Trevor Timmins Discussion (Part V)

[montreal]

That's what i've been trying to figure out.

It's hard since none of us know who says what, how much sway they have. We know MB hired Churla and he's the director of scouting but what does that mean since Timmins last had that job and he's the one giving interviews on our picks. But who's to say if MB wanted York and he was there would he have overridden Timmins or Churla? Or what if he and Churla wanted him and Timmins wanted Caufield what would happen? We can't know so it makes it very hard to say.

I know Gainey said that he didn't make the picks that that's why he had scouts or something to that effect. But we know Andre Savard was a former scout and so was Goat so it would be logical to assume they were more involved then Gainey. MB though that's tougher, he brings in Churla for the '13 draft and all the sudden we are drafting big guys and years later Timmins says they made a mistake going for size. But who's call was that? Was it Timmins or MB or MB and Churla?

Many on here have been very local about Timmins but I don't think they put things in the right context. If you go into each draft expecting to fail, since that's what is more likely to happen to most once you start getting past the top 15, 30, 50 etc... Of course you will get some NHLers but every team is going to f*** up at the draft sooner or later. The top drafting teams I would say do it less and the poor drafting teams like the oilers can't seem to get out of their own way. Maybe now that they have a gm that understands scouting things will change.

There was a vid posted in the previous Timmins thread from a Flames or Nucks scout or whatever team but he talked about how few players a draft class will yield in a average year. Players that play over 300 NHL games, and how it's not a high number, 30 or 40 as I'd have to go back and watch it but my point is that with the draft you are going to miss a lot especially if you are picking so few in the top 10, or 30 or 50. From '03 to '12 Timmins has 20 guys appear in over 300 NHL games and that number will go up a good bit as the more recent drafts hit the NHL. We clearly did not help our prospects as well as we should have in our development system and both levels of coaching. There have been several good picks, bad picks, some home runs, some WTF? picks. Clearly we have struggled badly picking from Sweden and the Q under Timmins and he along with each GM should have looked at why and done a better job fixing it.

 

[EXPOS123]

I'm real disappointed with what Timmins has done lately. Let's fire him.

2016: Sergachev, Mete
2017: Poehling, Brook, Primeau, Fleury, Ikonen
2018: Kotkaniemi, Romanov, Ylonen, Harris, etc..
2019: Caufield, Struble, Fairbrother, Pitlick, etc...

We're rated as one of the best prospect pools in the league...

Lol....when some of us say prospects are a bust after 2 years of being drafted, it's ..."you can't judge a player/draft after just 2 years"

Now , after one year (and even 2 weeks) its..."we have the best prospects in the league"

oh....and you conveniently left out the years of 2008-2015, where we had a grand total of ONE player (Galchenyuk) make any kind of significant impact.

Wow...great job there...let's keep him another 10 years.

 

[26Mats]

Lol....when some of us say prospects are a bust after 2 years of being drafted, it's ..."you can't judge a player/draft after just 2 years"

Now , after one year (and even 2 weeks) its..."we have the best prospects in the league"

oh....and you conveniently left out the years of 2008-2015, where we had a grand total of ONE player (Galchenyuk) make any kind of significant impact.

Wow...great job there...let's keep him another 10 years.

Gallagher had no impact, Sergachev, Mete will have no impact....

and you conveniently left out 2003-2007, lol ...

He's staying. So suck it up. 2015-2019 will be marvelous. We'll talk about it in 5 to 7 years ...

 

[Et le But]

I'm real disappointed with what Timmins has done lately. Let's fire him.

2016: Sergachev, Mete
2017: Poehling, Brook, Primeau, Fleury, Ikonen
2018: Kotkaniemi, Romanov, Ylonen, Harris, etc..
2019: Caufield, Struble, Fairbrother, Pitlick, etc...

We're rated as one of the best prospect pools in the league...

That list includes 4 players who have made the NHL so far (one who has played a total of 1 game), and none of them are proven yet. One was traded for a draft bust.

