Jonathan Ismael Diaby = Gilles Lupien 2.0 ?

Samuel Morin gets all the attention, and deservedly so since according to the scouts there's a lot to like, but scanning the prospects from the LHJMQ, we come across this guy.

Jonathan Ismael Diaby D Victoriaville (QMJHL) 6' 5" 223

Not as talented, not as polished, not as much upside as Mr. Morin, but according to the scouts he has lots of heart and plays with an edge.  If we can get him as a late-rounder, he could potentially play the role of Gilles Lupien on the team, the #6 defenceman who's around when needed, but steady and disciplined when things are going smoothly.

Nick Kypreos is consecutively awful in a row

During the open to the broadcast of the Saskatoon Blades game against the Portland Winterhawks on Sportsnet, Darren Millard just referred to Andrei Makarov as "Andrei Markov", so two minutes later the abysmal Nick Kypreos took care to correct this and enunciated the name carefully, and it felt like he was rubbing Mr. Millard's nose in it.

Of course, a minute after that, Mr. Kypreos, beacon of broadcasting excellence that he is, stalwart of the English language, stated that the Blades' goalie has started "31 consecutive games in a row..."

Tony Reali of ESPN's "Around the Horn" and "Pardon the Interruption" always has fun with this.  Whenever he has the panel discuss any kind of streak, he makes a point of referring to it as, for example, "...31 straight games, consecutively, in a row..."

I wonder if Nick Kypreos gets that joke.

Will the Colorado Avalanche (and Patrick Roy) draft Seth Jones or Nathan McKinnon 1st overall?

It's not clear-cut, but the consensus going into the Memorial Cup was that defenceman Seth Jones of the Portland Winterhawks was the #1 ranked draft-available player for the coming June draft, with Halifax Moosehead centre Nathan McKinnon #2, and his linemate Jonathan Drouin the next highest rated player.

It's early yet, but Nathan McKinnon is going to muddy the waters even more if he keeps playing like he has so far.  In three games, he has four goals and four assists, most of these of the highlight variety, and has generally played spectacularly.

Conversely, Seth Jones, author of one goal in two games, hasn't been a difference maker.  Of course, during the World Juniors tournament in January, the roles were reversed, with Seth Jones playing a leadership role in the US squad's gold medal showing.

As far as Patrick Roy offering draft advice or being listened to by the management team of the Colorado Avalanche, holders of the first overall pick, I think he'll have some say in the matter.  Usually NHL head coaches have little to offer, since they don't know the players involved, being too busy with daily coaching duties to do much scouting.  In this case however, we have to remember that as the Remparts de Québec head coach, he faced Nathan McKinnon repeatedly over the last two seasons, and he has insights to offer.

Similarly, new Philadelphia Eagles Head Coach Chip Kelly joined the team after four years coaching the Oregon Ducks, and in that capacity was very familiar with Pac-12 conference teams and their players.  It's interesting that the Eagles ended up choosing four players from that conference, out of eight picks, and signed two more Pac-12 players as free agents.  Of note, they took Zach Ertz of Stanford, who had some big games against the Ducks, and University of Southern California quarterback Matt Barkley when he fell to the fourth round.

It only makes sense as an organization to make use of the intel a coach fresh out of junior/college can provide.  As such, I would expect that Patrick Roy will be encouraged to weigh in on his evaluations regarding Nathan McKinnon and Jonathan Drouin, and probably some other LHJMQ players in the later rounds.

The Canadiens won't draft Frédérik Gauthier or Nikita Zadorov

 To satisfy my inner draft-nerd needs, I've been Googling and found this handy resource from MyNHLdraft.com, it's a 'dashboard' of the Top 30 picks according to various drafting services and prognosticators.

This gives us a sense of where a player might fall, whether it be a Valery Nichushkin or a Frédérik Gauthier.  For me, the Nikita Zadorov dream is dead.  So might be, to a lesser degree, the Anthony Mantha 'kind of' wish.

There are some significant discrepancies with the NHL's Central Scouting final rankings, notably how they have Mr. Zadorov ranked as the #22 North American skater.  When you fold in the Europeans and maybe a goalie or two, you think he'd be down around #30 when the draft happens, but some services in the dashboard have him as high as #7.

When Bob McKenzie releases his final rankings, we'll be able to compare to those and they're usually reliable, made from the combined rankings of a number of NHL teams.

We also have to factor in that the Flames' Jay Feaster, after desperately trying to trade down and feverishly attempting to trade up, will take a Quebec high school player as his first-rounder, and that should bump every other prospect down one rung.

P.K. Subban's icetime was managed by the Canadiens this season

It's a little surprising, looking at the Montréal Canadiens year-end statistics, that P.K. Subban only had 23:15 minutes Average Time on Ice, less than the 24:18 he amassed in 2011-12, and less than veteran Andrei Markov did this year with 24:08.  P.K. is a strong, dynamic player with excellent conditioning, lots of energy, and is equally adept in the offensive or defensive zone, in virtually all situations.  He seemed like he could easily have taken more of a load, especially at the end of the season when the team was struggling with injuries.

