The Calgary Flames’ decision to keep Sean Monahan on their roster became a no-brainer three weeks into the season. If a teenage forward is scoring at something like a 40-goal pace in the NHL and he’s your best player on a few nights, it’s awfully hard to send him back. You’d only do so in a couple of cases. One: You have abundant skill up front (certainly not the case in Calgary). Two: You’re concerned with long-term implications of burning a year off an entry-level contract towards free agency (a worry that should afflict only those with long-term front-office job security, which certainly isn’t the case with the Flames — with the exception of the latest arrival, Brian Burke). Right now Monahan looks like a very solid draft pick for the Flames at No. 6 last June; though, of course, it’s a minute sample to make judgments.
NHL Central Scouting Service had Monahan ranked fifth among North American skaters last spring, behind Seth Jones, Nathan MacKinnon, Jonathan Drouin and Darnell Nurse. Tampa has returned Drouin to Halifax and Edmonton sent Nurse back to the Soo. Those seem like sound judgments and there’s no reason to bet against them being as good or better than Monahan in the long run — certainly in the case of Nurse; it’s a helluva lot harder to throw an 18-year-old defenceman into the NHL mix. Within the context of the NHL CSS’s rankings (and with Florida selecting Alexander Barkov from Finland at No. 2 and Carolina taking Elias Lindholm from Sweden at No. 5, Calgary’s judgment doesn’t seem that complicated: They took Monahan over Nurse. It could have been just a matter of position. There was, however, more in play.
Opinion in the ranks of the scouts was mixed on Monahan (It’s a matter that I wrote at the time). Some had Monahan down in the middle of the first round on their lists because they considered his effort and attitude with the Ottawa 67’s very in and out. Calgary’s head scout Todd Button put in intensive work on Monahan and was a believer from the get-go. That said, the Flames did look to trade up — any number of scenarios in play with MacKinnon or Barkov the likeliest targets. The question you walk away with: How did someone who saw Monahan on multiple viewings have him in the middle of the first or worse?
It goes to legit challenges for scouts. One: How do you assess a talented player when he’s working without surrounding talent? Two: How do you judge a prospect on character when he’s in a toxic mess? This was the case for Monahan in Ottawa, winners of just 16 of 68 games last season (In fact, even if the Flames saw less in Monahan so far this year, they probably would have been inclined to keep him around just because of low regard for the 67’s, marginally more competitive this year but still a franchise at sea).
Scouts couldn’t use performance at the under-18s as a measure because Monahan was a late ‘94. Said one scout this week: “You’d have to do some real background on this — not just an interview with a kid or the usual door-knocking. It’s as much about the team situation as anything. Still, there’s a lot more projecting involved with a case like Monahan’s last season.”
And who’s going to present a talent-on-a-bad-team conundrum this season? It’s a matter for further review but one guy jumped out for me in a recent viewing. The Sarnia Sting aren’t quite as messy as Ottawa was last year but they’re pretty bereft of high-end skill. The one draft-eligible player who jumped out for me was RW Nikolay Goldobin, a late ‘95 from Russia. He netted 30 goals for the Sting in his rookie season and so far this year he’s on point-a-game pace (seven goals and six assists in 13 games) which is pretty decent for a draft-eligible. When I saw him he probably touched the puck six times during the game and lethally finished two chances that were on his stick for not as much as a cumulative one-tenth of a second. Said one scout: “He’s a real smart player and he has great hands. He’s a strong, smooth skater but I don’t know about his speed.”
Ultimately, with Monahan last year and Goldobin this year, you’re looking at a lot of play in games that cease to be competitive early on. That is, it’s human nature for everyone on a team to sort of mail it in at a certain point — even if the player under consideration doesn’t. You might be able to pick up effort (or lack of) but it’s tough to get a fair measure of a kid. The talent-on-a-bad-team is a tough read, trying to figure out what might be locked in there.