There's two things here -

-Every team can list players they believe are promising. I'm not sure how Struble and Fairbrother are stand out prospects yet.
-If our prospect pool is rated as above average, it's in part because we've been mediocre for a while now, including one truly terrible season. When you aren't a contender trading away draft picks for rentals every year, you accumulate draft picks.

Considering those two factors, is Timmins really finding any "steals" anymore? His reputation can't rest on Gallagher forever.

 

[26Mats]

That list includes 4 players who have made the NHL so far (one who has played a total of 1 game), and none of them are proven yet. One was traded for a draft bust.

There's two things here -

-Every team can list players they believe are promising. I'm not sure how Struble and Fairbrother are stand out prospects yet.
-If our prospect pool is rated as above average, it's in part because we've been mediocre for a while now, including one truly terrible season. When you aren't a contender trading away draft picks for rentals every year, you accumulate draft picks.

Considering those two factors, is Timmins really finding any "steals" anymore? His reputation can't rest on Gallagher forever.

His reputation is based on 2003-2007 when he was lights out. 2008-2011 were not good, even considering there wasn't one year in that period we had both our 1st and 2nd. 2012-2014 were very mediocre. But 2015-2019 are looking really good. Other people have said this prospect pool is the most exciting the Habs have had in decades. For me it feels like the 2003-2007 era. Time will tell for sure. If others want to ignore that, that's there right. But this much success at the junior and world junior level is still promising. We'll discuss in 5 to 7 years when we have the answer for sure.

My personal theory is that he's back to drafting for talent and not as concerned with size. We were a small team getting crushed in the old NHL. To try to compete in that era, he drafted Tinordi, McCarron, De la Rose, Crisp, Lernout, etc... Perhaps all those players would have been good if the rules and the game didn't change drastically. Anyways I was feeling he was starting to come back around 2013 when he drafted Lehkonen, Reway, and Ghetto to compliment the big guys. 2015 confirmed it with the Sergachev and Mete picks, and I've really been liking the 2016-2019 drafts. Picking Caufield when we're already small says to me he's got a mandate to really go after talent.

I didn't like targeting LD this draft. Always take the best player available. But he seems to have done ok with Struble and Fairbrother in this confined situation. It makes no sense to draft a ton of centers one year then a ton of left D the next. Just draft the best player available and eventually you'll get the LD's and C's. No reason they all have to come in the same year.

 

[Habs]

Another sweet first round pick by Timmins.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Haven't double checked the games played or points but this is how it looks on my first go around. I will double check at some point to ensure accuracy. If anybody sees any errors, let me know and I will update.

Various things you can look at and it's interesting to see how consistent the Habs have been in 12 years in terms of pts/game. Lets hope the 16-19 years result in a higher pt/game rate. At this point, we rank first in games played in that 4 year span (16-19).

This does not factor in trades. This is drafting results only. So we would have points from Galchenyuk and Sergachev. More of an evaluation on Timmins vs Bergevin.

 

[26Mats]

Another sweet first round pick by Timmins.

He's no Price, McDonagh, Pacioretty, Galchenyuk, Sergachev, Juulsen, Poehling, Kotkaniemi, or Caufield. But any scout that doesn't hit all their firsts is trash.

 

[habsfan92]

He's no Price, McDonagh, Pacioretty, Galchenyuk, Sergachev, Juulsen, Poehling, Kotkaniemi, or Caufield. But any scout that doesn't hit all their firsts is trash.

I see you left out a few, like Chipchura, Fischer, Leblanc, Beaulieu, Tinordi, McCarron..there, that levels that out.

 

[26Mats]

I see you left out a few, like Chipchura, Fischer, Leblanc, Beaulieu, Tinordi, McCarron..there, that levels that out.

It's about percentage not lists, or one name like scherbak, which is what i was replying to.

If Juulsen, Poehling, KK, and Caufield pan out - it is an if, but not such a big if the way they've been progressing:

He's lights out in the lottery: 6/7, only failure being AK.

