The sad thing is that management basically prioritized JT Brown and Mitchell Stephens ahead/instead of Jonathan Marchessault and Carter Verhaeghe. To be fair, I never saw the production coming from Verhaeghe, but still.
Player Discussion: Anthony Duclair
- Thread starter TheDaysOf 04
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If we had kept all the best players who had ever come through the system, we would be in more/less the exact position we are now. You can't afford to keep everyone. The years when we could have kept guys like Verhaeghe and Marchessault were years we won cups, so I'm not sure what more was expected. Long-term sub-2m deals?
I don't think this is quite fair. The book on Sergachev coming out of Montreal was that he was an All Tools, No Toolbox player. And that's pretty much what he still is. Some guys stay that way for their entire career. If Montreal had really thought Sergachev was going to develop into a 1D, they would not have traded him for a kid with well-known attitude problems, no matter how French he is.
You point to Joseph, and gloss over Paul, who's having a career year. Joseph went to a team that needed him to play a bigger role, thus more points. If we had played Joseph in that role, a better player would have been demoted for it. We don't have those better players anymore, but we have Paul, who looks like the better of the two.
I think the problem is we really haven't drafted very well in the JBB era, or at least, we aren't getting middle and late round gems anymore.
Jeannot had opportunities when he arrived. He has shown literally nothing to warrant a shot on a scoring line since. There were flashes with JAM, and with Verhaeghe (the 2020 cup run). With Jeannot it's pretty apparent that the 20 goals were not typical of what he's normally capable of.
The drafting is worse, but some recent picks could be decent. Goncalves, while a reach at the time, looks to be solid. Duke should be a solid middle 6 player as long as his skating doesn't hold him back too much, it looks better this year. Howard should be able to be a quality scorer, despite defensive deficiencies. Huuhtanen has 3rd line 5v5, 1st unit PP weapon written all over him if he can make it. Thompson (who we probably shouldn't have traded away) will be a decent defenseman in the league. Gauthier projects to be a middle 6 C who is defensively responsible. Finley might come around into a bottom 6 type who can chip in some scoring here and there, poor man's later career Bjugstad.
Again, all of these guys may never make it, but there's some potential. The worse issue IMHO was Yzerman/Murray drafting worse than many believe. Connolly, Namestnikov, Koekkoek, Blujus, Hart, Erne, DeAngelo (dressing room cancer), Masin, MacLeod, Stephens, Spencer, Hajek, Katchouk, Raddysh, Foote, Volkov, Fortier, Foote is pretty below average to piss poor from most of the 1st/2nd rounders from 2010-2019. Kucherov and Vasilevskiy are the only really good NHLers and Drouin has disappointed for the most part. Luckily found Palat & Point later, plus Yzerman was a masterful trader usually.
Overall, the trade for Duclair filled an immediate need in order to make the playoffs and hopefully they re-sign him
Most draft picks miss. We hit on a LOT more than the average team through those years, mostly in the middle and late rounds in a pretty crazy way. I mean, he might have drafted as many as three Hall of Famers--two for sure. I know Cirelli isn't popular at the moment, but he was also a fantastic pick for where he was selected. Even a guy like Paquette was instrumental in a Stanley Cup win. I also don't think Namestnikov can be considered a bust or wasted pick. For as much as I'm not a fan, he has performed fine for a 27th pick.
I think the knock on Yzerman's drafting was he did not draft defensemen very well. Nick Perbix could go on to be the one most useful to the organization without even doing much, because that pool is pretty dry.
I don't buy that any of our current prospects are going to be impact NHL players. Maybe Howard, but I think he's a long shot. I think anybody we have right now will be lucky to have a career as good as Namestnikov's.
I really don't think Howard is a longshot. He's probably comparable to Sonny Milano: drive you crazy at times but go on scoring binges for short stretches at others. Craig Button has said Howard compares to Nik Ehlers, so those are the low and high end comparables for Howard.
