Samuel Girard

[Nuck Chorris]

Man this kid looks good in the top 4 of the Preds with Josi out. Just curious what you all think the chances of him sticking with the big club will be this year. He certainly looks better than Y.Weber and M.Irwin. I see him sticking on the bottom pairing but wonder what the rest of you think?
Thanks

[ericdaoust]

It will depend on injuries and/or trades but I can see him being shipped back around the 40-game mark (the UFA age kicker deadline) or whenever Ellis would be back. If he plays well and they have other injuries they'll be pretty much forced to keep him up.

Another thing to consider: it's only been a few games. The true test for a player is keeping it up over the long haul.

[josofosky]

I'm also curious about Girard being that I am a Josi owner and need a replacememt for him while Josi is out?

[VincentVega]

Josi should be back soon. I'm curious what happens to Girard when Josi returns.

[josofosky]

Yeah I saw that Josi was skating yesterday and today. Also, Weber took a high hit yesterday, I guess, so maybe Girard will stick around for a bit longer, as long as he can perform.
http://www.rotoworld.com/player/nhl/2548/roman-josi
https://twitter.com/AdamVingan/statu...85059842772992

[Jouko-Pouko]

If he keeps playing like he has been, they pretty much have to keep him until their entire top-4 is healthy again. And if he's playing well enough, they could definitely keep him on their 3rd pair after that because they are in win now mode, and Irwin and Weber can't really fill in on the top-4 if needed.

[Eskimo Brother]

I don't see him staying past the 9 game mark. Nashville has enough organizational depth that I don't think they'e going to want to burn the ELC year, nor will they want to rush him.

[Sulla]

Potentially the injury to Ellis allows him to stay up through 9 but I agree with ED I doubt I see him past 40.. and right now a couple of poor games and he won’t even hit the 9... he needs to keep giving them a reason to keep him up

[STONE.]

Pretty happy I snagged him in my dynasty league this past summer!

[pmorrow]

Good player but I don't see him sticking. Even if he does everything and more to stay with the club, I think the Preds will want to keep him for later.

[rataylor22]

Bad message from the Preds sending players who earned their spots back to junior just because.

[ShawneePanthers]

Bad message from the Preds sending players who earned their spots back to junior just because.

Maybe it'll give him something to strive for. I think they've already sent him a good indication of how valuable he is to them by putting him on PP1 in his first games, and Laviolette heaped a lot of praise on him for making big plays.

His development would probably go better if he was D1 in the minors than D5-6 in the NHL

[Jouko-Pouko]

Maybe it'll give him something to strive for. I think they've already sent him a good indication of how valuable he is to them by putting him on PP1 in his first games, and Laviolette heaped a lot of praise on him for making big plays.

His development would probably go better if he was D1 in the minors than D5-6 in the NHL

He's already dominated the 'Q' for two years now, so I doubt he could learn much by going back there. And he can't be sent to the AHL, so it's either the 'Q' or the NHL for him. That's why I think they might keep him as their #5D if he plays well enough to earn that spot for the full season.

[Jouko-Pouko]

As I often do, I started looking at Girard's junior numbers, and I'm very impressed with them. The 'Q' hasn't produced many fantasy worthy prospects during the past few years but here are the ones I managed to find.



If we utilize NHLe, we can add more comparables from the OHL and the WHL, so here's what those numbers look like.



And it's not like it was just one strong season - his age-18 season was very strong as well.



Of course there are names like DeAngelo, Quenneville and Pouliot very high in these charts as well, so as we all know, just because you have great junior numbers doesn't mean you'll automatically become a great NHL player. But I think it does say something about his upside, and I was impressed with the way he handled himself in his first NHL game. I wish I had been more aware of him before the season started because I don't own him in any of my fantasy leagues and now I'm starting to wish I had him in all of them.

[Axeman33]

Bad message from the Preds sending players who earned their spots back to junior just because.

They dont send these kids back "just because". They send them back because they already have other guys signed to NHL contracts and only have so many roster spots available and the Preds don't have the same options on those players like they do with Girard. Girard is there due to injuries to those NHL players. None of us, including the Predators brain trust, expected Girard to play this well at this point.

How many times have we wrote how stupid the NHL rule is that doesn't allow the teams to send these kids down to the AHL instead of back to Jr due to their age to help their development?