GDT: 2017-18 Other Playoff Games

[The Nemesis]

well wheeler is a #5 though they didn't draft him. i dunno when's the last time we picked top 10? imagine our team with 4 couture/meier level guys?

The funny thing with Wheeler is that even if you counted him as a top 5 pick for evaluating the impact of picking high, his actual draft history would sort of invalidate it. Wheeler was a massive head-scratcher/criticism when he was selected 5th in his draft year. He was roundly viewed by basically everyone who wasn't the Coyotes as a gigantic reach that wasn't supposed to be picked nearly that high. He was exhibit #1 in the "Wayne Gretzky may be the greatest player ever, but he has no goddamn clue how to run a team" argument.

But if that gets brushed aside with a claim of "well, he turned out to be really good, so all the pre-draft rankings were wrong" then that would in turn cause a bit of consternation for the pro-tank crowd because it would pretty much be saying that it doesn't matter if you draft high, you just have to draft right. (because reasonably you would've been able to get Wheeler, or Scheifele in a different example, later in the draft based on consensus, not requiring a 5th or 7th pick if not for one team being willing to buck evaluation trends and reach. but of course reaching for the guy you like the best is also not a valid tactic on its own since you're just as, if not more likely to grab a Mueller or a Patrick White than you are a Wheeler/Scheifele.) Pick range only matters if you're willing to put a cursory amount of faith in pre-draft rankings as being relatively reliable measures of player worth/value even if they aren't rigidly accurate.

 

[Alwalys]

The funny thing with Wheeler is that even if you counted him as a top 5 pick for evaluating the impact of picking high, his actual draft history would sort of invalidate it. Wheeler was a massive head-scratcher/criticism when he was selected 5th in his draft year. He was roundly viewed by basically everyone who wasn't the Coyotes as a gigantic reach that wasn't supposed to be picked nearly that high. He was exhibit #1 in the "Wayne Gretzky may be the greatest player ever, but he has no goddamn clue how to run a team" argument.

But if that gets brushed aside with a claim of "well, he turned out to be really good, so all the pre-draft rankings were wrong" then that would in turn cause a bit of consternation for the pro-tank crowd because it would pretty much be saying that it doesn't matter if you draft high, you just have to draft right. (because reasonably you would've been able to get Wheeler, or Scheifele in a different example, later in the draft based on consensus, not requiring a 5th or 7th pick if not for one team being willing to buck evaluation trends and reach. but of course reaching for the guy you like the best is also not a valid tactic on its own since you're just as, if not more likely to grab a Mueller or a Patrick White than you are a Wheeler/Scheifele.)

well the other funny thing about wheeler is he didn't even end up signing with his drafting team so using his draft position to prove anything is difficult.

 

[The Nemesis]

well the other funny thing about wheeler is he didn't even end up signing with his drafting team so using his draft position to prove anything is difficult.

Ehh, if he wasn't a big reach it would still be valid to correlate his draft position with his talent level even without him signing in Arizona because you could still correlate his play level with his draft position even given that he signed in Boston instead of Phoenix. The big elephant in the room is still that it's hard to equate him with being a 'successful' top 5 pick illustrating the necessity of drafting high when it took Gretzky and the Yotes going massively off script for him to be picked there and not, say, somewhere in the mid to late 20s.

 

[Alwalys]

Ehh, if he wasn't a big reach it would still be valid to correlate his draft position with his talent level even without him signing in Arizona because you could still correlate his play level with his draft position even given that he signed in Boston instead of Phoenix. The big elephant in the room is still that it's hard to equate him with being a 'successful' top 5 pick illustrating the necessity of drafting high when it took Gretzky and the Yotes going massively off script for him to be picked there and not, say, somewhere in the mid to late 20s.

it's somewhat of a point, but then you would need to delve into whether he was a riser, where other teams were looking at picking him, whether a deal was available to move down to pick him, whether scouting back then was as developed as it is now, etc.

the jets still have a ton of other early first talent.

 

[Bizz]

Would be so fun to tank for 3 years and come out like a phoenix and win the cup. Oh well haha heres to always getting 7/8/9th and never picking high but always being "competitive"

yeah because that model has worked out REAL well for Edmonton, Arizona, Buffalo, Carolina, Vancouver, Columbus, Florida....

 

[Nighthock]

Biggest Jets fan in NV today.

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

yeah because that model has worked out REAL well for Edmonton, Arizona, Buffalo, Carolina, Vancouver, Columbus, Florida....

