Trevor Timmins Discussion (Part 10)

[26Mats]

Who is a good NHL player these days that was a 4th or 5th round US High School pick? It’s chasing a unicorn.

I'm not a scouting expert. It was considered a hot spot leading up to the draft, apparently.

At one point almost every good goalie was coming out of Quebec. Now 20 years later, when was the last good one. Many are from Finland now.

Development programs are key. Finland is also producing a lot of position players. For some reason u.s. high schools were considered hit. We'll see in 7 to 10 years if it was a mirage.

 

[26Mats]

Based on the fact that each team usually has 1 pick per round. Or when they have more picks, it's from the 3rd and up where you find less and less players.

True but what's the rate at which 2nd round picks become top 4 D's or top 9 forwards? Much less than 1 in 4, i.e. 25%.

Usually I'd be happy with 1 top 9 forward or 1 top 4 D. But with our extra 2nd and 4ths, and where we were picking I'd be happy with 1 of each. I'd settle for 1 of either.

 

[WinterLion]

PK Subban was an absolute stud. HOF trajectory before tanking recently. It doesn't get better than that.

Max and Gallagher are both legit first line wingers. McD I think qualifies as a stud as well. Those are all great players. It really doesn't matter if you get them in the 1st or 3rd round. Bottom line is that if we were to do it over, taking Subban in the first would've hurt us because we would've missed out on one of the other two.

Then we get into development/injury questions about guys like LL, Latendresse (who actually has some fantastic numbers) and Galchenyuk.

TT's real problem is the gap from when MT/MB took over until now. It's been a major dry spell over that period. There's Sergachev and not much else. Too soon on KK and CC right now.

Sidenote: I was rough on Latendresse when he was here. Always wanted him to be something he was never going to be. In retrospect, injuries got in the way of what should've been a really good career.

I guess I should have been more precise. You are not wrong, but I was talking about world class / top at their position / Olympics & yearly all-star ... which Price was - for about 5 years unfortunately. but none of the other were... except maybe you could argue Subban briefly...

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

I guess I should have been more precise. You are not wrong, but I was talking about world class / top at their position / Olympics & yearly all-star ... which Price was - for about 5 years unfortunately. but none of the other were... except maybe you could argue Subban briefly...

It's hard to find those players with any kind of consistency without drafting high a lot though. We're usually drafting 15th or something like that.

As for superstar, Subban qualifies along with Price for sure. I'd agree those are the only two if you're holding that high standard. But I don't think it's fair to judge a scouting team by only that standard, esp when we're not drafting high with any kind of consistency.

 

[WinterLion]

Why are 10 spots picked after a reference? Anybody knows that on most drafts you could interchange pick 25 5to 50 depending of any scouting group. For example. while you list 25 to 35 in order, CSS had those players at those ranks:

35 / 11 / 12EURO / 25 / 30 / 16 / 24 / 14 / 26 / 7Euro /34

So if the CSS in its entirety is our scouting group and they go BPA, our pick is Theodore. Then Bigras, Then Hartman etc. BUt they had Shinkaruk at 6. He went 24. They had Zykov at 7 he went 37......EAch scouting group has their own analysis. Some are looking for needs, stupidly, others aren't. And some just have different vievs on players based on where they saw them or other reasons.

All those let's watch who went 25th in all those years to compare it to a 25th pick in a certain year, or let's watch who went just before and after is just an irrelevant exercice. Also for another reason....no matter who went from 25 to 35, let take Pesce for example for Carolina. Who went 66. Yep, he went quite far....but then it was Carolina's 2nd pick that draft. Who knows if Pesce wasn't in their top 10 picks?

OK so go 25 spots or whatever, but it further proves my point if you look at the AVERAGE and don't cherry pick the top guys. My point is simply that to compare Timmins to the rest of the league you need to compare the guys he takes with all the other players... not just the best ones (or worst ones)

 

[WinterLion]

It's hard to find those players with any kind of consistency without drafting high a lot though. We're usually drafting 15th or something like that.

As for superstar, Subban qualifies along with Price for sure. I'd agree those are the only two if you're holding that high standard. But I don't think it's fair to judge a scouting team by only that standard, esp when we're not drafting high with any kind of consistency.

I agree with you. I am not judging... just hoping we get lucky and find our Pasternak... My point is that with a healthy amount of picks (like we have had) we have a much better chance and it will negate any difference in scouting staffs (because all the teams are so close in terms of scouting these days)

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

I agree with you. I am not judging... just hoping we get lucky and find our Pasternak... My point is that with a healthy amount of picks (like we have had) we have a much better chance and it will negate any difference in scouting staffs (because all the teams are so close in terms of scouting these days)

I believe we have found a superstar in CC. His resume is stellar and he's shown enough in a short period of time to convince me that he's going to score a ton of goals in this league.

