Trevor Timmins Discussion (Part 7)

[peate]

Here's some interesting facts taken from today's "What the puck" column:

And the much vaunted youth movement is in trouble. This team has failed miserably at drafting and development for ages. It was a total bust for years under head drafting guru Trevor Timmins, but then the CH hype machine went into overdrive and suggested things were turning around during the past couple of years.
But all of those heralded prospects are having difficult years. Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Ryan Poehling and Cale Fleury were dispatched to the farm team in Laval, and Victor Mete has been demoted to the third defence pairing. The only young player rocking it, Nick Suzuki, is the one prospect not drafted by Timmins and his colleagues. Interesting coincidence eh?

Look at the first-round picks in the Bergevin era. Alex Galchenyuk (2012), Michael McCarron (2013), and Nikita Scherbak (2014) are total busts. Noah Juulsen (2015) is injured and still in the American Hockey League. Mikhaïl Sergachev (2016) might be the best first-rounder chosen under Bergevin’s watch, but he was traded to Tampa in return for Jonathan Drouin, who is beginning to look like a bust, too. The three most recent first-round picks — Poehling (2017), Kotkaniemi (2018) and Cole Caufield (2019) — are all questions marks. Poehling and Kotkaniemi have disappointed and it’s far from clear they’re top-six material. And we just don’t know about Caufield because he’s still playing for the University of Wisconsin.

To me that's a fail all around for this management. Time to go, all of youse.

 

[Goldenhands]

Teams are getting alot better at drafting, its a fact, most teams still make mistakes like the Juolevi pick and some highly rated kids will keep busting (Patrick, Puljujarvi ect) since drafting 18 yrs old kids isnt an exact science either, but when you take in consideration how valuable young players are under a cap era, its normal that most teams adjusted, put more money in scouting and development, so at the end, if you really like a player (like Romanov) it becomes more risky to cross your fingers and hope he still is on the board with your next pick even if the kid is projected much lower on scouting lists...

Scouting is all about projection and speculation, its who you think will still be there at your spots, then you have to think if its worth trading up (if possible) or down, depending how the draft goes... Im sure head scouts like Timmins are living ton of emotions on draft day, happyness, ecstasy, deception, frustration (like the year where Pastrnak got drafted 1 spot before us, to the Bruins and that we ended up drafting Scherbak) ect, you spend the whole year scouting kids and 1 day may determine the future of your organisation, thats alot of pressure, but the job is probably quite worth it...

 

[MSLs absurd thighs]

I'm ready for a change...he is one of the few constants from the team over multiple regimes. I'm not solely pointing the finger at him, but at this point I'm ready to give somebody new a chance.

There are other teams that draft far better than we do...we are a rich team and those salaries don't count against the cap...find the best guy and office him double what he makes today. Simple as that.

It's not about pointing the finger at anybody. At this point, all the administration, save for Ducharme and Bouchard, should get the boot. It's that simple.

 

[justafan22]

Galchenyuk wasn't a bust

 

[BeliveauFan4ever]

I’m going to pray a super tank is in the works toward 2022, and Shane Wright.

Seeing Lafreniere in a Wings jersey will be among my 1,000 cuts. Need more band-aids!

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Galchenyuk wasn't a bust

Agreed.

And I think he was the right pick. I think we needlessly held him back and we hurt ourselves in the process. He performed immediately upon coming into the league and I think if he doesn't get hurt in 2017, his career would be far different. He's run into injury issues since and his dad isn't helping him but I think if he were drafted by any other team he'd be so much further ahead now.

Unfortunately 2012 wasn't the year to have a top five pick. There were so many better years. Once again, to actually build through the draft you usually need many bites at the apple. It's not a surprise that this team hasn't had a legit superstar scorer since Lafleur... we simply don't draft high frequently enough to get those kinds of players.

 

[Whitesnake]

It's not a surprise that this team hasn't had a legit superstar scorer since Lafleur... we simply don't draft high frequently enough to get those kinds of players.

Yep tanking would have been important. As I mentioned like a 1000 years ago. But if you have the eye, you still can get some scorers along the way outside of the 1st round.

 

[Whitesnake]

Galchenyuk wasn't a bust

We will see. But if at 26 years old nobody wants him in the NHL next year....I have no idea how you can call a top 3 pick that will not be good enough for 30 teams in the league. So it remains to be seen.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Key is to have the right draft power in the right draft. This is why I have been preaching to diversify our future picks over several draft years where we give ourselves the best probability to get in on action. Trying to predict deep draft years is almost like playing the lottery. Were talking about projections on kids in the 15-18 years of production.

