Prospect Info: 59th Overall Hunter Jones, Goalie

LaTenderness

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Feb 9, 2019
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Congrats Wild fans, Hunter Jones is an awesome goalie and an even more amazing young man.

Being from Peterborough, my 8 year old son had a chance to interview Hunter during a Petes game this season. I couldn’t believe how great he was with my kids and it was beautiful to see the advice he was giving both my sons, he just seemed genuinely cool.

Months later my son made the Novice A Petes and he excitedly told the lovely PR ladies from the Petes to pass the message on to Hunter that he had made the Petes Novice team as a goalie. Despite being in the US for the upcoming draft and all the craziness that comes with it, he somehow found out my son made the team. Even more surprisingly is he made time to call and talk to my son and congratulate him for making the team.

I couldn’t be more impressed with this special young man and hope he becomes your Carey Price.

Cheers
 

thestonedkoala

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He's a goalie... who cares? They take forever to develop anyway.

I'm ok with a goalie in that range of the draft.

Just saying; it might be better to draft a few in the later round and let them develop. Hell, it's easier to get a FA goaltender around that age.
 

TaLoN

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Just saying; it might be better to draft a few in the later round and let them develop. Hell, it's easier to get a FA goaltender around that age.
We've tried that for years, how has that turned out for us?

So far Harding is the ONLY goaltender the Wild drafted that turned into anything worth while. He was drafted a LONG time ago in the same round as this pick.

Jones has the chops to be something, and he was our 3rd pick of the draft, 2nd 2nd rounder, imo once you've made 2 solid quality skater picks, all bets are off and goaltenders are no longer a questionable position to pick at all. Over age or not makes zero impact on goalie picks.

Sometimes... depending on the situation, the goaltender is ok as the second pick himself... our situation this season though, glad we waited.
 

thestonedkoala

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We've tried that for years, how has that turned out for us?

How many goaltenders have we really taken since Harding? Kopriva, Khudobin (who has actually turned out to be a good backup goaltender. Don't know why we dumped him? I guess we had Fernandez/Harding at the time and didn't need Khudobin), Westblom, Hovinen, Hackett, Kuemper (who didn't really want to be here and we kind of screwed him up), Gustafsson, Michalek, Belanger, Kahkonen, Stezka?

So, we had a pretty stable group of goaltenders until 2006-2007, when we traded Fernandez to Boston. In 2007-2008, we had Backstrom until 2012-2013. Harding was supposed to be the heir after that, but meh? Harding's injury screwed up everything, have no idea why we traded Hackett, who was looking extremely promising (I think waivers was an issue), we also had Kuemper, who didn't want to be here. Kahkonen looks promising, and we made a great move trading for Dubnyk. Honestly, the only issues we had were in backups...and that is few and far between. The only other issue was Harding and that was a rarity and Fletcher's inexplicable trading history.

Also going through the stats this year and looking at all the goalies playing 35+ games, there were 42 of them. They are broken down in: 13 traded, 13 drafted, 15 signed as free agents and 1 expansion draft goaltenders. Now, the 2nd round is pretty good to pick up a goaltender with 4 out of the 13 drafted (almost 25%) out of that round. And then 1st and 3rd with 2 a piece, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th all have one drafted as well. So it's a bit random, but the 2nd seems to be the best place to get a goaltender - or free agency.
 
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AKL

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How many goaltenders have we really taken since Harding? Kopriva, Khudobin (who has actually turned out to be a good backup goaltender. Don't know why we dumped him? I guess we had Fernandez/Harding at the time and didn't need Khudobin), Westblom, Hovinen, Hackett, Kuemper (who didn't really want to be here and we kind of screwed him up), Gustafsson, Michalek, Belanger, Kahkonen, Stezka?