I realize I'm getting ahead of myself. But I believe in this guy.

 

[WinterLion]

I believe we have found a superstar in CC. His resume is stellar and he's shown enough in a short period of time to convince me that he's going to score a ton of goals in this league.

I realize I'm getting ahead of myself. But I believe in this guy.

Yeah that would be great... I also think Kotkienemi will keep getting better... Plus the pipeline is finally well stocked.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Yeah that would be great... I also think Kotkienemi will keep getting better... Plus the pipeline is finally well stocked.

We’ll see with KK. I felt a lot better about him a month ago. Suzuki looks like he’ll be productive for us for a long time though. He and CC looked good together too.

 

[Whitesnake]

OK so go 25 spots or whatever, but it further proves my point if you look at the AVERAGE and don't cherry pick the top guys. My point is simply that to compare Timmins to the rest of the league you need to compare the guys he takes with all the other players... not just the best ones (or worst ones)

At this point, I'm not for comparing him to whoever. It's about finding that he doesn't do enough. Period. And after 18 years it's time for a change. In the history, whether we think he is partially, equally or totally responsible for our lack of great picks, who keeps their job while EVERYBODY else lost it?

More importantly.....Bergevin keeps him there. So....how come we think that Bergevin has a mediocre evaluation of people based on his trades, signings, and people he surrounds himself with....why is it that we have to believe that keeping Timmins is a great move? Why couldn't it be another one of his bad idea?

 

[WinterLion]

At this point, I'm not for comparing him to whoever. It's about finding that he doesn't do enough. Period. And after 18 years it's time for a change. In the history, whether we think he is partially, equally or totally responsible for our lack of great picks, who keeps their job while EVERYBODY else lost it?

More importantly.....Bergevin keeps him there. So....how come we think that Bergevin has a mediocre evaluation of people based on his trades, signings, and people he surrounds himself with....why is it that we have to believe that keeping Timmins is a great move? Why couldn't it be another one of his bad idea?

I like what Bergevin has done in terms of developing players. He has gotten us all kinds of picks, he trades back to get more value and hiring Bouchard has been great for the AHL players. I mean I guess I would have liked him to get us more young players...but we need to be realistic...

 

[Whitesnake]

I like what Bergevin has done in terms of developing players. He has gotten us all kinds of picks, he trades back to get more value and hiring Bouchard has been great for the AHL players. I mean I guess I would have liked him to get us more young players...but we need to be realistic...

I've advocated for Lefebvre to be fired in 2015 and Bouchard to be hired. Bergevin took 3 more years to wake up. All kinds of pick...except trading 2 really important picks for Andrew Shaw. He's the one who keeps Timmins. He's the one who decided to go with the scouting group he has. He's the one that hires coaches. The one that keeps changing plans depending of the wind etc.

 

[Andrei79]

Looking at the Capitals drafting from 2009 to 2015... Man that was phenomenal scouting. Drafted almost a whole top 6, a first pair and a Vezina goaltender. With their highest pick being the 11th in a very weak draft, while mostly drafting late first.

This should be the standard in Montreal, which it hasn't been in decades.

 

[Habs Icing]

Looking at the Capitals drafting from 2009 to 2015... Man that was phenomenal scouting. Drafted almost a whole top 6, a first pair and a Vezina goaltender. With their highest pick being the 11th in a very weak draft, while mostly drafting late first.

This should be the standard in Montreal, which it hasn't been in decades.

Well, that's what some of us have been saying for a while. And BTW it's not just the Caps.

 

[dcyhabs]

Well, that's what some of us have been saying for a while. And BTW it's not just the Caps.

It's not many teams. Most teams have some good players from top 10 picks and maybe an occasional late pick every few years. There are not many teams that are consistently good. Most teams I thought to be drafting well don't look so good considering all their picks. I'll take a look at Washington.

The habs need to get to that level but the first step is to start hiring and grooming people so as to have a good team. Firing the current people is a step in the process, but it is not the first step. Hiring an overall president to ensure people who know stuff are not ignored would be a good start. The habs have money, they should have a big group of scouts and analysts.

 

[DAChampion]

It's not many teams. Most teams have some good players from top 10 picks and maybe an occasional late pick every few years. There are not many teams that are consistently good. Most teams I thought to be drafting well don't look so good considering all their picks. I'll take a look at Washington.

The habs need to get to that level but the first step is to start hiring and grooming people so as to have a good team. Firing the current people is a step in the process, but it is not the first step. Hiring an overall president to ensure people who know stuff are not ignored would be a good start. The habs have money, they should have a big group of scouts and analysts.

Having more cooks in the kitchen isn't necessarily better.

