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Shane Churla hired as "chief amateur scout."


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Always happy to see the Habs adding to the scouting staff...but how does this ramify for the mighty Timmins, if at all?

Churla will report to Timmins and this is yet another new post created by Bergevin. If I had to guess how it could affect Timmins, it might thrust him into more of a cross-checker role (he already does that to some extent as it is). Timmins still is the guy though. Churla has lots of experience, he started out with Phoenix back in 2000.

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Always happy to see the Habs adding to the scouting staff...but how does this ramify for the mighty Timmins, if at all?

I hope this just means he has another asset in play.

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That's pretty much it.

Timmins hit a home run last draft and most of the misconceptions on his drafting are from dullards who have no hand in the process.

Agreed. As a team that seldom drafts in the top-10, the Habs need to have the best amateur scouting in the business. Picks like Subban and Gallagher are the path to Detroit-like excellence.

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Agreed. As a team that seldom drafts in the top-10, the Habs need to have the best amateur scouting in the business. Picks like Subban and Gallagher are the path to Detroit-like excellence.

Honestly a better modern example is Chicago. Kane, Toews and Seabrook may have been high picks but you had Keith in the second round, Brouwer in the seventh round, Byfuglien in the eighth round, Niemi undrafted, Hjalmarsson in the fourth round, guys thrown away by their original team like Sharp, Ladd and Versteeg and when a lot of their Cup guys left they replaced them with Kruger (fifth round), Saad (second round), Bickell (second round) and throwaways Stalberg (sixth round Leafs pick) and Frolik (first round pick the Panthers gave up on). Detroit has had a pretty pathetic drafting record in the past 10 years. However, they will always get credit (and deserve it) for grabbing Zetterberg and Datsyuk as well as their smart Russian drafting in the late 80s/early 90s.

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Honestly a better modern example is Chicago. Kane, Toews and Seabrook may have been high picks but you had Keith in the second round, Brouwer in the seventh round, Byfuglien in the eighth round, Niemi undrafted, Hjalmarsson in the fourth round, guys thrown away by their original team like Sharp, Ladd and Versteeg and when a lot of their Cup guys left they replaced them with Kruger (fifth round), Saad (second round), Bickell (second round) and throwaways Stalberg (sixth round Leafs pick) and Frolik (first round pick the Panthers gave up on). Detroit has had a pretty pathetic drafting record in the past 10 years. However, they will always get credit (and deserve it) for grabbing Zetterberg and Datsyuk as well as their smart Russian drafting in the late 80s/early 90s.

Fair enough. By 'Detroit-like excellence' I just mean a team that is in the mix year after year after year - not that Detroit is the paragon of excellent drafting. (In fact you could argue that they've basically been living off incredible lucky strikes in Zetterberg and Datsyuk for the past decade).

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For anyone wondering if this is another Rick Dudley situation (where he can't work this draft), it appears that this is not the case. He got the green light to join the team immediately. If anyone's interested in reading a bit about him, I put a couple of links about the hire on the site.

Plus, here's one from last year around draft time: http://stars.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=634766

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Fair enough. By 'Detroit-like excellence' I just mean a team that is in the mix year after year after year - not that Detroit is the paragon of excellent drafting. (In fact you could argue that they've basically been living off incredible lucky strikes in Zetterberg and Datsyuk for the past decade).

Ah okay, I thought you meant Detroit by drafting. Too often I see that said and you're right, they have been living off lucky strikes. As much as we Habs fans sometimes complain about our first/second round drafting, take a look at Detroit between 2000 and 2010. Nikas Kronwall, Tomas Kopecky, Igor Grigorenko, Jiri Hudler, Tomas Fleishmann, Jimmy Howard, Jakub Kindl, Justin Abdelkader, Cory Emmerton, Shawn Matthias, Dick Axelsson, Brendan Smith, Thomas McCollum, Landon Ferraro, Tomas Tatar, Riley Sheahan and Callie Jarnkok. It's easy to see how it takes a nose dive after 2003 (Howard).

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Scouting has to be such a crapshoot once you leave the guys at the top who themselves can fail to show up for you. Challenging job and it certainly has to be one of the most important. How many millions get blown on bad guesses.

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I get that Nill wants to bring in his own people and that is why Churla is available. I wonder if Churla had any prior association with any of our scouting staff which may have enhanced his selection to Montreal or is this just a random selection best scout available idea? There is a suggestion that one of our scouts is leaving.

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I get that Nill wants to bring in his own people and that is why Churla is available. I wonder if Churla had any prior association with any of our scouting staff which may have enhanced his selection to Montreal or is this just a random selection best scout available idea? There is a suggestion that one of our scouts is leaving.

You never know who met up with who along the way but I can't seem to find a connection with the top brass in management.

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One question is: has Dallas's scouting been any good? If not - and their track record suggests it hasn't - then maybe we shouldn't be too thrilled with this hiring, especially if Churla represents not an additional voice in the scouting staff, but a replacement for a departing scout. Just a thought.

