Trevor Timmins Discussion (Part V)

[Habs]

I really don't understand how this scouting crew still has a job. Its brutal to see how many draft picks have become NHL players in the last 7 years, from the Bergevin/Timmins era.

 

[Garbageyuk]

They need to fire this charlatan and everyone associated with him. I don't care what his official title is. Enough is enough. His entire career is based off of his luck in one draft year. And yes I say luck because that's exactly what it looks like. Look at his body of work outside of 2007; it is miserable. Multiple coaches, staff, and GMs have come and gone during his tenure, and the Habs are still a wasteland for prospects. The problem is him. We have enough of a sample size to conclude that. Unless you believe that somehow the Habs' so called "development problems" have persisted across all of the staff turnover since 2003? Timmins is the one that has been there all along. Long past time for him to go.

 

[Hins77]

I really don't understand how this scouting crew still has a job. Its brutal to see how many draft picks have become NHL players in the last 7 years, from the Bergevin/Timmins era.

Scherbak’ss highlight reel were very impressive in junior. And he was the best player from his team at a young age. Sometimes it doesnt work for many reason. He looks like to play video game a lot. I know that this is a question that scouting staff are asking right now

 

[CapSpace]

They need to fire this charlatan and everyone associated with him. I don't care what his official title is. Enough is enough. His entire career is based off of his luck in one draft year. And yes I say luck because that's exactly what it looks like. Look at his body of work outside of 2007; it is miserable. Multiple coaches, staff, and GMs have come and gone during his tenure, and the Habs are still a wasteland for prospects. The problem is him. We have enough of a sample size to conclude that. Unless you believe that somehow the Habs' so called "development problems" have persisted across all of the staff turnover since 2003? Timmins is the one that has been there all along. Long past time for him to go.

This. A thousand times this. Timmins' overhyped reputation is the biggest scam in the Habs organization for the last 15 years.

 

[Habs]

Scherbak’ss highlight reel were very impressive in junior. And he was the best player from his team at a young age. Sometimes it doesnt work for many reason. He looks like to play video game a lot. I know that this is a question that scouting staff are asking right now

Probably what Timmins says after every draft year, its a great excuse.

 

[EXPOS123]

They need to fire this charlatan and everyone associated with him. I don't care what his official title is. Enough is enough. His entire career is based off of his luck in one draft year. And yes I say luck because that's exactly what it looks like. Look at his body of work outside of 2007; it is miserable. Multiple coaches, staff, and GMs have come and gone during his tenure, and the Habs are still a wasteland for prospects. The problem is him. We have enough of a sample size to conclude that. Unless you believe that somehow the Habs' so called "development problems" have persisted across all of the staff turnover since 2003? Timmins is the one that has been there all along. Long past time for him to go.

Awesome post....i've been saying this for years as well. But, of course, you get the usual pathetic excuses:

- " We never draft high enough!"
- " It's not Timmins fault that the gm traded away draft picks"
- " Look at how bad other teams draft!"
- " It's the player development staff that is ruining the picks"
- "It's the gm that has the final call on the pick"


Can't wait for this entire scouting staff to get canned...not to mention Bozovin too.

 

[26Mats]

Awesome post....i've been saying this for years as well. But, of course, you get the usual pathetic excuses:

- " We never draft high enough!"
- " It's not Timmins fault that the gm traded away draft picks"
- " Look at how bad other teams draft!"
- " It's the player development staff that is ruining the picks"
- "It's the gm that has the final call on the pick"


Can't wait for this entire scouting staff to get canned...not to mention Bozovin too.

Drouin (via Sergachev) Domi (via Galchenyuk) Suzuki (via Pacioretty)
Poehling Kotkaniemi Caufield
Tatar (via Pacioretty) Danault Gallagher
Ylonen Evans Lehkonen

Romanov Brook
Mete Juulsen
Srubble Fleury
Harris Norlinder
Fairbrother

Price
Primeau

Yeah the future's looking real bleak. Only player on that list that wasn't from the draft is Danault.

Plus Weber (from Subban) and Petry (good use of a 2nd and 4th by Bergevin) will either still be around or can be traded for young assets.

 

[montreal]

I could never take anyone seriously if they don't acknowledge that the Habs clearly have a development issue brought on by management rushing 18,19,20 year olds to the NHL that aren't ready and by 2 coaching staffs (MT, CJ) that have not helped these kids in general.

