Saginaw Spirit 2018-19 Season Thread

[lyle13]

hey spirits fans who are the Oa ,s next year.

 

[Kingpin794]

hey spirits fans who are the Oa ,s next year.

Right now the potenial OA's are Davies, Barwell, Kreis,Crawford and Cormier if he is sent back down which is highly likely. I would expect one of Barwell or Kreis plus Cormier and Crawford to start the season with an differnent OA being dealt for either in the offseason or shorty into the season in place of Kreis/Barwell.

 

[lyle13]

Right now the potenial OA's are Davies, Barwell, Kreis,Crawford and Cormier if he is sent back down which is highly likely. I would expect one of Barwell or Kreis plus Cormier and Crawford to start the season with an differnent OA being dealt for either in the offseason or shorty into the season in place of Kreis/Barwell.

i heard threw the grape vine that they commited to 2 already and looking for 1 outside of spirits organisation his possible.

 

[Finster8]

hey spirits fans who are the Oa ,s next year.

Did the grapewine tell you any names?

 

[Finster8]

Do we have a shot at the #4 pick to get reasonable talent to commit to our organisation or do we kiss another top pick away?

 

[the dog]

hearing Nicholas Porco lw Vaughan kings...named top prospect gthl banquet awards

 

[TcNorth]

hearing Nicholas Porco lw Vaughan kings...named top prospect gthl banquet awards

Is he a top 10 pick?

 

[lyle13]

Did the grapewine tell you any names?

yep i hear one his from sarnia and possibly Kitchener rangers.

 

[bcspragu]

Is he a top 10 pick?

He will be if Saginaw takes him.

Better question is he a top ten talent, that awnser is no. But to be fair about 7 of the top ten kids his year are going usdtp. Outside of them most likey Suzuki, Rees, and Bertuzzi are going in the top 3. So that leaves saginaw at 4 picking outside that top 10 talented players. After those names scouts have players all sorts of mismatched. I heard one scout say he has a player listed in the first another scout has in the 8th round. So who may be 11th on saginaw's board might be 40th on Guelphs. Then Saginaw and Flint have the added hassle of being average to bad teams in the US. Furthering the list of kids who don't want to come. If saginaw had thier first rounder report this last year I would have said to take Hughes and play the comp pick game. But needing to get a kid to report, I will gladly welcome porco to Saginaw if he is indeed who saginaw selects.

 

[Finster8]

The NHL Draft?
Gimour-6th rd, 26G +21A smart player
Coskey- 7th, stats are not everything, +2 underrated worth a pick

 

[Kingpin794]

As much as fans and keyboard GM's want to focus on ONE player, you aren't going to make or break a team with that first rounder. You separate the quality of GM's by what they do from rounds 2 on.

 

[Finster8]

Sorry dont agree, if we blow another 4th pick overall that does not sign that going to sting. Obviously our 3 2nds will provide depth and talent. We are all keyboard GM's thats the fun of doing this. To say 1 guy makes no difference is losing a skilled player who can step right into the line up.

 

[Kingpin794]

Sorry dont agree, if we blow another 4th pick overall that does not sign that going to sting. Obviously our 3 2nds will provide depth and talent. We are all keyboard GM's thats the fun of doing this. To say 1 guy makes no difference is losing a skilled player who can step right into the line up.

if our first rounder this year is good but the second rounders aren't it's gonna hurt more that the other way around.

 

[TcNorth]

Sorry dont agree, if we blow another 4th pick overall that does not sign that going to sting. Obviously our 3 2nds will provide depth and talent. We are all keyboard GM's thats the fun of doing this. To say 1 guy makes no difference is losing a skilled player who can step right into the line up.

I agree and you should get a couple/few gems with your other high picks.

 

[Finster8]

Last year it was Giroux,Grondin,Phillips and Katic who signed. Imagine if Jenkins and Wilde do not ever play a game for us. At that point trade their rights to an interested team and get something. Need guys who want to play here. DD needs to pull a rabbit out of his hat this year, we desperately need a game changer of sorts plus some solid building blocks for the future. Another no show would be devastating. Even if we sign 4-01's.

 

[bcspragu]

The problem is this, you aren't going to (or very seldomly) are going to get a game changer who wants to report here. Its the nature of the beast here in Saginaw. So you have to either draft the top kids anyway and pray they show up/move them for a large pool of assets or reach on kids who are willing to report with less talent, letting the Windsors, London's, and Kitchener's of the league draft the talented kids later in the first, further spreading the talent gap of the league.

Problem is if you continue down the second path, the league will never change. Top teams will grab higher skilled players with later picks in the draft and small market teams are relegated to essentially a 2nd tier team for them to tune up on before the playoffs.

If you go down path a and small market teams started taking these kids anyway, you can either hold out for 8 draft picks ala Flint with McLeod or 6 draft picks like Mete with Owen Sound and the drafting teams are far better off. Sure, the top team gets the high rated kids anyway. But if you are going to be drafting 2nd round talent in the 1st in order to get players to report, you might as well have the extra number of 2nd round picks these trades provide and draft 3 or 4 of these kids where they were ranked in the first place.