He's 3/10 with late 1sts (Pacioretty, Juulsen, Poehling). Not the greatest percentage, but not the worst either.

If you combine the lottery and non lottery, overall it's a good 1st round track record.

Anyways, he's not losing his job any time soon. We can talk about Juulsen, Poehling, Kk, and Caufield in 3 to 5 years when we actually see the results.

 

[CoopersFalls]

Timmins doesn’t struggle to find NHLers, but he struggles to find star players. He also takes way too many flyers on guys playing in low level leagues over guys who are established (and ended up making it in hindsight).

 

[habsfan92]

It's about percentage not lists, or one name like scherbak, which is what i was replying to.

If Juulsen, Poehling, KK, and Caufield pan out - it is an if, but not such a big if the way they've been progressing:

He's lights out in the lottery: 6/7, only failure being AK.

He's 3/10 with late 1sts (Pacioretty, Juulsen, Poehling). Not the greatest percentage, but not the worst either.

If you combine the lottery and non lottery, overall it's a good 1st round track record.

Anyways, he's not losing his job any time soon. We can talk about Juulsen, Poehling, Kk, and Caufield in 3 to 5 years when we actually see the results.

Lights out in the lottery! Wow! I could do that too.
As long as we are happy with average. This is why we are in the position we are in. If he was better with his firsts, we would have a much better core & a better team. You find most of your NHL's thru the first & second round. If it is too difficult for him then you either get rid of him or you trade those picks for better prospects & players.

 

[26Mats]

Lights out in the lottery! Wow! I could do that too.
As long as we are happy with average. This is why we are in the position we are in. If he was better with his firsts, we would have a much better core & a better team. You find most of your NHL's thru the first & second round. If it is too difficult for him then you either get rid of him or you trade those picks for better prospects & players.

He drafted a great core. Gainey giving away McDonagh set us back.

Then MB's moves a few years in a row culminating in letting Markov and Radulov walk and building a dcore with Alzner, Schlemko, and Streit, plus there was Radulov's replacement, Hemsky. MB changed philosophy and we have one of the best prospect pools in the league. We're actually in a good position looking ahead 2-3 years. But I get it, some fans can't see that far ahead...

 

[Habs]

He's no Price, McDonagh, Pacioretty, Galchenyuk, Sergachev, Juulsen, Poehling, Kotkaniemi, or Caufield. But any scout that doesn't hit all their firsts is trash.

Meh, Juulsen, Poehling, Kotkaneiemi and Caufiled haven't proven anything in Montreal yet. Scherbust, McCarron, Beaulieu,Tinordi and Leblanc and Fischer are all busts. Price was a great pick, no doubt, that took balls because we already had Theodore and goalies in the pipeline. It has been discussed, but in quite a few draft years we have zero players that made it, and that is unacceptable.

 

[Habs Halifax]

I posted a modified drafting evaluation on the main board. Those who thought we sucked at drafting, you might be happy to find out that you were right. It’s not good but the last 4 year span is evidence we are on the right track.

Check out the scoring formula. It combines production vs draft pick quality and quantity.

@NotProkofievian. I listened to your criticism from before and made adjustments. How does this look?

Best Drafting Teams in the NHL

 

[canadiensnation]

It's hard since none of us know who says what, how much sway they have. We know MB hired Churla and he's the director of scouting but what does that mean since Timmins last had that job and he's the one giving interviews on our picks. But who's to say if MB wanted York and he was there would he have overridden Timmins or Churla? Or what if he and Churla wanted him and Timmins wanted Caufield what would happen? We can't know so it makes it very hard to say.

I know Gainey said that he didn't make the picks that that's why he had scouts or something to that effect. But we know Andre Savard was a former scout and so was Goat so it would be logical to assume they were more involved then Gainey. MB though that's tougher, he brings in Churla for the '13 draft and all the sudden we are drafting big guys and years later Timmins says they made a mistake going for size. But who's call was that? Was it Timmins or MB or MB and Churla?

