SB Nation User Blog: SlamDunkTheFunk

What's Next for T.J. Hensick?

SlamDunkTheFunk — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 07:56:44 -0000

As those of you in the latter stages of the Columbus OGT know, I was hanging around but not watching the Avs game. Instead, I had focused on the Lake Erie game (against the Mike Keane-captained Manitoba Moose) and specifically on the once-and-future wunderkind Stoa-Hensick-Haydar line. I was surprised when I kept noticing Hensick pushing the pace and making plays all over the ice. I found myself entranced by this offensive "Dinamo" that we had all come to know and mock relentlessly.

It got me thinking. Where does this kid go from here? Let's take a journey and see if we can find any answers.

July 30, 2005 at the Westin Hotel in Ottawa, Canada. The Lockout had ended and the 43rd NHL Entry Draft was finally set to begin. The Penguins were the darling with Sidney Crosby on the cusp of changing the franchise’s fortunes. Our beloved Colorado Avalanche were sitting on a solid NHL roster and were looking to rebuild a farm system sorely lacking in impact players. The organization’s top prospects were Wojtek Wolski, Marek Svatos, and Peter Budaj (David Jones was ranked 12th, btw). Change was in the air following the lockout and building through the draft would become the way of the “New NHL”, starting on this day.

The Avs continued adding to their stockpile of picks by trading out of the first round and ended up with 5 players in rounds 2 and 3. T.J. Hensick, center from the University of Michigan, was drafted 88th overall and following a successful Avalanche draft would open 10th on Hockey’s Future’s Avalanche prospects board. Their first scouting report of Hensick:

One way to describe T. J. Hensick is poetry in high-speed motion. He is a tremendously gifted offensive player who combines flair and creativity with blazing speed. He is of the pure goal-scorer variety. Hensick is a player who is very confident and has excellent hockey sense. His speed and quickness makes him an extremely difficult player to defend against. Hensick is very good on faceoffs, possesses a very quick release and dominates with the puck. The biggest knock on Hensick may be that he tends to avoid the physical side of the game. He has demonstrated that he can give and take the hits but it is not often, if rarely evident. He could also be more involved in the defensive side of the game as well.

HF would go on to say that Hensick "may in fact be the most NHL-ready player of all the 2005 Avalanche draft picks."

T.J. Hensick would be firmly entrenched as the # 1 prospect for the Avs less than two years later.

The future looked bright with Stastny (from the same draft class, mind you) already starring as the future #1 center and "Hensiiiiiick" steadily developing, the Avs looked like they were set up the middle for years to come. He hit the AHL running and on a bad Monsters team Hensick finished his rookie campaign with 12 goals and 33 assists for 45 points in 50 games. Everything was looking up for Hensick.

Then his NHL career began.

He started off with a bang, scoring his first NHL goal against the Los Angeles Kings in just his second game. Hensick would go on to post an 11 point (6g, 5a) rookie campaign that spanned 31 games and 4 different call-ups. In 2 playoff games, he managed 1 assist. His future certainly still looked solid but a tiny piece of the shine had worn off

Coming into the next season, Hensick was given every opportunity to make the team out of training camp and failed to do so. This would be the first of what would be a monumentally disappointing season for Hensick and the team alike. Hensick was called up and played his first game of the 08-09 season against the Minnesota Wild on November 6, notching an assist on the Avs' lone goal. Hensick would chip in 4 assists in his first 7 games and finished the month of November a +3. He added 6 points in December and 7 in January.

Following the 4-3 loss on January 31st to Anaheim, in which Hensick tossed in 1 assist and finished with a -2, Hensick's season would nosedive and he would score just 4 more points (zero goals) the rest of the season while consistently finishing on the south side of +/-.

By the end of the season, Hensiiiiick had turned into Hensuck and was channeling his inner-Trailer. MHH had seemingly given up on a kid who was nearly a point-per-game player at every single level he's played. His career arc shows a trend upwards in every year he repeats a level and he becomes more accustomed to the speed of the game.

Even this season, after a fairly solid showing in a 7 game cameo (1g, 2 a), Hensick was placed on waivers. A day later he cleared and has since resumed his role as sole consistent offensive contributor on yet another bad Monsters team. All of this leads me to my question:

What happened to T.J. Hensick?

Might he have come into the organization at the worst possible time? His first taste of the NHL was sporadic stays with a team that would eventually make the playoffs and advance to the second round. Not a ton of time for the kid to get comfortable between the lower lines . His first major exposure to the NHL came during the worst season in franchise history when the team's highest scorer had a blistering 59 points and spent 4 solid months tanking (we won an incredible 3 games from March 2 to April 12). He was the number 1 prospect in the franchise's darkest hour. With the next wave of forward prospects already upon us in Duchene, O'Reilly, and Galiardi, where does Hensick fit into the team's future plans?