You know that feeling when you are in a hockey pool and you have several targets but they all disappear right before you pick? This is no different with NHL drafting. We were able to get Romanov cause we had several 2nd round picks. If we didn't have additional 2nd round picks that draft, maybe we still draft Ylonen and Romanov is not on the board when we pick next.

Habs have finally started to stop trading away picks in year 5/8 with Bergevin. It's about time! The latest group of prospects is a solid foundation we can continue to add too. Using some parts to get proven talent is also something we should consider... Kopitar for example is a possible circumstance that might play into our favor.... and having lots of good prospects helps

 

[Sand94]

Agreed.

And I think he was the right pick. I think we needlessly held him back and we hurt ourselves in the process. He performed immediately upon coming into the league and I think if he doesn't get hurt in 2017, his career would be far different. He's run into injury issues since and his dad isn't helping him but I think if he were drafted by any other team he'd be so much further ahead now.

Unfortunately 2012 wasn't the year to have a top five pick. There were so many better years. Once again, to actually build through the draft you usually need many bites at the apple. It's not a surprise that this team hasn't had a legit superstar scorer since Lafleur... we simply don't draft high frequently enough to get those kinds of players.

Both Rielly and Forsberg would have been FAR AND AWAY better picks than Galchenyuk.

Both those guys were top ranked players. Hell, some teams went on record to say Morgan Rielly would be their #1 pick.
Bob Mckenzie had Forsberg ranked 3rd on his final ranking.

So to say it was the right pick is simply lying.
You're so delusional in your biases and opinions, its fascinating... You attribute more importance to fictional scenarios which have no way of being proved and have never actually happened (Ex: "Galchenyuk would be a much better player if he was drafted by another team/if he didn't get injured in 2017") versus relying on what actually happened in real life (Rielly is a top Dman and Forsberg a 1st line forward.)

To twist your brain into believing this garbage only discredits any other opinions you have. At the end of the day, you cannot make an evaluation on fiction or an alternate reality. You have to take the facts and real life scenarios and come to a conclusion. Everything else is just your brain coming up with garbage.

We didn't make the right pick. Looking back at REALITY tells us that.

 

[montreal]

Common theme around Boeser/Petterson, Q. Hughes - none were rushed into the NHL, and when they did arrive, they were immediately put into roles to help them succeed. None of that bottom six winger crap.

Its not just drafing, our development pathways are somehow even worse.

well said. The Nucks have a really skinny 5th OA pick that they left in the SHL for a year after being drafted. Of course it's hindsight but what a smart move that was. Not saying things would have gone any better for Kotka had we done that, but when you have a tall lanky kid that isn't a very good skater, poor lower body strength and one that spent most of his draft year as a winger and you put him in the NHL at the toughest forward position in the toughest market in the NHL. It just boggles the mind how bad this management team is.

That said, Timmins just flat out needs to be better, the Nucks are a great example, they are finding high end players while Timmins finds more average players. The development has not helped matters at all and all scouts make mistakes but he needs to find another Subban, Gallagher, kind of pick as it's just been too long with too many mistakes. Next year should be very telling in terms of where the system is at.

He said....''so you want to talk about Timmins group....'' or something like that. Just so people STILL understand that the draft is STILL directed by Timmins. And not Churla.

I never thought Timmins isn't at the top of the draft but my question has always been how much say/pull does Churla have. He has to have a major say or he wouldn't be the director of scouting. We just don't know what goes on there, if Timmins is telling Churla what to do or are they doing things by committee, what influence does MB have.

Unless I hear Timmins or MB say it, I will always believe that '13 draft they went for need in size because of MB/Churla but like I say, people see what they want to see. Who knows what is the truth.

To me the frustrating thing is that we haven't had a star offensive player in forever... we had John Leclair ages ago but traded him away before he became a force. Koivu had the injury and since then nothing...

We want to pretend guys like Galchenyuk and Kotkienemi are going to be that... but the reality is that they aren't and never were going to be. Not many 3rd overall picks actually become that. It is very hard to get... but still we have been in a long long drought..

2 of the best players in the NHL are 3rd OA's, clearly there have been some very good ones,

NHL Players selected at the 3rd draft position at hockeydb.com

that said I think the top 2 picks are where you want to be. But we should have been in a very good spot with 2 3rd OA's. No way should Galchenyuk after dominating the OHL for a 16 year old, to reach 30 goals in the NHL and then turn to shit. Granted maybe he bounces back next year but it's not looking good. Kotka it's just way too early to say, it really sucks when you see what Hughes is doing but as long as Kotka turns into a 70 pt player I'll be more then happy. If it takes several years then so be it. I like a number of things about his game, I hate how he was handled and there are some troubling things for sure.

I’m going to pray a super tank is in the works toward 2022, and Shane Wright.