 

[Sorinth]

Having more cooks in the kitchen isn't necessarily better.

Although more scouts might not be the answer there's a case to be made for hiring a bunch of people to do the grunt work behind analytics such as counting controlled zone-entries, etc... And that's not to say that we should draft purely on analytics just that it's something that can help inform decisions especially with regards to identifying players that might get overlooked and who the scouts can then go actually scout.

Since the number of teams that teams draft from is so large it seems impossible, but really that's what flexing the financial muscle would look like.

 

[montreal]

I don't like that saying though, I know what you mean, but capitalizing on every pick is very important. I love the Farrell pick but it doesn't excuse Timmins for the two previous... Just imagine if you get good value on most of them, it gives your organization an incredible edge.

Carolina and San Jose had awesome drafts in the last years where at almost every pick I was just impressed with their selections. No fillers no waste. Wonder why the Habs feel like they can make weird ones.

It's also too early to say they were bad picks as one is rumored to have been injured so we'll see what next year brings for him. The other is the kind of pick you want in the 4th round as if he had better skating, he likely goes 2nd or 3rd round since he's got NHL size, strength and a good bit of skill.

As for why they picks, there's likely something in that we made a shit ton of picks over the last 3 drafts (29) and with at the time something like 25 more picks over the next 2 drafts. So with us being up against the 50 this year, they let Fonstad walk. While likely not a big loss, if we didn't make so many picks and had so many more coming up, I could see him being signed in years past.

So picking guys that you get 4-5 years to sign does make a lot of sense when you look at the situation we are in.

Other times I think it's due to the draft, if it gets really thin later on then you see more odd things. Like in '19 when they drafted 2 players from leagues never drafted and RHP because they were worried he wouldn't sign with us as a FA. Of course it could be just the scouts thinking they see something others don't, like Rockstrom pushing for MB to trade for a 7th round pick so we could pick Henrikson.

Who is a good NHL player these days that was a 4th or 5th round US High School pick? It’s chasing a unicorn.

just off the top of my head cause it caused me so much pain as I was screaming at tv to pick him in the 7th round in '08 or before the 6th round in '09, but Anders Lee was picked out of the Minnesota USHS. I watched him play at STA when he was 15 and pushed for us to sign him for a couple years. He went undrafted in '08 because he was highly scouted QB for the NCAA and teams were concerned he would go that route. Still can't believe he fell to the 6th round though the next year.

 

[Habs Halifax]

I believe we have found a superstar in CC. His resume is stellar and he's shown enough in a short period of time to convince me that he's going to score a ton of goals in this league.

I realize I'm getting ahead of myself. But I believe in this guy.

He's on the cusp to be a top line forward who can cause damage for sure. Right now today, he is solid. Question is how much better can he get as he gets more comfortable and also adds a bit of muscle. If he develops better skating and a puck possession 5/5 type, watch out!

 

[Sorinth]

See I am fine with the Colbert, Kostitsyn and Beaulieu picks. These players had skill and upside, but mostly didn't pan out. The way I look at it though is if you take 10 high skill guys like AK46, it will give you busts, middle 6 guys but also top 6 players, like AK 46, and a couple top line players. But if you take 10 Tinordis you get busts, a bunch of bottom pair guys and a couple no.4 D men.

So I go for the skill and upside because you need top end players more than role players. And when I say skill players, it does not mean size, tenacity, mean streaks are not factors to look for. But for me, skill is key.

There's a difference between skill and upside though. Tinordi wasn't a high skill prospect, but he certainly had a high upside. All I'm saying is that I don't believe when they drafted those big guys they were picking guys who they felt didn't have that high end upside. They 100% thought Tinordi's upside was going to be a poor man's Chara and that McCarron could be a Lucic. And it wasn't just our scouts, just go back to 2012/13 threads and see how many people were penciling Tinordi in as our top pairing LD.

I do agree that the focus needs to be on getting top end players as role players are mostly irrelevant for drafting. But first off I'm pretty sure they already do this (This doesn't mean they might not be bad at evaluating upside) and second I'm not convinced that going with skill as the primary factor actually nets you more top end players.

 

[dcyhabs]

Having more cooks in the kitchen isn't necessarily better.

You don't want more decision-makers, though the habs should probably have someone other than MB making a lot of the calls. I suspect you want more scouts and more analysts. You want to analyze more players in more ways and you want as much information as you can interpret intelligently.

 

[dcyhabs]

There's a difference between skill and upside though. Tinordi wasn't a high skill prospect, but he certainly had a high upside. All I'm saying is that I don't believe when they drafted those big guys they were picking guys who they felt didn't have that high end upside. They 100% thought Tinordi's upside was going to be a poor man's Chara and that McCarron could be a Lucic. And it wasn't just our scouts, just go back to 2012/13 threads and see how many people were penciling Tinordi in as our top pairing LD.