Of course Timmins and his staff have made mistakes and they share the blame in this but no one should just dismiss the years of poor decisions regarding prospects.

Everyone in this organization is to blame. The owner that appoints himself president when he has zero hockey experience at any level. A GM that made questionable decisions on staff, hiring a rookie head coach that didn't have 1 game of experience as a head coach at any level while taking 6 years to figure out he needed to go and even waiting on him to try and find an NHL job which shows how poorly he evaluated the situation. Or getting rid of a NCAA scout that is well regarded in the industry to replace him with a staff member's son who was already given one job and failed at that.

The GM's constant rushing of top prospects to the NHL and despite the struggles/poor results never changing course to come up with a new plan or try a different approach.

The coaching staffs for not doing a better job to help these kids. Beaulieu makes 2 costly turnovers, gets benched, spends a week or so in the pressbox, then gets sent down, struggles, starts to play well, gets called up, rinse repeat just change said prospects name unless he's too young to be sent back to the AHL.

Of course this doesn't mean Timmins and his staff aren't to blame, he admitted they made a mistake going for size in '13, McCarron, DLR, you need to get more out of top 50 picks. Fucale is in the ECHL this year. But the 2013 draft outside the top 10-15 picks is not looking so hot so you do need to take factors into consideration as context matters to those that don't just gloss over details and just simply say he sucks or he should do better. Of course trading away high picks and leaving your scout with 1 top 70 pick is a terrible way to build up your farm system and will of course cause issues to most scouts.

Every scout there is has made many mistakes, it's the nature of drafting 17/18 year olds. The scouts have made some really bad mistakes and they have made some really good picks. I've always said that imo Timmis is lower down on the list of things this organization needs to fix, so until you fix the bigger problems, what's the point of starting with him.

There's also the question of what his role is, no one here knows as Churla is the director of scouting and has been. Of course Timmins has a major role in the draft, for all we know he could be behind every single pick or he might only be behind a little over half the picks. All we know for sure is that we pay Churla as Director of Scouting, so I doubt he's sitting around playing pocket pool all day.

The good news is that there has been some change. They hired a new coach at the development level that actually has been a head coach before. The results will hopefully start to bare more fruit, right now Fleury is the only one but in the next year or two we are going to find out if it's improved or more of the same as there is clearly a wave of youth in the not too distant future that is going to be getting looks in the NHL.

The drafting does seem to have picked up, they stopped trading away those valuable top 50 picks and instead starting adding more. The system is as deep as it has every been in the last 20 years imo. Of course there are lots of questions as to how this will play out, and I really wish they would stop rushing these kids and I hope Julien gets fired at some point this year along with MB (though I bet he stays).

 

[Archijerej]

The only way forward for this organization is to have top-notch drafting. We have the money, we're not really a market for UFA's, so elite drafting should be an obvious goal. Whatever one thinks of our development, Timmins doesn't strike me as being elite.

 

[EXPOS123]

Drouin (via Sergachev) Domi (via Galchenyuk) Suzuki (via Pacioretty)
Poehling Kotkaniemi Caufield
Tatar (via Pacioretty) Danault Gallagher
Ylonen Evans Lehkonen

Romanov Brook
Mete Juulsen
Srubble Fleury
Harris Norlinder
Fairbrother

Price
Primeau

Yeah the future's looking real bleak. Only player on that list that wasn't from the draft is Danault.

Plus Weber (from Subban) and Petry (good use of a 2nd and 4th by Bergevin) will either still be around or can be traded for young assets.

I see not one elite player there.

Lol at Ylonen Lehks Tatar and Evans - dime a dozen players.

And all of those dmen have proven nothing and show no trajectory to anything more than solid gap fillers.

But nice try though

 

[salbutera]

There also seems to be this lack of strategic foresight into which drafts are deep needing to hoard picks for - Habs were stacked with draft picks in 2012, 2013 (5 & 6 top-100 picks respectively) both meh drafts without much talent depth, 2015 was stacked Habs had only 2 top-100 picks.

