Scout
10-22-2007, 07:00 PM
Courtesy Alan Caldwell:
Monday, October 22, 2007
Monday musings
I'm sometimes critical of the job the WHL office does of marketing their product and keeping fans informed. It's only fair, then, that I give them credit when they do something right: the league has introduced a "Plays Of The Week" feature on their website, which is a video clip of some of the top plays from the previous week. The October 19 edition is up there now, and here's a direct link to the video section of the site. For now it sounds like they'll be keeping it to a weekly top five plays, but we can only hope they will eventually expand this to show more and more of the great highlights the players in this league generate on a nightly basis.
For now at least, Giants star Milan Lucic is going to remain in the NHL. The Boston Bruins have informed the Giants that they intend to keep Lucic in the NHL beyond the 10- game mark which will cause 07-08 to count as the first year of Lucic's entry-level contract, as well as a year of pro hockey for future waiver eligibility purposes. The Bruins can still return Lucic to Vancouver later in the season but the longer he stays in the NHL, the lesser the chances of that presumably become.
The fate of the WHL's other junior-aged star in the NHL, Phoenix/Everett forward Peter Mueller, is still up in the air. Phoenix has only played 7 games, so they have a couple more games yet before they need to make a decision there.
And while we're talking about junior-aged players in the NHL, if any Americans fans feel the urge to ruin the rest of their day with the old what-could-have-been question, they can check out this clip of Chicago's Jonathan Toews scoring a highlight-reel goal for the ages on Friday night. You might not see a prettier individual goal this year. He goes end-to-end and beats the backchecking forward as well as both Colorado defencemen 1-on-1, finishing by undressing the goaltender. And this guy is only 19 and would still be eligible to play for the Tri-Cities if he had ever reported. The way he is playing (6pts in 6 games), Team Canada can just forget about getting Toews for the World Juniors this year - which he is also still eligible for. For that matter, Team USA can forget about getting Toews' Chicago teammate Patrick Kane (9pts in 8 games) too. The future is very bright in Chicago (finally!) with those two guys leading the team for at least the next seven years.
And now while we're on the topic of high bantam picks who spurned the WHL, the Kelowna Rockets can't be ecstatic about this news. Phoenix forward Colton St. Clair - Kootenay's 10th round pick in the 2007 bantam draft - has apparently verbally committed to Colorado College of the NCAA. The kid is only 15 and not even eligible to play college (unless he accelerates his high school education of course) until 2010-11. The Ice lose a prospect here although it's obviously not a severe blow since he was only a 10th round pick. The real potential story for the WHL though is that this is another one of 2nd overall pick Luke Moffatt's Phoenix bantam teammates who isn't going the WHL route. While at least in theory this is completely irrelevant to Moffatt's eventual WHL vs NCAA decision, it certainly couldn't hurt the WHL's side of the equation if they had a few friends and/or former teammates of Moffatt's around the league. As it is, there are two Arizona players in the WHL right now - Curtis Kelner of Spokane, and Kyle Verdino of Kelowna. Verdino is hurt and hasn't played yet this year but he at least is 16 and may have been a teammate of Moffatt's in the past. Kelner is probably too old to have ever played with Moffatt.
Back to Patrick Kane for a moment - as mentioned, he's a junior-eligible (OHL's London Knights) player who is likely to stick the season in the NHL. As is his 06-07 London teammate Sam Gagner, who seems destined to hang around the Oilers for the year - 5pts in 7 games for one of the NHL's worst teams so far this year is pretty decent. I think Team Canada might have a better shot at getting Gagner for the World Juniors than they do Toews, but it's still probably a longshot if the kid keeps playing well for the Oil. But all this begs a question: how good would the London Knights be this year if they had both Kane and Gagner in their lineup? They are sputtering along at 5-6 this year but if they had the 40-50 points that Kane/Gagner would have generated in those 11 games, would they be 11-0? 10-1? This is the conundrum that junior teams find themselves in....everyone wants superstars, just not ones that are so good that they make the NHL before they're 20. When it happens, it can kill a team's multi-year buildup to a title run.
Still in the OHL, failed WHL overage candidate Lyon Messier (released by Kelowna 10 days ago) has landed in the OHL with the Erie Otters. What is it with the quality of overagers in the OHL - it seems like every year some guys who couldn't earn O/A spots in the WHL end up in the OHL.
And one final note here - how can things get worse for Portland? Well, having their star goaltender suspended for a lengthy period of time would qualify in that category. Kurtis Mucha engaged Seattle's Jacob DeSerres in a fight during a line brawl at 20:00 of the 3rd period of Portland's 2-0 loss to Seattle on Saturday night. There is some suggestion (although I have read nothing concrete either way) that Mucha left the bench (presumably he had been pulled for an extra attacker?) to take part in the fight. Either way, he was not in the Hawks lineup for their game on Sunday so that would seem to suggest that something might be going on. The suspension for leaving the bench to fight is minimum ten games so that would keep him out of the Hawks lineup for quite a while if it's true - and I'm not saying it is. There is also an automatic suspension for the coach of a team which has a player leave the bench, so this could cost Rich Kromm some time behind the Hawks bench as well. We'll see how the league rules.