 

[PrioritySelection]

The problem is this, you aren't going to (or very seldomly) are going to get a game changer who wants to report here. Its the nature of the beast here in Saginaw. So you have to either draft the top kids anyway and pray they show up/move them for a large pool of assets or reach on kids who are willing to report with less talent, letting the Windsors, London's, and Kitchener's of the league draft the talented kids later in the first, further spreading the talent gap of the league.

Problem is if you continue down the second path, the league will never change. Top teams will grab higher skilled players with later picks in the draft and small market teams are relegated to essentially a 2nd tier team for them to tune up on before the playoffs.

If you go down path a and small market teams started taking these kids anyway, you can either hold out for 8 draft picks ala Flint with McLeod or 6 draft picks like Mete with Owen Sound and the drafting teams are far better off. Sure, the top team gets the high rated kids anyway. But if you are going to be drafting 2nd round talent in the 1st in order to get players to report, you might as well have the extra number of 2nd round picks these trades provide and draft 3 or 4 of these kids where they were ranked in the first place.

If Porco winds up being your pick, I would vouch for him. He's in our top-10 - even including Americans - and while I'm higher on him than most, he's got some ability. Seeing him 25+ times over the past couple of years, his game has improved quite a bit since the start of bantam and he's one of the better players in the draft in terms of his ability to generate chances.

I'm interested to see what Saginaw does in Round 2, but I wouldn't be upset with Porco @ #4.

 

[bcspragu]

Thank you for the information!

I think I came off harsher than I intended. Like I said before, if it is Porco that comes here and he wants to be here that's all I care about at the end of the day. I'll support anyone that wants to be here till the cows come home.

The league has an issue though with kids reporting to certain teams and not others. That is more so what I was getting at. I actually support these kids getting to pick and choose where they play, after all they are just kids. But I think the teams that have the issues should make it more difficult on the other teams for doing so.

 

[PrioritySelection]

Thank you for the information!

I think I came off harsher than I intended. Like I said before, if it is Porco that comes here and he wants to be here that's all I care about at the end of the day. I'll support anyone that wants to be here till the cows come home.

The league has an issue though with kids reporting to certain teams and not others. That is more so what I was getting at. I actually support these kids getting to pick and choose where they play, after all they are just kids. But I think the teams that have the issues should make it more difficult on the other teams for doing so.

You're not wrong, but it does go both ways. I look at a team like Sault Ste. Marie being a great example of a program that went from being a difficult place to get kids to come, to one that is steadily attracting not only Ontario players, but American ones as well.

While the OHL Priority Selection is always perceived as being a draft, it's almost more like NCAA recruiting within a draft. I can't see the league ever stepping in to require players to "opt in" to all 20 OHL teams, so the onus will really be on the teams to build a program that is perceived as being desirable.

 

[Savard18]

Thank you for the information!

I think I came off harsher than I intended. Like I said before, if it is Porco that comes here and he wants to be here that's all I care about at the end of the day. I'll support anyone that wants to be here till the cows come home.

The league has an issue though with kids reporting to certain teams and not others. That is more so what I was getting at. I actually support these kids getting to pick and choose where they play, after all they are just kids. But I think the teams that have the issues should make it more difficult on the other teams for doing so.

Nah, I think you were pretty much dead on with your last post. There are some advantages some teams have that Saginaw-Flint will most likely never have but it's on the owners of those franchises to put a structure in place that closes the gap in recruiting. If Erie, OS and the Soo can build frequently successful programs, so can Saginaw and Flint. Saginaw isn't being hurt by attendance much. They didn't even make the playoffs and they had solid attendance.

 

[Finster8]

Good luck in the draft today.

 

[Kingpin794]

Spirit take Nick Porco at 4. Good chance he'll show up so I think they can take one flyer with one of their seconds.

 

[Kingpin794]

Saginaw goes center, offensive D, flyer in the second with Aiden Prueter, Duncan Penman and Alex Turcotte. Good first two picks and love the Turcotte pick for down the road.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

The NHL Draft?
Gimour-6th rd, 26G +21A smart player
Coskey- 7th, stats are not everything, +2 underrated worth a pick

Coskey is seen as a 4th/5th round type guy.

Gilmour may go in that type of range as well, but he may also go un-drafted as well. Since he's likely going to be the Spirit's 1C next year, maybe a team will spend a pick in the 5-7 rounds and hoping he can explode. Leafs may even be willing to do that; with Paliafito as the Director of Player Evaluation, he does like looking at the Spirit (i.e. drafting Middleton/inviting Felhaber to camp) and the Leafs need some center depth. May see him like we did Connor Brown in 2012.

 

[Kingpin794]

Of the later picks so far, one intrigues me. We selected current NHLer Alexander Khokhlachev's brother Timofei. Will want to keep an eye out for him for maybe the 2018/19 season if he has any of the talent of his brother.