the puck.

As of today Foligno has played 999 more NHL games than Regin.

 

[markymarc1215]

I'm sure we all had players that we liked early on that we invested in the notion, that they'd have a greater career over another celebrated prospect within the same organization. We picked the wrong horse. Who was that guy for you (or guys)?

Maybe you were a Rangers' fan in the early '90s, and like me, you thought that Steven Rice was going to turn out to be the best pro over guys like Tony Amonte or Doug Weight. I had imaginary stock in that Steven Rice would eventually be the best player of the three. He was a year younger than Amonte, an inch taller than Weight, and in 1991, he captained Canada to a gold medal at the World Junior Hockey Championship. I was also impressed with his production with Kitchener in the OHL (60 points in 29 games in 1990-91), even still holding out a bit later with the Cape Breton Oilers in the AHL (66 goals in 96 games over two seasons).

View attachment 942581

Well that never happened.

I also would have gone with Dmitri Khristich over Peter Bondra early on. He was a year younger, two inches taller, produced at a better clip early on, and was seemingly more defensively responsible.

Who was the player, who was their direct competition, and what was your reasoning then?

In the limited games he played in the 91 playoffs, Rice actually seemed like their best forward.

 

[JackSlater]

My Moosehead viewings told me Jonathan Drouin just had too much skill and would be the next Patrick Kane, while MacKinnon would just be a solid #1 pick.

I would have definitely agreed with you. MacKinnon didn't seem intelligent enough as a player to me and I did not think that his physical abilities would translate as well as they have, and I will still say that Drouin was the better player in the QMJHL in 2013. The better player in one league, or era, is not necessarily the better player in another league or era though.

Obviously that's not how it worked out. MacKinnon translated better than I ever expected. I believe it is against site rules to post what I've subsequently heard about Drouin and his time in Halifax but his career makes sense to me now. I still think that if things broke the right way Drouin could have been Kane though.

 

[Johnny Engine]

Putting together some throughts from both 30 years of Leafs fandom, and being around an AHL city (for periods of time St. John's and the Leafs went hand in hand).

- I've brought up before how the St. John's Leafs' mid-90s prospect pool were local quasi-celebrities when I was a kid, but I don't recall any of them being known as can't-miss prospects, or thinking anything similar. I did think Marcel Cousineau was going to grab a permanent hold on the backup job behind Felix for a good number of years, and he did not. None of the rest of that pool was any good, though Darby Hendrickson was a journeyman defensive forward for a bit.
- For some reason, my friends and I thought Per Gustafsson was going to be something. No idea why. Checking in on it, he wasn't even young when he came to the NHL.
- Danny Markov jumped out to me as a St. John's Leaf, so plus one for that.
- I bought the whole Lonny Bohonos thing, and that's entirely on me being young.
- I thought Karel Pilar was going to be really, really, good after 2002, and after going back and watching that run closely, I agree with my younger self. Heart problems are a bitch and I guess you can't really speculate on what could have happened, but he wasn't very good when he came back, and then was done after having more problems.
- I was in university when Kyle Wellwood broke out as St. John's Leaf so I didn't see him live, but if I did I'm absolutely sure I'd be screaming from the rooftops that he was better than Steen or Stajan. As it was, I had a bit more of a "all interesting prospects, let's see" position. This is another one where the what actually happened is moot, since his 2007 season hinted at a possible Marc Savard-like trajectory if he didn't get injured, and then fat and lazy.
- I correctly called that Ian White was the best one out of the big sack of B-prospects trying to make it onto that era's defense corps, which is a very mild plus for me.
- Carl Klingberg jumped out to me in my first viewing of him as an IceCap, but looked worse every time I saw him. That one went south real quick and he played 12 career NHL games.
- The IceCaps had a whole bunch of solid physical defensemen when they were with the Jets, but I did not peg Ben Chiarot as the one that'd have the clear best career.
- I was indifferent to the prospects on the Habs version of the IceCaps and I suppose I was right to be.
- The Leafs had a huge prospect pool around 2016 or so and I'd see them every time they came to St. John's. I didn't immediately catch on to how good Zach Hyman was, but after someone told me to watch his board play, it was obvious this guy was headed places. I did immediately see that Nikita Soshnikov had NHL wheels and 2-way-effort, so the fact that he got in one full season before flaming out with injuries strikes me as correct enough for someone who I'd never heard of before.
- I thought Travis Dermott was significantly better than Connor Carrick and you can strike "significantly" from that.
- I told everyone that Andreas Johnsson was going to be better than Kasperi Kapanen and they're both not very good, althought Kapanen has hung out in the NHL for longer. Kapanen just didn't do creative things when he got space with the puck, which was a lot, while Johnsson has more of a rounded offensive skillset, but for reasons I never fully worked out, just goes completely invisible for months at a time. There was that weird stretch of time where some Leafs fans and media thought Kapanen was making Nylander expendable and I promise you I didn't buy that.
- Kristians Rubins was very clearly a cut above every other defenseman on the ice when he played for the Growlers. Didn't necessarily expect him to permanently make the show, but the fact that he worked himself up to a cup of coffee in the NHL isn't that surprising.

 

[Hobnobs]

I loved Jamie Storr and I loved Pavel Brendl.

I also thought Cody Rudkowsky was going to be a hidden gem.

Man, Storr is definitely gonna be better than that weird British guy, what's his face? Dafoe! Let's trade him. What kind of a name is Byron anyways?

 

[Michael Farkas]

Man, Storr is definitely gonna be better than that weird British guy, what's his face? Dafoe! Let's trade him. What kind of a name is Byron anyways?

His middle name is Jaromir, as you might have guessed...

 

[JianYang]

It was reported back when gainey acquired kovalev from the Rangers that the Rangers had their pick of jozef balej or Tomas plekanec in return as the prospect changing hands.

Now I think balej did end up having some car accident or something but that's one the Rangers would definitely want a do-over on.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I was hoping for Patrick O'Sullivan when the Bruins took Patrice Bergeron in 2003.

 

[amnesiac]

I was upset Bergevin didnt get Cody Glass for Vegas instead of Suzuki in the Pacioretty deal.

ALso like many, didnt understand drafting Price 5th overall over Gilbert Brule when they already had THeodore.

and of course, originally wouldve wanted them to take Zadina ahead of Brady Tkachuk.

 

[lakai17]

Stnislav Chistov, Gilbert Brule, Zach Hamill, Nikita Filatov, James Sheppard, Magnus Paajarvi, Colton Gillies

 

[Hobnobs]

It was reported back when gainey acquired kovalev from the Rangers that the Rangers had their pick of jozef balej or Tomas plekanec in return as the prospect changing hands.

Now I think balej did end up having some car accident or something but that's one the Rangers would definitely want a do-over on.

Nah Rangers did what they always do and gave up on him too early. Probably wouldnt have mattered who they went for.

Balej suffered a horrendous injury after being traded to the nucks. While playing for Manitoba he crashed into the boards and stick litterally speared him in the midsection and IIRC it crushed his kidney, caused a lot of internal bleeding and he almost died. It was assumed his career was over but he was pretty competitive and battled his way back that same season.

He was given a QO from the nucks but decided to return to europe instead. He has never been able to shake of injuries though so his career slowly fizzled out.

Point is Rags gave up on him way before anyone knew how his career would turn out. They would've probably traded Plecanec as well as he wasn't anything special until the '07 season.

 

[Moose Head]

I thought Ryan Poehling was a better prospect than Nick Suzuki.