QUICK HITS: JUNE 20, 2017
1) Vegas Golden Knights general manager George McPhee has been very public about his intentions to
create bidding wars among teams with interest either in acquiring players Vegas selects in the Expansion Draft or else to convince McPhee to select a different player from their team. McPhee told NHL.com and other outlets that he planned to have a final round of discussions with the general managers of each of the other 30 teams.
Monday was the calm before the storm, with the Golden Knights' picks set to be made today and then announced publicly on Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. EDT (televised on NBCSN).
2) Flyers general manager Ron Hextall is known for proceeding very cautiously before making moves. While a deal might be made with Vegas, it seems equally likely that trade talks in coming days will hone in on teams with a veteran goaltender available for trade at a reasonable cost. If Michal Neuvirth is the player Vegas selects from the Flyers, the chances of Philly re-signing Steve Mason rather than looking elsewhere increase a bit.
In the days to come, Philly may also be in the market for a minutes-eating veteran defenseman. Ideally, the team needs to it expand its options beyond Andrew MacDonald reprising his top pairing role entering next season while hoping that one or two rookies among Samuel Morin, Robert Hägg, Travis Sanheim and Philippe Myers step up to stake down regular NHL roles.
Hextall likely suspected that Nick Cousins or Scott Laughton was the player in the Vegas crosshairs for the Expansion Draft, which precipitated the deal with the Arizona Coyotes that brought back a 2018 fifth-round pick and collegiate role-playing left wing prospect Brendan Warren in exchange for Cousins and depth goaltending prospect Merrick Madsen. That way, the Flyers didn't just lose Cousins for nothing . Laughton, of course, was protected in the Expansion Draft.
3) There is often a tendency to for fans to overrate prospects from their team. The fact of the matter with Merrick Madsen is that he was the No. 5 goalie prospect in the system with Anthony Stolarz, Alex Lyon, Carter Hart and Felix Sandström all ahead of him (in no particular order).
It can sometimes work out that someone down on the list ends up standing atop it years down the road. For example, within the Flyers' prospect ranks ranks, 1998 sixth-round pick Antero Niittymäki was once behind first-round picks Brian Boucher and Maxime Ouellet as well as second-rounder Jean-Marc Pelletier but, for a time in the mid 2000s, he became the Flyers' semi-regular starter in goal.
Madsen is a tremendous young man -- bright, modest yet ambitious and clearly hard working. He's improved by leaps and bounds over his three collegiate seasons at Harvard and has become a very good systems goalie for Ted Donato's team. He uses his size well and is poised in goal. He will keep working tirelessly to realize his dream of playing in the NHL, and is an easy guy for whom to root regardless of which uniform he wears.
Objectively speaking, however, Madsen's most likely pro level upside is along the same lines as Dov Grumet-Morris, who was one of the three previous Harvard goalies drafted by the Flyers. Grumet-Morris achieved some pro level longevity as a dependable American Hockey League goaltender. The 6-foot-5 Madsen is a better prospect at age 21 (he'll turn 22 on August 22) than either Aaron Israel or current day Carolina Hurricanes broadcaster Tripp Tracy, who both had brief pro playing careers in the minor leagues after being drafted by the Flyers.
From watching Kim Dillabaugh and Brady Robinson work with the goalie prospects at previous Flyers development camps, Sandström was by far the most polished young netminder at the camps. His feet, body framing and glove were all notably superior to Madsen's as well as the others. In fact, two years ago, an 18-year-old Sandström was more impressive looking than even a 21-year-old Stolarz, who had a year of AHL experience under his belt at that point.
Stolarz, of course, has since continued his own steady annual improvement and played well in his first NHL action this past season. In the meantime, 2016 second-round pick Hart has emerged as arguably the top goalie in any of the CHL leagues and will likely reprise his role as Team Canada goaltender at the 2017-18 World Junior Championships, except this time as undisputed starter. Lyon, coming off a solid rookie AHL season for the Phantoms, is an older prospect at 24 years old but is still in the mix to work his way up to the Flyers.
Trading Madsen's rights to the Coyotes was actually beneficial to the young goaltender without making much of a dent in the Flyers' system depth. Hopefully, he has a strong senior year at Harvard and then is either signed by Arizona with a fair chance to work his way up or else finds a pro contract elsewhere as a free agent.
4) Related point: While every player's goal is to reach the NHL and become a regular, there is no shame in being a minor league pro player, especially in the AHL. It still takes a very high level of ability to get that far.