Many on here have been very local about Timmins but I don't think they put things in the right context. If you go into each draft expecting to fail, since that's what is more likely to happen to most once you start getting past the top 15, 30, 50 etc... Of course you will get some NHLers but every team is going to **** up at the draft sooner or later. The top drafting teams I would say do it less and the poor drafting teams like the oilers can't seem to get out of their own way. Maybe now that they have a gm that understands scouting things will change.

There was a vid posted in the previous Timmins thread from a Flames or Nucks scout or whatever team but he talked about how few players a draft class will yield in a average year. Players that play over 300 NHL games, and how it's not a high number, 30 or 40 as I'd have to go back and watch it but my point is that with the draft you are going to miss a lot especially if you are picking so few in the top 10, or 30 or 50. From '03 to '12 Timmins has 20 guys appear in over 300 NHL games and that number will go up a good bit as the more recent drafts hit the NHL. We clearly did not help our prospects as well as we should have in our development system and both levels of coaching. There have been several good picks, bad picks, some home runs, some WTF? picks. Clearly we have struggled badly picking from Sweden and the Q under Timmins and he along with each GM should have looked at why and done a better job fixing it.

From afar it looks like we don't have a good scouting network in Sweden. As for the Q, I have no idea why they can't hire a large staff even part-timers of the best scouts in Quebec.

 

[montreal]

From afar it looks like we don't have a good scouting network in Sweden. As for the Q, I have no idea why they can't hire a large staff even part-timers of the best scouts in Quebec.

Sweden is just brutal as DLR is the best of the bunch,

Heino-Lindberg, Torp, Westin, Nygren, Nystrom, Collberg, DLR, Vejdemo, Henrikson, Olofsson, Norlinder. Now it's too early to say for Olofsson and Norlinder of course. And you could count Ikonen as he did spend his draft year and the previous year developing in Sweden in the J20 at age 17 and J18 at 16, with 13 SHL games at 17 where he was pointless.

There's also the undrafted UFA's Engqvist and Mikael Johansson. If Engqvist only had more speed he could have been a 3rd/4th liner maybe.

I have been a bigger supporter of DLR around here as I do think he can be a decent 4th liner if the heart problems don't continue and I can't fault the Nygren pick as I fully believe he would have seen NHL games if not for injury. He certainly was impressive in the AHL in small sample sizes. Collberg at least got us Vanek. All in all just very little to show for such a top hockey country.

The Q is better but when it's DLR and not much else it's hard to be worse.

 

[Scintillating10]

Sweden is just brutal as DLR is the best of the bunch,

Heino-Lindberg, Torp, Westin, Nygren, Nystrom, Collberg, DLR, Vejdemo, Henrikson, Olofsson, Norlinder. Now it's too early to say for Olofsson and Norlinder of course. And you could count Ikonen as he did spend his draft year and the previous year developing in Sweden in the J20 at age 17 and J18 at 16, with 13 SHL games at 17 where he was pointless.

There's also the undrafted UFA's Engqvist and Mikael Johansson. If Engqvist only had more speed he could have been a 3rd/4th liner maybe.

I have been a bigger supporter of DLR around here as I do think he can be a decent 4th liner if the heart problems don't continue and I can't fault the Nygren pick as I fully believe he would have seen NHL games if not for injury. He certainly was impressive in the AHL in small sample sizes. Collberg at least got us Vanek. All in all just very little to show for such a top hockey country.

The Q is better but when it's DLR and not much else it's hard to be worse.

Montreal be better off if Timmins ignored Sweden. That is a lot of picks wasted. Many would have been good NHLers if he had selected elsewhere. Maybe Sweden is his Achilles heel?

 

[DAChampion]

Montreal be better off if Timmins ignored Sweden. That is a lot of picks wasted. Many would have been good NHLers if he had selected elsewhere. Maybe Sweden is his Achilles heel?

It's plausibly just a fluke.

