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Tearing Up The AHL
by PuckStopsHere on 11/05/09 at 12:08 PM ET
Comments (7)
There is an incredible offensive performance underway in the AHL. Alexandre Giroux of the Hershey Bears (the Washington Capitals affiliate) is tied for the league lead in scoring with 17 points. He is tied with Corey Locke of the Hartford Wolf Pack (the New York Rangers affiliate). Giroux’s performance so far is impressive because he has done it in only eight games played. He has scored more than two points per game in the AHL so far this season. By comparison, Locke has 12 games played. Giroux was called up to the NHL for a short time. He played three games with the Washington Capitals scoring a goal. This has limited his AHL games played.
Giroux is no stranger to being an AHL top scorer. Last year he won the John B Sollenberger Trophy as the top scorer in the league as well as the Les Cunningham Award for MVP. Giroux is an AHL superstar and he appears to be getting even better as time passes. So why is he not an NHLer?
In 25 NHL games over the last four seasons, Giroux has scored seven points. This is a respectable, but not spectacular achievement. It looks a little better when you consider that he has not been given much playing time. Giroux averaged slightly over seven minutes per game of playing time during his most recent NHL stint. Giroux has never been given much of an NHL shot.
He was a seventh round draft pick of the Ottawa Senators in 1999 and has largely bounced around the AHL since then. At age 24, in the 2005/06 season he played his first NHL game with the New York Rangers. He signed as a free agent in Washington the next summer and has been their property ever since. Now that Giroux is 28 years old, he is no longer regarded as a prospect. He is seen as a short term injury replacement when needed. Would he fail if given a serious NHL shot?
Giroux is not a small man at 6’3”, but at 190 lbs he is quite thin. He is not a physical player per se, but has the AHL seasons with more than 100 PIMs. He is not lost in physical play either. In the AHL he is an offensive star and is rarely used in serious defensive situations (why waste your offensive star by making him play a checking role?), but he is not seen as defensively weak. He is a sniper coming off a 60 goal season. He is the AHL version of Alexander Ovechkin or Sidney Crosby. He is worth a serious NHL shot. He is worth an NHL shot where he plays a regular shift with good linemates. He definitely looks good enough to handle it. He looks too good for the AHL. Will Washington give him that shot this season?
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Tags: Alexandre+Giroux, Hershey+Bears, Washington+Capitals,
Comments
Giroux is worth a look, but he won’t get it until the trade deadline when he’s packaged with prospects or picks for a decent player (Kovalchuk?). ATL would make sense, seeing as how they’d put him on the second line immediately.
Posted by docciavelli from drinking from the cup on 11/05/09 at 01:21 PM ET
No he’s Not Jock Callender & Dave Michayluk tore up the IHL & couldn’t make the NHL except for an Injury call u or a Cup of Coffee, They are what they are Minor Leaguers who can tear that Level of competition up, But Can’t play at the NHL level
Posted by Evilpens on 11/05/09 at 01:31 PM ET
The IHL was a lesser league than the AHL is today because in its day two minor leagues existed - the AHL and IHL. Neither league was as strong as the NHL today.
How do we know Dave Michayluk couldn’t cut it as an NHL player? He played 14 NHL games with very limited playing time and scored 8 points. Jock Callander had more of an NHL shot. He scored 51 points in 109 games over 5 seasons. Both look like guys who probably could handle the NHL but never had a fair shot to prove or disprove it. And they are likely a bit below Giroux as comparables as they played in a lower quality league.
I would argue your examples show that some NHL capable players never get much of a shot and remains consistent with the idea that Giroux could work out as a solid NHL player.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 11/05/09 at 01:46 PM ET
You’re a TWIT!!!!!!!!!!!
I watched them both Play for the Pens in their 2nd Stanley cup season & they weren’t NHL caliber
Good God how did you get a Blog on KK’s ??
Posted by Evilpens on 11/05/09 at 02:04 PM ET
You saw them play very limited minutes in the Stanley Cup playoffs after spending their entire regular seasons in the IHL. Callander was 31 at the time (likely a bit passed his prime) and scored 4 points in 12 games in very limited playing time. Michayluk was 30 at the time and scored 2 points in 7 games of even morel imite playing time.
Conclusions. They were good enough to play limited roles on a team that won the Stanley Cup. They did not play significant roles and were not given the chance to do so. Both probably had their best seasons about 3 or 4 years earlier in their lives based upon age alone. I think it is very reasonable to imagine they were better than some people who had NHL careers at that time. but were unlucky to not have much of their own.
Did you see Michayluk in Philadelphia in 1982/83? He scored 8 points in 13 games. At that point most expected he would be an NHL player, but he got lost in the shuffle somehow. That happens sometimes. NHL calibre players don’t always have NHL careers. Do you remember Callander in 87/88 in Pittsburgh? He played a more regular role with 27 points in 41 games after a 136 point IHL season. He was no longer a young man at that point (he was 26) and got puished aside for younger prospects but showed he could play at the NHL level and probably could have done it in his previous couple years with big IHL scoring totals.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 11/05/09 at 02:30 PM ET
As a long time Caps fan, I always thought Giroux deserved/deserves more of a shot at staying up with the big club. Watching him play with the Caps however, you can see why he never stays up too long. He was given ample playing time in the preseason this year and still couldn’t put it together. He’d have giveaway after giveaway, or his passes wouldn’t be tape to tape, or he’d whiff on a point-blank shot into an empty net. Even now at 28 years old, he still seems as nervous stepping onto NHL ice as he did when it was his first game.
As I already stated, I’d love to see him with the big club. I just don’t think he’ll get over that mental hump any time soon. The guys who deserve to be in the NHL do what it takes with the limited ice time to show management they belong.
Posted by CapRat on 11/05/09 at 03:34 PM ET
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Posted by Evilpens on 11/05/09 at 01:10 PM ET