Would you rather guarantee yourself being somewhere between the Sharks/Rangers and the Wild/Flames, or would you rather take a chance at being somewhere between one of Edmonton/Buffalo and a team that actually has a chance to win a Stanley Cup? Because the “consistent contenders” have shown that they have no chance at a Stanley Cup. Even the Rangers and Sharks, when they finally made the Cup Finals, got curb stomped by one third of the three-headed tank monster. Neither of those teams looked like they belonged in the same league as the team that they played against and lost to in the SCF.

Plus, Buffalo has Eichel and Dahlin. That team could be very good in a very short period of time. Edmonton has McDavid/Draisaitl; same story.

 

[Juxtaposer]

Directly attacking someone because you didn't like something they said is against the rules of the board. This should not be news. Nor should it be necessary to clarify every potential comment.

Is the comment making an issue of the poster themselves rather than the content of the post?
If yes, it's against the rules.

I don't really see how you could presume that telling someone to grow up wouldn't be against the rules since saying so in no way actually addresses the content of the post as much as it makes a value judgement about the person making said comment.

What I’m getting at is that people have said a LOT worse things than “grow up” around here. I would not consider “grow up” to be an “attack”.

WRT Winnipeg: imagine the Sharks had Mantha, Fabbri, Barzal, and one of Yamamoto/Vesalainen/Tolvanen (the three guys that were available that I wanted at 21, right before we picked Josh Norris) instead of Ferraro (the 2nd round pick we got for Mueller), Hansen (who we got for Goldobin), Meier, and Norris. Because that’s who the Jets would have picked if they had been in our position at the time.

Add Barzal, Mantha, and Fabbri to the Sharks core of Burns, Vlasic, Hertl, Couture, Pavelski, etc. and I think you’d have a team that looks a lot like the Jets. Probably not quite as good, because of the Laine thing, but much better than what we currently have.

That’s why I hold Winnipeg up as the ideal model for the Sharks to be following. They only had one top-5 pick (which they got by winning the lottery; every team that missed the playoffs is now a lottery team so there’s that—look at Carolina, Dallas, etc.) but made smart picks at #7, #14 (I think that’s what Morrissey was picked at), #9, #9, and #16. Not exactly draft picks that are out of the reach of the Sharks like #1 and #2 are.

If Winnipeg wins it all, maybe DW will copy them. Hopefully.

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

What I’m getting at is that people have said a LOT worse things than “grow up” around here. I would not consider “grow up” to be an “attack”.

WRT Winnipeg: imagine the Sharks had Mantha, Fabbri, Barzal, and one of Yamamoto/Vesalainen/Tolvanen (the three guys that were available that I wanted at 21, right before we picked Josh Norris) instead of Ferraro (the 2nd round pick we got for Mueller), Hansen (who we got for Goldobin), Meier, and Norris. Because that’s who the Jets would have picked if they had been in our position at the time.

Add Barzal, Mantha, and Fabbri to the Sharks core of Burns, Vlasic, Hertl, Couture, Pavelski, etc. and I think you’d have a team that looks a lot like the Jets. Probably not quite as good, because of the Laine thing, but much better than what we currently have.

That’s why I hold Winnipeg up as the ideal model for the Sharks to be following. They only had one top-5 pick (which they got by winning the lottery; every team that missed the playoffs is now a lottery team so there’s that—look at Carolina, Dallas, etc.) but made smart picks at #7, #14 (I think that’s what Morrissey was picked at), #9, #9, and #16. Not exactly draft picks that are out of the reach of the Sharks like #1 and #2 are.

If Winnipeg wins it all, maybe DW will copy them. Hopefully.

You can’t just copy that elite scouting and have your scouts be Nostradamus.

There’s no guarantee that Winnipeg would have picked those players either. You can assume that they probably would have made better picks than us and I would totally agree, but there is no guarantee that on every single one, they would have made the slam dunk correct pick.

Weren’t you specifically anti-Mantha at the time of the 2013 draft? I know that you were specifically anti-Mueller before we ever picked him, but I feel like I recall you dissing Mantha as well.

 

[The Nemesis]

What I’m getting at is that people have said a LOT worse things than “grow up” around here. I would not consider “grow up” to be an “attack”.

I don't want to keep having this out in the public part of the board, but from the site rules. Rule #1

1) Flaming: Critique the opinion, not the person. Personal attacks against members are not permitted.

As I said in the previous post, it's a pretty simple litmus test:

Is the comment you're making critical of or negative towards the poster themselves and not about the post on its own merits?
Yes? Then it's not appropriate.

As I have said to dozens of people in the past, this is not the schoolyard. "They started it" or "they're doing just as bad/worse" is not a valid reason to reset the bar on your own personal conduct or suddenly decide what level of personal snarking is or is not valid. Let the mods worry about what other people do or don't do. Just be aware of what you do and how it shapes the conversation around you.