I think you're forgetting that Syracuse (and before that Norfolk) has been a top 5 AHL talent developer for the past 12 years. I expect some of the recent picks to turn out simply because Barb Underhill and Syracuse are very good at their jobs, even when working with mostly "C+" level prospects on average.
Well don't look to me to defend Stamkos' play this year, I wanted JBB to trade him at the deadline. Now that opportunity is gone, I don't want JBB to resign him unless it's for a better deal than we'd get with anyone else in free agency. Doesn't mean I still don't get warm fuzzies when he has a two goal game like he did recently, but I don't think the next deal he'll settle for will be good for the team long term.
Is 33 EV in 60 a great season? Just asking, cause it kinda seemed like you were correcting me on that. Hagel's 56 EV in 71 is a great season to me. Joseph is having a better season this year, Paul had a better season last year when Joseph only managed 14 EV in 50 games. Paul has also been consistently one of our better faceoff guys for FWIW and was positive player the last two years before bombing this year.
Another factor is who they are playing with. I don't know who Joseph's been playing with this year or last year, but our bottom six wingers are pretty sad offensively and Paul's the C who's been stuck with it most often. Eyssimont is leading the charge there with a sparkling 20 points in 70 games.
Sky04
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- Jan 8, 2009
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48 point pace, 30+ESP, PK's while having a positive goal differential on one of the leagues worst defensive teams at 2.7M? That is a great season for his price, if Sheary was doing that for us what would his reception be vs what it is now? He's doing what Cirelli does at 1/3rd the price.
Paul's been playing in a top-6 role with inflated PP points by playing on that 1st unit, I'm not sure how you can spin linemates as negative thing for him when all he's been doing this season is cheating for offense. He's played with Eyssimont almost as much as he's played with Kucherov this season. His most common linemates are Stamkos and Hagel.... not exactly a sob story.
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Joseph is good value this year as opposed to last year when he was a very bad value - almost Sheary like (14 EV points in 50 games vs 13 EV points in 52 games). Does that matter to you or just the seasons that fit your narrative? Has Paul had a Sheary-like season with us? No, he hasn't. The worst you can say about any of his seasons with us is his +/- is very bad this year, but not as bad as 8.5 mil per year Stamkos's. You take it to an extreme though - "all he's been doing this season is cheating for offense" - I've seen Paul cheating and leaving the zone early for the sake of offense... never?
Our power play is #1 in the league, but instead of giving him any credit for stepping in for Killorn and contributing to any degree, you say his points are inflated by it. Actually only 13 of his 38 points are off the power play, and only 5 of those are assists . Eight of them are goals, good for fourth on the team. Yes, he's "inflating his stats" by putting the puck in the net. What a mooch.
Paul has played more minutes with Sheary and Eyssimont than Kucherov. Cut the minutes he's played with Kucherov in half and that's how much time he had his numbers inflated by playing with Barre-Boulet. He's spent over 3/4's of his Kucherov minute total playing with Jeannot - the guy everyone here loves for his offense. He's played with Stamkos the most, the player who does live off the PP. Paul at 3 mil per has 25 EV points to Stamkos who at 8.5 mil per has 31. Oh yeah, Stamkos isn't so good at defense either as he has a team worst -23. Hmm.... Paul's played with that guy more than anyone else and his +/- isn't great either....
I'm not forgetting about Syracuse. I'm just saying that most of that developed talent came before JBB took over drafting, and the few brightspots we've seen since were not JBB picks. I'm not even saying our drafting is weak--I'm saying it's pretty average now, whereas we once had one of the best pipelines, if not the best pipeline, in the NHL. And it was built mostly outside of the first round. It only takes a couple of NHLers per draft to make you a solid drafting team.
I just don't see any prospects demanding attention the way they used to. We saw Cirelli coming for a couple of years before he made the team, for instance. Don't get me wrong, I like the Howard pick better than most of our recent picks because it's a swing for the fences, and I think the cup teams were built on homerun picks that paid off. It only takes a few.
