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Kotkaniemi sent to Laval


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8 hours ago, BCHabnut said:

If he is as good as Danault or koivu I will be happy. Danault is guy carboneau.  Under rated player I think.

 

Koivu I can see, but Danault? Please. Sure, Danault's a good player. But KK is a 3rd overall pick - exactly the kind of draft slot so ardently sought by Tank Nation. He was an elite pick in a year when we could have drafted Tkatchuk or followed Commandant's advice and picked franchise d-man Quinn Hughes. The most frequent comparison I heard was to Kopitar, FFS. 

 

Now you're telling us it's Jim Dandy if he turns into Philip frigging Danault.

 

That may be realistic, but it's an unfortunate outcome. Looking at the organization in toto, it probably means that the Habs will be at best middling down the middle, yet again, for the foreseeable future. Otherwise put, this franchise really needs KK to become what we were told he could become on draft day. If not Kopitar then at least an impact top-6 C. Remember, this reset is supposed to produce a *contender*, not another generation of "oh gee, maybe we can make it to the second round." Kotkaniemi as Danault points to that future, not to contention. Elite teams needs elite players.

 

(I find it all too typical of the Bergevin era that we could draft a guy with high hopes, then within two years downgrade him to a Danualt, and say we're 'happy' with that outcome).

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Its easy to forget cause he wasnt a rookie, but the guy was still the 6th youngest NHL regular this season (after being the youngest in his rookie year).  He also had two pretty big injuries that derailed him this year

 

Hes got time to get back on track.

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I dont get what everybody is freakin out about. The sky is NOT falling with this prospect. He's 19! Nick Suzuki was in the OHL at the same age. Poehling was in college. Are we expecting him to be Nathan McKinnon or Malkin from the start?

I dont see the Kopitar comparison outside of height. Kopitar was much more filled out and produced +60 as a rookie and followed that up with +75pts. As for Tkachuk. Hes already a man!

Kotka is still a boy in comparison! As Comm pointed out, he remains the 6th youngest in the NHL!!!!

Besides his 2 injuries this season (groin and concussion), he also had a knee procedure in the early off season know? Give him a break.

 

The kid will be down in Laval for a short time only to get his game on track is all. 

 

With that said, he reminds me of Barkov mostly! Similar style,size, production to start their careers.

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33 minutes ago, Commandant said:

Its easy to forget cause he wasnt a rookie, but the guy was still the 6th youngest NHL regular this season (after being the youngest in his rookie year).  He also had two pretty big injuries that derailed him this year

 

Hes got time to get back on track.


Definitely. I only have two points about KK. One is that he is a key piece to the ‘reset;’ the org needs him to become a franchise cornerstone. Becoming Danault won’t cut it - not if contending is our goal - and we should not kid ourselves otherwise.

 

 The other is that he has yet to show anything especially impressive on the ice at the NHL level. That’s to say, if he were not the #3 overall pick we probably would not be especially excited about him. I get that merely surviving in the NHL at 19 is unusual, but hey, Galy did that too. I’d feel better about KK if I saw him doing special things out there at least occasionally. So far, he’s looked more like a guy who will evolve into a solid player, not an impact piece.

 

This is not ‘giving up’ on the kid. It’s expressing what I think is a reasonable concern that he will not become what the organization needs him to be if the Habs are to evolve into an elite franchise.

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10 minutes ago, IN THE HEARTS OF MEN said:

I dont get what everybody is freakin out about. The sky is NOT falling with this prospect. He's 19! Nick Suzuki was in the OHL at the same age. Poehling was in college. Are we expecting him to be Nathan McKinnon or Malkin from the start?

I dont see the Kopitar comparison outside of height. Kopitar was much more filled out and produced +60 as a rookie and followed that up with +75pts. As for Tkachuk. Hes already a man!

Kotka is still a boy in comparison! As Comm pointed out, he remains the 6th youngest in the NHL!!!!

Besides his 2 injuries this season (groin and concussion), he also had a knee procedure in the early off season know? Give him a break.

 

The kid will be down in Laval for a short time only to get his game on track is all. 

 

With that said, he reminds me of Barkov mostly! Similar style,size, production to start their careers.

 

When i compare him to kopitar its more style of game than point production.  I wasn't looking at stats.

 

But if we do, the KK had 34 points in the NHL at 18.  At the same age, Kopitar was still playing in sweden

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1 hour ago, Commandant said:

Its easy to forget cause he wasnt a rookie, but the guy was still the 6th youngest NHL regular this season (after being the youngest in his rookie year).  He also had two pretty big injuries that derailed him this year

 

Right. Arpon's latest article confirmed that Kotkaniemi was playing with the groin injury for quite some time before going on the injured list.

