Fan Q&A w/ Jarret Stoll

[ATKM]

Jarret Stoll joined host Jesse Cohen to answer questions submitted by LA Kings fans. The questions covered his role on the Kings development staff to his time as a player and even veered into the personal. Get ready for the upcoming season by listening to a member of the Kings front office talk about the inner workings of the franchise and the future plans for some of their young prospects.

 

[Helvetica]

Listened to it the other day. Was pretty enjoyable, and found some of his answers pretty insightful/interesting. He made a comment about skating and shooting being teh hardest skills to improve by the time most of these guys are drafted, which i found odd considering how many players the Kings have drafted with skating issues.

 

[Pevsfreedom]

Listened to it the other day. Was pretty enjoyable, and found some of his answers pretty insightful/interesting. He made a comment about skating and shooting being teh hardest skills to improve by the time most of these guys are drafted, which i found odd considering how many players the Kings have drafted with skating issues.

I've not listened yet but I assume to even get to the level of being drafted you'd have to be a pretty good skater? Though I guess maybe not NHL level obviously when you have guys like 97, the best skater I've ever seen, zipping around falling down and drawing penalties with his.. skating.

 

[Helvetica]

I've not listened yet but I assume to even get to the level of being drafted you'd have to be a pretty good skater? Though I guess maybe not NHL level obviously when you have guys like 97, the best skater I've ever seen, zipping around falling down and drawing penalties with his.. skating.

certainly this stuff is all relative. We're talking about the best guys in the world, so even guys that are not fast, or dont have a great shot, or aren't good skaters... that's all within the context of world's best hockey players.

But even within the top 1000 guys in the world, you can see a huge difference between a guy like 97, and a guy on the 4th line. And that stuff matters at this level. Im just surprised that Stoll would say that certain skills are difficult to noticeably improve by this point, and then turn around and know that the Kings do draft guys with defects in their game in these very specific skills. Like, if i thought skating was extremely difficult to improve, then that's a red flag id avoid in my draft. Obviously Stoll is just one guy, and he likely doesn't have the same level of pull when it come sto drafting players, but i found it an interesting comment.

 

[Clif]

certainly this stuff is all relative. We're talking about the best guys in the world, so even guys that are not fast, or dont have a great shot, or aren't good skaters... that's all within the context of world's best hockey players.

But even within the top 1000 guys in the world, you can see a huge difference between a guy like 97, and a guy on the 4th line. And that stuff matters at this level. Im just surprised that Stoll would say that certain skills are difficult to noticeably improve by this point, and then turn around and know that the Kings do draft guys with defects in their game in these very specific skills. Like, if i thought skating was extremely difficult to improve, then that's a red flag id avoid in my draft. Obviously Stoll is just one guy, and he likely doesn't have the same level of pull when it come sto drafting players, but i found it an interesting comment.

I do too, and it feels like it comes back to the Dvorak comments. I’m thinking the team philosophy might just regard skating as a secondary priority to other areas, at least when it comes to drafting. Even with Blake placing more emphasis on skill, skating doesn’t appear to be as important as pure shot, stick handling, hockey IQ, and puck possession. Some of the better skaters have come via trade. Blake said you can always acquire size, could be a similar thought process.

Also, if enough lteams value skating more than the Kings do, then they run the chance of hitting on players that drop lower then they might have otherwise. It seems like so many of these guys who Yanetti says dropped did so often because of their skating.

 

[Helvetica]

was doing some digging on skating and ran across this 10 yr old thread on HFb. A bit fo discussion about NHL players who improved their skating. Some interesting name sliek Perry, Getzlaf, Spezza, Boyle. There even a funny comment about Mark Stone being a terrible skater and the poster predicted he'd bust... lol

Guys Who Significantly Improved Their Skating

Which players can you recall (if any) that came in as poor skaters, and over the years significantly improved in that area? I can't think of a single one that started off as a poor skater and ended up having his skating become a strength. The Sedin's were bad skaters when they came in and...

forums.hfboards.com

FWIW, it does seem like skating is one of those things that players have repped so many times growing up, that improving is a pretty serious undertaking and certainly not an overnight process.

 

[Pevsfreedom]

Of the jack sh*t I know about actually playing hockey, I'd imagine skating perhaps is one of the things that is difficult to practice and there's a certain amount of natural ability that comes into play - I can see practicing skating but to these guys who do it for a living at a certain point it has to feel hard to "work on your walking" in a sense. So I can definitely see it as one of the hardest things to really work on once you're good at it.

 

[Helvetica]

Of the jack sh*t I know about actually playing hockey, I'd imagine skating perhaps is one of the things that is difficult to practice and there's a certain amount of natural ability that comes into play - I can see practicing skating but to these guys who do it for a living at a certain point it has to feel hard to "work on your walking" in a sense. So I can definitely see it as one of the hardest things to really work on once you're good at it.

there is a lot more that goes into skating than you'd expect. It's totally possible to learn to skate on your own, and some guys maybe have a more natural affinity for it, but most of the top guys in the world (McDavid included) have been participating in skating skills clinics since they were kids.

My feeling is that, by the time they are adults, theyve likely been skating a certain way for so long, that it becomes extremely difficult to change habits. If it takes a kid years to become an elite skater, well... you're not going to unlearn and relearn mechanics in a short time period. And i think the issue here isnt that guys cant improve their skating, they can... but it's can they improve their skating enough in a short window, because, let's face it, most of these guys don't have much time to prove they belong. You get drafted, you come to camp, maybe the team asks you to improve your skating. But you have to improve that skill, while still trying to improve everything else and make the jump to the NHL. And realistically, how many years do these guys have before teams move on and they become just another AHL player?

But check this story to see the kind of work McDavid has been putting in since he was a child: How Connor McDavid became hockey’s greatest skater

McDavid began working with Quinn at Premier Elite Athletes’ Collegiate in Toronto a decade ago (2008) when the latter was the head instructor.

PEP Roster – Power Edge Pro

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