Trevor Timmins Discussion (Part 10)

[DAChampion]

As in Niklas Lidstrom? Well...teams WERE ripped for not doing it. And then, scouting wasn't what it was then then it is now don't you think? You are really comparing those 2 eras? 1989 to 2019? And if Pittsburgh thought it deserved to send 3 picks for him....you don't think we could have had the wisdom to do so? Was that type of trade done for the Wings to get their hands on Lidstrom?

Point is, Timmins and Cie says that at equal talent, they will look at the local talent. It's f***ing bogus. They don't care about the Q. They don't want Q prospects. By doing so, they do NOT do everything they can to build a better team.

Who don't see the difference between Lidstrom and Légaré? ONe from benefitting from subpar drafting in that part of the world, in an era where scouting wasn't what it is now and an other benefitting from a subpar scouting from the Montreal Canadiens in their own backyard in a scouting era that is way better than it was before?

They can't prioritize every league why is it so important to prioritize the Q?

 

[Habs Icing]

Yep to all of it. Q has been underscouted and we are missing prospects out of it. Whether drafted players...or even non-drafted players. How in the world do you miss undrafted players? When Timmins goes with his McCagg type of swag with his infamous ''not my fault if the guy wasn't there anymore' or ''I would have picked him if I would have had the chance'' f***ing bogus remarks...., how do you explain the Gourde? The Marchessault? The Barré-Boulet? The Myers? etc. And how about like I said before the Nathan Légaré?

AS far as the american league I love myself.....it's overblown. The great '' but we have 4 years to evaluate'', as of today, it benefitted us with Jake Evans. That's it. Every other American players were either signed before the first 2 years or just let go. So the famous it gives us more time to evaluate is bogus and never benefitted us in any way except for Evans...and we will see with Harris.

Actually, the drafting of American high school kids is a telling sign of Timmin's ineptitude in more ways than one. He was right in turning our attention to the giant to the south. Since TT became head scout the USA has become the second largest provider of players for the NHL. The last 18 years have seen their % of NHLers almost double. So he was correct on that point.

But where the puck are the American players on the Habs? All this attention and you have nothing to show for it after 18 years. Yeah, we have Caulfield coming and maybe Poehling. No, there is something seriously wrong with our amateur scouting and it starts at the top with TT. For the most part they are unable to spot talent.

 

[dcyhabs]

They can't prioritize every league why is it so important to prioritize the Q?

They shouldn't "prioritize" it by taking players who are worse than other available players but they should have a good view of local players and they should be able to find and evaluate the good ones, like taking Giroux over Fisher. Most other habs picks you can at least point to a reason: McCarron was a power forward in a draft that didn't have many, Tinordi was big with bloodlines, AK was a top European in a year North American players were better, but there is really no excuse for the Fisher pick, for not knowing that Giroux would be good and for somehow thinking Fisher would be. They should have been sure of Giroux's potential.

 

[Whitesnake]

They can't prioritize every league why is it so important to prioritize the Q?

Where in this am I talking about prioritizing? How about acknowledging it?

And by the way, why can't you prioritize every league? Are we that poor so that we have a limited number of scouts and we choose at the start of every year which league to prioritize? Is that what ''build from the draft'' means?

 

[Whitesnake]

They shouldn't "prioritize" it by taking players who are worse than other available players but they should have a good view of local players and they should be able to find and evaluate the good ones, like taking Giroux over Fisher. Most other habs picks you can at least point to a reason: McCarron was a power forward in a draft that didn't have many, Tinordi was big with bloodlines, AK was a top European in a year North American players were better, but there is really no excuse for the Fisher pick, for not knowing that Giroux would be good and for somehow thinking Fisher would be. They should have been sure of Giroux's potential.

Yet again, if the McCarron pick was to pick a power forward in a draft that didn't have many....that's called for the needs strategy that keeps proving how bad it is everytime it's used.

