[Waivers] Unconditional - Hodgson, Stalberg

[Gollumpus]

They really did misdiagnosed it.... so he's not his fault.

http://www.webcitation.org/5thjvpRiC

(excerpt)

"In an interview on TEAM 1040's mid-day show Wednesday, Gillis said Hodgson's back injury, which forced him to miss most of his last OHL season, was mis-diagnosed.

Gillis said both the Canucks medical staff, and the specialists Hodgson sought out, spent last season focused on a "slightly" bulging disc which first developed last July during training.

Then, Hodgson was shut down, starting a mystery which lasted nine months.

In that time, Hodgson played six awkward NHL preseason games, then missed four months of the OHL season because of tightness in his back. He returned to the ice in February but the problems didn't end.

In April, he went headfirst into the end boards during Game 7 of his junior team's first playoff round and experienced a flare up. He again was complaining publicly about his back problems.

Hodgson returned to Vancouver after playing four more OHL playoff games, all in discomfort. That's when the Canucks medical staff finally unlocked the source of the stiffness which had been limiting his range of motion.

An MRI revealed Hodgson had a tear in a lower back muscle which, they believe, was caused by "twisting" he had been doing during training which traces this back to last July.

"I know Cody was extremely relieved because he had this ongoing problem," Gillis said on TEAM 1040. "It seemed like everyone, including (Cleveland-based back specialist Dr. Tony Miniaci) in Cleveland and our guys, were saying this shouldn't be that big of an issue because what they were seeing was a slightly bulging disc that didn't require surgery, should have healed by then but he still had a lingering problem."

regards,

G.

[FireGillis]

So you're claiming tanks happen because gms put on mind control hats and will their teams to lose? Could I grab a hit of what you're Smoking?

No they do it by barely spending to the cap, not having great players, playing more kids and trading away both your goalies at the deadline. Hodgson is bad so helped with the tank last year unintentionally though as the sabres didn't expect him to be this bad after the contract they gave him.

However, they aren't really trying to tank next year and are trying to ice a more competitive team. Hence, buying out hodgson now because he's bad, overpaid and doesnt make their team better.

[Drewismyname]

No they do it by barely spending to the cap, not having great players, playing more kids and trading away both your goalies at the deadline. Hodgson is bad so helped with the tank last year.

However, they aren't really trying to tank next year and are trying to ice a more competitive team. Hence, buying out hodgson now because he's bad, overpaid and doesnt make their team better.

Set players up to fail and then when you don't even get mcdavid, start blaming players by buying them out. Murray showed his true colours running his mouth about private conversations with Eichel.

Sure it's a business but Murray is scum. Okay so Hodgson has character issues so you buy him out and bring in evader Kane.

Give me a break

[FireGillis]

Set players up to fail and then when you don't even get mcdavid, start blaming players by buying them out. Murray showed his true colours running his mouth about private conversations with Eichel.

Sure it's a business but Murray is scum. Okay so Hodgson has character issues so you buy him out and bring in evader Kane.

Give me a break

It seems like your issue is you think hodgson is good and want to make excuses for him. You sound like his dad and people making excuses for him is probably one of the main reasons he hasn't improved. He doesn't think he's wrong and it's everyone around him that's wrong.

Maybe this buyout will humble him and cause him to reflect on his career and actually put the work in to improve his work ethic and change his attitude. However, it wouldn't surprise me with his attitude to think nothing is wrong with himself and that he was just set up to fail last year. Which way hodgson ends up thinking will define his career moving forward.

[Mike Vanderhoek]

Wow. Nashville was just shopping Stalberg yesterday. Guess they didn't find anyone.

Stalberg can be a very useful NHLer, just need to add him on a roster at a lower cap hit.

[ChwkCanux]

Set players up to fail and then when you don't even get mcdavid, start blaming players by buying them out. Murray showed his true colours running his mouth about private conversations with Eichel.

Sure it's a business but Murray is scum. Okay so Hodgson has character issues so you buy him out and bring in evader Kane.

