New Season

 I've been completely burnt out by the whl. Maybe it's the pandemic,  but I had a plan last season to come back and start posting again. Once I learned their would be no post-season it drained any interest I had.

Will I keep posting?...I'm not sure. I may take a few years being "casually off", posting very infrequently. We will see.  Checking the view counts I find it crazy how people still check this blog out sometimes daily and I feel a bit guilty for not posting something. 

Central Division Expectations For This Season.

Normally I would have a through look at all the other teams in the league, and have a decent understanding of the strengths and weaknesses, but this year I haven't looked at the various rosters with any specificity.  

I can see that Edmonton should have another dominant team, but their are a lot of other teams that are harder to read from not actively watching and understanding their rosters. Their seems to be a lot of inexperience through the central on a casual glance.

Medicine Hat Tigers Expectations

The roster this year is very young. I would consider it a transition year. If we look at the roster the Tigers only have 2 19yr olds.  Their 17 year old group has 9 players. Very young. Young teams usually are near the bottom of the standings or fighting for the playoffs. I'm not saying the Tigers will be in that position, because the Central division as a whole looks inexperienced with the exception of Edmonton.

Competition could be fierce and their could be some interesting battles as it seems like multiple teams maybe in similar type of transition years.

Tigers still have 4 20 year olds on the roster, so one of them will eventually need to go. (Baker, Van Impe, Hopwo, Svejkovsky) I feel like van Impe could be an odd guy out, but if the Tigers could get a return for a guy like Hopwo I would definitely feel that would be advantageous long-term. 

Svejkovsky is out for tonight and he will be relied on heavily to be a big scorer for the Tigers. 

Oren Shtrom I really liked from last year is also a scratch against swift current. He will probably be near the top in terms of points for the Tigers. 

The Tigers offence is already a lot leaner than the past couple years, so when those guys are out, you wonder who is going to score the goals, which is normal for a younger roster. It is a very good time to be a young guy for the Tigers because their is ample opportunity to step up. Sillinger coming back would greatly boost the Tigers goal scoring in a significant way.

Cole Sillinger

I think I do well predicting whether older players who have cases for the NHL or AHL end up.

The bad thing for the Tigers is that Columbus has terrible depth at centre. Max Domi a center is currently injured and will be out for a month into the NHL season, so their is room for an extra centre to start the season.  The jackets also have a lot of players who play a couple positions and can move to wing.

The Blue Jackets are not expected to do well this season. Do you really want to burn a year of a good prospect with a team that may not do well? 

Salary cap usually dictates where players play. The time of year prospects are signed are also highly relevant to where they play. The earlier the signing, the higher the expectation that player makes the jump sooner rather than later .

Sillinger was signed soon after getting drafted which is a good indication the Jackets like him a lot. He is 100% gone next season for sure. But what about this season?

 Blue Jackets have 14 forwards under salary and 4 of those are eligible to be sent down, including another young russian who is in a similar spot as Sillinger...so their is room in Columbus for Sillinger should he play well enough. 

Sillinger was paired on the Jackets top Line and 2nd PP unit in the last exhibition game, which was very interesting. I think it's hard to see him continue that beyond the pre-season, but that is a sign that the bluejackets are very curious to see what he can do at the NHL level, by pitting him against tougher opposition.  They are testing him to see if he can hold a roster spot.

This makes me feel like the Jackets don't yet know what they are going to do.  It's not difficult to see a case where he plays his 10 games of NHL before being sent back. 

 My instinct says he may be a late return to the Tigers. However... If the blue jackets were to go through injuries, this situation changes dramatically.  Something as simple as an extra injury to a centre could change things a lot.

This is a situation where I'm watching closely, but I think it's 60-40 he will eventually be sent back. That means I think he is more likely to be sent back, but I'm not confident in that and the situation could easily change.

 If I was the Jackets GM my thinking would be to keep him up to push other players to perform, possible play him for his 10 NHL games before sending him back down.

What I'm watching For

The Tigers have 9 17's which is exceptionally high. They have brought the banff hockey academy to the hat. The coaches include former Tigers and the Willie Desjardins son, Brayden Desjardins. I feel like this means the Tigers have an extended capability of scouting alberta hockey, which could lead to future WHL dynasties, but we may need to go through a leaner year to get there first.