Commandant

Its all about the older players. Virtually no players from CIS (or U-Sports if you will) make the NHL, while most of the Canadian Junior Team gets at least a shot in the NHL. Yet every year when Canada has their world junior camp, the exhibition games against CIS all-stars are very competitive, the CIS often wins. The CIS teams also usually beat NCAA teams cause again older. At 18, 19, vs 23, 24 its huge advantage.

He's better than Alzner but not as good as Savard, and I don't think Savard is that good. Again, the only way I take him is if the Sens are taking Armia or Hoffman.

Missaien? He was a bust, he had the same issue that many tall goalies have, weak five hole... as well as the issue many young goalies have, weak rebound control. he was always a project but never worked out.

Sure, they seem to have a bit of room on the 50... 43 on Cap Friendly, which is likely to be 44 with Slafkovsky, and becomes 45 if Mesar goes to Lava instead of Kitchener., so you can make two claims.

Chiarot wasn't even that good, but he could play top four without embarrassing himself. Assuming a prospect will become "a lot better" than him before playing a single AHL regular season game, never mind the NHL, is absolute foolishness.

I love Beck. He does all the little things right. That said, I would reward him with his ELC and send him back to Mississauga. Let him be a number 1 centre in the OHL and develop his offensive game a bit more. Its a league where he can take chances that he wouldn't be allowed to in the NHL. Mesar is a bit different cause he can go to the AHL where Beck can't, but I'd still send him to Kitchener under the same theory.

Yeah, Roy was drafted in 1983. Size has changed a lot, and its not just goalies though. How many guys were 6'6 and bigger in 1983 vs now.

Zaitsev is shit. The sens want to dump his salary. if we can dump Armia as you suggested, then yes, I would do that, just to have one year less of the contract. But I don't expect anything at all out of Zaitsev other than to be a placeholder. I'd also do the trade cause we have a surplus of wingers and not enough RD so its good to move those place holders around to where we need them. That said Zaitsev is nothing more than a place holder while kids develop. If its not a salary dump for us too, then I don't want Zaitsev.

Yeah, teams shy away from small goalies unless they are super, super special.

24 hours yes It all depends if you think he will be the best RD avaiable on waivers, or if you want to wait for someone else.

Its not just Dichow. Goalies are voodoo and we don't know which one will develop. See lundqvist, Halak, and a number of late picks that came out. The hope is one of Dobes (who i think is the best right now), Primeau, Dichow, Vrbetic, Croteau develops. There isn't one option, there are five right now, plus I expect them to keep taking one goalie prospect per draft.

Obviously I'm not guaranteeing he will make it. I'm just saying the type of player he looks like. The #62 is appropriate as he looks a lot like a Centre version of Arturri Lehkonen.

And there is such a huge jump from being an OHL overager to NHL with no AHL time that expecting Xhekaj in the NHL to start the season seems very unreasonable. If we have a minor league defenceman filling in, its far more likely to be Corey Schueneman.

Beck looks like a Danault type, so lets set our expectations at a reasonable level in terms of offence. His game will be more based on his value in playing the PK and against other team's top lines. I think Dach will be more offensive and not be in the role of playing against top lines. Suzuki is gonna be playing against the other team's top six line. Beck will be more a replacement for Dvorak.

I was listening to the Locked on Habs podcast this week and they had on one of the Locked on Blackhawks hosts to talk about Dach. Apparently Dach had respectable numbers with good linemates. Nothing world beating... but good solid numbers for an 18/19 year old when playing with Kane or Toews or Debrincat. The issue was when he was on the third line and didnt have one of those guys the numbers fell off an absolute cliff. Now of course every NHL player does better with good linemates vs poor ones but Dachs change was one of the biggest and most dramatic in his analytics. What that means is a bit hard to say. It can be read in a bad way that he cant drive play for a line. Or it can be read that this is a young player who plays better when given good players to work with and he will need that to grow as a prospect. Its really something Id have to watch him more to be able to get an eye test on what is happening to cause those numbers. But to say he didnt succeed with good linemates isnt true. He did well with top quality on his line. He just totally disappeared without it.