tomh009

And the 35% is what Bergevin loves to aim for. 😂😂😂

It really depends on where else they would find a similar level of player, and at what price.

It's quite true. It was dropped from 20 to 18 in 1980 (I think) after Ken Linseman took the NHL to court on this issue. The lawsuit was eventually dropped once the NHL changed the minimum to 18, though, so there is no actual precedent, as you say. But if the NHL folded in 1980 on this issue, I very much doubt they would try to take this on now. I still like the idea of limiting the number of 18yo players drafted, allowing the others to mature another year, but that's really just wishful thinking.

You could disallow the drafting of 18yo players after the first few rounds, the way it was in the late 80s. The others would need to wait another year or two.

I expect Adam Nicholas is in regular contact with him, to set him on the right path.

From The Athletic, a year ago:

Contract #47, is it not?

Another year of junior doesn't mean that he won't make the Habs. It would simply mean that he is developing slower.

MHN is really annoying with clickbait headlines. I'll make an exception for Marc Dumont stories, though.

Unless they take on a bunch of other bad contracts, of course, they will have the LTIR option if they need it.

Not everyone is going to be keen to sign him, given his injury history and the team's current roster.

6'0" would not be unique, DeSmith is 6'0". Size is an advantage but I still don't believe that a good 6'1 goalie is necessarily better than a great 6'0 goalie. There is no magic capability switch that clicks "on" as soon as you reach 6'1.

It's far from certain, some goalies have a great season and then slump the next (see Bobrovsky and Knight for a couple of examples). I'm encouraged and cautiously optimistic that he can possibly be part of a contending team, but we really don't know yet.

18th in the league is really mid-pack among starters so it's certainly not terrible. And the save percentage is impacted by the type of shots the defence gives up, those tend to be more dangerous for the Habs than for, say, the Bruins. GSAA is a better stat, at least in principle, but it's impacted by the xGA stat, which is evaluated differently by the various sites that do advanced stats. The ones I posted above are from MoneyPuck, others will be different.

It's a small sample size, still, but he's been solid for (most of) 25 games. If he were to be able to sustain this through next season, I think we could certainly consider him a viable #1/1A/1B. Hopefully this year is not just an aberration and he really has found a new level.

Monahan may well return on a short contract. Maybe. And Belzile/Schueneman in Laval.

23 high-danger chances for the Devils. It sure looks like Montembeault stole this one.

Apparently neither Montembeault or Vanecek got the memo about the Habs trying to draft Bedard.

At least the support system is there now. Whether that will prove to have been enough for Slafkovsky's success is something we'll see in the next year or two. Like you, I think he should have been in the AHL (or even OHL). I am skeptical and concerned, but I do recognize that the Habs' management and skills teams have way more expertise and information than I do.

It's a tight battle for all the playoff spots bar the first (the Marlies): there are five teams separated by only four points. The good thing is that the Rocket has 13 points in the last 10 games, no one bar Cleveland (14) has more, and Utica in 3rd place has only 5.

I don't think Hugo has any interest in rushing him back before he is fully recovered. There would be zero advantage in doing that.

7-2 final. 39/41 saves by Primeau, which looks pretty solid. Scoring well distributed, but Norlinder, Trudeau and Dube all recorded 2a. https://lscluster.hockeytech.com/game_reports/official-game-report.php?lang_id=1&client_code=ahl&game_id=1024668

For the 15 years from 2016 to 2020, a grand total of 12 goalies picked in the first round, roughly 2.5% of the total (the NHL roster has about 10% goalies). 2006 11 Los Angeles Jonathan Bernier G Lewiston MAINEiacs [QMJHL] 2006 23 Washington Semyon Varlamov G Yaroslavl-2 [Russia] 2006 26 Calgary Leland Irving G Everett Silvertips [WHL] 2008 18 Nashville Chet Pickard G Tri-City Americans [WHL] 2008 30 Detroit Tom McCollum G Guelph Storm [OHL] 2010 11 Dallas Jack Campbell G U.S. National Development Team 2010 27 Phoenix Mark Visentin G Niagara IceDogs [OHL] 2012 19 Tampa Bay Andrei Vasilevskiy G Ufa Tolpar (Russia) 2015 22 Washington Ilya Samsonov G Magnitogorsk-2 (Russia Jrs.) 2017 26 Dallas Jake Oettinger G Boston University [H-East] 2019 13 Florida Spencer Knight G U.S. National Development Team 2020 11 Nashville Yaroslav Askarov G St. Petersburg Jr. (Russia) Vasilevskiy and Oettinger are currently roughly at the Montembeault level in terms of GSAA, Samsonov a little lower. Knight and Campbell well below league average. Askarov is in the AHL and Pronman/Wheeler do expect him to become an NHL starter. And then Iving, Pickard, McCollum and Visentin never established themselves in the NHL. But the point is that there is only one goalie of those twelve (Vasilevskiy), and out of 15 draft years, that has actually won an award, or been named to an all-star team. (Bernier was good, and won a Cup, but no individual awards.) The odds on goalies are even longer than on other first-round picks.

For goalies, given that uncertainty, it’s probably best to accumulate promising later-round prospects than to bet it all on a first-rounder that may not pan out.

Dom L's model over at the Athletic still has FLA with a 50% chance of making the playoffs, but currently FLA's points percentage is seventh of those seven teams trying to get into the playoffs ("where anything can happen").