Fifth Avenue Forum

Yeah, this is a good ask. I'll scan through our guys over the course of the month and see what I see...part of the production aspect is just allowing guys a platform to succeed. Like NHL vet Caggiula has been more or less stapled to DOC to help him out as a center. There's a bunch of NHL experienced d-men down there now: Ty Smith, Friedman, X.Ouellet...that makes things a lot more professional too.

In Pittsburgh, the job pre-req is that either you were in the NHL or your dad was...so, we have a very unimaginative scouting staff, as I've stated for a while. It's very frustrating...

But yeah, I should do a midseason update here...I'm in the midst of travelling for my scouting outlet over the next little while here, so maybe I'll pick up a couple players here and there in my downtime and drop them here...

Gracias. Like I know the draft is a massive crapshoot outside of the top guys (and even then most of them are rarely a guarantee), but seeing a guy like Luke Devlin being mediocre as **** in the BCHL as an 18 year old just speaks to the complete lack of creativity you always harp about. I had hoped this would change with Hextall but it just seems like it's become a different kind of bad. Instead of taking random Scandinavians we're now just taking low level Canadians. Getting drafted and then moving to a league I had a tryout in does not bode well for anyone's future.

Low level Canadians...? Pssh...I wish. Luke Devlin is from Tennessee...

Figures that's the level of quality in Canadian high school hockey.

Speakimg of Poulin:

Oof. That’s no good. Hope all is well

Is this gaucho's fault too?

****. Did he see my post?

Yeah, there's your update on Poulin, Dick...

@mikey where's my damn update? I want to be annoyed at our terrible drafting.

I want to be annoyed

I can help with this

I sent Ty Smith up, that's part 1...

Took a quick tour around our 2022 draft class...

Owen Pickering (LD) - I was very high on him in his draft year, of course. I'm still up on him, but I was actually hoping for a little bit more at this point. He looks pretty similar to where he was last year. Skating actually looks a little heavier. He's only about five pounds heavier right now. I don't know, it's possible I caught some tough games for him...but I wasn't overly impressed. I did say that he's a really raw player, and that was just six months ago...so I'm not worried, but I kinda thought there'd be a little bit more pop to him at this point. No invite to Team Canada for the WJCs. Swift Current seems to be on pace for a playoff spot, so it'll be the first playoff action for Pickering at this level - he's wearing the captain C as an '04. It'll be worth seeing if he can elevate his game.

Sergei Murashov (G) - Obviously, it's a goalie so who cares. He'll probably get hurt at the worst times anyhow. His numbers in the MHL (Russia's top junior league) are filthy. 21-5-3, 1.18 GAA, .958 save pct., 11 SO (!). No other goalie on the roster (8, 6, and 2 GP, respectively, one of which is a Dallas pick) has a save pct. above .900 or is within 1 GAA of him. Best GAA in the league (~40 teams) by half a goal per game. No one in the league has more than 4 shutouts. So...that's something. Got a KHL game last month that he won 2-1.

I still have my doubts about his translation to the NA game. Looks a little awkward to me. Movement in the crease is good, not great. He's very awkward in how he tries to track pucks through traffic and around traffic, he goes into zombie scarecrow mode...he's not ready to really get into a proper butterfly stance with it and he's more of a butterfly guy than many young Russian goalies. He has video game numbers, but I'm not sold yet.

Zam Plante (LW/C) - He's improved his passing accuracy and has become quite the playmaker. Spends a touch of time at center, instead of just LW. Still doesn't play much on a stacked Steel team. Only getting around 15 a game. No noteworthy uptick in production as a result. Spends a good bit of time with a small playmaking center who is 2023 eligible in Cam Johnson...so it's two guys that just don't shoot. Weird combo when you have some shooters. Anyway, like I said when we picked him, it's probably not gonna work. He's a smaller player and his skating doesn't look dramatically better. He's very smart though. But who are the 5'9" bottom sixers with average skating in the NHL right now? Or at any point in the last 25 years? I just don't see it.

Noah Collins (Towel guy) - There are seven d-men...ON HIS TEAM that are outscoring him. He's a 20 minute d-man and...whatever...he doesn't do much. He hits sometimes. He's on pace to have exactly the same output as last year. He handles the puck like he's throwing away a bag of dog ****.

Luke Devlin (C/LW) - Moved to the BCHL this year. Des Moines (USHL) told me they tried to keep him, but the BC got him. He's among West Kelowna's leaders in assists, but that's probably more of a product of rebounds than anything. He's not really a playmaker, he's a take it to the hole shooter. Skating is still heavy, but he looks a touch more nimble. Skill level has improved. He's more shifty, more deceptive. He's actually more physical and more of a bully than the defensive (really, just "offense-less") defenseman Collins. His hockey sense is a stopper (or at least a heavy limiter) though for being a super productive player, especially at even strength - beat late to react to passes, beat late to generate passing lanes, tunnel vision off the rush generally. He's the most improved player from our 2022 draft class though from a technical skill perspective, but the mental game is unlikely to be salvageable.

More to follow...

More like special needs project update. Why don't we draft players that are good at something?

Lol that’s a pretty sad draft update and only 1 year later

So Noah Collins is gonna be legit, nice.

Yeah, there's your update on Poulin, Dick...

any further updates on Poulin?

Yeah, there's your update on Poulin, Dick...

any further updates on Poulin?

I checked with a source on that like a week and a half ago and they said "No update"...

More like special needs project update. Why don't we draft players that are good at something?

Well when you fill your scouting department with nepotism hires, this is what you get.

More like special needs project update. Why don't we draft players that are good at something?

Well when you fill your scouting department with nepotism hires, this is what you get.

indeed

Nepotism? Explain to me how Kevin Stevens, Gilles Meloche.............Warren You.........Craig Pat..................

Sorry, that's my phone, I gotta, I gotta take this...

Chris Pryor - Assistant GM, friend of Hextall

Nick Pryor - Head of Amateur Scouting, Chris Pryor's son

There's another family/friend of Hextall connection elsewhere in scouting I think. Also, Hextall's son runs Integrated Development