Glad to see both Fluery and Bleakley taken in the first round might convince our American Prospects to look north for their junior careers. Congrats boys. :clap:
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Glad to see both Fluery and Bleakley taken in the first round might convince our American Prospects to look north for their junior careers. Congrats boys. :clap:
Pretty cool news for them. What would really excite me, however, would be for some measures to be taken to at least attempt to improve this team.
They got rid of Sutter and Gaudet which will both do wonders to help the team this year. They were both awful (painful to watch) last year. There will probably be a few young, skilled guys that will make this team out of training camp so we will see some learning mistakes early in the season, but if last years 16 and 17 year olds can continue their forward progression, I am excited with what this team will offer this year. If we can land a top 4 d-man in the import draft, the only potential hole I can see is goaltending.
Here is hoping. Pratt was the best player at the prospect camp, and Mismash was right in there too! Could sure use a change of heart from Blake Weyrick this season as well...Quote:
Originally Posted by Red celtic
Not really a lot of options in the WHL to improve a team. Teams aren't giving up players that put up a lot of points, or fantastic goaltenders, so the best you can do is either draft well and develop talent (which takes years), or trade for a player that another team has given up on and hope that they turn into something. The exception for the Rebels would be to draft a highly-touted import and shell out for the huge transfer fee, or to somehow manage to get one of their drafted American-born players to report.Quote:
Originally Posted by calcheyup
I guess we will find out on Wednesday! With the buzz being another bid for the Memorial cup this season, I would suspect that they will go for 18 year olds, or possibly make a deal with another team to add a scoring import. As far as goaltending goes, Sutter has consistently churned out NHL/Pro goaltenders, however they are all sandwiched between seasons of mediocre/poor goaltending. With Bartosak moving on to play Pro this season, I have a feeling this is going to be one of those mediocre/poor seasons.Quote:
Originally Posted by Moonergroupie
As of right now, they also only have two solid defensemen, which could be as big an issue as their goaltending barring more changes. The addition of a solid import defenseman and Cote turning his game around could make a big difference there.
And they selected two defensemen! With the addition of Cote and the subtraction of Gaudet, as well as potentially adding two import defensemen, it seems pretty clear that they are focusing on improving team defense/defensive depth.
After watching the team play last season, I think that realistically the only two defensemen that don't need to worry are Fleury and Doetzel. I think this move sends the message that EVERYONE else could potentially be replaced by one or both of these guys if they come to camp prepared and make any sort of an impression.
With the addition of 2 more young d-men in the import draft, this team is going to look really young again. With a young defense and potentially young starting goalie, our goals against is going to suffer. Good news is, the only offensive threat we lost from last year is Dieno and it wouldn't surprise me one bit to see the increase in production from Bleaks and Musil more than make up Dieno's numbers. Which means any progression from anyone else will be bonus in the goals for column. Could make for some very entertaining 6-5 games this season. Hopefully we are on upper end of more than our fair share. The depth of our prospect pool should allow for some trades to be made to address any issues once we get into the season as well. With the big turnover in head coaches (especially from what has been the better teams the last couple years), maybe Brent will be able to win us some games just outcoaching the other guy. Should be an interesting year.
In the last decade, besides these two the Rebels have selected four other import defensemen. Jan Bittner played 14 games before he was released, Jindrich Barak played 2 games before he was released, Tommi Kvisto played 65 games, putting up modest stats and then didn't return the following season, and Vladimir Mihalik played 62 games before being dealt to Prince George in the off season. If you average out their games played, it is around 50% of one season, and not one didn't look out of place on the blueline. I guess if there is anything you can get out of this, it is that if both of these defensemen are still here in December, then hats off to Sutter and his scouts. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Moonergroupie
You don't often see a young goaltender in this league play the bulk of the games, get lit up in all of them, and then turn things around the next year. I think ideally, the backup is ready to become a starter when they actually start to apply a bit of pressure to the starter with their limited starts. If Sutter doesn't have some sort of a plan for the team's goaltending next season, then I actually expect the team to finish further down in the standings next season than this year. But like you say, at least the point production be distributed better, and will be coming from some of the younger guys.Quote:
With a young defense and potentially young starting goalie, our goals against is going to suffer. Good news is, the only offensive threat we lost from last year is Dieno and it wouldn't surprise me one bit to see the increase in production from Bleaks and Musil more than make up Dieno's numbers. Which means any progression from anyone else will be bonus in the goals for column. Could make for some very entertaining 6-5 games this season
The Rebles have some interesting younger guys on the roster guys who always got my attention when you came to Regina were
Pawlenchuk
Mpofu
Musil
Polei
Guys like Johnson, Bleackley, Kopeck, Feser & Maxwell should all be good enough to carry the offense for the Rebels. If defense is going to be an issue us Pats fans wouldn't have an issue giving up a guy like Mumby or Williams although Williams finally found his offensive game around xmas time so I cant see the Pats wanting to give him away unless getting a roster player back in return. As for Mumby we will take a bag of pucks but even then we may need to send 2 bag of pucks to sweeten the deal for you guys.
Taz Burman I believe is going to be a quality goaltender in the WHL although I don't see that happening this season. Do the Rebels maybe look into getting a 20yr old goalie for 1 season to help groom Burman a little more? Maybe a guy like Honey or MacAuley could be a temporary fix until xmas time or the season just to ease Burman into more game action without killing his confidence. Their both not amazing names by any means but could be abit of a temp fix instead of ruining a young prospects confidence
By Sutter's comments, it sounds like he is putting an awful lot of trust in the agents of these two young d-men. In this situation I am not 100% sure whose best interests the agents have in mind, but I am pretty sure it probably isn't the Rebels. I guess you do your homework and you chat with your contacts but it still comes down to a lot of luck for these import picks to pan out. I am sure every agent figures the players they represent are going to be the next stars in the CHL and they will do everything in their power to get them a shot to show their stuff.
This team is definately still being built for 2 years from now and the memorial cup bid. I would be surprised if there isn't some move made to bring in a goaltender with some experience to ease Burman into the starting role for 2 years from now. Burman struggled a bit with confidence the end of the season but lets not forget that he has shown he is capable of carrying the load with his bantam teams and he was top 2 (top 1 for a while) for goalies in training camp last year. A goaltender has play to get in the groove so I am not reading much into his performance at the end of the season when he was getting into 1 game every 12.
As for taking your rifraf, patsdude114, we had to watch Gaudet set up and score more goals on his own tender than the oppositions all season and we finally got rid of him, so we will gladly keep the bag of pucks :rolleyes: