Prospect Info: 2015-16 Colorado Avalanche Prospects Thread (CHL, NCAA and Europe)

[McMetal]

You know what else is awesome? Young players on ELC's. That's how teams win championships, by getting those cheap young players in the lineup.

Only if they're good. If you draft winners like Chicago does every year sure you can do that, but sometimes cheap ELCs get you cheap players who can't contribute enough to get there at all.

 

[RockLobster]

Only if they're good. If you draft winners like Chicago does every year sure you can do that, but sometimes cheap ELCs get you cheap players who can't contribute enough to get there at all.

People often forget that Chicago is in their position right now, in part (however large/small they want to attribute) due to taking advantage of cap-circumventing contracts for Hossa and, more importantly, Keith. If Keith's contract was even slightly more in line with market value, I think their team looks a bit different.

Good on them for being able to take advantage of that, but like I said recently, once those come to an end, we'll see what Stan Bowman is made of. So far, he's proven to be a very good GM...when taking advantage of his window being open because of the back-diving contracts. Once Hossa falls off or retires, and Keith the same, we'll see how things go. They've traded A LOT of picks (and a few high profile prospects) that they may be missing when their window closes.

That being said, their window isn't likely to close for another several seasons

 

[chet1926]

1 (23) - Conner Bleackley
2 (54) - Traded for Reto Berra
3 (84) - Kyle Wood
4 (93) - Nick Magyar
4 (114) - Alexis Pepin
5 (144) - Anton Lindholm
6 (174) - Maximilian Pajpach
7 (204) - Julien Nantel

So this draft class happened.

Yeah but if we happen to resign Boedker it looks a lot better as we turned two of those picks into a top 6 caliber winger.

Plus Berra is a NHL caliber backup, he just happens to play on a team where there are two quality players in front of him. At the time when we acquired Berra, Pickard was still very young and still a question mark. It's easy now to criticize trading a 2nd for Berra because of how Pickard turned out. But there was no guarantee this would happen at that time. I'd trade a 2nd round pick for a NHL backup 99 times out of 100 as that is about the going rate for a decent backup. It just looks bad on paper because Pickard turned out so well and Berra is now stuck in the minors.

Plus Nantel has some potential.

If you can get two NHL caliber players per draft that's a good draft. Anything on top of that is just gravy.

Sometimes it's not who you draft but what those players turn into via trades etc. Not every draft turns out well, but if you have smart people in charge they can turn misses into makes by moving them for pieces that will work.

People want to say things like good teams just draft well. That's not necessarily the case. Look at Chicago. 2010 draft they have 4 picks in the first 2 rounds, best player they got from it was Kevin Hayes who refused to sign with them, the rest of the draft pretty much garbage. 2012 draft for them they get Teravainen in the first round but absolutely nothing after that. Bad drafts happen by every team. You just have to figure out a way to work around the misses.

The goal needs to be 2 NHL players from every draft, that doesn't mean players you directly drafted. It means figure out a way to turn it into 2 NHL players if you missed on some picks. The Avs need to get better at this. Minimum 2 NHL caliber players some way some how per draft. It means better drafting and better asset management if there is bad drafting.

 

[tigervixxxen]

Yeah but if we happen to resign Boedker it looks a lot better as we turned two of those picks into a top 6 caliber winger.

Plus Berra is a NHL caliber backup, he just happens to play on a team where there are two quality players in front of him. At the time when we acquired Berra, Pickard was still very young and still a question mark. It's easy now to criticize trading a 2nd for Berra because of how Pickard turned out. But there was no guarantee this would happen at that time. I'd trade a 2nd round pick for a NHL backup 99 times out of 100 as that is about the going rate for a decent backup. It just looks bad on paper because Pickard turned out so well and Berra is now stuck in the minors.

Plus Nantel has some potential.

If you can get two NHL caliber players per draft that's a good draft. Anything on top of that is just gravy.

Sometimes it's not who you draft but what those players turn into via trades etc. Not every draft turns out well, but if you have smart people in charge they can turn misses into makes by moving them for pieces that will work.

People want to say things like good teams just draft well. That's not necessarily the case. Look at Chicago. 2010 draft they have 4 picks in the first 2 rounds, best player they got from it was Kevin Hayes who refused to sign with them, the rest of the draft pretty much garbage. 2012 draft for them they get Teravainen in the first round but absolutely nothing after that. Bad drafts happen by every team. You just have to figure out a way to work around the misses.

The goal needs to be 2 NHL players from every draft, that doesn't mean players you directly drafted. It means figure out a way to turn it into 2 NHL players if you missed on some picks. The Avs need to get better at this. Minimum 2 NHL caliber players some way some how per draft. It means better drafting and better asset management if there is bad drafting.

Sorry Chet, didn't mean to cut you off.