 

[DAChampion]

Where in this am I talking about prioritizing? How about acknowledging it?

And by the way, why can't you prioritize every league? Are we that poor so that we have a limited number of scouts and we choose at the start of every year which league to prioritize? Is that what ''build from the draft'' means?

It may be impossible to prioritize every league.

 

[yianik]

Again, not about prioritizing any league. Prioritizing means allotting scarce resource by favoring one over another. The Habs do not need to prioritize as the cost of scouts should be chump change to this organization.

What should happen. At a point in time, not a year, or 2, but not 10, maybe 4-5. Head of scouting needs to direct everyone's attention to our drafting.

So say in 2008, TT should say, hey guys, as I look around the league, I see good Swedish players. And quite a few are drafted late 1st and lower. Why have we not drafted a good Swede since I have been here, and it's been 29 years since this organization drafted a good Swedish player. Why ? And then do something about it until we start landing good Swedish players.

Do a similar review of every league that produces players. And yeah, that includes the Q.

If a league hardly produces NHL players, okay don't sweat it. Buy if a league generates 30-40 -50 plus over 10 years and you have not gotten any of them, there is a problem.

Either your scouts are not good, or you very much have a bias for certain leagues and against certain leagues. And this means you are missing out on players.No good Swedish players in 42 years. How has TT not addressed that. Is it the scouts, or is it bias ? Is it both ? Is it TT ?

Fair to ask on the Q also. Why nobody since Tender and Lapierre ( going by pure memory here so could be wrong ) ? Bad scouts? Does TT not trust the scouts, or is it the league he doesn't trust ?

Like I said in another post, you can't be okay with not drafting good players from a league that does produce good players.

Remember when a few teams , especially Detroit took a shot at Soviet players and the Habs just did a token pick of Tretiak ? And after that the Habs really didn't pay much attention to Russia for a long time? Thank God though we did take a shot at Markov in a lare round. Think if we had been like Detroit?

The sin is we have missed the boat on tons of Swedish players, and Q players, and I guess other leagues, and we are fine with that. I mean its great because we have a bunch of real top players in our top 6 and top 3D that TT drafted from US leagues and other Canadian leagues right ? Don't we? We must, otherwise TT and the team would have addressed this.

Like I have said, to get back to average, sìnce 2012 ( I consider 2003-11 a break even ) TT needs about 5 top players to develop from guys he currently has drafted, and that would just be average.

There was a problem with development, and drafting. Hope TT has nailed a bunch of picks, but even if he has, we could do even better if we fixed whatever is wrong with our approach to the Q , and especially Sweden.

 

[Forsead]

Yep to all of it. Q has been underscouted and we are missing prospects out of it. Whether drafted players...or even non-drafted players. How in the world do you miss undrafted players? When Timmins goes with his McCagg type of swag with his infamous ''not my fault if the guy wasn't there anymore' or ''I would have picked him if I would have had the chance'' f***ing bogus remarks...., how do you explain the Gourde? The Marchessault? The Barré-Boulet? The Myers? etc. And how about like I said before the Nathan Légaré?

AS far as the american league I love myself.....it's overblown. The great '' but we have 4 years to evaluate'', as of today, it benefitted us with Jake Evans. That's it. Every other American players were either signed before the first 2 years or just let go. So the famous it gives us more time to evaluate is bogus and never benefitted us in any way except for Evans...and we will see with Harris.

Even if the Habs had an incredibly stupid policy of blindly taking the highest touted Quebec born-Franco QMJHL prospect each year when drafting with their low first round pick, they would have more success as a francise. That's how bad the scouting has been.

Here's the significant swaps :

David Fischer – Claude Giroux
Max Pacioretty - David Perron
Nathan Beaulieu – Phillip Danault
Noah Juulsen – Anthony Beauvillier
Ryan Poehling – Maxime Comtois

 

[Whitesnake]

It may be impossible to prioritize every league.

Why? What do you mean by prioritizing?