Seeing Lafreniere in a Wings jersey will be among my 1,000 cuts. Need more band-aids!

I don't think that happens, of course it's very hard to project that far out. But next year is massive as I wonder what would Molson do if we miss the playoffs again, then you have the UFA's in Petry, Gallagher, Tatar, Danault, so unless you can bring them all back then what does Price and Weber do if they see we are going to be much worse after missing the playoffs for so many years. So next season is going to be very interesting imo.

 

[Luigi Habs]

Per Bergevin's own admission, drafting is a crapshoot.

I propose that he fires his entire scouting department, and just show up at the draft with the CSS ranking list and pick the next one available. He would save few bucks for Molson.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Per Bergevin's own admission, drafting is a crapshoot.

I propose that he fires his entire scouting department, and just show up at the draft with the CSS ranking list and pick the next one available. He would save few bucks for Molson.

Auto pick turned on.

 

[montreal]

Per Bergevin's own admission, drafting is a crapshoot.

I propose that he fires his entire scouting department, and just show up at the draft with the CSS ranking list and pick the next one available. He would save few bucks for Molson.

you know he's trolling the fans if he shows up to the draft this summer with a dart board and the CSS list pinned to it.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Both Rielly and Forsberg would have been FAR AND AWAY better picks than Galchenyuk.

Both those guys were top ranked players. Hell, some teams went on record to say Morgan Rielly would be their #1 pick.
Bob Mckenzie had Forsberg ranked 3rd on his final ranking.

So to say it was the right pick is simply lying.

I'm... lying? Okay...

Reily is an interesting case, he'd be the one guy I'd have looked at otherwise. As for Forsberg, I don't think he succeeds in Montreal either. I think the same thing happens to him that happened to Galchenyuk.

Per Bergevin's own admission, drafting is a crapshoot.

I propose that he fires his entire scouting department, and just show up at the draft with the CSS ranking list and pick the next one available. He would save few bucks for Molson.

He really is in over his head.

He says we have to build through the draft. Then he says that it's a crapshoot and that's why we shouldn't trade vets. I mean, it doesn't get worse than that.

Yep tanking would have been important. As I mentioned like a 1000 years ago. But if you have the eye, you still can get some scorers along the way outside of the 1st round.

Thing is... again, we drafted a pretty good team by 2013. That team was much better than I or anyone else really expected it to be sooner than expected. If we don't hire Therrien, if we get Robinson, if we get Jagr (who wanted to come here)... how much better would we have been? I think MB came in at the absolute wrong time. He made a bunch of bad decisions early and it really hurt us.

No team drafts 100 percent of it's squad. Your GM has to do something to help get you there. And if we didn't think Chuck was the right guy, we could've traded him for the vet center we needed. But we didn't do this. We relied on the draft almost 100 percent...

 

[Whitesnake]

I'm... lying? Okay...

Reily is an interesting case, he'd be the one guy I'd have looked at otherwise. As for Forsberg, I don't think he succeeds in Montreal either. I think the same thing happens to him that happened to Galchenyuk.

Disagree. 'Cause if there is ONE thing I'd give you as far as a development problem with Galchy is the incessant Center or wing question. Would not have been a problem with Forsberg.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Disagree. 'Cause if there is ONE thing I'd give you as far as a development problem with Galchy is the incessant Center or wing question. Would not have been a problem with Forsberg.

Chuck was a center. We decided to put him on the wing. Just like we decided to sign Briere (who also was a center) on the wing instead of signing Jagr who is a natural winger...

None of what we did during that time made sense. I see nothing to indicate we wouldn't have done the exact same thing with Forsberg.

 

[Pat Riot]

Per Bergevin's own admission, drafting is a crapshoot.

I propose that he fires his entire scouting department, and just show up at the draft with the CSS ranking list and pick the next one available. He would save few bucks for Molson.

Sadly we would have a better team , if Bergevin had only use the CSS ranking list to pick since he is in office.

 

[Whitesnake]

Chuck was a center. We decided to put him on the wing. Just like we decided to sign Briere (who also was a center) on the wing instead of signing Jagr who is a natural winger...

None of what we did during that time made sense. I see nothing to indicate we wouldn't have done the exact same thing with Forsberg.

Chuck wasn't even a center in tons of games in juniors. Tell me what makes him a centerman. Do you see him with a great vision and a great passer? Do you see him as a respectable 2-way player. Do you see him good defensively? Did you admire his faceoffs skills? Let's keep away from whoever replaces him, let's talk about him. This guy, if anything, could have been a power forward, good from the blue line to the net. I was wrong. I also thought he could be a C. But he never was.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Chuck wasn't even a center in tons of games in juniors. Tell me what makes him a centerman. Do you see him with a great vision and a great passer? Do you see him as a respectable 2-way player. Do you see him good defensively? Did you admire his faceoffs skills? Let's keep away from whoever replaces him, let's talk about him. This guy, if anything, could have been a power forward, good from the blue line to the net. I was wrong. I also thought he could be a C. But he never was.

We've been through this before...

He played best at center and that's where he should've played. We had an opening and instead chose DD. Repeatedly we would put him with Max and he'd produce and then we'd inexplicably pull him back. I couldn't explain it then and I can't understand it now. It made NO SENSE. And it came to a head in the 15-16 season when we gave him like 9 mins a night despite being the most productive player on our team while starving for goals. At the end - when we were already out - we put him at number one and he succeeds.

It remains, the worst usage of a player I've ever seen in Montreal. I did't get to really see Wickenheiser's development but it sounds like a similar story there (we put him on the wing too for some reason) as well.

For all the things MT did poorly (and he did everything poorly) his usage of Galchenyuk is at the top of the list. Absolutely horrific.

 

[yianik]

Our scouting has been an issue going back to Serge Savard.

Now sure, every now and then we have had a great pick or a great draft, but typically it has not been good. Why ?

I think it has been a wrong approach. If going for BPA, then wrong factors for BPA.

I have spoken before about how Serge Savard and certainly Houle used many picks on guys with skating issues.

For decades now the Habs culture has not been of the Flying Frenchmen, but of the solid 2 way plodder.

Two years ago TT said the team would focus on speed, skill, quickness and high ceiling. That was music to my ears. But I think we have now stepped back from that.

We need to have the focus on skill, speed , vision etc, the offensive tool box is what is most critical. We can worry about the kids defence later. Instead, we usually prioritize a guy who will play a sound 200 foot game , meaning defence, and hope an offensive game develops. this is backwards.

You can throw as many darts as you want at 3rd line ceiling players, all you will get is a few 3rd line ceiling players if you connect. Well whoopie. Throw the darts at high ceiling guys and you will hopefully snag a few top players, but you will also have a few 3rd liners out of it.

 

[Whitesnake]

We've been through this before...

He played best at center and that's where he should've played. We had an opening and instead chose DD. Repeatedly we would put him with Max and he'd produce and then we'd inexplicably pull him back. I couldn't explain it then and I can't understand it now. It made NO SENSE. And it came to a head in the 15-16 season when we gave him like 9 mins a night despite being the most productive player on our team while starving for goals. At the end - when we were already out - we put him at number one and he succeeds.

It remains, the worst usage of a player I've ever seen in Montreal. I did't get to really see Wickenheiser's development but it sounds like a similar story there (we put him on the wing too for some reason) as well.

For all the things MT did poorly (and he did everything poorly) his usage of Galchenyuk is at the top of the list. Absolutely horrific.

Remove DD from that list. There are 4 lines in a team. Make Galchy you 2nd C. Tell me again how he is a great centerman. Not if he is a good scorer 'cause he was. But tell me how great he was as far as his qualities of being a C. You say he's a C. That means he has the qualities to play at C. Which qualities.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Remove DD from that list. There are 4 lines in a team. Make Galchy you 2nd C. Tell me again how he is a great centerman. Not if he is a good scorer 'cause he was. But tell me how great he was as far as his qualities of being a C. You say he's a C. That means he has the qualities to play at C. Which qualities.

It's not a list...

It was an opportunity for him to play there and us to benefit from it. We didn't have a Steve Yzerman or Joe Sakic blocking the way. The job was open for him to take. And when we gave it to him he'd do a decent job. No, he was never going to be a superstar but he produced and the team's offense went up. Then we'd pull him back...

I could understand it if somebody was in the way and there was no room for him. But that was not the case. He was our best option and we STILL did not use him there. It felt a lot like what CJ is doing now with KK... like he had to LEARN something the hard way only he didn't know what he was supposedly being taught. Just seems like we punish some guys and not others.

 

[Team_Spirit]

But Timmins is among the best for games played by his draft picks!!11!! -Habs4LifeFanzNO1

Yeah Jake Evans and Lukas Vedjmos are getting games in

 

[Habs Halifax]

Chuck was a center. We decided to put him on the wing. Just like we decided to sign Briere (who also was a center) on the wing instead of signing Jagr who is a natural winger...

None of what we did during that time made sense. I see nothing to indicate we wouldn't have done the exact same thing with Forsberg.

If you are a center and you can't play wing, you don't have the hockey IQ required to be a center in the NHL. Stop making excuses for Galchenyuk and using them against the Habs. Galchenyuk's failure to be a top 6 impact player either at center or wing is on him and anybody who is unbiased knows it.

Blues managing Thomas and having him start out on wing goes against your narrative.