Give me a break

Character issues and 2 points in his last 20 games, with a price tag of 4.25 million a year. How do you not buy him out? Kane at least has shown he can score goals and skate in the NHL. Cody is the most obvious buyout in the league when you look at the price tag and production attached to it.

[mikeburn]

I watched Sabres games and he was completely invisible. When he was traded to Buffalo, it was said he would be able to make other players better. He didn't. Other young players were better than he was. Buffalo sought better young centers to replace him, so he was moved to the wing. He fell behind Gionta on the depth chart and Gionta is clearly in decline. If he cannot cut it in Buffalo, where does he go? I guess upcoming expansion might be good for him, so maybe he hangs on until then.

He is slow, poor on face offs and doesn't play a physical game. He just isn't fit for the NHL. He had 2 points, both goals, in the last 20 games of the season. I am not sure why people are still arguing in his favor other than because he was drafted by Vancouver.

You began with a faulty premise (see, for one example, Vanek's best career to-date and check out who his pivot was), and carried on thru by altogether ignoring the facts which don't fit your narrative. That's just no basis for a rational discussion. Have a good day.

[mikeburn]

But but but Mikeburn said he was awesome!

Sigh. Are you really that sure you don't want to grow up?

[HC20.0]

Both teams really lost this trade. It ruined both players, neither have lived up to any expectations. It's good to know though that Buffalo loses harder.

[ChwkCanux]

You began with a faulty premise (see, for one example, Vanek's best career to-date and check out who his pivot was), and carried on thru by altogether ignoring the facts which don't fit your narrative. That's just no basis for a rational discussion. Have a good day.

He was promising and got top 6 minutes. He started slow this season, so Buffalo moved him, demoted him and are buying him out. It doesn't matter what he did with Vanek since Vanek is not with Buffalo now. Where Cody's game is at now is not where it was then and he is not a top 6 forward in the NHL. Which facts am I ignoring? I liked Cody when he was a Canuck. I was baffled when he got moved, but he has proven why the Canucks sheltered him.

Are you saying the Wild should move a center, pick up CoHo and expect 60-65 points from him next season?

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=65958

Vanek's stats were not through the roof after Cody got there either. I would say his best season was 2006-07 actually.

[Dr. Hockey]

Ohhhh dayummmm! That's an awesome line! I hope they have sic chem together and a coach to allow it!

IMO, the "unreal" is warranted.

Not because it happened which was to be expected, but how such a highly touted prospect crashed and burned in such spectacular fashion.

Hodgson is still young enough to turn his career around, providing he lands with the right team (not Vancouver). He needs to improve conditioning, his skating and leave his dad at home.

With an improved 1st step, and better conditioning, there's no reason he can't be a solid 2nd line centerman. I doubt he'll ever be Selke worthy, but perhaps with some better discipline, the right coach, system and supporting cast, he can certainly not be a defensive liability at the very least.

Re: Having Kassian with a bad back not being a consolation, his back wasn't bad when we traded for him, it was injured while playing for us. His conditioning has massively improved this off season from what I've read and seen in videos, he's leaner, meaner and hungry to solidify his spot on this team.

Kassian is going to break out this season.

I'm calling it right now (my inner Apollo is coming out to play):

Baertschi - Horvat - Kassian by the end of the season is going to be a dominant force in the league, and will become our undisputed first line, just by sheer force of will.

[Me_]

Two way deal. Utica for a year. Go win big. Come back and join the big team again.

Sometimes, taking a step back is necessary.

[EastVanCanuck]

The trade was never about the kid having "issues" as Gillis inferred months after the trade to deflect negative attention from himself. It was always about what Gillis said at the actual time of the trade (and would have stuck to if not for the media driven effort to look for "controversy" after the Canucks bombed out of the playoffs) - Gillis wanted the Canucks to "get bigger", he wanted a quality youngster who could fit that role and Hodgson was the quality piece to give for the exchange.

With that in mind, Gillis could not have waited until the draft to pull the trigger...

