This just in! According to former Oilers defender Jason Strudwick and ex-Flames GM Craig Button, Evan Bouchard can now begin to be compared to failed 4th overall pick Griffin Reinhart… Wow! Just when you think Button couldn’t dig himself into that hole any further, Strudwick hands him a new shovel…
Forgive me, this post is going to be a bit jambled. I had a lot of quotes to use and had quite a bit to say but I’ll be honest, the organization of the post is f*cked… But it is what it is. I just want to get this out to the masses and you fine folks can do with it what you will.
No new trade rumors to report btw. Zuccarello is the reported target at the moment.
On to the ridiculousness!
Jason Strudwick: A guy like Griffin Reinhart. He could do it in junior but once you get to the NHL you have to have some snap. You gotta get there and get there quick. Griffin was never able to raise that. Is that kind of a fair comparison to maybe what a guy that was never able to get that bar up high enough to play at that quick tempo. It doesn’t mean you’re skating fast, it means you’re doing things quickly.
At first when I’d heard that there were Reinhart/Bouchard comparisons done on Jason Gregor’s show, I didn’t think it would’ve been coming out of Strudwick’s mouth.
Reinhart’s career best point total in junior was 36 points in 2011-12. Bouchard has already had an 87 point campaign and is on pace for 90 points this season… He also has an actual NHL goal to his name, something that the Reinhart boy has yet to achieve, but I digress.
Do you remember back in 2014, there were some rumblings that the Oilers should trade the 3rd overall pick for Griffin Reinhart? Jonathan Willis wrote on it at the time and what I was shocked to find out was that Craig Button was one of the pundits that was also advocating that trade.
Bob Stauffer had two guests on his show bring up the subject recently – TSN scout (and former NHL G.M.) Craig Button and the Edmonton Journal’s Jim Matheson. Terry Jones wrote about the possibility in the Edmonton Sun, and David Staples riffed on that in a follow-up piece on the Journal’s website.
The Oilers did eventually trade for Reinhart but if I had to choose between this proposed deal and the one that actually happened, I’ll take losing out on Barzal, Chabot, Boeser, etc. instead of Leon Draisaitl anyday.
Craig Button: Jason, it’s a perfect, perfect description and it’s a really good example about Griffin. Griffin was a smart player, and I love the term “snap”. You use a great phrase and one that I totally agree with, “getting there quickly”. Getting there quickly with the best opportunity to make the best play, not to make a survival play, not to make a play, “Oh boy! Now I’m stuck, I’m gonna fire it off the glass”,,, It’s about giving yourself the opportunity to make the best play. Like I said, the NHL is fast. It’s fast offensively, it’s fast defensively. It demands you not only play fast but you gotta think fast. It’s developmental, he (Bouchard) doesn’t have an inherant weakness in his hockey sense or an inherant weakness in his skating. He’s just got to play faster and get his pace up. That’s true of 99% of young players trying to enter the league. It’s not unique to Evan, it holds true to 99% of the players trying to get into the league
Griffin Reinhart couldn’t survive at the NHL level because he couldn’t skate at that level! He was being compared to Colton Teubert for crying out loud! As a result of his poor skating, of course his pace and tempo were affected. I mean who uses Griffin Reinhart as a comparable to Evan Bouchard?
I asked a veteran OHL scout about what Button’s comments and he had this to say,
Button is a f*cking moron. I honestly ignore everything he says. Bouchard plays with great pace and tempo. He also slows things down and can play a patient game. Defensive intensity is an issue. Just kinda floats defensively but transition game and offensive game are elite.
You can see he’s trying a bit harder defensively. Certainly whacking guys more, trying to pin guys up against the wall more. He needs to hit the gym to get bigger and stronger that will help him too. AHL is perfect for that.
His first step is a bit slow but once we gets going he’s fine. Part of it is reads too. When he gets the puck he’s immediately looking to make a pass with head up. I dunno, Button is f*cked.