So, we had a pretty stable group of goaltenders until 2006-2007, when we traded Fernandez to Boston. In 2007-2008, we had Backstrom until 2012-2013. Harding was supposed to be the heir after that, but meh? Harding's injury screwed up everything, have no idea why we traded Hackett, who was looking extremely promising (I think waivers was an issue), we also had Kuemper, who didn't want to be here. Kahkonen looks promising, and we made a great move trading for Dubnyk. Honestly, the only issues we had were in backups...and that is few and far between. The only other issue was Harding and that was a rarity and Fletcher's inexplicable trading history.

Also going through the stats this year and looking at all the goalies playing 35+ games, there were 42 of them. They are broken down in: 13 traded, 13 drafted, 15 signed as free agents and 1 expansion draft goaltenders. Now, the 2nd round is pretty good to pick up a goaltender with 4 out of the 13 drafted (almost 25%) out of that round. And then 1st and 3rd with 2 a piece, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th all have one drafted as well. So it's a bit random, but the 2nd seems to be the best place to get a goaltender - or free agency.

We traded Hackett because Buffalo wanted him in exchange for Pominville and we had Kuemper. Had to choose one, and believe it or not, we chose the right one. I don't remember ever seeing any stories about Kuemper not wanting to be here until we were already done with him anyway.
 

thestonedkoala

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We traded Hackett because Buffalo wanted him in exchange for Pominville and we had Kuemper. Had to choose one, and believe it or not, we chose the right one. I don't remember ever seeing any stories about Kuemper not wanting to be here until we were already done with him anyway.

Hackett got injured (and a very serious injury). We didn't even need to trade for Pominville. Kuemper tried to hold out not thinking he would be re-drafted. Furthermore, he had that whole issue about re-signing here and eventually signed.
 

AJ Thelen

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Nov 19, 2010
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We traded Hackett because Buffalo wanted him in exchange for Pominville and we had Kuemper. Had to choose one, and believe it or not, we chose the right one. I don't remember ever seeing any stories about Kuemper not wanting to be here until we were already done with him anyway.

No doubt. Hackett just signed with what has been one of the worst teams in the Norwegian Elite League the last 5-6 years. Curious to see what kind of numbers he'll put up.
 

DemidovSaveUs

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May 2, 2018
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Think he has a legit shot to start. Atleast that’s the sense I get from the Canada WJC thread
 
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TaLoN

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Canada's 2020 world junior camp roster: A look at the surprises and snubs - TheHockeyNews

GOALIES
This was the most volatile category and there is good reason: netminding is going to be a huge wild card for Canada as there is no sure-fire No. 1 as there was two years ago with Carter Hart. Not making the December cut were Alexis Gravel (CHI), Colten Ellis (STL) or Zach Emond (SJ). All three play in the QMJHL and none of them had particularly strong summer showcases – though Emond didn’t play due to an undisclosed injury and left early. Olivier Rodrigue (EDM) and Hunter Jones (MIN) were also in Michigan for the WJSS and they did get an invite to Oakville. I get the sense that Rodrigue has the inside track on the starter’s job, but a couple of new invitees might have something to say about that.
They say Rodrigue is the favorite going in.

Two other invitees in the mix as well...

Joel Hofer (STL) has been excellent for the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks this season and he has the size (6-foot-5) and composure to get the job done. He’s also one of the statistical leaders in the ‘Dub’ with a 1.95 goals-against average and .935 save percentage.

Out in the OHL, undrafted Nico Daws forced his way into the conversation with an excellent autumn for the Guelph Storm. I expect Daws to be drafted this summer – last year the big netminder was simply hidden behind veteran Anthony Popovich, who led the Storm to a playoff title. But Daws was sharp at the CHL-Russia series and his stats with the rebuilding Storm have been solid.
 

thestonedkoala

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Hrm, don't know if that is good or not that Jones would be the backup. As for Daws, he's an intriguing prospect.
 

MuckOG

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May 18, 2012
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The Star Tribune is reporting that Hunter has signed his ELC today
 

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