prospect tournament talk

[Richard Gibson]

Look, this tournament is always going to feature a lot of guys destine for bottom lines in the AHL and ECHL. If people don't like it, we should just fold up the tournament tent. Without European and NCAA prospects we are always going to see a lot of filler short on skill. The whine fest around here is extremely embarrassing, especially for a very old, proud hockey franchise with a mature fan base. Hockey is a physical f***ing game. You can't put hockey players of this level in a competitive environment and tell them to take it easy. These guys just aren't wired that way. Oh, and if you can't handle that "goon" Dakota Joshua, you are going to have some real serious problems in North American professional hockey.

If the brass feels that other teams took liberties with their players, they have no one to blame but themselves. They host the damn tournament, set the rules, select the officials and control their roster.

Lastly, McIsaac needs to find a new line of work at this point.

it was an exhibition.dirty hit

 

[Richard Gibson]

I'm glad McIsaac seems to be okay after the hit but boy.. kid just can't protect himself. That play is a standard play where as a d-man you have to have better awareness and anticipate a hit.
At some point it's not bad luck for this guy.


Nah, goes to show how not all that matters is prospect potential for tournaments like this. We are missing our top 6 defensive prospects, and entire lineup worth of d-men. Many of the guys there are.. not good.
On the forward side we were also top heavy. Most of the mid range of our prospects (Niederbac, Mastrosimone, Söderblom, Dower Nilsson, Mazur etc) are missing, and then you lose Berggren and Raymond.

it was a dirty hit

 

[Hen Kolland]

This is the biggest issue in terms of McIsaac. He is not being injured on dirty plays or hits. He is struggling physically with pretty routine hockey plays. The guys that play a long time in this league know how to protect themselves and how to keep themselves out of compromised positions. Sadly, the only way to learn these things is through experience and playing, which is something he has not been able to do. At this point I don't know how he gets off that hamster wheel.

And yet the NHL and hockey everywhere has rules in place to try to police the types of hits that happened to McIsaac in that game. Whether you are a player who has been around or not, these hits happen routinely all over the sport, and the rules in place exist because they know exactly how dangerous they can be. We watched that reality play out in live time. He could protect himself better certainly, but there's always going to be the potential that a hit like that takes place, and the reality is it could be McIsaac, it could be Sebrango, it could be Raymond, Seider, Larkin, McDavid. It doesn't matter who it is that gets caught in a compromised position, an injury is always going to be a possibility.

I don't put this in the same category as his shoulder injuries. He got boarded and it turned his lights out. Now the concern is that he's likely concussed and has to have that dark cloud looming over his head for the rest of his career.

 

[Gniwder]

Look, this tournament is always going to feature a lot of guys destine for bottom lines in the AHL and ECHL. If people don't like it, we should just fold up the tournament tent. Without European and NCAA prospects we are always going to see a lot of filler short on skill. The whine fest around here is extremely embarrassing, especially for a very old, proud hockey franchise with a mature fan base. Hockey is a physical f***ing game. You can't put hockey players of this level in a competitive environment and tell them to take it easy. These guys just aren't wired that way. Oh, and if you can't handle that "goon" Dakota Joshua, you are going to have some real serious problems in North American professional hockey.

If the brass feels that other teams took liberties with their players, they have no one to blame but themselves. They host the damn tournament, set the rules, select the officials and control their roster.

Lastly, McIsaac needs to find a new line of work at this point.

That's actually where I was going with this. Stevie needs to bring some muscle next year, at least to even things out. Not sure why he didn't, he went through his entire career with someone protecting him, and he knows it.

 

[MBH]

Nobody who watched this tournament thinks Raymond dominated anything.

 

[lilidk]

That's actually where I was going with this. Stevie needs to bring some muscle next year, at least to even things out. Not sure why he didn't, he went through his entire career with someone protecting him, and he knows it.

Sweden produce world softest players and we draft them like crazy.

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

And yet the NHL and hockey everywhere has rules in place to try to police the types of hits that happened to McIsaac in that game. Whether you are a player who has been around or not, these hits happen routinely all over the sport, and the rules in place exist because they know exactly how dangerous they can be. We watched that reality play out in live time. He could protect himself better certainly, but there's always going to be the potential that a hit like that takes place, and the reality is it could be McIsaac, it could be Sebrango, it could be Raymond, Seider, Larkin, McDavid. It doesn't matter who it is that gets caught in a compromised position, an injury is always going to be a possibility.

I don't put this in the same category as his shoulder injuries. He got boarded and it turned his lights out. Now the concern is that he's likely concussed and has to have that dark cloud looming over his head for the rest of his career.