 

[Whitesnake]

Even if the Habs had an incredibly stupid policy of blindly taking the highest touted Quebec born-Franco QMJHL prospect each year when drafting with their low first round pick, they would have more success as a francise. That's how bad the scouting has been.

Here's the significant swaps :

David Fischer – Claude Giroux
Max Pacioretty - David Perron
Nathan Beaulieu – Phillip Danault
Noah Juulsen – Anthony Beauvillier
Ryan Poehling – Maxime Comtois

And note that this is not what I want. But....yeah...even the great 2007 draft....if we end up picking Perron instead of Pacioretty....There is NO way that the same ones who defend the AKost pick despite the much better players chosen after would be able to diss Perron's pick for Patch 'cause Perron stats are just close to Patch stats. But then...Perron would have ended up playing with us so....fair to say his stats woudln't be as good...Still, he'd be a fine NHL'er.

But that's nto what I'm advocating at all obviously. Don't blindly pick from one league. Just don't diss any leagues. The day you f***ing pick out of Midget AAA, USHS is the f***ing day you have to be better at picking in the Q...

And Q isn't solely québécois...it's Kucherov, Marchand, Weegar (7th round), Palat (7th round) etc.

 

[dcyhabs]

Yet again, if the McCarron pick was to pick a power forward in a draft that didn't have many....that's called for the needs strategy that keeps proving how bad it is everytime it's used.

I agree teams should go BPA as a rule, but I can agree with violating the principle to get players that the team absolutely needs that cannot easily be obtained outside the draft. Top scorers, power forwards, top centers, these guys almost never get traded. Top scorers are almost never a reach, but I can understand the habs reaching for a center or a power forward, at least until they traded for Anderson. Of course you are right in that the reach draft picks did not work out and they ended up acquiring enough centers that they did not need to reach, reaffirming the principle.

I'm on the fence for the McCarron pick. I really don't agree with taking the best of something in a draft that doesn't have that. Go with the draft, don't try to fake it. On the other hand McCarron might actually have had potential before he was called up too early, sent back down with no confidence, pushed to fight career AHL goons with no NHL chances, and told to prepare for a third line role with no skating coach until he hired his own in year 3. Based on sane picks he should have been available in the second round allowing a saner pick in the first round, but then this is the NHL where size and truculence are overvalued, so he might not have been there.

In any case there just weren't many players left by the habs pick and none who weren't still available in round 3: Theodore, but he didn't break out before changing teams, and a bunch of nobodies until you hit the third round with Guentzel, Buchnevich, Bjorkstrand, and a few other guys who broke through after changing teams . Maybe they reached because what was left was crap and they might as well take the guy who could help them if he worked out? Any significant misses made it to the third round so it's more the De La Rose and especially the Fucale picks that look bad. De La Rose wasn't a terrible pick, but I subjectively ascribe the Fucale pick to MB watching too much TSN instead of listening to scouts who actually know stuff; I was unhappy at the time and I'm obviously unhappy with the pick now even though Fucale is in the NHL.

BPA, but you can't always be sure, and if you are going to cheat a bit then cheat for the guy who will help you if he hits his ceiling.

Too much alcohol makes me overly verbose...

 

[Hins77]

Even if the Habs had an incredibly stupid policy of blindly taking the highest touted Quebec born-Franco QMJHL prospect each year when drafting with their low first round pick, they would have more success as a francise. That's how bad the scouting has been.

Here's the significant swaps :

David Fischer – Claude Giroux
Max Pacioretty - David Perron
Nathan Beaulieu – Phillip Danault
Noah Juulsen – Anthony Beauvillier
Ryan Poehling – Maxime Comtois

Q league is an underrated league around the NHL and habs management doesnt take advantage of it. Clearly boisvert and audette arent really influent and doesnt have a big voice into this amateur scout group.

