Islanders prospect Aaron Ness (sort of) traded?
by Dominik on Sep 1, 2009 5:34 PM EDT
in Roster Manoeuvres in the Dark
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PrintI apologize for the (slightly) misleading headline, but this is an odd story and the heading is technically no lie. It's also a week old, but I haven't come across it anywhere among the Isles gang (apologies if I've missed you; it was August). And it makes you go hmmm, so:
A good source for such things, Western College Hockey Blog picked up on news from The Pipeline Show that Islanders hot prospect Aaron Ness' junior rights were traded from Prince George to the Brandon Wheat Kings of the WHL for a goaltender and a pick conditional on Ness reporting.
Ness is of course still at U. of Minnesota. But Brandon is host of the Memorial Cup this season, so the thinking goes that maybe-just-maybe they could draw him to ... nah. But we saw how well the Garth Snow-Golden Gopher relationship was when Kyle Okposo left college mid-season, so ... nah.
WCHB says: "The good news for Minnesota fans is that Ness has never given any sort of indication that he'd be interested in leaving Minnesota."
Dean Millard at TPS says: "On the surface this seems like a long shot for the Wheat Kings, but Kelly McCrimmon is widely known as one of the smartest and shrewdest GM's in the league..."
The only way this affects the Islanders is if: a) Ness did jump and got some juniors and Memorial Cup action this year; b) that then advances the timeline for seeing him in an Orange and Blue uniform of some type.
Ness is both an immense talent and a long-term project. His oft-cited size means at some point there will be an adjustment to handling NHL-sized forwards. As an NHL fan, I selfishly want whatever nurtures that adjustment thoroughly efficiently -- while not scaring me into thinking the youngster has wanderlust.
So if this longshot were to somehow happen? I'd simply hope for the best -- and relish one more bit of provocative salt to pour in my Minnesota buddy's wounds.
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The title caught me off guard for a second, haha.
I think his development – both physically and skill-wise, with more attention to the former – would be best served by spending at least another two yrs. with the Golden Gophers. On top of that, he’s a Minnesota-bred kid who accelerated his final yr. of high school just so he could get into UM a year earlier; there’s a high level of loyalty at work here, IMO. He seems very committed to the school. (Then again, if you had asked me about Kyle Okposo’s “commitment level” to the school a couple years ago, I would’ve said something similar…)
THis nice thing is that if Ness doesn't make it
and is unable to handle NHL foirwards we have other D in the mix that are due to come up here around the same time as Ness.
Not every prospect is going to make it and the odds that we see Ness, Donnovan, Hamonic and DeHaan all turn into NHL players are slim. Some of em are gonna fall by the wayside at some point.
I’d imagine at the next draft Snow is going to heavily focus on drafting some D. As it stands right now we’ve drafted tons of players these last two years but none of them outside of Tavares is elite level talent. Should be interesting to see what happens.
I will say this, I am looking forward to the WJC to see if DeHaan and Hamonic are paired up. Should also be interesting with Donovan and Ness. All four of em make their junior squads Snow can count that as another notch in his belt for a job well done in the drafting department.
I’d imagine at the next draft Snow is going to heavily focus on drafting some D.
You don’t want to see more goalies picked? :)
Hear hear, if Snow has a quartet at the WJC, good on him — and good on me for an easy way to get a real look at them.
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On thing that shouldn’t be a surprise – Ness EXCELLED and IMPRESSED at mini camp earlier this summer to the point several websites and newspapers gushed incessantly over him for weeks.
Sometimes skill makes up for what lacks in size…..
Islesblogger is a contributor to Lighthouse Hockey: SBN's New York Islanders blog who's lost the most man games to injury.
by Michael Schuerlein on Sep 1, 2009 6:53 PM EDT reply actions
Hopefully he carries that “size don’t matter” trend all the way to stardom.
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let’s bear in mind too that he’s going to hopefully fulfill getting a degree of some nature in excess of hockey as well. If the young man stays in school, then ideally it’s a double bonus anyway and then he can ply his trade within the actual Islanders organization. The college ranks has plenty of good size for him to grind on anyway and I guess my point is hopefully he doesn’t rush into anything without considering all points here.
The site is playing games with my reply again and I am just too tired to send a message to anybody about it.
I think that we are playing with fire if Garth really intends to start the season with seven defenders on the roster. If Garth does not have someone in the system who is ready, then he should bring somebody in and I still think Babchuk would be the best choice. I agree though that we should not give up too much for him and if Rutherford is asking too much, Seidenberg might be the way to go—if he’ll come here at our price.
That’s a separate discussion from what to do about Sutton (and maybe Meyer as well) this year and Witt and Martinek next year. No way will DeHaan or Ness be ready for at least two more years. Hamonic is the only one who will be ready in time to replace any of the three (or four) named defenders. I don’t know that Fowler will be NHL-ready for the 2010-11 season either. If we can get them, the two FA defenders I like the best for 2010 are Mark Stuart of Boston and Denis Grebeschkov (yes, I know we traded him) of the Oilers. If anyone has other thoughts, please share. Of course, Garth did say that he was going to try to make cap-induced trades next summer as well.
My query re Fowler and Pulkinnen is predicated on the assumption that we will not have the #1 or #2 overall and will not have a shot at Hall or Kabanov. Depending on where we finish in the standings, how the lottery goes, and how many draft picks we accumulate at the deadline, we should be able to move up anywhere between the #3 and the #6—and Fowler and Pulkinnen are likely to be the best two available.
I agree with all that has been said about Fowler. He would likely be the most talented defender on this team since Denis. But the buzz about Pulkinnen is that he is the best Finnish forward since another guy named Teemu. When he played his first game in the adult league, it was a top news story all over Finland.
Our two biggest needs are at LW and on defense. We may answer some of our questions at LW this year with Bergy, Joensuu, Figren, Moulson and others. Wish we had two first rounders again this year, I really do.
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