If you want to explain away the injuries of someone who literally cannot stay healthy, be my guest but I am not joining you for that ride. At this point I am not giving him the benefit of doubt. Hell, it wasn't even that bad of a hit notwithstanding the result.

 

[Bench]

Sweden produce world softest players and we draft them like crazy.

This is wild coming from a Wings fan.

 

[Dotter]

The only thing I got out of this "tournament" is Kirill Tyutyayev is a player to keep an eye on. Before the tourny, he was just another name that was tough to pronounce.

Other than that, nothing else has changed.

 

[Coach Reggie Dunlop]

Nobody who watched this tournament thinks Raymond dominated anything.

MBH I literally went to the second game and saw raymond dominate possession and score two goals while having incredible zone entries. Your negativity is insane especially when you weren’t even there , I WAS. He was the best player on the ice in the game against the blues.

 

[Coach Reggie Dunlop]

And in regards to mcissac, you guys are really gonna dog him for getting knocked out on a hit into the boards? Sure if he did something to a body part you could say injury prone but getting your head whipped into the boards like that can knock anyone out. It was a dangerous boarding hit in an exhibition game, I realize the kid feels bad but that jackets player needs to realize you need to ease up when hitting players into the boards directly into the numbers. It has and always will be a dangerous hit.

 

[Syckle78]

Sweden produce world softest players and we draft them like crazy.

Agreed Holmstrom and Zetterberg were as soft as they come.

 

[MBH]

MBH I literally went to the second game and saw raymond dominate possession and score two goals while having incredible zone entries. Your negativity is insane especially when you weren’t even there , I WAS. He was the best player on the ice in the game against the blues.

Pretty hard to dominate a game when you lose 5-2.
Besides, even if you think he was the best player on the ice - and I don't - that doesn't mean he "dominated."

Anything looks like negativity compared to unrealistic takes like this.

 

[jaster]

Raymond was the best Wings player in the prospect tournament. There's that at least.

 

[lilidk]

This is wild coming from a Wings fan.

It was frustrating to see unanswered elbow against Datsyuk, hit against Larkin and now in this tournament attacks against our best prospects. 10-20 years ago it never been like that. I am glad we got Edvinsson, now I prefer him over Eklund , but we need more like that , players who could stand up for his teammates

 

[Coach Reggie Dunlop]

Pretty hard to dominate a game when you lose 5-2.
Besides, even if you think he was the best player on the ice - and I don't - that doesn't mean he "dominated."

Anything looks like negativity compared to unrealistic takes like this.

Lol so mcdavid can’t be the best player just cause the oilers lose? 3 of the 5 goals the blues had came on the powerplay, which raymond wasn’t on the pk. Kindve hard to hold the score against him when that’s not his fault. At 5 on 5 he noticeably was the best player, followed by 48 for the blues. Again I was at the game, I watched it with my own eyes so I’m gonna call you out because you have no idea what you’re talking about.

 

[lilidk]

Agreed Holmstrom and Zetterberg were as soft as they come.

Both of them were more like exception. Both of them were talking beating mercilessly

 

[Hen Kolland]

If you want to explain away the injuries of someone who literally cannot stay healthy, be my guest but I am not joining you for that ride. At this point I am not giving him the benefit of doubt. Hell, it wasn't even that bad of a hit notwithstanding the result.

I don't think the shoulder injuries can be explained right now. It's more likely to be genetic than anything; whether it becomes recurring or not we don't know. The fact that he was driven head first into the boards, concussed and knocked unconscious, well it doesn't require being a Rhodes Scholar to put two and two together for "how" that came to be a situation, and I can promise it has little to do with his other injuries. You can justify it as lack of situational awareness, but that doesn't stop the best players on the planet from leaving an imprint of their face in the boards from time to time.

I'll put as similar as to the same way I did when debating things with Gniwder and then drop it there. We don't know what the future has in store for his shoulders. It's concerning that he has been injured on fairly mild contact, but we don't have anything to suggest that it's going to be a recurring problem the way that it was for Zetterberg and his chronic back problem. If it becomes that, we will know when we know, but not before then. As for the concussion, it wasn't as mild of contact. The hit drove him head first into the glass. You've entered a completely different realm of injuries once you bring the brain into the mix. I don't think the "how" or if it points to an IQ/self-preservation problem concerns me on the concussion like it appears to concern others. My concern is simply that it happened, because odds are he's going to deal with some complications in the short term and probably some complications long term as well.

 

[Syckle78]

Both of them were more like exception. Both of them were talking beating mercilessly

Except that in reality they weren't.Lids wasn't soft, Kronwall wasn't soft, Big E wasn't soft, Franzen wasn't soft. Outside the Wings as much as I hated his guts Forsberg wasn't soft,Sundin wasn't soft,Alfredsson wasn't soft,Salming,Nilsson etc etc. Hell a lot of these guys had to deal with players trying to take extra liberties because this tired trope that they are soft and would just turn and cower.