 

[Scintillating10]

It's plausibly just a fluke.

That's quite the fluke

 

[Chili]

An interesting draft trend, at least to me, looking at the last 10 NHL drafts...

Year/# of European draftees based on Nationality/% of total draftees (source Wikipedia)

2010 52 24.8%
2011 68 32.4%
2012 57 27.0%
2013 58 27.5%
2014 65 31.0%
2015 76 36.0%
2016 70 33.2%
2017 89 41.0%
2018 92 42.4%
2019 91 42.0%

Interesting in the Taylor Hall draft (2010), there were 99 Canadians drafted vs the 52 Europeans. Fast forward to 2019 and it was 70 Canadians vs 91 Europeans.

My guess would be that one reason for the increasing number/% is teams like the projectability of players who have already played in mens leagues. It worked out in Kotka's case and may go back to Matthews/Laine among others.

Food for thought anyway.

 

[calder candidate]

Another sweet first round pick by Timmins.

I think a lot of us (my self included ) would have made the same pick... Than again we don’t have the access, resources and info that available to them now after seeing him in the AHL it easy to see why everyone’s pass on him.

 

[canadiensnation]

Sweden is just brutal as DLR is the best of the bunch,

Heino-Lindberg, Torp, Westin, Nygren, Nystrom, Collberg, DLR, Vejdemo, Henrikson, Olofsson, Norlinder. Now it's too early to say for Olofsson and Norlinder of course. And you could count Ikonen as he did spend his draft year and the previous year developing in Sweden in the J20 at age 17 and J18 at 16, with 13 SHL games at 17 where he was pointless.

There's also the undrafted UFA's Engqvist and Mikael Johansson. If Engqvist only had more speed he could have been a 3rd/4th liner maybe.

I have been a bigger supporter of DLR around here as I do think he can be a decent 4th liner if the heart problems don't continue and I can't fault the Nygren pick as I fully believe he would have seen NHL games if not for injury. He certainly was impressive in the AHL in small sample sizes. Collberg at least got us Vanek. All in all just very little to show for such a top hockey country.

The Q is better but when it's DLR and not much else it's hard to be worse.

I too fought for DLR still think he can be a solid 20 point effective fourth liner.

I'm really high on Norlinder, I've said this before I think he may be the best pick from Sweden in recent memory.

 

[eklund the clown]

I think it's our scouting or lack there of more than Timmins or success rate would be a lot higher.

 

[montreal]

Just found out that former Hab draft pick Casey Staum is going to play for Colorado College next year, that is surprising seeing how he had just 12 pts in 50 games in the USHL over the last 2 years. That's a pretty good program, will likely see him at some point.

I was actually thinking the other day who is the worst pick of Timmins not by where they were picked or who was picked after that was better or whoever busted but just in terms of being bad at hockey not counting anyone that had to stop playing due to injuries. I thought about Staum since even though it was a 5th rounder, the fact that they cut him lose way before they had to made me lean towards him but Arvid Henrikson was the other I came up with as I watched him in the USHL and he wasn't so terrible but then he got sent down to the NAHL which is like going from the AHL (USHL) to the ECHL (NAHL) just juniors instead of pros. He's also going to a weaker program in the NCAA, not to put him down as getting to play Division I NCAA hockey and a chance to get a degree while likely partying a lot (I know I did at college). So maybe it's him.

Some might say Koberstein since he was at a very weak program in the NCAA and didn't do much there but I have said I thought he would be a solid ECHLer at least. I'm sure many would pick Ruscheinski since it's the oddest pick Timmins has ever made. And then there's the famous Mike Cichy, I believe he's killing it in the Polish league so at least he's getting paid to play in a pro league. There's also John Westin, never heard what happened to him, another find from our great Swedish scout (although to be fair like Henrikson he was a 7th round pick) Westin actually played in the SHL after he was drafted and then spent a season in the 2nd league and then he just fell off the map. Don't know if it was injuries or he's playing in a league that hockeydb doesn't track.