While watching the Flames get beaten by 'a team that they should destroy' on Saturday night, I couldn't help but notice that this year's Phoenix Coyotes squad looks a lot like last season's Chicago Blackhawks...
A lot of young, early first round draft picks surrounded by some experienced guys that you feel are still a little bit too young to be called veterans. When a team is so bad for such a long time, you know that one of these years, if they make decent draft choices, they will eventually get out of that basement and become a legitimate contender (note: not a favourite)...
It happened with the Penguins a few years ago (although they seem to be struggling a little right now), then it happened with the Blackhawks last year, and this year it seems to be happening in the desert...
Granted, you occasionally get those teams that can't seem to pick up the right guys and seem to stay on the bottom for eternity, like the Islanders, Kings, and Thrashers, but those teams also don't tend to hang onto their young guys long enough to see how they can mesh together. Either that or they tend to draft players that start their careers off overseas instead of in the North American farm system...
The Phoenix roster only has six players over 30, the oldest being Ken Klee, born in 1971. And two of them just turned 30 in the last 6 months (Derek Morris and Olli Jokinen). The other three guys, all born in 1976 (the same age as me, incidently), are Steve Reinprecht, Ed Jovanovski, and Shane Doan. Not a bad bunch of 'veterans' to have on a team at all..
And three of those 'over the hill' guys have expiring contracts (Reinprecht, Morris, and Klee)...
Not to mention that a good chunk of the key young guys (Turris, Mueller, Boedker, Hanzal, Tikhonov), all still have at least one year left in their entry contracts...
This team is going to be very good next year, and I'm actually thinking that they will be a tough team to face down the stretch, as they start to gel more and more...
No longer just another notch in the win column...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment