In 1992, the New York Islanders chose the first defensive defenseman in the draft when picking Darius Kasparitis. Leafs scout Anders Hedberg said about him that it would take "'ten minutes for him to get ready to play in the NHL."
New Jersey chose Jason Smith later in that first round, 18th overall. Right from the start, it was clear that New Jersey wanted to make sure they developed young Smith properly.
New Jersey coach Herb Brooks: "They say it takes longer for defensemen to develop and I agree. We want our young defensemen to go through apprenticeship before they become masters of their trade. We're watching Jason Smith as closely as possible. I like him. He has the balance that I like to see in a defenseman. But rushing him into the league now would be an indication that we're not properly widening the base of the pyramid."
This article explains "base of the pyramid" and talks about a few other things you might be interested in.
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Jason Smith played in the NHL at age 20. In an October win against Washington, Smith was -2 in his NHL debut. By season's end he had played 41 games and was a plus 7, with a bright future ahead. As happens with many young defensemen, injuries played a part in Jason Smith's career in a big way. He missed most of the following season (94-95) after suffering a knee injury in practice November 1994. In 95-96 he played well enough to be a regular but struggled the following year and found himself traded to Toronto February 1997.
The Leafs were a strange team during that time, making all kinds of curious deals they'd regret and Smith was one of them. A quality NHL defender is worth more than a 2nd and a 4th but that was the pricetag. Jason Smith was quality for 7 seasons in an Oiler uniform and the Oilers enjoyed the heart of his career.
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Is there a lesson to be learned from the career of Jason Smith and others like him? I think there are a couple:
- Defensive defensemen get hurt a lot so it's a good idea to have too many.
- Expecting young defensemen to perform consistently is folly. Even the good ones take time and injuries impact their effectiveness in a big way.
- Patience is a virtue. Ladislav Smid turned 25 in February; Theo Peckham turns 24 in November; Jeff Petry turns 24 in December. Alex Plante turns 22 in September, Johan Motin turns 22 in October and Colten Teubert turned 21 in March. David Musil is just getting started.
- Some of these men will lose their careers to injury long before they contribute to wins.
*Note: Jeff Petry was included in the post because of a wide range of skills.
People often get traded under their ''real value''. Because it's ''Market value''.
ReplyDeleteHence why you doN't draft those guys.
Lowetide, Dave Van Horne's speech at Cooperstown over the weekend. Some neat Expos and Canada remarks. Many Expos hats and jerseys in the crowd.
ReplyDeletehttp://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=17242015&topic_id=22055984&c_id=mlb
Jake: Beautiful. I can remember his call on so many plays. The triple play when Jorgensen hesitated and threw home maybe 1973, the way he'd pause so the public address guy could say "now batting, John BOCCCCCA-BELLLLLL-AAA".
ReplyDeleteOr the times he would feature a callup during the game, that's how I was introduced to Gary Carter and Andre Dawson and all those wonderful players.
And I remember most the rain delays the year Montreal lost maybe 107 games. It was an awful team, but Dave and Duke Snider told me about the team's youngsters who were on the way.
I don't think there's ever been a team I cared more about than the Expos. That video was a pleasure.
Thanks again.
As an interesting tidbit at the bottom of the story about Smith, was a comment about Mike Stevens the brother of Scott Stevens. His best professional season came in 1992–93, when he recorded 92 points in 68 games for the Binghamton Rangers. In 12 seasons of minor-pro hockey, he recorded 2668 penalty minutes, an average of over 220 per year. He signed in Germany 1997, and spent seven seasons there before retiring in 2004.
ReplyDeleteStevens appeared in 23 NHL games, recording 1 goal and 4 assists for 5 points.
That's a lot of penalty minutes for a guy hockeydb has listed as 5' 11" and 195 lbs. WOW !
Here's hoping Teubert turns into Jason Smith part deux
ReplyDeleteI think we can safely say Teubert is tracking well behind Smith. Age 20, Smith had worked his way into part time play on a truly impressive D group.
ReplyDeleteI mean that team was loaded.
So the NHL mantra is to preach patience with defensive defensmen who may not have the size to compete at the NHL level after their draft year. However, undersized centers who may not be physically read to compete at the NHL level should be given every opportunity to play in the NHL after their draft year?