 

He bulked up significantly in the summer, as had been suggested to him, and the Habs' trainers visited him in Finland and approved his workout program. But what got neglected in the process was skating: he was off the ice for more than two months, longer than he had been at any time in the last ten years. Lessons learned and all that, but when he arrived back in Montreal his body was different, but he had not done the on-ice work to adjust his skating to it yet. Add in the nagging groin injury and it becomes pretty clear why he wasn't the same player as in his rookie season.

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1 hour ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

The other is that he has yet to show anything especially impressive on the ice at the NHL level.

 

I do think he had a strong rookie season: 34 points, with third-line minutes, no PP to speak of and without elite wingers. This season, clearly not the same, but to me the rookie season was impressive.

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1 hour ago, tomh009 said:

 

I do think he had a strong rookie season: 34 points, with third-line minutes, no PP to speak of and without elite wingers. This season, clearly not the same, but to me the rookie season was impressive.

 

It's impressive that he survived in the NHL taking a more-or-less regular shift at that age. That said, I don't recall ever being particularly wowed by anything he actually did on the ice. He's somewhat akin to Mete in that sense: a viable NHLer at an unusually young age, but not actually making plays that make you sit up and go "whoa, that kid is really going to be special."

 

Again, I totally get that it is much too premature to close the book on KK's development. I do, however, come back to the thought that elite young players tend to make an impact much earlier than they used to. Heck, I live in Vancouver, man - a city where 5th overall pick Pettersson and 8th overall pick Hughes and 23rd overall pick Boeser all stepped in as raw rookies at age 20 and made an immediate, major impact. There was never any doubt that all three of those guys were top-flight talents. That's at KK's age. But with KK, two years in, we're going, "well, hmmm, give him time, he got 34 points, maybe he'll be better than Danault, hrm, hrm, hoom." To me, that's a bit unsettling, because the franchise needs KK to be a major player IMHO.

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3 minutes ago, Commandant said:

None of those three players were in the NHL at 18.

 

That's true, they all stepped in as high-impact stars at 20.

 

So, if KK does not make a comparable impact next season, is it OK to start worrying then? Or is this going to turn into another Eller/Galchenyuk scenario - ? (By which I mean that we cling for years to the idea that their leap forward is just around the corner, despite the evidence of our own eyes).

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I said at the time, you dont draft Lars Eller 3rd overall when you had hughes and tcachuk on the board 

 

I think i also said i would have picked zadina over him as well, 

 

Not even really a spot on the roster for him next year either unless its 4th line center

 

Suzuki, Danault and Domi are much better 

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12 minutes ago, Commandant said:

None of those three players were in the NHL at 18.

 

Right. And if we look at 18-year-olds, Kakko and Hughes have scored only 16 and 17 points so far this season. And both have had substantial PP time.

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5 hours ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Koivu I can see, but Danault? Please. Sure, Danault's a good player. But KK is a 3rd overall pick - exactly the kind of draft slot so ardently sought by Tank Nation. He was an elite pick in a year when we could have drafted Tkatchuk or followed Commandant's advice and picked franchise d-man Quinn Hughes. The most frequent comparison I heard was to Kopitar, FFS. 

 

Now you're telling us it's Jim Dandy if he turns into Philip frigging Danault.

 

That may be realistic, but it's an unfortunate outcome. Looking at the organization in toto, it probably means that the Habs will be at best middling down the middle, yet again, for the foreseeable future. Otherwise put, this franchise really needs KK to become what we were told he could become on draft day. If not Kopitar then at least an impact top-6 C. Remember, this reset is supposed to produce a *contender*, not another generation of "oh gee, maybe we can make it to the second round." Kotkaniemi as Danault points to that future, not to contention. Elite teams needs elite players.

 

(I find it all too typical of the Bergevin era that we could draft a guy with high hopes, then within two years downgrade him to a Danualt, and say we're 'happy' with that outcome).

I dont see an elite player there. I hope I'm wrong, but I dont see Kopitar or the more recent comparisons of young Thornton. I want Kopitar also, but if he ends up being carboneau, that's ok too. Better than Galchenyuk or Yakupov. 

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1 hour ago, Commandant said:

None of those three players were in the NHL at 18.

Question is why was he rushed in at 18??  Unless you are a true elite player you should stay in Europe/juniors and have th chance to play lots of minutes and dominate.

thats on Bergevin.

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Development isnt linear or a set formula.

 

He succeeded playing 12-14 minutes a night against nhl competition at 18.

 

Is that better or worse than staying in Finland (where his team finished last)?  