 

[Whitesnake]

I agree teams should go BPA as a rule, but I can agree with violating the principle to get players that the team absolutely needs that cannot easily be obtained outside the draft. Top scorers, power forwards, top centers, these guys almost never get traded. Top scorers are almost never a reach, but I can understand the habs reaching for a center or a power forward, at least until they traded for Anderson. Of course you are right in that the reach draft picks did not work out and they ended up acquiring enough centers that they did not need to reach, reaffirming the principle.

I'm on the fence for the McCarron pick. I really don't agree with taking the best of something in a draft that doesn't have that. Go with the draft, don't try to fake it. On the other hand McCarron might actually have had potential before he was called up too early, sent back down with no confidence, pushed to fight career AHL goons with no NHL chances, and told to prepare for a third line role with no skating coach until he hired his own in year 3. Based on sane picks he should have been available in the second round allowing a saner pick in the first round, but then this is the NHL where size and truculence are overvalued, so he might not have been there.

In any case there just weren't many players left by the habs pick and none who weren't still available in round 3: Theodore, but he didn't break out before changing teams, and a bunch of nobodies until you hit the third round with Guentzel, Buchnevich, Bjorkstrand, and a few other guys who broke through after changing teams . Maybe they reached because what was left was crap and they might as well take the guy who could help them if he worked out? Any significant misses made it to the third round so it's more the De La Rose and especially the Fucale picks that look bad. De La Rose wasn't a terrible pick, but I subjectively ascribe the Fucale pick to MB watching too much TSN instead of listening to scouts who actually know stuff; I was unhappy at the time and I'm obviously unhappy with the pick now even though Fucale is in the NHL.

BPA, but you can't always be sure, and if you are going to cheat a bit then cheat for the guy who will help you if he hits his ceiling.

Too much alcohol makes me overly verbose...

See...the thing is that it's false that you can't get those types of players...top scorers, power forwards and top centers. You can. How? By having so much depth because you went BPA that you can trade your prospects in a swap deal for other types of prospects you need more...and that are more proven. Like...Jones for Johansen. To me, Seth Jones was the CLEAR BPA at 4. Clear. If Columbus don't go for Jones and go for what they could see a need in Centerman, they might go Lindholm. And then never be able to get Johansen because of it. So why would you want to draft a need that will never be a need 'cause he won't make it..instead of a great player in a position you have a dozen of, but then will be able to swap him for another type of prospects you don't have, a little later in both careers, but where you will know more whether they make it or not?

It's not about Theodore breaking when....Theodore was already a great skater with nice offensive stats. In an already known ordinairy draft, nobody will make me believe that he wasn't BPA even before it came to us.

True. BPA you can never be sure. And that was never my point. If there was a strategy to be SURE, I'm SURE that others would have used that strategy before. So we can't be sure....but I'm SURE as hell that it's a better strategy than need.

 

[JianYang]

Actually, the drafting of American high school kids is a telling sign of Timmin's ineptitude in more ways than one. He was right in turning our attention to the giant to the south. Since TT became head scout the USA has become the second largest provider of players for the NHL. The last 18 years have seen their % of NHLers almost double. So he was correct on that point.

But where the puck are the American players on the Habs? All this attention and you have nothing to show for it after 18 years. Yeah, we have Caulfield coming and maybe Poehling. No, there is something seriously wrong with our amateur scouting and it starts at the top with TT. For the most part they are unable to spot talent.

Well, they did have mcdonagh. It's not his call to trade him. Pacioretty was a very good pick. Chris higgins was solid. Not sure if he was around for hainsey but he ended up with a long career. Komisarek had a sharp decline, but not sure I'd qualify him as a bust either. Again though, I'm not sure if Timmins was around for that pick just yet.

Leblanc and Fischer are probably the big fails from the collegiate system under his tenure.

He's been around for so long now, so I might be missing a few names here that panned out in college (or other big fails)

 

[Habs Icing]

Well, they did have mcdonagh. It's not his call to trade him. Pacioretty was a very good pick. Chris higgins was solid. Not sure if he was around for hainsey but he ended up with a long career. Komisarek had a sharp decline, but not sure I'd qualify him as a bust either. Again though, I'm not sure if Timmins was around for that pick just yet.