I do agree that the focus needs to be on getting top end players as role players are mostly irrelevant for drafting. But first off I'm pretty sure they already do this (This doesn't mean they might not be bad at evaluating upside) and second I'm not convinced that going with skill as the primary factor actually nets you more top end players.

The tough part of drafting is projecting how players will improve. You can check current stats, and normally scorers will score at higher levels, and that much is easy. The problem is projecting who will grow or improve and how their skill will translate. Most current stars had impressive junior stats, but some didn't. The main problem with the Tinordi and McCarron picks is that Tinordi looked better in his first camp than in subsequent ones, both because of habs development and because of league-wide changes that made his "good for a big guy" speed not so good, McCarron did not get a skating coach until his last year with the habs. I think both are back in the league now.

Both guys improved somewhat until they got to the habs. Tinordi regressed, McCarron didn't get much better, and they were both concussed by career AHLers. You don't draft picks you want to develop when you don't have a functional development system.

My issue with these picks (outside of the crappy development) is that the Tinordi one seemed TSN/RDS motivated, and the McCarron pick looked like they were trying to draft a power forward in the first round without considering what was actually available. At the beginning of MB's tenure I got the impression that he was watching a lot of sports news, and that is really not a good thing. Maybe he's talking to the media or whatever, but I would hope he is not GMing based on these guys. I can understand drafting for need to an extent, but not to the extent of taking McCarron in the first round. If there is no first round power forward available draft someone else. Note that both these picks were pretty late, and other teams went 50/50 at that point.

 

[Sorinth]

The tough part of drafting is projecting how players will improve. You can check current stats, and normally scorers will score at higher levels, and that much is easy. The problem is projecting who will grow or improve and how their skill will translate. Most current stars had impressive junior stats, but some didn't. The main problem with the Tinordi and McCarron picks is that Tinordi looked better in his first camp than in subsequent ones, both because of habs development and because of league-wide changes that made his "good for a big guy" speed not so good, McCarron did not get a skating coach until his last year with the habs. I think both are back in the league now.

Both guys improved somewhat until they got to the habs. Tinordi regressed, McCarron didn't get much better, and they were both concussed by career AHLers. You don't draft picks you want to develop when you don't have a functional development system.

My issue with these picks (outside of the crappy development) is that the Tinordi one seemed TSN/RDS motivated, and the McCarron pick looked like they were trying to draft a power forward in the first round without considering what was actually available. At the beginning of MB's tenure I got the impression that he was watching a lot of sports news, and that is really not a good thing. Maybe he's talking to the media or whatever, but I would hope he is not GMing based on these guys. I can understand drafting for need to an extent, but not to the extent of taking McCarron in the first round. If there is no first round power forward available draft someone else. Note that both these picks were pretty late, and other teams went 50/50 at that point.

I mostly agree, but the scouts need to draft who they project will be the best players, they can't draft players around the fact that the team is really bad development wise. They have to do their job to the best of their ability and let the GM fix the areas that need fixing.

The fact that both guys were on track to be good NHL players up until they made the NHL and then regressed makes it hard to say whether they were bad picks or not. I mean it's easy to say they just wanted a PWF and so reached with McCarron, but at the same time he was an offensive force in his final junior year and then went almost ppg as a rookie in the AHL for 20-30 games before getting called up to the NHL. At that point everything was looking like he actually did have offensive potential as you don't go ppg in the AHL as a rookie without having offensive talent. But we also don't know whether he would've been able to maintain that AHL production over a full season.

 

[dcyhabs]

I mostly agree, but the scouts need to draft who they project will be the best players, they can't draft players around the fact that the team is really bad development wise. They have to do their job to the best of their ability and let the GM fix the areas that need fixing.

The fact that both guys were on track to be good NHL players up until they made the NHL and then regressed makes it hard to say whether they were bad picks or not. I mean it's easy to say they just wanted a PWF and so reached with McCarron, but at the same time he was an offensive force in his final junior year and then went almost ppg as a rookie in the AHL for 20-30 games before getting called up to the NHL. At that point everything was looking like he actually did have offensive potential as you don't go ppg in the AHL as a rookie without having offensive talent. But we also don't know whether he would've been able to maintain that AHL production over a full season.

I'd forgotten McCarron put up points in his first AHL stint. I remember Lefebvre trying to make him into a third line goon after he was sent back down. Don't know how much was game translation and how much was just bad development. He's playing in Nashville now.

 

[Andrei79]

Who is a good NHL player these days that was a 4th or 5th round US High School pick? It’s chasing a unicorn.

Whats interesting is there have been excellent Swedes and Russians at those spots though, two places Timmins' scouting has been just brutal.