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Victor Mete past, present and future


alfredoh2009

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Steve's article painted a bleak portrait of how the CH has handled Mete's development:

http://www.habsworld.net/2020/06/victor-metes-development-and-contract-poorly-handled-by-habs/

 

I want to discuss it a bit further. Wouldn't it be fair to say that Mete, a 4th round pick in 2016, has found unexpected success early in his career and that he was opportunistic in forcing the Habs hand to keep him?

He was a better defenceman than Alzner, Schlemko and Benn and later he showed to be better than Rielly and Olofsson. 

 

In my books, he has been a positive story in his short career. I do not see the downside

 

Edited by alfredoh2009
added Alzner, who I forgot
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Unexpected Success?
As in cracked a weak roster perhaps.

 

Have never been a fan of his, not his fault the organization handled him poorly and had such a dearth of d-men  that he was thrust into the show prematurely. But that doesn’t mean he gets a pass either.
 

Too slow moving the puck, too weak in corners and net front, brutal shot.

He only made the 10 and 40 game mark because Weber protected him at the expense of his own performance, wasting Weber’s potential in doing so.  He can make a partner look good but at the sacrifice of his own productivity.

 

I know it reads harsh, but he wouldn’t be an NHLer if Mgmt hadn’t botched the core of the d.

 

 

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I don't agree with that.  I think he is a legitimate NHLer, and when you get that from a fourth round pick, that's quality. 

 

This is a guy who has decent analytics (both with Weber and away from him) where he is over 50%, is like -1% relative to teammates despite getting 55% of his starts in his own zone (far more than most of the teammates). 

 

If you want to argue he isn't a top pair defenceman... sure, we all agree on that. 
I'd say he's a borderline #4 right now.  If you want to say he should be on the third pair instead of the 2nd, ok, i can listen to that type of argument.  I don't agree, but I'll listen to it. 

If you think he isn't an NHLer and doesn't even belong as the #5 defenceman, yeah, I can't agree on that at all, and the stats don't really back your argument at all either. 

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1 hour ago, alfredoh2009 said:

Steve's article painted a bleak portrait of how the CH has handled Mete's development:

http://www.habsworld.net/2020/06/victor-metes-development-and-contract-poorly-handled-by-habs/

 

I want to discuss it a bit further. Wouldn't it be fair to say that Mete, a 4th round pick in 2016, has found unexpected success early in his career and that he was opportunistic in forcing the Habs hand to keep him?

He was a better defenceman than Alzner, Schlemko and Benn and later he showed to be better than Rielly and Olofsson. 

 

In my books, he has been a positive story in his short career. I do not see the downside

 

I would disagree.  They Over played him in riles he clearly was not ready for and would have been better served developing in the minors - although at the top of my head I can’t remember if that would have been with Lefebve when he broke in - which probably wouldn’t have helped him.

 

the fact that he was in the lineup was an indictment on how bad the D was.  Yzerman let Seider stay in the minors this year despite having a crap D yes the wings were the worst in the league by more than a country mile, but yzerman didn’t use hope or prayer as a strategy of throwing a kid in before he was ready.


I think he would have benefited working on his shot and playing against weaker competition, which probably would have been better for his development. As it is now we don’t know if he is a borderline. NHL dman it a solid 2nd pairing.

 

now if Mete was put in and was a difference maker that made us a contender than I would have agreed that is a positive story.  Right now we still don’t know what he is or will be.

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24 minutes ago, hab29RETIRED said:

I would disagree.  They Over played him in riles he clearly was not ready for and would have been better served developing in the minors - although at the top of my head I can’t remember if that would have been with Lefebve when he broke in - which probably wouldn’t have helped him.

 

the fact that he was in the lineup was an indictment on how bad the D was.  Yzerman let Seider stay in the minors this year despite having a crap D yes the wings were the worst in the league by more than a country mile, but yzerman didn’t use hope or prayer as a strategy of throwing a kid in before he was ready.


I think he would have benefited working on his shot and playing against weaker competition, which probably would have been better for his development. As it is now we don’t know if he is a borderline. NHL dman it a solid 2nd pairing.

 

now if Mete was put in and was a difference maker that made us a contender than I would have agreed that is a positive story.  Right now we still don’t know what he is or will be.

 

 

Detroit is not a model of success. With all the talent he has drafted, he is still running a bottom feeder. Maybe not for long, but a bottom feeder none the less.