With the three rookie stars this year combined with the breakout efforts of Stewart and, to a lesser extent, Jones and Wolski, has the Colorado Avalanche organization accidentally given up on a player who had 99 NHL games (across 3 different seasons so far) before his 24th birthday and has excelled offensively at every level he has played?

I may be one of the few remaining who believes a lot of solid NHL minutes are left to be played by T.J. Hensick. The kid has the same weaknesses he did when he played in the NCAA and AHL. He isn't big, tough, or exceptionally strong. He doesn't take part in the more physical aspects of the game and his defensive zone problems absolutely need to be shored up to at least a respectable level in order to stick in the NHL.

Where does Hensick go from here? Does he continue toiling in the AHL as the forgotten, former top prospect, who entered the organization at an awkward time and then was lost in the shuffle until the end of this season where he seeks a job elsewhere on a club with a better opportunity? Hensick's entry-level contract expires after this season, making him a restricted free agent. Does he continue toiling in Lake Erie on bad teams or look for a club just looking for some talent to plug into the organization? With half a season left to prove himself more than just a very solid AHL-caliber player, Hensick has the opportunity to star as the offensive catalyst for a team with very little scoring potential. Even if he does, will the Avalanche give him another look?

Personally, I think Hensick is likely going to be a casualty of a numbers game with the success of Duchene, O'Reilly, and Galiardi. Because he wasn't an instant success, he's been phased out by those that were. The Avs suddenly find themselves very deep at solid, two-way centers and Hensick likely won't get another chance to let his game continue to develop in an Avalanche uniform without some significant injuries (always a risk with these guys).

At the age of 24 with 99 NHL games under his belt, T.J. Hensick finds his career at a bit of a crossroads. What happens next is ultimately up to him. If his game steps up, I sure hope the Avalanche pay attention and don't shrug him off. He still has plenty of potential in him.

Poll

What does Hensick's future hold?

Big 12 Hoops Does Big 12 All-Decade Teams

SlamDunkTheFunk — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:26:18 -0000

Big 12 Hoops Does Big 12 All-Decade Teams

Some butthurt people over there, holy crap.

Yes, Craig Anderson IS that bad.

SlamDunkTheFunk — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:46:08 -0000

Yes, Craig Anderson IS that bad.

Puck Prospectus tells us that Craig Anderson really is as bad at shootouts as he has seemed. Too bad we didn't see this bit of foreshadowing so we could put all of the anti-jinxes in place before being embarrassed by the freaking Wild.

HF's November Look at Juniors

SlamDunkTheFunk — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:26:52 -0000

HF's November Look at Juniors

Particular quote of interest:

And on the blueline, Cameron Gaunce (COL) is an absolute workhorse. It seems like he’s on the ice every time you look at Mississauga’s defense. He is skilled, strong and smart. Gaunce is the type of player you always put out there in a one-goal game, regardless of whether you’re up or down.

HF's November Calder Race

SlamDunkTheFunk — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:28:49 -0000

HF's November Calder Race

Guess who has two players on the list?

College Basketball Recruiting Getting Cleaned Up?

SlamDunkTheFunk — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:18:29 -0000

College Basketball Recruiting Getting Cleaned Up?

O rearry?

RCT Fantasy Hockey Needs Help!

SlamDunkTheFunk — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:31:11 -0000

RCT Fantasy Hockey Needs Help!

Hey guys, I'm a pretty frequent contributor over at Rock Chalk Talk and we've been trying to get a Fantasy Hockey league together for some time now. I realize the season has already kicked into high gear, but we've only managed to get 6 people and 10 are required for the league to have its draft and start up. I was wondering if anyone from TRR might be interested in joining up and enjoying some cross-blog fantasy headbutting.

Again we have four spots left. Password for the league is "paclife". Hope four of you join up! Thanks!

Luke Winn says we rock.

SlamDunkTheFunk — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:20:50 -0000

Luke Winn says we rock.

Si.com's opening rankings of the college basketball season.

Hockey's Future Look at Islanders Organizational Depth

SlamDunkTheFunk — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:24:33 -0000

Hockey's Future Look at Islanders Organizational Depth

Just as the title says. A positional breakdown of prospects in the Islanders system.

Training Camp Observations 8/4

SlamDunkTheFunk — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:24:07 -0000

As promised (sort of), my attendance at practice this afternoon resulted in me taking sporadic notes.