Drafting is a crap shoot at the best of times, IMO only way to improve probability post top-10 picks is to load up on top-100 pics looking to strike gold

 

[Le Barron de HF]

There also seems to be this lack of strategic foresight into which drafts are deep needing to hoard picks for - Habs were stacked with draft picks in 2012, 2013 (5 & 6 top-100 picks respectively) both meh drafts without much talent depth, 2015 was stacked Habs had only 2 top-100 picks.

Drafting is a crap shoot at the best of times, IMO only way to improve probability post top-10 picks is to load up on top-100 pics looking to strike gold

That's hindsight though. 2013 had major hype, people were saying that it could be the best class since 2003 and it turned out to be a major dud for the most part in terms of depth. That's why the people claiming that X draft is deep are mostly going on a limb.

 

[26Mats]

I see not one elite player there.

Lol at Ylonen Lehks Tatar and Evans - dime a dozen players.

And all of those dmen have proven nothing and show no trajectory to anything more than solid gap fillers.

But nice try though

Price is not elite?
All those dmen are gap fillers?
I like that top 9 going forward - and the futre dcore, and the future in goal.
Anyways, rant away...

 

[Hins77]

I don’t know why, but we arent able to select players like Chris Kreider, Alex Tuch, josh Anderson, Tom wilson. Etc. It seem to be difficult for our scouting staff to select a big powerfoward...

 

[Whitesnake]

Just freakin tired of the Timmins advocates that uses the same hindsight that they hate when we do it to blame him......but just to try to make him look better. Hey, in 2017, Timmins told Brunet, that he would have picked Carlson if he would have had the draft pick instead of trading it for Tanguay......yet...here's what he said in 2008....

http://www.hockeysfuture.com/articles/10462/canadiens2008_draft_review/

“Myself, in my position, I look at the 25th-overall selection as projecting to having third-line upside. Tanguay’s a top-six forward.” The club was comfortable making the selection due to the wealth of talent and prospects it has amassed over the past few years’ worth of solid drafting. “We have done a good job developing our [farm] system over the years, so now it was time to make a move,” Timmins said.

Despite trading its way out its first selection, Timmins admitted that they were attempting to trade their way back into the first round. Unfortunately, the club just didn`t have the requisite assets required to obtain a selection. “Of course, you always want to have a first-round pick, especially late in the round when there was a [Quebec-league] player that we were interested in,” Timmins said. “We didn’t have two second-round picks this year and that’s what it would have taken to move up.”

Read more at http://www.hockeysfuture.com/articles/10462/canadiens2008_draft_review/#EeCcsvyFYFuMjIZD.99

HABS 1ST ROUNDER IN 2008 WOULD HAVE BEEN NICOLAS DESCHAMPS. AND NOT CARLSON.

 

[DAChampion]

You are right, busts happen.

Usually a scouting bust looks bad from the get go though. Think Kyle Chipchura or David Fischer. These guys were never great to begin with, one got injured and stopped developing and the other never made it to anywhere, he was a bad pick.

Rarely do drafting bust get worst the more time they play in the NHL though. Galchenyuk, Kotkaniemi, Tinordi, etc. All showed promise of different level and it never materialized. This isn't on Timmins.

Ill let you figure it out, maybe one day you'll get it.

I'm surprised to see you implicitly defend Tinordi.

Chipchura was a perfectly good player who suffered crippling injuries, and he still had a serviceable career.

 

[Mrb1p]

I'm surprised to see you implicitly defend Tinordi.

Chipchura was a perfectly good player who suffered crippling injuries, and he still had a serviceable career.

Tinordi wasnt a good pick per se, but theres absolutely zero reasons he couldnt be a NHL player.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Tinordi wasnt a good pick per se, but theres absolutely zero reasons he couldnt be a NHL player.

Do you think that was a development problem or he just didn't have the hockey IQ to be a NHL D man?

 

[Mrb1p]

Do you think that was a development problem or he just didn't have the hockey IQ to be a NHL D man?

Def a development problem. He showed he could stick but they decided against developping him. Leaving him in the stands for weeks. Same happened to Leblanc and Scherbak.

 

[Kriss E]

Do you think that was a development problem or he just didn't have the hockey IQ to be a NHL D man?