 

It depends on the player .  Some might develop better playing 18-20 minutes in Europe and some might be better playing the higher competition in the NHL.

 

We wont know which decision was best... but i strongly disagree with a cookie cutter approach to development and every prospect should take the same path.

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17 minutes ago, hab29RETIRED said:

Question is why was he rushed in at 18??  Unless you are a true elite player you should stay in Europe/juniors and have th chance to play lots of minutes and dominate.

thats on Bergevin.

 

Because the fans were clamoring for a playoffs appearance?

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3 hours ago, tomh009 said:

 

Because the fans were clamoring for a playoffs appearance?

How did that work out?  If you are putting your hopes on an 18 year old to get in the playoffs and his name is not Gretzky it’s not much of a plan.

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3 hours ago, Commandant said:

Development isnt linear or a set formula.

 

He succeeded playing 12-14 minutes a night against nhl competition at 18.

 

Is that better or worse than staying in Finland (where his team finished last)?  

 

It depends on the player .  Some might develop better playing 18-20 minutes in Europe and some might be better playing the higher competition in the NHL.

 

We wont know which decision was best... but i strongly disagree with a cookie cutter approach to development and every prospect should take the same path.

He was a physically undeveloped 18 year old.  He could have benefited from another year to physically develop (view koivu also agreed with).  The Canucks tried to rush Hughes last year and he was mature in deciding to go to college. Patterson also benefited from spending more time in Sweden.

Even after the mistake last year - even assuming last year wasn’t a mistake he should have been sent to Laval a long time ago.  Isn’t that why we got a new coach who is supposed to be great at developing talent?

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1 hour ago, hab29RETIRED said:

How did that work out?  If you are putting your hopes on an 18 year old to get in the playoffs and his name is not Gretzky it’s not much of a plan.

 

Oh, I very much agree with you. But plenty of people complain about the missed playoffs etc, which surely applies some pressure to take shortcuts.

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6 minutes ago, Commandant said:

People thought Dylan Strome was a bust. 
 

He was even traded.

51 points in 58 games with Chicago last year and 

30 points in 41 this year. 

 

He seems to have gotten it together. 

 

Sure.  After he was traded and got out of place that was impeding his development.

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54 minutes ago, tomh009 said:

 

Oh, I very much agree with you. But plenty of people complain about the missed playoffs etc, which surely applies some pressure to take shortcuts.

 

I don't think keeping KK up had anything at all to do with "making the playoffs," given how ridiculous it is to expect the 34-point-scoring youngest kid in the league to make much difference to a team's playoff drive. It likely had to do with PR considerations - and it was hugely successful from that point of view. Look at how many fans were clicking their heels together at the team's "great future" after missing the playoffs last season. The rhetoric around KK was a significant contributor to that. A bit like the Drouin trade, or the Aho abortion, it was primarily smoke and mirrors designed to keep the fans and media (and perhaps ownership) happy.

 

There was, after all, no pressing developmental reason to throw KK into the fire. Especially as they'd made the same mistake with their previous #3 overall pick.

7 hours ago, BCHabnut said:

I dont see an elite player there. I hope I'm wrong, but I dont see Kopitar or the more recent comparisons of young Thornton. I want Kopitar also, but if he ends up being carboneau, that's ok too. Better than Galchenyuk or Yakupov. 

 

That's the whole trouble, I don't see an elite player either. I'm obviously a lot more bothered than you by that fact, because I see KK as a crucial piece of a "reset" that is supposedly designed to make us a contending, elite, top-end team.

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8 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

I don't think keeping KK up had anything at all to do with "making the playoffs," given how ridiculous it is to expect the 34-point-scoring youngest kid in the league to make much difference to a team's playoff drive. It likely had to do with PR considerations - and it was hugely successful from that point of view. Look at how many fans were clicking their heels together at the team's "great future" after missing the playoffs last season. The rhetoric around KK was a significant contributor to that. A bit like the Drouin trade, or the Aho abortion, it was primarily smoke and mirrors designed to keep the fans and media (and perhaps ownership) happy.

 

There was, after all, no pressing developmental reason to throw KK into the fire. Especially as they'd made the same mistake with their previous #3 overall pick.

 

That's the whole trouble, I don't see an elite player either. I'm obviously a lot more bothered than you by that fact, because I see KK as a crucial piece of a "reset" that is supposedly designed to make us a contending, elite, top-end team.

I think kk Danault suzuki and poeling could give you two 2a centers,  a 2b danault and a 3 poeling.  I feel like the 2018 reset is based on depth and scoring by committee. If one rises to 1a or 2 of them do, someone will have to be traded to fit in the cap. 

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