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One question is: has Dallas's scouting been any good? If not - and their track record suggests it hasn't - then maybe we shouldn't be too thrilled with this hiring, especially if Churla represents not an additional voice in the scouting staff, but a replacement for a departing scout. Just a thought.

Dallas had a pretty excellent draft last year though time will tell who works out and who doesn't. His job in Dallas was, "helping identify and evaluate draft-eligible players along with contributing feedback and input to the overall draft preparation process.

". Which sounds a lot like the same thing Commandant does on his spare time.

It's unfair to credit one man for anything in the drafting process (unless your name is Christer Rockstrom, then you deserve full credit for Lidstrom, Konstantinov and Lundqvist. Do people even realize he's on our scouting staff now and that was a Pierre Gauthier signing?) much like it's unfair to put team defence on just the goaltender ("He has to steal us games!") but for simplicity sake, the Stars have drafted James Neal, Jamie Benn and Matt Niskanen since he took the job with most of them early on. Dallas drafts similar to Montreal in that they love to have a deep depth pool but not much for home run picks (unless you count Benn and Neal). Dallas loves to draft big if anyone cares about that.

So who knows. In all likelihood this is going to be the last thread with Shane Churla's name on it until he's fired.

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Dallas had a pretty excellent draft last year though time will tell who works out and who doesn't. His job in Dallas was, "helping identify and evaluate draft-eligible players along with contributing feedback and input to the overall draft preparation process.

". Which sounds a lot like the same thing Commandant does on his spare time.

It's unfair to credit one man for anything in the drafting process (unless your name is Christer Rockstrom, then you deserve full credit for Lidstrom, Konstantinov and Lundqvist. Do people even realize he's on our scouting staff now and that was a Pierre Gauthier signing?) much like it's unfair to put team defence on just the goaltender ("He has to steal us games!") but for simplicity sake, the Stars have drafted James Neal, Jamie Benn and Matt Niskanen since he took the job with most of them early on. Dallas drafts similar to Montreal in that they love to have a deep depth pool but not much for home run picks (unless you count Benn and Neal). Dallas loves to draft big if anyone cares about that.

So who knows. In all likelihood this is going to be the last thread with Shane Churla's name on it until he's fired.

I think it's great we have another experienced scout, all be it in a probably minor role, that is to say he is basically an advisor to Timmons. But you are correct if most of us had to answer who are 5 scouts for the habs we would have a tough time. I know I would unless i cheated and looked it up. So in our little worlds pretty small potatoes news but good to hear. Next thread who's leaving?

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Always happy to see the Habs adding to the scouting staff...but how does this ramify for the mighty Timmins, if at all?

Timmins is Director of Scouting.

Churla is beneath him as chief amateur scout.

This doesn't effect much for Timmins.

In a short period of time we went from 8 scouts to 19.

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One question is: has Dallas's scouting been any good? If not - and their track record suggests it hasn't - then maybe we shouldn't be too thrilled with this hiring, especially if Churla represents not an additional voice in the scouting staff, but a replacement for a departing scout. Just a thought.

Dallas' draft post 2005 (when Churla joins) is excellent.

Their GM work in the same period is shit.

As much as we hit a home run in 2012... so did Dallas... the only difference in quality is the fact that we get Galchenyuk at 3rd overall, and they don't have such a high pick. Past that, they did just as well as us.

Some other picks that I really love in Dallas since Churla was there... Jamie Benn (one of the biggest draft steals of the decade)... .James Neal, Matt Niskanen, Jack Campbell, Brett Ritchie, Philip Larsen,

Only one huge mistake in Scott Glennie

How much of that is Churla? I don't know the answer to that.

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I think it's great we have another experienced scout, all be it in a probably minor role, that is to say he is basically an advisor to Timmons. But you are correct if most of us had to answer who are 5 scouts for the habs we would have a tough time. I know I would unless i cheated and looked it up. So in our little worlds pretty small potatoes news but good to hear. Next thread who's leaving?

Rumor I've heard is John Madden, but that hasn't been confirmed

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Rumor I've heard is John Madden, but that hasn't been confirmed

He had curiously vanished from one of the versions of the Habs' site (I forget which one) about a week ago but the teams' twitter feed admitted that was an error and he's showing on both again. (Or it's true and they jumped the gun, they've been known to do that from time to time over the years.) As noted in the rumour thread, Ryan Jankowski is also a candidate to be leaving.

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ahh the after the playoffs doldrums when damn near anything is news. :D when the hell is free agency and the draft going to start. I want to talk real Habs news :D:habslogo:

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ahh the after the playoffs doldrums when damn near anything is news. :D when the hell is free agency and the draft going to start. I want to talk real Habs news :D:habslogo:

Ha ha, I know what you mean...I come on here daily but with zilch happening, the exercise is forlorn. :tumbleweed:

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