http://www.tigershockey.com/article/tigers-acquire-defenceman-from-portland
The Medicine Hat Tigers and Portland Winterhawks struck a deal on Friday with the Tigers acquiring 97 born defenceman and Fridley, Minnesota native, Nick Heid in exchange for a fourth round pick in the 2017 Western Hockey League Bantam Draft.
With the deal, the Tigers are sending back the pick they acquired last season for Miles Koules.
As a 16 year old, Heid put up 27 points in 20 games patrolling the Ohama “AAA” Lancers blueline prior to coming over to the WHL.
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My Thoughts
Heid stands 6'4 195 lbs. He is on the NHL Central Scoutings "players to watch" listed with a C rating.
Seems like a very nice pickup that didn't cost a lot for a good young defenceman. Portland had 8 Dman on the roster including 3 16's, so they had room to move. I watched a few of his videos and he shows a physical presence.
We'll wait to see him play but my initial thoughts are: If he is worth of the C rating I really like this move. This puts the Tigers roster at 8 DMan. This move opens up some defensive flexibility.
Before this trade happened, and regardless of their decisions on the Overage front they needed to bring in another good young defenceman because their cupboards were pretty lean. Their next "up cycle" is in 2 or 3 years. So bringing in this player will greatly help boost that "up cycle" if he turns out to be a solid player.
What Happens Next
If the Tigers are going to sell an overage forward I would expect they would want another forward in return. They now have the manpower depth on the back-end to cut/move a Dman. Whether that Dman is Stanton we will wait and see however I think they will still be hurting big-time on the back-end if they do. I'd be more of a fan of moving Laday out, but the import status makes that harder to do.
16 comments:
So we are potentially moving Stanton? Too many defence and I can not see us trading a young guy. Either this or Platonov goes home. I am not convinced by taking these imports, they often seem behind the eight ball. And unless you get a high pick you might as well play a North American. They are less work
Not necessarily. I edited my post a bit. I mean they have the guys to do it, but even looking at last nights game against moving the team's #1 defenceman I think would be a poor decision.
Evan Johnson no longer listed on the WHL website roster.
GOALTENDING !!!!!!!!! That's why you win !!!
Lotz is sure making a big difference in goal. The defense played very well and didn't cough up the puck in the danger zone very many times. Night and day compared to a week ago.
Rassall and Queneville have stepped up their games big time! Great To See
Lotz has been awesome. Major difference having a goalie who can make saves.
The young guys really stepped up tonight. Good to see, hope they can keep it up!
I have not heard anything about the new dman. Hope he is as good as his NHL C grade score. Given that Queneville is also C grade, I think that he must have some potential! I can not wait to see him on the ice.
Also, liked Cloustons game tonight. Thought he was really solid.
Lastly, the amount of elbows and head shots from Calgary was crazy. I hope the charging to Sanford will be reviewed by the league. Appeared to be nothing but intention to hurt.
It has been awhile since we had a player on team whl, I thought Butcher might be close and hoped Bradley would have had a hot start...Heres to hoping Dave Q cracks the goose egg next year!!!!
It's not even a charge though he glided into his hit, it was just a big beautiful hit on a tiny player who didn't have his head up protecting himself. Kessy would throw hits game in and game out a thousand times worse than that.
I must say its amazing how Tiger fans turn on Schneider and say he's not a good goalie when he went to a stacked NHL teams camp and won a contract after not even being drafted, drafted players sometimes can't even achieve that and now he comes back to the Tigers and he's a problem? I think the problem is management of this team not goaltending, the whole playing Becker over Hobbs when Hobbs was clearly better has really come back to bite the Tigers in the ass
Sanheim gets 3 games for laying the smackdown on our Sanford, its about time we get some redemption from the beatings the hitmen give our players.
Yes I agree and said it before Hobbs is a STUD and a beauty to watch to fricken bad he is gone!!!
I thought Schneider was struggling and staying too low in his crease, Same thing happened to Langhamer when we got Lanigan. I think Lotz is doing awesome and has a real jump in his step, but I do hope Schneider comes around! (nice kid).
Unfortunately i think Schneider and his agent are going to ask for a trade, if the Tigers won't commit to making him starter they should trade him. He's a great player and teams like Regina could take a Schneider/Stanton trade and then drop Wapple. Its brutal watching this team push players out of the organization, look at the comments in the paper monday with Quenneville. “He’s been the best player on the ice two nights in a row and I think if we want to continue to win hockey games he’s going to be our guy,” said Quenneville. “I think we’re confident with whoever’s going in net but he’s been huge for us.” Yikes "if we want to continue to win hockey games he going to be our guy" would hate to be Schneider sitting in that locker room.
Laday deleted from roster
This situation with Schneider could get messy, but I hope it doesn't.
Marek Langhamer was in this same position, when the Tigers acquired Cam Lanigan. Langhamer wasn't able to quite cut the mustard in his 18 yr old year but then had very strong 19,20 yr old seasons.
In the whl it is becoming more of a norm to see 19/20 yr old goaltenders as the #1.
In a previous post someone was asking about a 3rd period song could be shinedown- sound of madness.
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