Canucks management knew in January that Kesler was playing with an injury that would require off-season surgery, by getting in "bigger" (aka: heavier) at the trade deadline, the intention was to relieve Kesler from carrying the team's entire "hard to play against" burden and free him up to chip in the offense. Imagine that play off run if Kassian had in fact been NHL ready for 3rd duty with some 2C spotting shift-to-shift to throw his body against the liberty takers? Kesler gets relief from being work horsed to death, and in theory at least, Kesler can hold his body together long enough to add the secondary scoring so desperately needed.

Sure, they coulda kept Hodgson for that secondary scoring, but he was never gonna replace Kesler's heavy play - Gillis pulled the trigger pre playoffs hoping to get both the secondary scoring (via Kesler) and the heavy playing (via Kassian supplemented by Kesler).

I fault Gillis for the subsequent bus tossing that has made the kid the subject of erroneous trash talking gossip ever since, but it's hard to fault Gillis for making a hockey move - or for choosing the timing he did. It was a gamble, but it was an honest gamble.

Hey Mike, hate to break it to you. But your kid has no character and is a defensive liability. There is a reason why we passed on him and why Buffalo has no released him. Lol. Go try your spin doctoring elsewhere. Kid is a fail for the NHL.

[Salmonberries]

We've already got Linden Vey - Cody's spot here is taken.

[higgyfan]

I'm confused by your question. Yes, they tanked last year, but players don't tank. Hodgson didn't go out and play bad because he wanted to tank. He played bad because he is bad. They had to buy him up now because he's under 25 and they can buy him out for 1/3 now instead of 2/3 next year. They need his money for the ROR extension.

They're not really trying to actively tank for next year and are putting a pretty decent team together. Need some more defense though, but it's not blatant tanking like last year with the mcdavid lottery. Hodsgon doesn't fit anymore with ROR, Eichel, Reinhart and Girgensons down the middle already.

That's some pool of Cs! Wonder how many of Vans Cs would have to be moved in that class. Just don't see any of those guys as Bufs 4th line C. Girgs will run back to Russian, no doubt.

I think it was tough for Cody hanging out with all these elite players as a jr and then not measuring up when he made the NHL. I remember people saying he was gonna be as good as Stamkos, Tavares and Duchene. Being a leader on his jr team and all the lofty talk of his 'elite' potential probably effected his willingness to develop his game. The best thing for him would have been to keep his head down and listened to the coaching staff in Van. Getting traded to Buf was the worst thing for him. The hype followed him there, but soon the disappointment eclipsed the hype.

Some team will take a chance on him, if it's a short term, low salary contract. It will be Cody's last chance to prove himself. If he doesn't, he will just be another player that will be used to describe a 'bust'.

It will be a tough battle for him to climb back into the top 6 and just as hard to learn the d that is required for him to be a bottom 6. Hope things go well for him though.

[mikeburn]

He was promising and got top 6 minutes. He started slow this season, so Buffalo moved him, demoted him and are buying him out. It doesn't matter what he did with Vanek since Vanek is not with Buffalo now. Where Cody's game is at now is not where it was then and he is not a top 6 forward in the NHL. Which facts am I ignoring? I liked Cody when he was a Canuck. I was baffled when he got moved, but he has proven why the Canucks sheltered him.

Are you saying the Wild should move a center, pick up CoHo and expect 60-65 points from him next season?

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=65958

Vanek's stats were not through the roof after Cody got there either. I would say his best season was 2006-07 actually.

To recap, you asserted that "When [Hodgson] was traded to Buffalo, it was said he would be able to make other players better. He didn't." In response, I flagged that you were incorrect and used Vanek as an example, given that Vanek, who has not only had a quality career, but was in fact Hodgson's primary line mate after the kid was traded (until Vanek was traded off himself of course).

As you went to the trouble to double-check my assertion, figured I owed the same - so below are Vanek's points per game. For sake of reference, so are Hodgson's. You'll note that 2012-2013 was the best season for each.

Clearly guys can "click" in a way that simply work for each of them, so to further the argument that Vanek's "best season to-date" was the one during which he played with Hodgson, it's also notable that over the 5 seasons before 2012-2013 Vanek's pts/game was 0.82 and during the two seasons since his best with Hodgson, Vanek's pts/game has been 0.77.