During the Flyers Alumni tour of Russia earlier this year, AHL Hall of Fame goaltender Freddy Cassivi and former ECHL (Greensboro Generals) and SKA St. Petersburg backup goaltender Oleg Romashko served as the goalies for the Flyers Alumni Team. Freddy is a semi-regular for the Flyers Alumni (although he never played in the Flyers organization during his career), while Oleg was a guest player. The two split the goaltending chores roughly 50-50 each game.
Romashko, who still keeps himself in tremendous shape at age 37, played a pretty strong game in the Flyers Alumni's match in St. Petersburg against SKA Alumni after a so-so outing in Kazan in the tour opener against Team Tatarstan. Even so, Cassivi's level of ability was a very clear step up from Romashko's.
Freddy, who just celebrated his 42nd birthday, appeared in 13 NHL games as a member of the Atlanta Thrashers and Washington Capitals but his best years were spent in the American Hockey League with the Hershey Bears. He won the Jack Butterfield Trophy (the AHL equivalent of the Conn Smythe Trophy) in backstopping the Bears to the 2005-06 Calder Cup championship. He was elected to the AHL Hall of Fame in 2014.
The point here is that the bar for NHL players, especially goaltenders where there are just 62 jobs available even after expansion, is ridiculously high nowadays. To appreciate that fact, it takes seeing just how good a star minor league goalie really can be and then realizing there's a whole stratosphere of players even above his level.
As tremendous as Freddy was (and still is in Alumni-paced games) in goal, he barely had a cup of coffee in the NHL. Think of it like this: an AHL Hall of Fame goalie was a quarter-notch below the abilities of someone such as Michael Leighton, a step down from an NHL number one, and a step-and-a-half down from an elite NHL goalie. Meanwhile, as good of a goalie as Romashko was compared to the typical junior hockey or collegiate starter, he topped out at the ECHL level in North America and most of his games in Russia were played in their minor league levels as well as the Latvian and Belarusian circuit.
I know people are trying to be humorous when they put down the NHL players they don't like by saying "he isn't very good at hockey" but that is a patently ridiculous and misguided thing to say. To be able to play hockey for a living in the NHL means that someone, even a non-star, is an outstanding player.
To give a non-goalie example, much-maligned impending Flyers free agent left winger Chris VandeVelde was once a point-per-game collegiate player before he turned pro. Many of the today's collegiate standouts would someday gladly become tomorrow's VandeVelde types simply to put in some time in the NHL. It's a highly competitive world, and the guys who make it to the NHL or even the AHL -- especially guys who were not NHL first-round picks -- deserve respect, not ridicule.
The window young players to make it to the NHL is ridiculously narrow. By the time a player is about 27 and has yet to reach a top level, it probably isn't going to happen no matter how much hard work and devotion are poured into that pursuit. If the average person made it as far in their own line of work over a decade or more from starting at the entry level, he or she would have had very enviable success.
5) This week, I am registering to participate in the Flyers Charity Classic as a member of Brad Marsh's Ides of Marsh team. I will likely walk the 5k run/walk course as I am not in sufficient physical condition to do the more intensive events. Sometimes, I look at pictures of myself in my early-to-mid-20s on the 1990s, when I was working out daily and also skating several days a week at the Skatium in Havertown during the autumn to spring months yet not feeling like I was ever in good shape. I wish now I had appreciated more back then that I actually was once in decent condition even though no one would ever have described me as naturally athletic. I'm a beer league fourth line winger/ subpar defenseman in hockey.
At any rate, when Brad suggested about six weeks ago that I join his team for the Charity Classic, I used that idea and the fact that even 73-year-old Joe Watson is taking part in the event as inspiration to make a few lifestyle changes in paying more attention again to my own diet and exercise.
Thus far, I've dropped about five pounds, have been out walking several miles daily (which, in the heat and humidity of east Texas can be laborious even in the morning or early evening) and made inroads in re-establishing a semblance of a workout with weights and an exercise bike after letting those gather dust for too many years. I'd like to drop a few more pounds by the time of the Charity Classic on July 16 but even if I don't quite get to my goal weight, I am feeling better physically than I have in quite some time and definitely feel more energetic. It's a start.
One of the really cool ideas behind the Charity Classic is that anyone can sign up for the event and, if they don't have a team of their own or prefer to participate individually, can join any of the five teams captained by Flyers Alumni. Even if you sign up for a different event than the team captain, you can still be part of their team. The Alumni-captained teams are as follows:
* Ides of Marsh (captained by Brad Marsh)
* Italian-French Connection (Bernie Parent & Gini Parent)
* Propper Guffaw (Brian Propp)
* Lappy's Team (Ian Laperriere)
* Holmgren's Heroes (Paul Holmgren)
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