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hockeygodKyle Woodlief’s Red Line Report
Gregg Drinnan, Taking Note, Feb 25 2012
Kyle Woodlief’s Red Line Report was posted Friday by USA TODAY. In it, he wonders about the lack of skilled North American forwards eligible for the NHL’s 2012 draft. Boy, ain’t that the truth. You need only watch the number of junior teams playing chip and chase to wonder just what is going on with that. Park a player in the neutral zone — and I mean park him. Have a defenceman rifle the puck in his direction. The forward, who is standing still, tips the puck into the offensive zone. And then the other team repeats the exercise…
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European forwards outshine North Americans in skill:
Having just returned home from the Five Nations under-18 event in Finland, we have exactly four words: Thank God for Europe!
Kyle Woodlief, Red Line Report special to USA TODAY, Feb 24 2012
Sweden's Filip Forsberg is among the skilled European forwards dominating this draft.
And not because places like Panelia and Pori scream destination travel in mid-February.
No, it's because without Europe, there would not be a single skilled forward to watch in this entire draft class.
As we were watching the dynamic Swedish duo of Sebastian Collberg and Filip Forsberg dominate entire shifts and Finnish flash Teuvo Teravainen rip hellacious one-timers and Russian Anton Slepyshev dangle through crowds of overmatched defenders, we thought back to fond memories when North American forwards used to have puck skills. Ah, those were the good old days.
As we sat in the stands over in Finland, we looked over the first round of our list and started to realize it wasn't just that the American under-18 team was shockingly devoid of anything even remotely resembling a skilled puckhandler.
No, the drought extends to North America as well. In addition to the four Euros mentioned above, plus late-1993 Swede Pontus Aberg, Red Line's five highest-rated forwards skating in any league in North America are all European as well: Nail Yakupov, Alex Galchenyuk (though honestly, does anyone truly understand what nationality he is?) and Radek Faksa in the Ontario Hockey League; Mikhail Grigorenko in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League; and Zemgus Girgensons in the United States Hockey League.
In all, our top nine ranked forwards, and 11 of the 14 we have ranked in the first round, are all European. We don't have a single North American forward ranked in our top 20.
And sadly, when we go to games in places like Des Moines and Regina, that generally makes us want to gouge our eyes out with a fork.
We know everything in this business is cyclical, so this too shall pass. But right about now, this all leads us to one inescapable conclusion: There is an absolute pile of money to be made running a top-notch skills clinic anywhere on this continent.
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I will post further thoughts on this later – working on an article to share here. Heading to the rink now…
Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
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