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Initial Thoughts of the Bantam Draft
Wow, The Tigers took players all the way back into the 14th round. that is unheard of for them.
They must have had a few names that were ranked much higher on their lists or they cleaned house from older prospects and had extra room.
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The Chart Courtesy of The Medicine Hat Tigers Website
http://tigershockey.com/article/2017-bantam-draft-recap
| Name | Position | Hometown | Height | Weight | Round | Pick Overall |
| Garin Bjorklund | G | Grande Prairie, AB | 5’11 | 147 | 1st | 21st |
| Scout Truman | F | Lethbridge, AB | 5’5 | 137 | 2nd | 43rd |
| Ryan Watson | D | Delta, BC | 5’9 | 149 | 3rd | 65th |
| Noah Danielson | C | Olds, AB | 5’8.5 | 160 | 4th | 87th |
| Brett Meerman | RW | Blackfalds, AB | 5’8.5 | 155 | 5th | 110th |
| Kadyn Chabot | C | Lethbridge, AB | 5’7.5 | 160 | 6th | 131st |
| Austin Dycer | D | Yorkton, SK | 5’8.5 | 149 | 8th | 175th |
| Brayden Kapty | D | Coalhurst, AB | 5’9.5 | 132 | 9th | 197th |
| Stephen Rosier | F | Calgary, AB | 5’7 | 171 | 10th | 219th |
| Tyler Bates | D | Calgary, AB | 5’7 | 150 | 11th | 241st |
| Samuel Deckhut | C | San Diego, CA | 5’5.5 | 124 | 12th | 263rd |
| Talon Zakall | D | Kamloops, BC | 5’9 | 140 | 13th | 285th |
| Davis Chorney | C | Nipawin, SK | 5’11 | 180 | 14th | 307th |
Draft Strategy
Normally Goaltenders are highly volatile and it is why we don't see a lot of them picked in the first couple rounds. Their are lots of past examples of goaltenders taken early not panning out.
However with the elimination of the ability to take goaltenders in the import draft, goalies seem to be slowly creeping up the list in the draft order. The past couple years a few of them have been taking in the 1st rounds, and it is not uncommon to see half a dozen selected after the 2nd round.
If you are a team with a late first round pick like the Tigers and their is a goaltender that you've watched and really like, it makes a lot of sense to take a stab at the best goaltender available, and that is what they did.
Stick to their strengths in last position
The Tigers are good at finding the smaller players with talent, later in the draft, so in a draft where you pick 21st out of 22 teams it is understandable to retreat back to what their strengths are and why not a lot of bigger bodies were selected. They are essentially trying to keep up with the pack and hope they find a couple gems in the later rounds.
Unfortunately for us, we won't really know how well or how poor they did, until this draft is long forgotten, and we are sitting here 6 years later going OMG that seemed like yesterday.
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Reviewing the 2011 Bantam Draft
It seems like yesterday Blake Penner the hometown kid was picked in the first round.
In this draft the Tigers had the 18th pick in each round out of 22 teams.
First Round
Blake Penner
Third Round
Chad Butcher
Round Four
Nathyn Mortlock
Alex Mowbray
Round Six
Zac Robidoux Goaltender
Steven Owre
Round Seven
Michael McEachern
Round Eight
Josh McCulloch
Round Nine
Nolan Martens
Round Ten
Patrick Normandeau
Round Eleven
Matthew Donnelly
Summary
Nothing for them after the 7th round
Blake Penner - 3 year utility/3rd line player.
Chad Butcher WHL ALL-Star
Nathyn Mortlock Depth 8-9th defenceman (released, and played for regina)
Alex Mowbray - 4 year 3rd line player (released and played for spokane as an overage)
Steven Owre - WHL Allstar
Zac Robidoux - 3rd string goaltender Traded to Lethbridge for a 3rd round pick.
2011 Draft Grade: A
In an average year you want 3 core players, but the Tigers found 2 allstars, 2 3rd liners, 2 players that had cups of coffee in the whl.
If the Tigers had had a top 5 draft pick, I'd say this draft would have been average. However they had the 18th pick and for that this draft is pretty outstanding and a big reason why this past season the Tigers had top of the line talent regarding their overage positions.
8 comments:
Talking to someone who scouts bantam aged kids said he doesn't think there is a lot of high end players that were taken. Reminds him a lot of the 98 class a few yrs back. Also, says he thinks Truman is one of the better players he watched that isnt part of the CSSHL (quite a few taken before him).
Still haven't gotten an answer, what the deal with McPhee? He's not listed on Tigers roster in the playoffs or even announced as a scratch so did he leave the team?
It upsetting this team had so much potential and never addressed a true power forward for size and grit. The coaching in general in the lethbridge series was terrible. Clouston was getting out line matched at home, never adjusted to finish their hits to try to slow down the Wong line and Lethbridge made a single defensive adjustment after game 1 and the tigers never adjusted around it.
Moving a your centre back a little and having him drop over the middle past the red line is the only adjustment a team needs to make to force the Tigers to play to the outside and not open up the middle, but when your whole game is speed and you have no adjustments or players to switch up your style, you get beat by 2 players.
If Lethbridge was healthy, Tigers were out in 5 with the soft goals they were taking every game
MacPhee was sent down after the Tigers acquired henderson as their were too many blueliners. He will play and be a big part of the team next season.
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1. I feel the reason the Tigers lost was because they overlook a big part of the game. Their philosophy is strong skating, mobility,systematic play and defense will take care of itself.
Their team had a lot of talent, but not near the defensive awareness and smarts a team needs to win a championship. It's been the same thing for a while now, they have troubles with teams that are defensively sound and have a little bit of skill.
Wasn't MacPhee with the team after Grand Prairie Storm (team he was sent to) season ended. All teams seem to have extra players kicking around at the end of the season (most cases they just practice) in too many scenarios I could list? And most of those players just kicking around aren't listed on rosters.
I don't know if he was a black ace or not.
anyone read the hobbs article on whl.ca? a big left handed jab at the Tigers.
Had no clue why Clouston kept putting Quenville and Schultz out against Wong. During the whole season he played Rubins and Kirichenko against other teams top lines and come playoff he puts out guys that missed considerable amount of time with broken legs...Wong sure as hell isn't the player to be playing against when you are getting adjusted beck to top end game speed. We were destined to loose sometime as we had the poorest tending going into the playoffs. Below average goaltending in Leth series didn't help the cause.
Rubins+kirichenko were paired against them a lot for the first few games, but they weren't able to stop them.
I felt like Quenneville stepped up his game big-time defensively in the series.
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When you have those types of players you need to slow them down by hitting them at every opportunity and make them fight through mud. The Tigers system frowns on body contact in the offensive zone.
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Hobbs was exactly right in that article. Their are other ways to play the game. His style didn't match-up with the Tigers and IMO he did the right thing by demanding a trade. His play-style doesn't jive with the Tigers play-style.
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