Looking Back- Cowen or MPS?

No, but a mobile defensemen, who's excellent in his own, has a scoring touch, and who plays his best in the playoffs, is definitely a good candidate for 1st overall.

I am happy with the decision. I was hoping that Murray would have found a way to get another 1st to get some offensive depth but hey there is always this year. Now we just need to get some blazing speed for the wings.

Big Ev wrote:It's weird though...for how good Phillips is at his role, you would never see a guy like him being picked #1 overall these days.

No offense to Big Rig, but that was a particularly weak draft year. Look at the rest of the top-10:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_NHL_Entry_Draft

2 Andrei Zyuzin
3 Jean-Pierre Dumont
4 Alexandre Volchkov
5 Ric Jackman
6 Boyd Devereaux
7 Erik Rasmussen
8 Johnathan Aitken
9 Ruslan Salei
10 Lance Ward

Zubrus at 15 would not challenge Phillips 15 years later, Briere at 24, maybe.

There was this tall, skinny kid named Zdeno at 56; he turned out pretty good

wprager wrote:

Tuk Tuk wrote:We also havent seen anything of MPS in the NHL. Too early to tell

Yep. Way too early. Neither Kalrsson, nor Wiercioch is a shutdown guy, so they needed to start developing a new Phillips. We have lots of forwards in the system and, frankly, there is nothing that says MPS will be any better than Regin or Silfverberg, or one of the others. Cowen is a *big* mobile defenseman, and those are much more difficult to get in a trade.

Cowen was the BPA available, thta's why they drafted him. Don't htink it has anything to do with needs, because our prospect pool is lacking wingers pretty bad.
And MPS is certainly better than Silfverberg for now and probably for the future. "nothing that says" would be a stretch IMO".

wprager wrote:

Tuk Tuk wrote:We also havent seen anything of MPS in the NHL. Too early to tell

Yep. Way too early. Neither Kalrsson, nor Wiercioch is a shutdown guy, so they needed to start developing a new Phillips. We have lots of forwards in the system and, frankly, there is nothing that says MPS will be any better than Regin or Silfverberg, or one of the others. Cowen is a *big* mobile defenseman, and those are much more difficult to get in a trade.

intereting question, and i admit that a little hard to answer since MPS hasn't played NHL style hockey. i think his speed will be impotant. the same way Karlsson speed is a big part of his game in the NHL. with the smaller rinks here it's that much more important. also karlsson has a pretty good response time. that you cannot learn.

that's exactly the thing i worry about cowen. from what i saw last game, his response time was pretty slow. i'll leave it all to 1st game jitters and also there is an aclimatization to the NHL level.
so to me this debate is impossible to answer just yet. 2 years from now, we will be having this one hopefuly again.


note: cowen seems to have some offncive capabilities over in spokane, doesn't anybody think that can transfer to the NHL? making him a bit of a pronger(without the mean streak)?

wprager wrote:

Big Ev wrote:It's weird though...for how good Phillips is at his role, you would never see a guy like him being picked #1 overall these days.

No offense to Big Rig, but that was a particularly weak draft year. Look at the rest of the top-10:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_NHL_Entry_Draft

2 Andrei Zyuzin
3 Jean-Pierre Dumont
4 Alexandre Volchkov
5 Ric Jackman
6 Boyd Devereaux
7 Erik Rasmussen
8 Johnathan Aitken
9 Ruslan Salei
10 Lance Ward

Zubrus at 15 would not challenge Phillips 15 years later, Briere at 24, maybe.

There was this tall, skinny kid named Zdeno at 56; he turned out pretty good

What ever happened to him? I always thought he had alot of potential.

Cowen or MPs?

Ev wrote:Cowen or MPs?

More old threads! Keep this going. This is fun.

Flo The Action wrote:

wprager wrote:

Tuk Tuk wrote:We also havent seen anything of MPS in the NHL. Too early to tell

Yep.  Way too early.  Neither Kalrsson, nor Wiercioch is a shutdown guy, so they needed to start developing a new Phillips.  We have lots of forwards in the system and, frankly, there is nothing that says MPS will be any better than Regin or Silfverberg, or one of the others.  Cowen is a *big* mobile defenseman, and those are much more difficult to get in a trade.

intereting question, and i admit that a little hard to answer since MPS hasn't played NHL style hockey. i think his speed will be impotant. the same way Karlsson speed is a big part of his game in the NHL. with the smaller rinks here it's that much more important. also karlsson has a pretty good response time. that you cannot learn.

that's exactly the thing i worry about cowen. from what i saw last game, his response time was pretty slow. i'll leave it all to 1st game jitters and also there is an aclimatization to the NHL level.
so to me this debate is impossible to answer just yet. 2 years from now, we will be having this one hopefuly again.


note: cowen seems to have some offncive capabilities over in spokane, doesn't anybody think that can transfer to the NHL? making him a bit of a pronger(without the mean streak)?

flo, nailing it, as usual. That's the big problem we're still talking about. Cowen's decision-making is practically visible, it takes so long. It seems to be a hockey IQ thing.

Seinfeld all day every day

Ev wrote:Cowen or MPs?

Cowen by a mile.

The only player available that I would have liked the Sens to pick over Cowen is Kassian and the jury is still out on him as well. Cowen might never turn out with the Sens but he was still a good pick at #9 there and the right one.

spader wrote:

Flo The Action wrote:

wprager wrote:

Tuk Tuk wrote:We also havent seen anything of MPS in the NHL. Too early to tell

Yep.  Way too early.  Neither Kalrsson, nor Wiercioch is a shutdown guy, so they needed to start developing a new Phillips.  We have lots of forwards in the system and, frankly, there is nothing that says MPS will be any better than Regin or Silfverberg, or one of the others.  Cowen is a *big* mobile defenseman, and those are much more difficult to get in a trade.

intereting question, and i admit that a little hard to answer since MPS hasn't played NHL style hockey. i think his speed will be impotant. the same way Karlsson speed is a big part of his game in the NHL. with the smaller rinks here it's that much more important. also karlsson has a pretty good response time. that you cannot learn.

that's exactly the thing i worry about cowen. from what i saw last game, his response time was pretty slow. i'll leave it all to 1st game jitters and also there is an aclimatization to the NHL level.
so to me this debate is impossible to answer just yet. 2 years from now, we will be having this one hopefuly again.


note: cowen seems to have some offncive capabilities over in spokane, doesn't anybody think that can transfer to the NHL? making him a bit of a pronger(without the mean streak)?

flo, nailing it, as usual. That's the big problem we're still talking about. Cowen's decision-making is practically visible, it takes so long. It seems to be a hockey IQ thing.

Funny how I don't see it exactly that way now. Cowen is a funny animal. Probably could never be a 1st pairing guy but maybe a 2nd pairing. The big issue with him is as many have said it probably lack of hockey IQ but that could also be indecisiveness. He's not adapted to the NHL game. Now I think he might do so still but maybe a Season on the bottom pairing might set him back on track .
I know size plaid a big part of his success in Spokane but he did maneuver very well to draw interest in him. My guess is that it's all in his head right now. We might have thruster him too fast up the depth chart in ottawa. He should be on the bottom pairing.

Nick Leddy has ended up as a better defence man from the first round but otherwise we're reaching into the second for O'Reilly or Tatar.

2009 has just ended up as a bit of a dud so far, although I think Hedman, Duchene, and Kane still have it in them to be star players -- it's more a question of consistency than ability.

Still, absolutely no comparison with 2008.