Meaning that not only was Vanek's best season to-date 2012-2013 when he played with Hodgson, but Vanek saw a significant jump (of .26) that year as well. If for context you used only Vanek's year before and year after playing with Hodgson, you'd note he jumped 0.30 for 2012-2013 and then fell off 0.21. Comparably, Hodgson jumped 0.22 (from his rookie season) to playing with Vanek, and only fell off 0.10 the season Vanek was traded.

Or in other words, Vanek's jumped further when playing with Hodgson and dropped off further afterward, while Hodgson didn't jump as much when playing with Vanek and didn't fall off as much afterward.

2005-2006 0.59

2006-2007 1.02

2007-2008 0.78

2008-2009 0.88

2009-2010 0.75

2010-2011 0.91

2011-2012 0.78 (Hodgson traded to Buffalo at deadline)

2012-2013 1.08 (aka: all games on Hodgson's wing)

2013-2014 0.87 (Vanek traded to Islanders after 9 games)

2014-2015 0.65

Hodgson

2011-2012 0.49 (Hodgson traded to Buffalo at deadline)

2012-2013 0.71 (aka: all games as Vanek's pivot)

2013-2014 0.61 (Vanek traded to Islanders after 9 games)

2014-2015 0.17

You also asserted that after Hodgson's trade to Buffalo "other young players were better than [Hodgson] was." This is of course also incorrect. Hodgson in fact out-produced his Buffalo peers for the two years after he traded.

You then went on to assert "Buffalo sought better young centers to replace him, so he was moved to the wing." which isn't so much incorrect as it is incomplete, and so not truly representative of the circumstances.

It'd be far more apt to say that Buffalo was starting a full-out rebuild mode at the time Hodgson was acquired and mgmt of the day saw him within a 2C role over the long run (ergo a 6 year contract with a cap hit reflecting a 2nd line salary), but as time went on, mgmt changed, plans changed, coaches changed, expectations changed, rosters were gutted and roles changed...

Eventually, when Buffalo had bottomed out to get a crack at 2nd overall in 2013-2014, they scored a young center prospect (Reinhart) with an arguably higher ceiling than Hodgson. Looking ahead to to 2014-2015's draft and getting a crack at an even more awesome center in one of McDavid or Eichel, management tasked the Sabres current defacto top centers (Hodgson and Ennis) with spending the 2014-2015 season transitioning to wing to remain relevant going forward with McDavid/Eichel and Reinhart as 1C and 2C respectively.

So you see, Buffalo didn't so much as "bring in young centers to replace [Hodgson]" (Buffalo won't even have those young centers until next season), as it is that mgmt worked to improve its roster, period. And knowing the team would soon have even better options at center than the likes of Hodgson & Ennis, mgmt thought to shuffle those kids sideways to the wings..

But as you say, Hodgson "had a slow start" to the season - as did the entire team, incidentally. The only diff with Hodgson is that he sure didn't fall into the mold of player that the interim coach takes a special liking to, so while Ennis got a better gig with the best pivot and linemate options the gutted roster could offer, Hodgson's pivots were generally career grinders (ie: Flynn), career wingers (ie: Foligno), AHL call-ups (ie: Schaller) and career grinder winger AHL call-ups (ie: Ellis). Those aren't exactly ideal conditions for any player to make the transition from his natural center spot, and then of course by mid-season, player and coach were at such a total disconnect that Hodgson was never getting out of the 4th/5th line doghouse.

All in, the whole your assessment is flawed because it skips cause-effect and lacks context.

And nope, I'm not suggesting the Wild (or insert any other team?) drop anyone to pick up Hodgson and expect him to hit 60+ points. I do, however; maintain my belief that we're talking about a 25 year old whose development has been poorly managed, who has failed to work on developing his own potential and fully transition to the NHL, who just played a dismal season under adverse and toxic conditions, and who is nevertheless a proven top 6 offensive talent with upside.

