NHL Draft - Profiles

[KeithK]

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.

[Greg Berge]

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.

[CowbellGuy]

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.

[CU Fan]

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

[CowbellGuy]

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.

[CU Fan]

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