UPDATE: in regards to the Mucha situation, I was just checking out the rules on the WHL's site and it looks like they have stricken the section which calls for a mandatory 10 game minimum suspension for players leaving the bench. The rule is still there, it's just crossed out in the WHL's rulebook. So, perhaps Mucha is not looking at a suspension of that length....for which he can consider himself lucky then since that's what the rule was for as long as I can remember.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Monday musings
I'm sometimes critical of the job the WHL office does of marketing their product and keeping fans informed. It's only fair, then, that I give them credit when they do something right: the league has introduced a "Plays Of The Week" feature on their website, which is a video clip of some of the top plays from the previous week. The October 19 edition is up there now, and here's a direct link to the video section of the site. For now it sounds like they'll be keeping it to a weekly top five plays, but we can only hope they will eventually expand this to show more and more of the great highlights the players in this league generate on a nightly basis.
For now at least, Giants star Milan Lucic is going to remain in the NHL. The Boston Bruins have informed the Giants that they intend to keep Lucic in the NHL beyond the 10- game mark which will cause 07-08 to count as the first year of Lucic's entry-level contract, as well as a year of pro hockey for future waiver eligibility purposes. The Bruins can still return Lucic to Vancouver later in the season but the longer he stays in the NHL, the lesser the chances of that presumably become.
The fate of the WHL's other junior-aged star in the NHL, Phoenix/Everett forward Peter Mueller, is still up in the air. Phoenix has only played 7 games, so they have a couple more games yet before they need to make a decision there.
And while we're talking about junior-aged players in the NHL, if any Americans fans feel the urge to ruin the rest of their day with the old what-could-have-been question, they can check out this clip of Chicago's Jonathan Toews scoring a highlight-reel goal for the ages on Friday night. You might not see a prettier individual goal this year. He goes end-to-end and beats the backchecking forward as well as both Colorado defencemen 1-on-1, finishing by undressing the goaltender. And this guy is only 19 and would still be eligible to play for the Tri-Cities if he had ever reported. The way he is playing (6pts in 6 games), Team Canada can just forget about getting Toews for the World Juniors this year - which he is also still eligible for. For that matter, Team USA can forget about getting Toews' Chicago teammate Patrick Kane (9pts in 8 games) too. The future is very bright in Chicago (finally!) with those two guys leading the team for at least the next seven years.
And now while we're on the topic of high bantam picks who spurned the WHL, the Kelowna Rockets can't be ecstatic about this news. Phoenix forward Colton St. Clair - Kootenay's 10th round pick in the 2007 bantam draft - has apparently verbally committed to Colorado College of the NCAA. The kid is only 15 and not even eligible to play college (unless he accelerates his high school education of course) until 2010-11. The Ice lose a prospect here although it's obviously not a severe blow since he was only a 10th round pick. The real potential story for the WHL though is that this is another one of 2nd overall pick Luke Moffatt's Phoenix bantam teammates who isn't going the WHL route. While at least in theory this is completely irrelevant to Moffatt's eventual WHL vs NCAA decision, it certainly couldn't hurt the WHL's side of the equation if they had a few friends and/or former teammates of Moffatt's around the league. As it is, there are two Arizona players in the WHL right now - Curtis Kelner of Spokane, and Kyle Verdino of Kelowna. Verdino is hurt and hasn't played yet this year but he at least is 16 and may have been a teammate of Moffatt's in the past. Kelner is probably too old to have ever played with Moffatt.
Back to Patrick Kane for a moment - as mentioned, he's a junior-eligible (OHL's London Knights) player who is likely to stick the season in the NHL. As is his 06-07 London teammate Sam Gagner, who seems destined to hang around the Oilers for the year - 5pts in 7 games for one of the NHL's worst teams so far this year is pretty decent. I think Team Canada might have a better shot at getting Gagner for the World Juniors than they do Toews, but it's still probably a longshot if the kid keeps playing well for the Oil. But all this begs a question: how good would the London Knights be this year if they had both Kane and Gagner in their lineup? They are sputtering along at 5-6 this year but if they had the 40-50 points that Kane/Gagner would have generated in those 11 games, would they be 11-0? 10-1? This is the conundrum that junior teams find themselves in....everyone wants superstars, just not ones that are so good that they make the NHL before they're 20. When it happens, it can kill a team's multi-year buildup to a title run.
Still in the OHL, failed WHL overage candidate Lyon Messier (released by Kelowna 10 days ago) has landed in the OHL with the Erie Otters. What is it with the quality of overagers in the OHL - it seems like every year some guys who couldn't earn O/A spots in the WHL end up in the OHL.
And one final note here - how can things get worse for Portland? Well, having their star goaltender suspended for a lengthy period of time would qualify in that category. Kurtis Mucha engaged Seattle's Jacob DeSerres in a fight during a line brawl at 20:00 of the 3rd period of Portland's 2-0 loss to Seattle on Saturday night. There is some suggestion (although I have read nothing concrete either way) that Mucha left the bench (presumably he had been pulled for an extra attacker?) to take part in the fight. Either way, he was not in the Hawks lineup for their game on Sunday so that would seem to suggest that something might be going on. The suspension for leaving the bench to fight is minimum ten games so that would keep him out of the Hawks lineup for quite a while if it's true - and I'm not saying it is. There is also an automatic suspension for the coach of a team which has a player leave the bench, so this could cost Rich Kromm some time behind the Hawks bench as well. We'll see how the league rules.
UPDATE: in regards to the Mucha situation, I was just checking out the rules on the WHL's site and it looks like they have stricken the section which calls for a mandatory 10 game minimum suspension for players leaving the bench. The rule is still there, it's just crossed out in the WHL's rulebook. So, perhaps Mucha is not looking at a suspension of that length....for which he can consider himself lucky then since that's what the rule was for as long as I can remember.