ReplyDeleteSeems funny that some of the same people that want RNH to play in the NHL because he's one of the 4 best options at C are also the ones that preach patience with Petry despite the fact that he's likely one of the best 6 options at defense.
I not singling anyone out here, just a general observations.
Gator rules
ReplyDeleteExpos drool
Gator rules
ReplyDeleteExpos dead.
I not singling anyone out here, just a general observations.
ReplyDeleteI'd actually prefer that you single some people out - my impression is that the people urging caution with Petry enjoy a very high closeness of fit with the ones urging patience with RNH, but that's just a general impression, not a statistical study.
By the way my preference would in fact be for Petry, Chorney, Teubert etc etc to play in the AHL next season and beyond as necessary. Build the base of that pyramid Tambo.
ReplyDeleteThat includes the forward prospects as well. I'm looking at you RNH, Harski, Lander, etc etc. Your time will come. Until then let's get some NHL players playing in the NHL.
I'd prefer to keep Petry at all costs (cost being Chorney). Otherwise they'll dick around all winter doing their knit one purl two worry wart act over Taylor freaking Chorney.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting LT that you've mentioned a guy like Peckham having a short life span. I've mentioned that a few times before...these guys that impress by blowing people up never seem to be the same after the first major injury. Now that Phaneuf and Komisarek are punch lines people forget just how good they were for awhile. Phaneuf people will remember came in and went absolutely Supernova in year one, stealing some votes from Crosby and Ovechkin in the ROY race. But Komi was a force too...the Robyn Regehr of the east until Lucic crushed him.
ReplyDeleteScott Stevens did it for 2 decades but that isn't the norm. Peckham doesn't have the offense but I can see him at 27 becoming that #2 or #3 like Smith that forwards have to know when he's on the ice. I can just as easily see him reduced to AHL status by 28. TIme will tell.
A number of years ago we were talking about Chorney, Petry and Wild in an excited manner - top 4 material all - and I suggested that maybe one of them would become a real NHL player. You can expect the same thing with our new young dmen - 75% will turn out to be magic beans in the fullness of time. Curb your enthusiasm is a phrase to remember with dmen
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like an argument in favour of Cam Barker.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I remember what asia Oil was talking about. In fact if I remember correctly, LT had Chorney ahead of Petry.
ReplyDeleteConin on the other hand used to have the late night show and now he is reduced to being my verification word.
Yeah, I liked Chorney a lot.
ReplyDeletehttp://lowetide.blogspot.com/2008/01/sunday-minor-league-report.html
Love that Hedberg quote.
ReplyDeletebest quote from the article. love the pyramid thinking:
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Smith is eligible for three more years in the junior leagues may have also been a factor (for liking him so much w/ the 18th)
Defensive defensemen get hurt a lot so it's a good idea to have too many.
ReplyDeleteLT,
Defensemen get hurt a lot so it's a good idea to have too many.
There's no need to delineate.
A number of years ago we were talking about Chorney, Petry and Wild in an excited manner - top 4 material all - and I suggested that maybe one of them would become a real NHL player. You can expect the same thing with our new young dmen - 75% will turn out to be magic beans in the fullness of time. Curb your enthusiasm is a phrase to remember with dmen
ReplyDeleteIf 75% will turn into frijoles, you've got to pick 3 of these 12:
Marincin
Plante
Blain
Davidson
Bigos
Fedun
Gernat
Klefbom
Motin
Musil
Simpson
Teubert
Marincin
ReplyDeleteMusil
Teubert
I think this cluster will beat AO's prediction so I'm taking 4
ReplyDeleteMarincin
Blain
Klefbom
Simpson
LT: glad to see you are warming to Smid after being a dick and trying to trade him all these years. ;)
Somebody mentioned Colin White a while back as a potential trade target...I think he's a decent comparable to Smith and likely the mold we need to see a few of the kids fit into over the next year or two.
ReplyDeleteOut of Junior (I got to watch him and Peter Worrell literally beat the crap out of every team that visited the Olympics) he projected to be a stay at home, physical defenseman. He spent his time in the AHL beating up more guys but also figured out the pro game and how he'd be helpful and successful in the NHL. While injuries took their toll on the physical (re: fighting) part of his game he was smart enough to adapt and stay relevant and has had a long, successful career in the NHL as a dependable 2nd/3rd pairing defenseman.
