Earth to Lowe!
So they announced the Hart Trophy finalists the other day and something stood out to me. Russians. Young Russians. Ovechkin and Malkin make up two of the three finalists, and if one should win it will be the first time since Federov in 1994 and only second time ever. Apparently the Motherland has started churning out a very creamy crop of competitors (Alliteration!). Though it is rare to see Russians amongst the finalists of this award it will undoubtedly be a continuing trend. Three of the top four point getters in the NHL were Russian, and thats not including guys like Kovalchuk, Kovalev, and younger stars like Zherdev and Radulov. Players like these bring finesse and skill to a team and even more importantly: Goal Scoring.
This is where Stu MacGregor and Kevin Prendergast come in. This team is in dire need of a one shot goal scorer not seen in these parts since the first 20 games of Petr Sykora. This team is lacking and as Lowetide put it, there is one clear reason, "Russia is Death Valley for the Oilers at the draft table". The draft list of Russians for this team is nothing short of pitiful. The list since the 2000 Draft:
- Alexander Bumagin
- Vyacheslav Trukhno
- Roman Tesliuk
- Mikhail Zhukov
- Ivan Koltsov
- Alexei Mikhnov
- Alexander Lyubimov
- Evgeny Muratov
Ovechkin for the Hart.
5 comments:
I think that the main reason that Cherry (as you have nicknamed him, didnt know you were that tight) was the there is no deal between the RSL and the NHL which he was under contract with. I think teams were scared to pick him due to a lengthy legal battle that could ensue. Either way, the Oiler organization made a mistake in not picking the best available player at the time
As you mentioned, Kovalchuk, Ovechkin or Malkin were basically no brainer picks. Sure we need to do a better job, but I'd rather we used late round flyer picks on Russians than first rounders. Even players like Kostytin are rumored to be getting large offers from the RSL and getting them to contracts is going to be tough. I'm with you on the Cherepanov call though. Plante was just as big of a risk but Cherepanov was a bigger need IMO. Our scouting is much improved in he last couple years. If we had to increase our scouting investment in one area, I'd prefer NCAA.
I'll agree taking Russians early is a big risk, but its risk you take if you don't want to be bitching year after year about having no skilled scorers.
Sean: the NCAA is for college aged players so you won't find alot of draft eligible players. These guys come from the Junior A ranks often. What the NCAA is good for is undrafted free agents who just need a few more years to bloom (Penner, Rafalski, Conklin, etc etc)
Other thing to note is that Truhkno was drafted out of the Q, right?
So even the one possible success came out of Canadian juniors, same as Hemsky
The Euro amateur scouting is the suck
If you want to pick a Russian to grill them over, I'd pick taking Dubnyk over Radulov at the 2004 Draft as being more significant, because given that Radulov was already in North America, there wouldn't have been signing issues.
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