 

[jaster]

The moral of the story is that playing less physical, on average, than North Americans does not necessarily make one "soft."

 

[Realgud]

MBH I literally went to the second game and saw raymond dominate possession and score two goals while having incredible zone entries. Your negativity is insane especially when you weren’t even there , I WAS. He was the best player on the ice in the game against the blues.

His second game was much better than his first, no doubt about it. I think he was the best Wings player overall, but he far from dominated. He finished better than I'm used to (awesome shot), but also made a lot more mistakes and lost the puck to random dump ins and failed passes than I'm used to. But I think it's easy to see that he might have been rusty especially looking at his performance in game 2 vs game 1, but in no way he "dominated". Domination usually involve a lot of possession and scoring chances for your line when you're on the ice, didn't really happen with Raymond, but maybe some stats can prove me wrong.

I say that as a giant Raymond believer and I know he'll be better after getting used to NA ice and shaking off the rust of not having played competitive hockey for quite a while.

 

[Coach Reggie Dunlop]

I’m no hockey expert, but it is definitely annoying to have people tell me I’m wrong for what I saw live. Raymond showed the most skill out of any forward there, he back checked and had steals and had great zone entries while maintaining a ton of possession. His first goal came off of tons of sustained pressure in the blues zone. When you have two goals and tons of chances outside of that you dominated the game in my opinion. Like I said the only player who impressed me just as much was 48 for the blues. Think his name was perunovich, you could argue he was better than raymond.

 

[r0bert8841]

Here was Simon on Raymond after game 2:
“He’s competing, he’s working hard. He’s got three goals now in the first two games, but I think that’s a result of his play away from the puck and his willingness to get to the hard-to-score areas. He’s been good on the power play with his patience and composure, we’ve used him on the PK. But again, two goals tonight is great, but I think his play away from the puck was even more noticeable and when things were a little bit rough and chippy, he got frustrated initially in the first period but he kept his work boots on and really continued to fight through.”

 

[Coach Reggie Dunlop]

Here was Simon on Raymond after game 2:
“He’s competing, he’s working hard. He’s got three goals now in the first two games, but I think that’s a result of his play away from the puck and his willingness to get to the hard-to-score areas. He’s been good on the power play with his patience and composure, we’ve used him on the PK. But again, two goals tonight is great, but I think his play away from the puck was even more noticeable and when things were a little bit rough and chippy, he got frustrated initially in the first period but he kept his work boots on and really continued to fight through.”

Exactly what I saw, he was noticeably mixing it up with people in the corners and throwing hits. He was even getting into it with joshua. Raymond’s compete level was the thing I was most impressed with outside of his obvious skill.

 

[MBH]

Lol so mcdavid can’t be the best player just cause the oilers lose? 3 of the 5 goals the blues had came on the powerplay, which raymond wasn’t on the pk. Kindve hard to hold the score against him when that’s not his fault. At 5 on 5 he noticeably was the best player, followed by 48 for the blues. Again I was at the game, I watched it with my own eyes so I’m gonna call you out because you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Again, you seem to have a problem with words and definitions.
"Dominant" does not equal "best player."
You can be the best player in a game without dominating.
It's pretty f***ing hard for one guy to dominate in hockey. Think Pavel Datsyuk vs Phoneix in the playoffs. That's about as close as you come to dominating.

I thought Raymond was pretty underwhelming, given expectations, especially at 5 on5.
I thought he showed a dangerous shot, but it's really hard to say given the quality of video and quality of goaltending. I did like Raymond's takeaway in game 2. So I probably would say he was the Wings' best player in game 2 after a weakish game 1.
Veleno was the best all around Red Wing to me this tournament.
He's NHL level. He may not be a PLUS NHL level guy. But he can play in the NHL right now and hold down a job.

Based on raw play:
Veleno - A-
Raymond - B
Tyutyayev - B
Berggren - B
Pearson - B
Hanas - C+
Sebrango - C+
McIsaac - C
Cotton - C
Plandowski - C
Zito - C
Cossa - D
Brattstrom - B
Bednar - D

Based on expectations?

Veleno - B
Raymond - B-
Tyutyayev - A
Berggren - B-
Pearson - B-
Hanas - C
Sebrango - C
McIsaac - D
Cotton - C
Plandowski - B-
Zito - B -
Cossa - D
Bednar - C-
Brattstrom - B+

Not many players in this tournament overshot expectations
Tyutyayev and Brattstrom. That's about it.