 

Regardless of how much Mete practices his shot and dominates "lesser competition" (in the AHL?) He would be moved aside by Romanov, Harris, Norlinder, and even Chiarot.

 

We will disagree on this one then. 🤼‍♀️ (wrestling the arguments) 🤼‍♀️ 

 

 

Edited by alfredoh2009
typos
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When Mete made the team, he was 2 years older than Seider was in September. 

This past season, when he was in his second year and Seider was just drafte, he's 3 years older than Seider

 

Mete making the team for 18-19, is the same as Seider making the team for 2022-23.  I kinda think he'll be an NHLer at that point, so thats not really a good example of Yzerman holding a prospect back longer than Bergevin. 

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5 hours ago, alfredoh2009 said:

 

 

Detroit is not a model of success. With all the talent he has drafted, he is still running a bottom feeder. Maybe not for long, but a bottom feeder none the less.

 

Regardless of how much Mete practices his shot and dominates "lesser competition" (in the AHL?) He would be moved aside by Romanov, Harris, Norlinder, and even Chiarot.

 

We will disagree on this one then. 🤼‍♀️ (wrestling the arguments) 🤼‍♀️ 

 

 

It’s yzerman’s first year on the job and he has held back prospects rather than throw them into the fire.  Same approach he took as GM of the lightning. 

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2 hours ago, Commandant said:

When Mete made the team, he was 2 years older than Seider was in September. 

This past season, when he was in his second year and Seider was just drafte, he's 3 years older than Seider

 

Mete making the team for 18-19, is the same as Seider making the team for 2022-23.  I kinda think he'll be an NHLer at that point, so thats not really a good example of Yzerman holding a prospect back longer than Bergevin. 

Yes Seider is younger, but he wasn’t the only prospect that was held back or eased into the NHL by Yzerman and he used the same approach in Tampa.

i have no problem in letting kids play young - if they are ready, but I didn’t like KK playing last year and didn’t think Mete should have been playing the minutes he did.  He also clearly needed to work on his shot, which was way below average for an offensive dmen that was getting the minutes and role that Mete was given.  He was put into that position, not because he was ready, but the d corps was a trash heap.  

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There are certain things you can learn how to do in the AHL that you can't learn in the NHL. 

 

Improving his shot is not one of them.  He will get the practice time and have access to the weight room to bulk up in both the NHL and AHL, in fact the gyms he has access to in the NHL are better. 

 

If you want to say carrying the puck, sure in the AHL he will be able to do that more often and so doing it during games, he'll learn it more. 

 

Improving his shot, it doesn't matter what league he's in, he's either going to be able to do it or not. 

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22 hours ago, hab29RETIRED said:

I think he would have benefited working on his shot and playing against weaker competition, which probably would have been better for his development.

 

And indeed he has been working on his shot. This is from last summer, training with Tim Turk:

https://www.timturkhockey.com/turk-hitting-the-ice-with-victor-mete/

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2 hours ago, Commandant said:

He can improve his shot, but I don't ever expect it to be good. 

 

If he had a good shot along with everything else he has, he wouldn't have been a fourth rounder. 

 

"Respectable" is what I'm hoping for!

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1 hour ago, tomh009 said:

 

"Respectable" is what I'm hoping for!

He was on a 6g pace this year, so at least a big step up from Zero.

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5 minutes ago, DON said:

He was on a 6g pace this year, so at least a big step up from Zero.

 

But, I thought players can't improve while playing in the NHL... they need to be in the AHL or Junior in order to get better. 

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  I really find it hard to criticize Bergevin for Mete.  We took a somewhat small 4th round D-man and got a guy who is a definite NHLer. 

 

  I see no evidence at all that he would have turned out better if he had spent 2 more years in the AHL.  Sure maybe he could have improved some of his skills in the minors.  But maybe he would have stagnated there and ended up being a career AHLer.   Claiming that he would have been better than he is with more AHL time is just begging the question. 

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IMO he needed another year in junior to develop his skills and confidence against competition with which he had a chance to be elite ... he cracked a horrible lineup and was a pleasant surprise ... making many fans seriously overrate him (IMO) ... I see him topping out as AT BEST a #4 defenceman but realistically a 5/6/7 on a good team ... his skating is very good but otherwise I see him as very average or less for a NHL level defenceman in any other category.

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