I know the brass caught some **** for hiring Sacco (et al) but given the level of talent here in Cleveland the first two years, he really worked some magic to be competitive on any level at all…

That being said, maybe some columnists and naysayers will hold their tongues until they see what Joe & Sly can do.

GO AVS!

Dario,

I think your goalie analysis is just fine and it’s not my intention to negate anything that you said or what other people have said about the goalies so far. But I’ll put on my Goalie Guild hat for now (I wear it constantly anyways…) and give you my thoughts.

Also sorry for the delay on the Sauer scouting chart – I am working on it as we speak and reflecting on everything I absorbed yesterday. I had to go through a TON of photos last night … and goalies everywhere were being ravenous beasts looking for shots of Andy’s new mask … which is very sick by the way LOL. I will have it completed and posted around lunchtime =).

TREVOR CANN has…well…a lot of work to do. There is a reason why I have done scouting charts for every Avs goalie prospect EXCEPT for Cann …. for I do not think he is worth the time right now.

The very first “drill” on the ice yesterday was simply warming up the goalies. There were shots to the glove side, then to the blocker side, which has to be the most routine saves to make, no matter how rusty a goalie is. Trevor did not catch more than two pucks out of 15-20 shots to his glove hand. He uses the “fingers up” glove positioning, which means his glove is facing palm-out, fingers up to the sky. This is a problem for a lot of young goalies because it’s not a natural way of holding the glove and to push a glove up towards the sky to catch a puck is just awkward. He couldn’t even catch very simple, solid shots to his glove hand. Delmas also holds his glove “fingers up” as well, but he was not having nearly as much trouble catching them because he’s simply a better natural and technically sound goalie.

That is literally JUST scratching the surface of what I see in Cann. I do not see him as a legitimate goalie prospect, he’s not on my Top-50 Prospects list (which can be found here:

The other thing I notice about Cann is that his size is outstanding and he does look very big in the net, but he has very slow recovery speed. Once he goes down into the butterfly…that’s pretty much it. Think of a goalie like Delmas or the best example I can think of is Jonas Hiller. They have incredible lateral movement and can shuffle on their knees side-to-side without exerting any energy and almost in a superfluous manner. Cann is a pretty hefty boy at 199 pounds (listed on the roster I got yesterday) and you can see he struggles moving that body laterally.

The skating drill, well I seriously found myself laughing at that. Cann and Sauer have got to become better skaters. They couldn’t even cross-over. Delmas is by far the best skater of the goalie prospects and Maxwell was decent as well. But Cann could hardly skate and I think the only reason he looked decent compared to the other goalies was that he was in front of the line, so the other goalies skated at Cann’s pace.

Now I will say that Cann did have brand new pads, and Dario is totally correct when he said that Anderson was breaking in new pads and looked “stiff” out there. I can say that there’s probably a good chance that Cann was a little stiff as well, as he was breaking in new Vaughn 7500’s (great Avs color scheme, btw).

Unfortunately, the new pads doesn’t take anything away from the problems I see within Cann’s technique and style.

I don’t want to come off like I’m totally burying Cann, but from a scouting perspective, Cann has a long way to go before I consider him a legitimate prospect. Brandon Maxwell is two years younger than Cann but is easily a more technically sound goalie with more potential.

So from the ground up, Cann needs to continue working hard to not only improve his foot work and foot speed, but also become quicker and more agile. He can get away with this in the OHL, especially on a stacked London Knights team, because size is more advantageous at that level. But if he does get promoted to the AHL behind Weiman (I think Sauer is already slated for that gig though) then he better become lighter on his feet and learn how to move laterally much faster than he does now.

He made some great solid saves in the scrimmage and I will also say that Cann has very good positioning and depth in the net. A lot of big goalies will play a step or two deeper in their crease because they can get away with it, but Cann plays high in his crease, with the back edges of his skates on the top of the crease. This makes him appear even bigger in the net than he already is, so Cann is considered a big “blocking” goalie that has sub-par lateral movement.

Okay I think that pretty much sums up my views on Cann. Take it for what it’s worth and realize that he’s still a good goalie and has plenty of time to develop into a solid prospect for this organization.

Billy Sauer definitely improved more than the other goalies out there over the last month. When I saw him play during Rookie Development Camp in August, I was slightly impressed with his development over the last year. When I saw him yesterday, I was very impressed with how he had improved in just 5-6 weeks time. He was quicker than I ever remember him seeing. He still has some structural issues with his positioning, but I’ll be tackling that in my scouting chart.

Peter Delmas was excellent yesterday…ESPECIALLY in the laid-back scrimmage. Obviously he was putting it all on the line to show his stuff, as compared to the vets that were more or less goofing around and settling in, but he was making legit saves on legit players. Paul Stastny did snipe the ever living fluff out of him on one shot and I believe that was the ONLY goal I saw him allow in the whole hour. He was switching every 10 minutes with Anderson though.

Delmas is an EXCELLENT skater, he plays a very, very tight butterfly style. That is why he appears so much smaller in the net compared to Cann. The tight butterfly style is pretty much dominted by goalies in the Quebec area, so Patrick Roy will actually like Delmas’ style and be able to improve it even moreso. He has a ton of overlap with his Reebok pads, so the kid RARELY gets beat five-hole. But when you have so much overlap with the pads, that opens up tiny holes in the corners and in the 6 and 7 holes, which are under the shoulders and over the pads.

I suggest checking out the Peter Delmas scouting c hart I did back in July – http://www.theavalancheguild.com/?p=79

You can see more info about my thoughts on him. He looked slightly improved yesterday, but I personally think that Delmas is a quality prospect with a good future. I was speaking with Aaron Musick, who covers the Avs for Hockeybuzz (and a new member of the Avs Roundtable) yesterday about Delmas and we both agree that this is a huge huge MAKE OR BREAK year for him. With Roy as his head coach, either he’ll thrive under that pressure and balloon into an even better goalie, or he’ll buckle and struggle with the mental aspects of the position and it will take away from his development.

I’m even more impressed with Brandon Maxwell because of his age and the road he’s taking to become a prized prospect. Here is his scouting chart from July – http://www.theavalancheguild.com/?p=118

What I love about Maxwell is his stature in the net at his age and his tremendous agility and movement for his size. He’s 6-foot and 195 pounds but moves like a 5-foot-10 170-pound goalie. He’s going to be very, very good and if I had to rank the prospects I’d say Delmas and Maxwell are side-by-side, with Sauer below them and then Cann at the bottom.

Maxwell’s route is an interesting one. He was born in Florida, raised in Canada, developed in the USJDP program and now heading BACK to Canada to play with the Kitchener Rangers. What I love about him going back to Canada instead of going the NCAA route is simply games played. NCAA goalies see 30-40 games per year, but CHL goalies see closer to 60. He’s going to get a ton of minutes, play against more quality skaters and develop at a quicker rate. All that being said, Maxwell could very well be the future goalie of this team ….

No need to discuss Weiman at all. Everyone knows I went crazy on the airwaves a million times last year with my frustrations for him not being called up at all. The situation with Weiman is so frustrating I can’t even talk about it. The tandem for this team should be Anderson and Weiman, and I’ll leave it at that.

Okay I just wrote a freakin’ book for you cats, sorry about the length and this was all raw stuff, so just take it for what it’s worth!!! PHEW.