Development. He was too focused on being that big physical Dman, which is what they wanted from him. How he was fighting enforcers is still mind boggling to me. He never was the same after Pedan KO'ed him either.
It was dumb. They should have been working with him on his positioning, mobility and puck movement. But no...they had to try turning him into that big guy who could take on the likes of Chara and the rest.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Development. He was too focused on being that big physical Dman, which is what they wanted from him. How he was fighting enforcers is still mind boggling to me. He never was the same after Pedan KO'ed him either.
It was dumb. They should have been working with him on his positioning, mobility and puck movement. But no...they had to try turning him into that big guy who could take on the likes of Chara and the rest.

I'm not so sure. I am a firm believer that if you are good enough, you overcome the obstacles no matter the path you take. Sometimes, if the development path is not good, they rise a bit later in the process.

I know we disagree on this one. I think we failed to develop cause we didn't have much to develop

 

[Habs Halifax]

Def a development problem. He showed he could stick but they decided against developping him. Leaving him in the stands for weeks. Same happened to Leblanc and Scherbak.

If we were the Kings or Panthers where the expectations/pressure was not so high as in Montreal, I might be more OK with it. I'm a firm believer that players rise to who they are eventually (no matter the path they take).

Problem with inserting a 18 year old kid you drafted as a long term prospect is you set the expectation and pressure bar high right from the get go. It was premature but the only major hurdle is overcoming pressure/expectations in the short span. I'd like to see who he is at 21/22.

Lets hope he is ok with the roller coaster ride he is going on. Seems like a good character guy and so far he is handling the lows well. That could change with time and extra focus day after day. It can get to you if the lows are more than the highs

 

[Kriss E]

I'm not so sure. I am a firm believer that if you are good enough, you overcome the obstacles no matter the path you take. Sometimes, if the development path is not good, they rise a bit later in the process.

I know we disagree on this one. I think we failed to develop cause we didn't have much to develop

If we admit that develop has its faults..well then, we can say that some may overcome poor development, which also opens the door to believing some can't overcome it.

Here is what Mckeen's hockey for their draft preview was saying about the Tin man:
''The most physically ready of all USA NHL draft eligible prospects, Tinordi completes the package with a mean streak and strong mobility … Tinordi is a great complementary defense partner for a smaller, offensive-minded defender. He can stay with plays, make good outlet passes and bodyguard when necessary.''

The bleacher report also wrote a piece on it and it's tough to argue against them:
''In 2012-13, the NHL lockout compelled Montreal to leave Tinordi in the AHL for most of the year. He was recalled in March, sent down at the end of the month and then brought back up in late April and for the playoffs. He played a total of 13 games, never getting more than 16 minutes of ice time, and on three occasions, getting less than 10 minutes.
It was the start of a trend. Over the next two seasons, Tinordi played 35 NHL games and 91 contests in the AHL. In none of those 35 NHL games, spaced out over multiple call-ups, did Tinordi hit the 20-minute mark in terms of total ice time. Last season he averaged just 12 minutes per game.
His usage was indefensible, both from a development and a trade perspective.''

It's impossible for us to quantify the impact of bad development, but it's undeniable Habs completely screwed up.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

I'm surprised to see you implicitly defend Tinordi.

Chipchura was a perfectly good player who suffered crippling injuries, and he still had a serviceable career.

I remember both looking solid in their first few games, very similar to how Pacioretty looked in his own debute. Not anything amazing, but you could see they could hold their own.

 

[Habs Halifax]

My concern is that last season there was very little pressure on him. Everything he did was viewed as a bonus, like found money. He did okay, especially when measured against expectations.

This year, despite the cliche of the sophomore slump, expectations will naturally increase. I am sure he expects more from himself. Fans as a whole likely do, and he may sense those, he may even overestimate them. Finally the team is in no position to miss the playoffs; Julien and MB need it, Price mentioned his window last year. Every point, every game is critical right out of the gate.

Based on observing him this year (I have missed several games), I worry that the pressure has become a burden. He is still a very young kid in a foreign land; the average 19 year old NHLer is more sheltered and naive than the average 19 year old holed up in a dorm room on some campus.

I thought last year the NHL wasn't the place for him, but I don't worry that he is a bust or ruined. This season I would have liked to see him play the first 40 games in Laval getting heavy minutes and 1C deployment. Let him know he is down there to develop, it isn't a demotion.

It's rare we see things the same and I agree with 100% of this post. Cause we agree, it has to be right!