Some commentors on the blogosphere are positing that there may have been a plan/conspiracy by Canadiens management to keep his icetime down to not hand P.K.'s agents too much ammunition before the next contract negotiations.  I disagree with the reasons given for his relatively low icetime, but I do think it was managed, if not restricted to that 'low' number.

When Marc Bergevin was hired by Geoff Molson, he took as Job #1 the task to change the culture of the team.  The first gesture he made in that direction was to remove Scott Gomez from the roster at the first opportunity.  It's obvious that bringing P.K. back in line was another item on the to-do list to achieve that.

It's hard to blame the player or the management team for this, since the circumstances of the previous season kind of set the stage for P.K. to run wild a little bit.  The team had few reliable defencemen, having let Roman Hamrlik walk in free agency in favour of playing more young players.  This was a decision I supported, but compounded with the surprise medical setbacks of Andrei Markov, it left the team bereft of credible blueliners.  Add to that Jacques Martin's reluctance to use rookies, and P.K., as a second-year and talented player, got more than his share of minutes.  Enter lameduck Randy Cunneyworth as Head Coach midway through the season, and you now have to factor in lack of control and leadership.

This led to some static in the dressing room, and some ruffled feathers.  Denis Gauthier of RDS explained that "if there are five team rules, P.K. will break seven."  There was the famous curt response from Andrei Markov when questioned about P.K.  P.K. was viewed as being too big for his britches, maybe loving the limelight a little too much for a young player.  The nail was sticking out and needed to be hammered down.

When Marc Bergevin and Michel Therrien discussed P.K., it's clear to me that they agreed on a plan of action to provide him with direction, with leadership, and discipline.  As I've talked about before, discipline doesn't mean punishment, but clear guidelines to adhere to, and consequences when they're not.  They felt that the previous régime had let P.K. run wild, that the Hal Gill 'mother hen' approach could only go so far, and they took a firm grasp of the reins.

Other than the way the contract negotiations went, and the way the team veterans explained that they didn't want to answer questions about P.K. while he was absent, another way this iron hand in a velvet glove manifested itself was in the limited icetime P.K. received, especially at first.  Michel Therrien tried to explain it away at first by the fact that P.K. didn't have a training camp, didn't know the system, and needed to be brought into the fold slowly.  Then, the fact that the team was winning insulated the head coach from any questions in that regard, for why would anyone want to upset the applecart?

To his credit, P.K. reacted like a champion to this new approach, saying all the right things from the get-go, playing hard and keeping his nose clean.  He took to the new system and gave it all he had and thrived.  He never complained, and we didn't see the outbursts that occurred on the bench last season.  He took to his role and kept his nose to the grindstone.  He should be applauded for this.

Now that the season's over, we look back and think that it was unwise to limit P.K. thus, that he's far and away the best defenceman on the team, and that we should have played him more.

This is where the relationship between Marc Bergevin and Michel Therrien is crucial, and where Michel Therrien's job security is key.  The head coach, being newly minted, has a couple seasons of leeway before he's under any pressure to produce results.  This season, with this security as his shield, he was immune to any 'win this game at all costs' philosophy, and 'now we have to win the next game at all costs' corollaries.  He could afford to develop his system, create and strengthen his team, groom his future champions.  So he remained impervious to the siren songs, steered clear of the reefs of short-term thinking, and stubbornly protected Alex Galchenyuk, for example, limiting his minutes and exposure, keeping him hungry, ensuring that the kid always felt he could do more and wanted to show it on the ice.

When applied to P.K., this philosophy led to his diminished icetime, and an equitable distribution of this icetime among his blueline partners.  P.K. was not bigger or better than the team.  The 'team concept' was more important, and developing this was more important to the Canadiens' management team than any single victory or loss.  The team would ultimately benefit if P.K. understood this, and so would he.

As the season wore on and P.K. proved himself, and developed into the player that so many thought he would become, we saw the reins relax on him, his ATOI slowly creep up, and his responsibilities increase.  When Alexei Emelin went down to injury, P.K. took a bigger bite, but still within the team concept, he wasn't treated as if he was the only solution to the problem.

While some see this management of P.K. as a great injustice, a slight he'll never forget and guarantee he'll skip town at his earliest possibility, I think the Canadiens provided P.K. with an environment in which he could progress and thrive.  The results speak for themselves.  P.K. amassed a lot of points, created a new and improved image for himself, and now seems to be a lock for inclusion in the Canadian Olympic Team for next February.  He's a finalist for the Norris Trophy.  These are worthy accomplishments for the young man, and bode well for the future.