Bottom line is, you can’t teach some of the sh*t he does with the puck offensively. That shot is so hard and accurate and he is a good skater despite what people think especially in transition game. IQ is very high, poise is there. He has a lot of tools just needs to continue to get stronger and work and efensive game. But what defensive prospect at age 19 doesn’t?
I really want to know how Button came to the conclusions about this list of 50 best-affiliated players and it was addressed in the show as well.
The list of the 50 best nhl affiliated players is about who today factors into that category of best players who are affiliated with their team. It’s not about potential, there’s another hundred players who have lots of potential, Evan Bouchard included amongst them.
You look at a player and you look at what players have to do, I like Evan Bouchard, I think he’s got lots of capability but I know one thing that’s essential to success at the National Hockey League level, and that’s a pace and tempo that Evan Bouchard has to improve. It has to be much better.
You evaluate over a period of time. This isn’t a static operation for me, it’s not an evaluation that I just look at him once. I’m looking at it over time and Evan’s a really good prospect but when I look at it and I do it, it’s not about points.
It’s about, okay, I’ve just watched him in a best-on-best tournament, I just watched him against his peer group as a 19-year-old defenseman and you factor that in. You factor in to what I’ve seen this year in London and so those all go in hand-in-hand in terms of the evaluation.
Ah… I think I’ve found the issue here. Button is upset about Bouchard’s performance at the World Juniors. It has to be. He’s based in Calgary for the most part and so I have to question how often he gets out to London Knights games.
I didn’t think Evan had a good tournament either but that didn’t force me to come to the conclusion that Gabe Vilardi, a player who hasn’t played a full season of hockey for 3 years now, is a better player for the Kings than Bouchard is for the Oilers.
This isn’t about him not being a good NHL prospect…. Connor Timmins, last year as a 19-year-old defenseman, had the same exact developmental issues as Evan Bouchard and at the World Junior tournament, and I don’t just put this at the World Junior Touranment, but make no mistake about it; it’s a significant tournament when we’re talking about the best players outside the NHL and Connor Timmins excelled, Evan Bouchard fell far short of excelling at that tournament and I still think he’s got great, awesome potential but he needs work on his pace and tempo because if it doesn’t improve, he’s going to have a tough time playing in the National Hockey League.
So Button goes on about Timmins here and how he had a good tourney and how Bouchard didn’t but Eeli Tolvanen was invisible for Finland for most of the tournament. Filip Zadina had 1 point the whole time!
But maybe we should use defensemen as a better comparable.
- Quinn Hughes (USA) – 2 assists – ranked 8th
- Evan Bouchard (CAN) – 3 assists – unranked
- Noah Dobson (CAN) – 1 assist – ranked 18th
The person ranked 19th is Alexander Romanov. He has ZERO points for his KHL club but at least he lead the scoring at the world juniors for dmen.
I mean is Alexander Alexeyev really a better prospect for his club today than Bouchard is for Edmonton? C’mon Craig! Get your head out of your ass.
This is a report from Button that came out a few months before the draft in 2018 and he had some pretty glowing things to say about Evan Bouchard and had him ranked as high as 5th in the draft.
Funny, nothing about his lack of pace or tempo though…
Sometimes it takes me a little bit longer to get my senses about myself and my wits. I’ve watched Evan Bouchard for four years. The OHL Cup has been going on this weekend, I saw him first in midget. Three years in London, over 50 times in all different kinds of games, playoffs, events. I can only tell you this, after a while you just go, “Wait a second, he’s this good.” He’s not sexy. There’s not end-to-end rushes and flashes of brilliance but what there is is this great intelligence, this great ability to impact the game, great with the puck, and he reminds me of Hall-of-Famer Larry Murphy. I’m not saying he’s Larry Murphy but that’s the kind of game he plays. We’re talking about a guy that had 87 points, lead his team in scoring as a defenseman. – Craig Button (3/20/2018)
Has anybody considered that perhaps the reason that Bouchard appears to play slower is that he’s trained himself to do that due to playing so many minutes for London the last couple of seasons?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OqPvFQRX1s
