Why didn't Kris Beech become a Ron Francis caliber player?

illpucks

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"In the deal, announced by Penguins general manager Craig Patrick, the Capitals get Jagr and defenseman Frantisek Kucera, and send Kris Beech, Michal Sivek, Ross Lupaschuk to Pittsburgh.
Patrick said he was delighted with the players Pittsburgh received.
He called Beech the key to the deal and a potential franchise player whose skills are similar to former Penguins great Ron Francis."

Jagr traded to Capitals
 

GMR

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Because Craig Patrick was an abomination of a GM at that point. The Zubov trade, the Naslund trade, and finally the Jagr trade.

Beech put up some good numbers in juniors, but he wasn't exactly an other world talent. Lupaschuk and Sivek combined for 41 games in the NHL. How you trade the best offensive player in the league for that kind of return is mind boggling.

Regarding the Francis comparison, that's something teams love to do is compare young prospects to some other NHL player. In this case it was Francis. I remember Eric Staal also being compared to Francis when he was being drafted.

Also, no offense to Ron Francis, but do you really trade a four time reigning Art Ross trophy winner for the next Ron Francis? I sure as hell wouldn't.

Of course, because the Penguins always get over the Capitals, even that seemingly one-sided trade did not help Washington.
 
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Michael Farkas

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I'm not sure he was really that similar to Francis to begin with...

Beech didn't really have a lot of ability to beat players one on one, he just didn't have that type of skill set. He was a good playmaker, and probably over-passed even, and he had a pretty good shot...he put on a lot of muscle on after his first NHL season, he became pretty top heavy and it negatively affected his skating...he ended up not being fast enough to really work in the NHL, which was made all the worse when the lockout came and all the no-touch rules were applied...he was a pretty big dude, ready to grind it out...and then that game kind of went away...

He failed to make the 2004 Penguins...a team with, what, four players that played in the next NHL season or some such? We moved him on for a 4th round pick less than four years after he was the center piece of the Jagr deal (well, "center piece" outside of the cash infusion...Jagr was the last player to be really be sold at the NHL level...)

Fun fact: I actually did kind of like Lupaschuk. I went to buy a game used jersey of his off eBay once upon a time...and was outbid...by Ross Lupaschuk (or a family member)
 

FerrisRox

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I'm not sure he was really that similar to Francis to begin with...

Beech didn't really have a lot of ability to beat players one on one, he just didn't have that type of skill set.

Are you suggesting that Ron Francis was the kind of player that beat players one on one?

The comparison between Beech and Francis seems pretty obvious to me.

Both were solid two-way centres with the ability to win face-offs and create offence for their line mates with their passing. Both had a pretty decent shot and both had good size.
 
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Michael Farkas

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Nah, that was a different thought. But I can see how it would read that way...wasn't my intent.

Francis did have better hands, was much better defensively than young Beech (older, trying to keep that NHL paycheck alive Beech was doing the work), smarter, better passer, was less physical than Beech...it's just not where I'd go for a player comparison...
 

sr edler

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Also, no offense to Ron Francis, but do you really trade a four time reigning Art Ross trophy winner for the next Ron Francis?

Jagr wanted out (which I guess was well known at the time among GMs around the league). Getting a Francis calibre player (especially a young one) back from such a situation is a fantastic return.

Vancouver got Jovanovski back for a Bure who could still fire on all cylinders (but didn't last very long). Also a very good return despite the fact that Bure obviously was a much better player than Jovanovski.
 

GMR

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Jagr wanted out (which I guess was well known at the time among GMs around the league). Getting a Francis calibre player (especially a young one) back from such a situation is a fantastic return.

Vancouver got Jovanovski back for a Bure who could still fire on all cylinders (but didn't last very long). Also a very good return despite the fact that Bure obviously was a much better player than Jovanovski.
Why did Jagr want out? They just got Lemieux back and had a deep playoff run. Things were looking up at that point.

Jovanovski was an established player at the time of the Bure trade. Kris Beech was an unproven prospect.
 

sr edler

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Jovanovski was an established player at the time of the Bure trade. Kris Beech was an unproven prospect.

Yes, and that's why it was a dumb/pointless move. I didn't know much about Beech at the time (of the trade) except that he sucked. Call it non-scouting intuition.
 

Brodeur

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I'll need to upload this behind the scenes of the 1999 NHL Draft video that was on an old NHL DVD. It shows George McPhee getting ready in his hotel room and he's telling the camera something to the effect of "It's exciting knowing that you're about to draft exactly what this organization needs" and then it's a smash cut to Kris Beech sitting in the crowd. The unintentional comedy is off the charts.
 

Ishdul

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I feel like that's just a way of selling an unpopular trade at a time where the Penguins were going to cut a lot of costs. Beech was a good prospect but I don't think he was ever projected to be a superstar.
 

GordieHowsUrBreath

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it was a good comparison because francis was a former star for the pens, and patrick couldn't admit he was trading the best player in the world for the three stooges

nobody thought he was the next ron francis, they were dumping all of their good players for nothing
 

Hobnobs

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tony d

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That Jagr trade was very underwhelming. Best player in the league at that point should have got a better return than that. I think the deal was even panned at the time.
 

Big Phil

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I remember Beech very well. In 1999 THN did a draft preview and we all know how that draft turned out, not very well. But the idea was that there could be some top end talent if it all worked out but there weren't a lot of safe picks. No one knew how the Sedins would react once they were (assumed) split. Patrick Stefan had concussion problems and was a risk and Pavel Brendl was completely one-dimensional. Tim Connolly if I remember had concussion issues in his draft year. So this left Beech as a sure-fire "safe" pick. In other words, you probably thought you were going to draft a guy who would play 1000 NHL games. There was an article entitled: "Beech, the safe pick."

Even before he started his NHL career he was cut in 2001 from the WJC team. It was a surprise and Canada was idiotic then too in cutting players. They interviewed Beech asking if he was bitter about it and he seemed to be. But that was the thing, Beech was not expected to be cut. So the truth was yes there was this idea that he would be a pretty good NHLer.

Now, should he be the key player in a trade for a 5-time Art Ross winner? Heck no. But even in trying to make sense of that everyone knew Jagr wanted out so the advantage in bargaining was on the other team's side. Secondly, Beech was considered a good prospect and even Lupaschuk was thought to be a good defense prospect. Still a bad trade, but it also helps that we know what we know now.

Lastly, that 2004 Pens team was horrible and somehow Beech couldn't crack it. That team allowed 303 goals, the worst in the NHL and their top scorer was Dick Tarnstrom, a power play specialist of a defenseman who had 52 points but was -37. That team was littered with guys who were thought to be sure fire good NHL players especially from where they were drafted. Milan Kraft, Ramzi Abid and then lightning fast players who literally brought nothing else to the table other than the fact they could skate, such as Rico Fata and Konstantin Koltsov. Ric Jackman was one of their defensemen, 5th overall in the woeful 1996 draft. How Beech couldn't crack that roster says a lot about how far he had fallen by then.
 

Hoser

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I always thought Beech was flattered quite a bit by having played for the '98-'99 WHL-champion Calgary Hitmen, who were quite dominant. 1st overall in the regular season and, save for a little bit of a blip in their seven-game series in the first round of the playoffs, they cruised to the WHL championship. Finished atop the round robin at the Memorial Cup too but lost the final game 7-6 in OT to the Ottawa 67's.

Of that Hitmen team the player that went on to have the most accomplished pro career was Brad Stuart, who was a mid-season acquisition from the Pats and easily the team's best defenceman. Leading scorer Pavel Brendl was talented as hell, but a lazy cherrypicker. The most "complete" player on the team was centre Brad Moran (who was a couple years older than Brendl and Beech) but Beech was a similar player and looked like he could become better with some time and experience. Moran's knock against him was he was only 5'11" whereas Beech was 6'3", so it seemed like with the extra height Beech could have become a better player. Beech was however quite slender for his height, only about 180 lbs.

As with many talented players he ended up being an excellent AHLer, but never made the full-time jump to the NHL. Just not good enough.
 

BraveCanadian

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Why did Jagr want out? They just got Lemieux back and had a deep playoff run. Things were looking up at that point.

Jovanovski was an established player at the time of the Bure trade. Kris Beech was an unproven prospect.

Pretty sure that was the playoff that Lemieux called Jagr out for not contributing enough even though Jagr was playing hurt...
 

Big Phil

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I always thought Beech was flattered quite a bit by having played for the '98-'99 WHL-champion Calgary Hitmen, who were quite dominant. 1st overall in the regular season and, save for a little bit of a blip in their seven-game series in the first round of the playoffs, they cruised to the WHL championship. Finished atop the round robin at the Memorial Cup too but lost the final game 7-6 in OT to the Ottawa 67's.

Beech was on the ice, right in front of the net for that overtime goal against too. Matt Zultek of the dominant Ottawa 67s (although they somehow got beat in the OHL playoffs that year) scored the goal and the idea was that he might be a decent NHLer too. Never happened.

Here is another thing that I remember happening to Beech when he was just a prospect and I wonder how many people even know this. In early 2000, months after he was drafted, he got confronted at a bar by someone trying to goad him into a fight. His teammate Stephen Peat, a defenseman drafted by Anaheim in 1998 and who played for the Capitals later on, stepped in to help him and got stabbed in the stomach. He ended up being fine, but did anything like that have anything to do with his focus? I am not saying it did necessarily. Robyn Regehr right around the time he was drafted in the NHL got into a car accident where he broke both legs and where one of his friends died and he still carved out a nice career. Here is the best I can do for the Beech article.
Medicine Hat News Newspaper Archives, Feb 9, 2000, p. 5
 

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