NHL Draft - Profiles

Yeah - and it wasn't even Al Deflorio....

Still no mention of Dryden leading the 1970 team, but...

The over/under on the "needs based" joke opens at 72.

Phoenix passed on Al Montoya, letting him fall to the much delighted Rangers.

Will Montoya get much playing time, though? I mean, if we are to assume that he most likely will go to the AHL to begin his career... and I haven't heard any rumors about LaBarbera (League MVP in the AHL this past season) moving up to the Rangers... unless he goes to the ECHL, I honestly wonder how much he'll play...

I'm betting he plays about 40 games for Michigan.

Did you make the same bet for Lenny?

Rangers are in a bit of a pickle in goal. Dunham very sporadically showed the ability to steal a game, but usually showed the tendency to be overwhelmingly mediocre. I'm not exactly pointing fingers, since the defense left him out to dry more often than not, but I don't see the Rangers pursuing him as a starter. Blackburn's coming back from an entire missed season due to shoulder injury, but if he's anywhere near what he was before the injury, he'll at worst be someone's backup with significant play time. But if he needs more time, that puts the Rangers even worse off. Bottom line is they need goalies and they need them now. Most likely they'll try to sign Montoya and either platoon him with LaBarbera in HFD or have him back up someone in the big club. I don't see LaBarbera having a future with the Rangers at this point. He was unimpressive when he came up to play for the NY Wolfpa--err, Rangers at the end of the year and seems to have peaked at "good AHL goalie".

Pittsburgh threw Fleury to the wolves this year and he turned out pretty decent. The last time they tried that with Lalime, it broke him for a few years after that unreal start, but he still got back to his feet in Ottawa. The Rangers basically did that with Blackburn, so there's a recent history of it in NY. If the Rangers can't sign a big name free agent to backstop them, and Blackburn makes decent progress, I wouldn't be all that surprised to see them platoon him and Montoya. Or at least I think that's what's running through Glen's head. We'll see if Red can keep him planted in Michigan for another year, though.

To be fair to LaBarbera, I think that if you were to say that he has peaked, then you would have to say he peaked at "very good AHL goalie".

As for Montoya, I'd have to figure that, especially with goalies, teams will be hesitant to pull guys out of a guaranteed-playing-time situation until they're sure how many spots they have on their depth chart.

The question is which is better for a player's development (from the NHL perspective): half time at the AHL level or full time at the CCHA level? Probably still the AHL, but as the expected playing time decreases the more it makes sense to let the kid stay in school, where he doesn't cost you any money.

A while back someone questioned whether the impending NHL work stoppage would affect the minors too. I think the response was that during the last strike there was an agreement between management and the players to let the AHL play through, but without such an agreement a strike/lockout would affect the AHL too. The articles I've been reading about the draft make it seem like the minors will definitely be unaffected, but without the NHL "carrot" it will be harder to get a kid to leave school early.

I watched Jason Labarbera in Portland for four seasons. He's an excellent goalie -- at 18 he was the backup on the Winter Hawks' 1998 Memorial Cup team, and a lot of people felt he was actually the better netminder.

He was 34-9-9 .936 1.59 at Hartford last year and he's 24. He played 4 games for the Rangers. Hard to imagine anybody thinks he's peaked based on that.

So you saw him play in the WHL last decade and looked up his stats on hockeydb.com. Guess you know everything there is to know about him. I saw all his NHL games and whatever Wolfpack games MSG decided to show. I was generally unimpressed. As bad as the Rangers are, the Wolfpack are a excellent and help his numbers much like Cornell's D helps their goalies. More importantly, he's had a history of showing up to camp out of shape and has shown a lack of work ethic at times. He might not have peaked in that he won't improve a bit more, but I still feel he's peaked as far as where he'll get. He'll never see significant playing time in the NHL and most likely will be called up from time to time to fill holes left by injury. The short list of realistic Rangers goalie prospects goes something like this: Blackburn, Montoya.

and Lundqvist, a guy playin in Europe who is actually supposed to be very good.

Well, except the Rangers traded Holmqvist to the Wild for Nicholat

Edit: Sorry, maybe you really did mean Henrik Lundqvist. He's staying in Sweden another year, but really is an unproven commodity in the NHL.

Yes I did mean Lundqvist and yes he is an unproven commodity at the NHL level, but most prospects are...