Peckham just might be our first comparable and we'll know once he gets dinged up enough that he has to tone down the brute and actually "play" to stick in the NHL.
Let's hope the kid can play.
Finding a rock solid gem for cheap like Smith, where other teams have already suffered through the growing pains, would be ideal right now. Those deals don't come truckin down the highway every day at 3pm though.
ReplyDeleteI really do think Barker to some extent is a similar kind of gamble though. Probably not as good a bet, odds wise, but we're not paying as much to see the flop in terms of assets given up either. And considering that Khabibulin is still in play, we're nowhere near the final table yet.
Hey coach - off your list there are maybe 4 guys who look like they have a shot:
ReplyDeleteMarincin
Klefbom
Musil
Teubert
...but in reality probably 50% of these guys die on the vine. I'll pick Klefbom and Musil for the heck of it as Marincin seems to lack a bit of drive and Teubert a bit of smarts. Of the rest - maybe one guy surprises and for no particular reason I'll guess Blain.
So there you go - a wild guess for me would be Klefbom, Musil and Blain as guys we are still talking about 4 or 5 years from now.
Smid is like that old HP calculator you drove over once when you were late for school, but still works fine afterwards, even if every so often you have to remove and replace the batteries so that the digit 8 has all seven segments again; the kind of calculator that's trying to die but never succeeds.
ReplyDeleteHere's a question to ask: for a D prospect who is 19 years old, does it benefit your lifetime earnings to ply your trade below the NHL level for another year or two, or to plunge head first into over your head?
You can get injured in the A almost as easily and never see a payoff year.
A player held back a year or two to properly mature is worth more just for having survived the attrition effect. From the team's perspective, maybe it's nice to throw fewer NHL dollars at the scrap heap of broken bodies. Agents might view this differently.
I read an interview with J. K. Rowling recently where she talks about her insane desperation for money while a dozen publishers sent her back down to punch up her prose (on the theory that children have shorter attention spans than publisher's agents). Later when she has a billion dollars the risk of a cupboard-under-the-stairs career-ending writer's block over an unpaid heating bill seems extremely remote. Same with hockey. The discarded bodies eat a lot of KD; for the rest, it's all about the retrospective boxcars.
I like slow cooking myself, but I think the scales in the modern NHL are tilted toward the Kwik-E-Mart school of on-the-job training.
Also, I wonder sometimes about the discarded bodies. Are there good jobs in Fort Mac for able bodied young men minus the able body? What's the biggest truck they'll give you with a wonky clutch knee and a detached retina?
Smid is like that old HP calculator you drove over once when you were late for school, but still works fine afterwards, even if every so often you have to remove and replace the batteries so that the digit 8 has all seven segments again; the kind of calculator that's trying to die but never succeeds.
ReplyDeleteMan, I love your posts, but somebody has to tell you: there is literally not another person on the planet who can relate to that analogy.
I dunno, I got it just fine.
ReplyDeleteSS: What are you talking about?
ReplyDeleteMy old classic football 2 from mattel electronics just refuses to give up.
We all have that roughed up' object who just keeps on going.
It would probably be impossible in practice, but the NHL should consider raising the draft age for defencemen (and goalies). It is harder to project which 18 year old D prospects are going to be players (as evidenced by the number of first round picks who turn into marginal NHL players or never make the NHL) and by the time they finally do make it teams get fewer years of service before they become UFA eligible.
ReplyDeleteIf teams could draft 20 year old D for example, there would probably be fewer busts, and they would be NHL ready around the same time as the forwards in their draft year.
Yeah I have an old - and I mean 27 years old - Texas Instruments scientific calculator that absolutely refuses to die. I've never changed the battery in the thing and it keeps working - starting to wonder if there's fissionable material in the sucker :)
ReplyDeleteNelson88 said...
ReplyDeleteLT: glad to see you are warming to Smid after being a dick and trying to trade him all these years. ;)
Don't you know this is the kiss of death for Smid? He'll get traded within the season now.
Steve Smith said...
Man, I love your posts, but somebody has to tell you: there is literally not another person on the planet who can relate to that analogy.
Yeah, I have a Casio scientific like that. Case is all busted up and pieces of it have been scattered to the winds. 15 years it's been ticking but last month the bottom row of keys have stopped working.