Leblanc and Fischer are probably the big fails from the collegiate system under his tenure.

He's been around for so long now, so I might be missing a few names here that panned out in college (or other big fails)

Higgins, Komisarek and Hainsey were not Timmins' picks. He started with the 2003 draft.

 

[BLONG7]

Q league is an underrated league around the NHL and habs management doesnt take advantage of it. Clearly boisvert and audette arent really influent and doesnt have a big voice into this amateur scout group.

Didn't someone already tell us there are less players coming from the Q for years now? These kids just for the most part, do not have the talent to make the big show. This is not on the organization, but the people who run the hockey program at the root of it all, when they are young young kids. Does the province put the money in to the minor hockey programs like the other provinces?

 

[Whitesnake]

Didn't someone already tell us there are less players coming from the Q for years now? These kids just for the most part, do not have the talent to make the big show. This is not on the organization, but the people who run the hockey program at the root of it all, when they are young young kids. Does the province put the money in to the minor hockey programs like the other provinces?

But having less talent does not mean having no talent. And since quite a few teams don't have permanent scouts in the Q 'cause they also might give less attention to the league, the less talent that there is in the Q might be divided between less teams compared to WHL or OHL.

If there's 30 talents in the OHL and 30 teams is intererested, how's that any better than just 15 talent in the Q...but where only 15 teams might be interested? Ratio is the same.

 

[Whitesnake]

Mind you...I talk a lot about the Q.....but look at Sweden.

Can people realize that the best prospect we got since Timmins came in is....Jacob de la Rose?

There is this US obsession that Timmins has and it has costing us a lot. Was more apparent though at the start of his career than right now though. Except...last year. But way too early too tell.

 

[barbu]

Chili updated his thread with this season's results. Pretty damning. Catastrophic for forwards and mediocre for defensemen despite the narrative going on.

Update is on page 2.

Who found the talent on NHL Rosters?

 

[BigDaddyLurch]

Whole damn Organization needs a rework, and Timmins needs to be part of the outgoing ASAP...

 

[montreal]

For someone so bad, these are all the picks that have played in the NHL since last season,

Caufield, KK, Romanov, Ylonen, Poehling, Fleury, Primeau, Sergachev, Mete, Juulsen, Vejdemo, Evans, McCarron, DLR, Leks, Galchenyuk, Hudon, Beaulieu, Tinordi, Gallagher, Dumont, McDonagh, Pacioretty, Subban, Y.Weber, Price, Halak.

I am willing to bet that number is going to be much higher in 2-3 years when Guhle, Harris, Norlinder, Brook etc.. get there or are real close.

 

[The Great Weal]

For someone so bad, these are all the picks that have played in the NHL since last season,

Caufield, KK, Romanov, Ylonen, Poehling, Fleury, Primeau, Sergachev, Mete, Juulsen, Vejdemo, Evans, McCarron, DLR, Leks, Galchenyuk, Hudon, Beaulieu, Tinordi, Gallagher, Dumont, McDonagh, Pacioretty, Subban, Y.Weber, Price, Halak.

I am willing to bet that number is going to be much higher in 2-3 years when Guhle, Harris, Norlinder, Brook etc.. get there or are real close.

Lol you can't be seriously impressed by that. All those guys combined this year probably have less goals than the Sabres.

 

[barbu]

Lol you can't be seriously impressed by that. All those guys combined this year probably have less goals than the Sabres.

Far fewer. 77. Check the link.

 

[DAChampion]

Alex Galchenyuk haunts the Canadiens — and the Leafs are a win away from breaking their playoff curse

 

[DAChampion]

Far fewer. 77. Check the link.

Any theory as to why Price, Halak, and Caulfield didn't score a lot of goals this year?