P.K. will never be the steady-eddie type like Bob Gainey, Trevor Linden or Jonathan Toews, that's not who he is.  He's more of a fiery guy, a bucking bronco, more Guy Lafleur or Chris Chelios, and that's not a bad thing.  We need many types of players on a team.  What he proved this season is that he can, when pointed in the right direction, cut down on the distractions and be an even greater contributor than he was last year.  And we can thank the Canadiens coaching staff and management team for their plan in this regard.

Canadiens' Darren Dietz shines at Memorial Cup; Dalton Thrower more muted

This Memorial Cup isn't the All-Canadiens Festival that last season's was, with Nathan Beaulieu, Jarred Tinordi, Michaël Bournival and Morgan Ellis playing starring roles on their respective teams.  We do however get two similar prospects playing on the Saskatoon Blades, a couple of righthanded shooting defenceman who play a tough, physical style and have offensive skills.  Darren Dietz was drafted in the fifth round in 2011, and after two more seasons in Saskatoon has signed an entry-level contract with the Canadiens.  Dalton Thrower was picked in the second round last summer, 51st overall.

Darren Dietz has looked good and drawn praise from the announcers and analysts so far.  He had some good battles in front of the net against the Knights, notably on the penalty kill when they were two players down.  He was steady with the puck, skating and passing well, loading up the slap shot, and made the simple plays and few mistakes.  I was surprised a couple of times when he made a backward pass in the neutral zone, but realized that it was a set play the Blades had worked on during their layoff.  He would skate the puck right at the lone forechecker, force him to commit, then slide the puck back to a forward ready to receive it and skate up with speed, kind of like when a rugby player makes a pass once the man covering him has committed to the tackle.  He wasn't mistake-free, being outmuscled in front of the net and effectively interfering with his own goalie on the first London goal.   Tonight, he was matched up against the Nathan McKinnon line and played big, important minutes, looked sure-handed handling and shooting the puck, and quarterbacking the powerplay.  He showed some offensive flair sneaking up to the net Andrei Markov-style, and was rewarded with a 'garbage' goal on a rebound.

Dalton Thrower is less visible so far.  No obvious flashes, a hooking penalty, no big hits, no display of the physical style and the mean streak that endeared him to Trevor Timmins and Marc Bergevin last summer.  He had a difficult year, being involved in some off-ice incidents that were whispered about but not reported by the hockey scribes who cover the Blades, or shown on the Memorial Cup documentary.  We can hope that he's given another year in junior to polish up his game and mature, and based on the situation in Hamilton, with an overstock on young D-men learning their craft there already, that seems likely.  The ideal scenario, and one that is probable, is that Saskatoon will trade him to a team that will contend next season, in exchange for picks and young players, since the Blades will need to rebuild after breaking the bank exchanging picks for veterans in anticipation of this tournament.

The Blades' Duncan Siemens, the 11th overall draft pick of the Colorado Avalanche in 2011, does seem unimpressive for now.  You would expect him to be the leader on the blue line, but he's being overshadowed by Darren Dietz.  No great plays, nothing eye-catching, and he committed a doozie of a giveaway against the Knights, flubbing the backward-pass play we previously discussed, by trying to stickhandle the puck first and getting stripped on the Seth Griffith goal.  He had a tough year personally as shown on "Road to the Memorial Cup", but still, you expect to see a dominant player for a guy who's two years removed from his draft year, he should be more mature physically and mentally than most other players.

He's also kind of a gawky kid, a little scrawny, with acne...  It reminds me of the chapter in "Moneyball" when the old-school scouts give players a negative report if they have "a bad body" and/or an "ugly girlfriend."  This shouldn't be relevant to a scout's evaluation, but I can see how it could colour your perception of a player, and how if another prospect with roughly similar talent and potential has a more engaging, magnetic personality, you'd be more inclined to rate him higher.  It might not be a conscious process exactly, but if you're about to enter into a long-term relationship with a player, the golden boy would probably win out against the over-achieving runt of the litter.

Nick Kypreos is trying to drag hockey down to his abysmal level

So during the intermission of the Halifax Mooseheads vs. Portland Winterhawks game, Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos is castigating Seth Jones for allowing Nate McKinnon to score without “at least making an effort to chop him down, get a stick on him, make him aware that you’re there…”  

Sure Mr. Kypreos.  What Seth Jones should have done is take a penalty.  Or take a good shot at it.  Maybe injure his opponent.  Make sure he knows he's there.  Never mind that as the rules are written, 'getting a stick on him' is not permitted. 

Are we sure as hockey fans that we want CBC to lose Hockey Night in Canada and have these clowns end up in charge of it? Is Nick Kypreos, the guy who never did anything of note in the NHL except deliberately fall on Grant Fuhr and rupture his ACL, knock him out of the series, and eventually end his career, really an upgrade on Don Cherry and P.J. Stock?