First thing I noticed was the inconsistency of the training camp event staff. Same guys everyday, but they go by different rules. Last week, they were telling people to move all the way to the far end of the field when they first opened the rope and allowed us to sit down. Yesterday, they weren't letting people in until 30 minutes before practice. Today, I arrived with a friend 55 minutes early, and the parking lot was already jam packed and bunches of people were already covering the hillside. Maybe I'm just missing something, but what's the deal with that?

Practice started pretty much like all the others have with the team slowly filtering out and random music blaring (more of a rock feel today. Rage Against The Machine was an awesome choice). The normal drills were run where everyone looks like a Pro Bowler and I spend most of the time wondering why the people sitting behind me can't convince their kids that kicking me in the back is rude.

To be honest, I've seen the same drills enough times now that nobody really stood out to me anymore, so I didn't start writing anything down until things got revved up a little bit. I suppose that's my bad, homies.

My favorite drill of the day that wasn't offense versus defense involved some punt blocking drills. The guys working through the drill were Vernon Fox, David Bruton, Josh Barrett, Darcel McBath, and LaMont Jordan. McBath picked up the drill the quickest and blocked every punt I saw him break in on. Jordan did well in his limited time as he was replaced by Fox after blocking one. Bruton and Barrett were the slowest to pick it up and missed a couple of kicks before finally connecting and getting the props from the coaching staff.

Speaking of punting, the Punter competition heated up a bit today as they had the punters working against the guys who were just working to block their kicks. The stopwatch was busted out and Kern and Colquitt were both hitting punt with a hangtime of 4.6 seconds or more, with the only shank being a Colquitt kick that went 35 yards or so and hung for 3.8 seconds. After the Colquitt shank, Kern responded with a BOMB from his own 15 that ended up in the endzone after hanging in the air for 5.58 seconds. Colquitt finished up the drill on his next kick with one that looked exactly like Kern's, with an identical hangtime. If camp were to end tomorrow, I'd go with Kern because his coffin corner punts have been much better than Colquitt's, but the rook is at least pushing him a little bit.

The 7-on-7 drills brought about some nice developments and some more of the same. Orton looked good, the first team offense was fluid and Eddie Royal was a beast as usual. Chris Simms, however, looked pretty rough. After getting picked by Jack Williams, he turned around and got two passes in a row batted down, one by Marcus Thomas and the other by Mario Haggan. The defense looks decent, and when they moved the 7-on-7 down to the 10 yard line, they stuffed the first team defense several times. D.J. Williams is really starting to take over the leadership role on that defense as he was directing traffic and on multiple occasions reacted to the man in motion by calling for someone else to shift and that guy ended up breaking up the play. Now, I'm biased because DJ is my favorite Bronco, but he's really looked good this camp. I'll just say right now that Robert Ayers looked completely lost and on one play threw his hands up in the air while the play was going on and just watched it all unfold. One other minor note for 7-on-7 action was Elvis Dumervil completely blew his coverage on whichever TE he was covering and had Simms seen it, he would have had an easy 6.

The 11-on-11 drills complete with officiating is where some of the "big news" came today. Jarvis Moss was pretty solid and played with an energy he didn't have last week when I pointed he looked pretty bad and not ready to play. He applied some good pressure coming around the corner, but still gets stood up too easily at times. I'm starting to think more and more that David Bruton isn't going to make it in this league because of his defensive prowess because he seems to be reacting to everything much too slowly. His foot speed and reaction time all seem much too slow. I sure hope he's an ace special teamer. Tim Crowder looks like the light bulb might be coming on because he's turned it up in the past couple of days and that continued today with him eating Ryan Harris up twice. Harris continued his struggles when Robert Ayers FLATTENED him and batted the pass down. Ayers finished practice strong as he took Tyler Polumbus for a ride on the school bus on the play immediately preceding his emasculation of Harris. Both plays resulted in incompletions as a direct result of the Ayers pressure. The biggest eye opener of the day was Kenny Peterson beating Ryan Clady pretty badly on a stunt and would have gotten the sack had he been allowed to hit the man in the orange jersey.

Practice ended with a two-minute drill and instead of stagnating and generally looking terrible as they did a few days ago, the offense was really clicking and Orton was making great decisions. They moved the ball efficiently and without mistakes and ended up with a first and goal at the 1 with 1 second left to play after a Defensive Pass Interference on Jack Williams, who was defending Brandon Stokley. Williams got his redemption on the next play as he ended practice with a bang by intercepting Orton and returning it 101 yards to the other endzone.

I don't know how to end one of these, so, uh, see you tomorrow when I hit up practice and attempt to convey anything noteworthy to you'uns.

Oh, one last thing, Eddie Royal looks awesome and made an outstanding catch OVER two defenders in the back of the endzone, but I forgot the drill so it wasn't included above. He looks awesome right now.