On the defensive side of the game, I also think the kid's woes have been greatly exaggerated by poor coaching... Over the last three years, among forwards league-wide, Hodgson ranks 32nd in d-zone percentage starts playing for a bottom dweller. Just a crazy number for a kid who was drop shipped into 1C without any depth/support for the heavy minutes and unstable mgmt/coaching. But last year was simply fruity - he had a coach who deployed a "defensive liability" so that he ranked 29th league-wide for d-zone starts percentage, often enough sitting the kid on the bench from midway thru the 2nd before putting him on the ice for a d-zone face off in the trailing minutes of the 3rd, that's setting up a defensively weak player to be fully exposed.

Then again, what coach takes a proven top 6 offensive talent out of his natural center spot, plugs him down as a grinder winger on a bottom dweller and, when he produces what should be expected of a grinder winger on a bottom dweller, bemoans the results?

Look, all in, I think Hodgson has some very real and very significant deficiencies in his game, and at 25 I also put it straight on him to sort out from here if he's gonna put his tools together and fully develop his whole game. I just also recognize that some of where he's at is due to circumstances out of his control and so give leeway on how he got here (there's always context, any player, any situation), and see the upside if he does put it together.

Oh, and I think he will. Put it together, that is. Which means I think he's very worthwhile reclamation project.

[mikeburn]

Oh boy. If Eklund is "hearing" all of this, I am now of the mind Hodgson hasn't a hope in hades to play in the NHL ever again...

http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog/Eklund/LeafsHabs-Battle-over-Hodgson-Jones-Dealt-to-SJ-Oduya-Flyers-Buzz115/1/69664

On Cody Hodgson...

I am hearing he may be the #1 target for the Maple Leafs, who believe that Babcock and the OHL experienced crew in Toronto could get him back to the kind of can't miss prospect he once was. However, the Montreal Canadiens are also showing tons of interest and have liked Hodgson since he was in Vancouver. I heard they tried to trade for him when the Sabres picked him up.

[alfstonker]

Turns out CoHo is not as good as he was supposed to be. Are people still pissed that he got traded?

I'm not sure that's true. He was coming on great when he left. I still watch that goal he scored against Boston. I actually think if we could get him cheap we could set him back on track. That is where Willie excels.

[alfstonker]

Set players up to fail and then when you don't even get mcdavid, start blaming players by buying them out. Murray showed his true colours running his mouth about private conversations with Eichel.

Sure it's a business but Murray is scum. Okay so Hodgson has character issues so you buy him out and bring in evader Kane.

Give me a break

Where do these "character issues" come from. He was given bad advice, that's all.

I still remember the video when he was told he was being traded and that didn't look like someone who was happy to me. I think he wanted to stay but as usual Gillis, Hodgsons agent and maybe his Dad screwed him up.

[mikeburn]

Where do these "character issues" come from. He was given bad advice, that's all.

I still remember the video when he was told he was being traded and that didn't look like someone who was happy to me. I think he wanted to stay but as usual Gillis, Hodgsons agent and maybe his Dad screwed him up.

The "character issues" originated from media-driven speculation in the effort to manufacture drama so that local "journalists" had something to write about, Gillis' three sentences (months afterward) to deflect negative attention for the trade onto the player, and disgruntled fans conjuring up notions that parents were involved, the kid musta been a primadonna after all, wanted the trade, yadda yadda.

3 years later and there's still no substantiated claims from anyone in a position to actually know what happened that Hodgson's parents ever spoke a word directly to mgmt or that Hodgson himself ever asked for, much less demanded, more ice-time, wanted a trade in lieu, etc.

I remember local pieces from this last year, and the same media hacks going on about Horvat's ice time, how he "deserved" more, how the coach must have an "issue" because he wasn't giving Horvat his due, etc., etc. Geesh. You'd think no rookie before Horvat had ever been broken into the league in a properly sheltered 3rd line role and allowed to naturally develop his whole two-way game.

And of course, if all that media driven drama about Horvat had preceded the kid being traded, the Canucks being drummed out of the playoffs, and then media hacks pushing for more juicy stories... Well gee, it's pretty easy for innuendo and speculation to turn into trash talking gossip...