Stoked these write-ups are back! From your viewing, did you see any players who seem like they may be able to carve out a real NHL slot?
I think my concern with Hemming is that the review of his game from this tournament is pretty much exactly the review of him from the world juniors. He has the tools and should be a scary player, but he gets on the ice and is... fine. I wasn't able to watch these games so not sure what dimension that takes, but in the WJC he was pretty much just a passenger who could use his shot sometimes if someone got him the puck in space, but didn't do anything to create that space or get pucks. When the shot wasn't happening, nothing was, which is a little concerning at this level.
Taylor probably "popped" the most for Dallas, but then you'd expect him to, given his age and experience and his performance in Texas.
The backup goalie question for Dallas after DeSmith's deal ends in two years is an interesting one. Given their respective ages, you'd probably say Tiefensee has a slightly better chance than Kraws at this point--but they'd have to get ahead of Poirier first, and even then, I don't think any of those three looks right now like an obvious "play 30 NHL games a season" guy.
As for Hemming, I think the reality is that he's not a top-100 prospect in the league, and he was drafted 29th in his year. So while the Stars have been spoiled with late-round firsts in recent years, he right now profiles as someone who will need to come into next summer looking like he's ready to make an impact in professional hockey. Lot of skill there, but the fact that he isn't blowing anyone a way is more about unreasonable expectations put on him by default as one of only a few higher-end U-20 players in the system.
I completely missed you guys. I walked by and was carrying food and saw a group of what I figured was media guys, but my daughter was already hungry before we got into our seats, so I didn't investigate further.
Oh well! Another time!
I also liked Shlaine (is that Shl-ane or Sh-lye-N?) and Fuder. Taylor impressed me with his speed. I thought that Hemming looked slow and lost at times, and I kept waiting for him to show more of something to get me excited, but if he did anything it was on your end of the ice, and I never saw much of anything. Speaking of underwhelmed, Schmidt looked very unpolished out there to me. He consistently looked like he was fighting to keep the puck on his stick (with the one exception where he added his secondary assist on what I thought was a very slick play).
Other than that, and not having seen the first game, it seemed like Dallas was just discombobulated all over the ice. I was very impressed with a couple of the Wings skaters, but it felt that last night came down more to some puck luck (nothing wrong with that) than just playing better. Sometimes, it is better to be lucky than good, right?
Shlaine had a very good game on Sunday, for sure. I'll have some more on him this week, actually.
I suppose if I were handing out grades or something, I'd give Hemming a C and Schmidt a C-. Not F's or anything, but a lot closer to where you'd expect younger players to be in two tough games than where you'd hope to see them making an impact. (I did love that Hemming play to nearly set up Taylor, though. Very nice little area pass.)
These prospects games are always hectic, so I think it's hard to evaluate long-term futures based on them. Camp and preseason might be a more consistently structured environment to learn more in the coming days.
Each Prospect tournament seems to have one guy who comes in and earns a slot. I'm guessing that Fuder is the guy this year - perhaps bottom 6 role with an offensive upside?
As for Ertel, I wouldn't be surprised to see him in a middle six role with Texas this year. There is obviously some organizational trust there, and he showed that he could take on a bigger role in these two games. His passing is something that I haven't noticed before.
Stoked these write-ups are back! From your viewing, did you see any players who seem like they may be able to carve out a real NHL slot?
I think my concern with Hemming is that the review of his game from this tournament is pretty much exactly the review of him from the world juniors. He has the tools and should be a scary player, but he gets on the ice and is... fine. I wasn't able to watch these games so not sure what dimension that takes, but in the WJC he was pretty much just a passenger who could use his shot sometimes if someone got him the puck in space, but didn't do anything to create that space or get pucks. When the shot wasn't happening, nothing was, which is a little concerning at this level.
Taylor probably "popped" the most for Dallas, but then you'd expect him to, given his age and experience and his performance in Texas.
The backup goalie question for Dallas after DeSmith's deal ends in two years is an interesting one. Given their respective ages, you'd probably say Tiefensee has a slightly better chance than Kraws at this point--but they'd have to get ahead of Poirier first, and even then, I don't think any of those three looks right now like an obvious "play 30 NHL games a season" guy.
As for Hemming, I think the reality is that he's not a top-100 prospect in the league, and he was drafted 29th in his year. So while the Stars have been spoiled with late-round firsts in recent years, he right now profiles as someone who will need to come into next summer looking like he's ready to make an impact in professional hockey. Lot of skill there, but the fact that he isn't blowing anyone a way is more about unreasonable expectations put on him by default as one of only a few higher-end U-20 players in the system.
I completely missed you guys. I walked by and was carrying food and saw a group of what I figured was media guys, but my daughter was already hungry before we got into our seats, so I didn't investigate further.
Oh well! Another time!
I also liked Shlaine (is that Shl-ane or Sh-lye-N?) and Fuder. Taylor impressed me with his speed. I thought that Hemming looked slow and lost at times, and I kept waiting for him to show more of something to get me excited, but if he did anything it was on your end of the ice, and I never saw much of anything. Speaking of underwhelmed, Schmidt looked very unpolished out there to me. He consistently looked like he was fighting to keep the puck on his stick (with the one exception where he added his secondary assist on what I thought was a very slick play).
Other than that, and not having seen the first game, it seemed like Dallas was just discombobulated all over the ice. I was very impressed with a couple of the Wings skaters, but it felt that last night came down more to some puck luck (nothing wrong with that) than just playing better. Sometimes, it is better to be lucky than good, right?
Shlaine had a very good game on Sunday, for sure. I'll have some more on him this week, actually.
I suppose if I were handing out grades or something, I'd give Hemming a C and Schmidt a C-. Not F's or anything, but a lot closer to where you'd expect younger players to be in two tough games than where you'd hope to see them making an impact. (I did love that Hemming play to nearly set up Taylor, though. Very nice little area pass.)
These prospects games are always hectic, so I think it's hard to evaluate long-term futures based on them. Camp and preseason might be a more consistently structured environment to learn more in the coming days.
Each Prospect tournament seems to have one guy who comes in and earns a slot. I'm guessing that Fuder is the guy this year - perhaps bottom 6 role with an offensive upside?
As for Ertel, I wouldn't be surprised to see him in a middle six role with Texas this year. There is obviously some organizational trust there, and he showed that he could take on a bigger role in these two games. His passing is something that I haven't noticed before.
The penalties weren’t ideal, but Fuder probably did as much as you can in these sorts of games to help his chances. We shall see.