I don't think it's too much to ask people to treat everyone else how they would want to be treated themselves.

I don't mean to get frustrated. Really, I don't. I just sometimes get a little frazzled because I feel like people don't realize how much of the issues that a lot of the populous seem to have with the level/tone of discourse around here could be solved if everyone could just take a step back and really think about how the image they project and the tone they choose to take contributes to the atmosphere. It's easy for someone to get defensive if they feel their opinion isn't being given consideration. But defensiveness tends to beget the appearance of disregard or non-consideration. forcefulness becomes apparent condescension. Surety comes off as arrogance. When everyone is desperate for their voice to be heard above all others, the end result is little more than incoherent shouting in isolation.

People complain that this place isn't as good or as fun as it used to be. A lot of it gets hung on ideas like the site rules being more restrictive (Which is actually the opposite of true: the rules are much more relaxed and macro-level than they ever used to be) or a casual attitude being quashed. But the truth is that a lot of the degredation comes from the change in attitudes and conduct of the masses. The takes are hotter, opinions are stronger, tempers are shorter, and people seem more consumed with being seen as 'right' or 'winning' an argument than they are with just having a spirited by genial conversation. People don't share opinions. It more so ends up like person A says "I think this" and then person B says "No, that's wrong, it's this." and then A responds "That's the stupidest hting I've ever heard, it's clearly what I said." and then the fight is on. And I'm also not singling you out to say that you in particular do all of this. Honestly, much of this paragraph pretty much just spilled out of my brain after I led off the previous paragraph with "I don't mean to get frustrated" inadvertently signaling that I am indeed pretty frustrated with how things go around here sometimes (like now. Post-playoff-exit is far far far and away my least favorite time on HF because the threads become borderline unreadable with how toxic they get.) especially because I know there's no really good reason for it to be like this.

I know you're all better people than what the worst of this place shows. Some of you I know that because I've met you. Others just because I've spoken with you on here over the better part of the last.. oh dear god it's been like 13 years since I joined. At the risk of sounding incredibly trite, this is one of those "be the change you want to see" type things. Or for those that prefer their sage advice in pop culture reference form: "be excellent to each other" (even more relevant since there's a new movie coming! ) It might feel like I expect a lot of you guys/gals sometimes. But I only do it because I know you can live up to that. If everyone could just take ownership of their own behaviour and respectfulness and not be concerned with that of others, we'd be golden.

 

[Juxtaposer]

You can’t just copy that elite scouting and have your scouts be Nostradamus.

There’s no guarantee that Winnipeg would have picked those players either. You can assume that they probably would have made better picks than us and I would totally agree, but there is no guarantee that on every single one, they would have made the slam dunk correct pick.

What was the last first round pick that the Jets didn’t slam dunk on?

Their drafting history is:

2012: selected Mark Scheifele 7th overall, making him the only #1C drafted outside the top-5 in the past decade (ignoring Barzal for a moment). That was an absolute brilliant pick. Slam dunk.

2013: selected Jake Trouba 9th overall. Only player selected behind him that is even arguably better is Forsberg. Trouba is a #1 RHD with size, skating, and two-way ability. Slam dunk.

2014: selected Nikolaj Ehlers. This was the most obvious pick of them all. Certainly it was due to the incompetence of Vancouver and Carolina that Ehlers was even available, but he was an obvious pick. Slam dunk.

2015: selected Kyle Connor 17th overall. Another obvious pick who should never have gotten to 17th overall in the first place. Slam dunk.

selected Jack Roslovic 25th overall. Put up over a point per game in the AHL at age 20. Put up a half a point a game at age 21 in the NHL. Looks on track to be a quality second liner. Only player taken behind him I’d definitively take over him is Sebastian Aho. Slam dunk.

2016: selected Patrik Laine 2nd overall, which was obviously quite lucky, but as I said before, had they remained at 6th overall they would still have one of Tkachuk and Keller, considering their draft history.

selected Logan Stanley 18th overall. This is the only even questionable first round pick in Winnipeg’s history. And still, Stanley put up pretty reasonable production in the OHL, making a huge leap forward; who knows on this one, I’m not writing him off yet. Even then, there wasn’t a really obvious pick that they should have taken instead; there are definitely a half dozen guys picked behind him that I prefer in hindsight, but only DeBrincat (whom practically the whole league missed on) seemed obvious at the time IIRC.

2017: selected Kristian Vesalainen 24th overall. Just put up nearly a point per game in the Finnish Elite League at age 18. Looks like a future slam dunk.

In eight 1st round draft picks in their history as the Jets, there is only one pick I wouldn’t call a slam dunk, and that one is only 19 years old.

I wasn’t super hot on Mantha, but the rest of the scouting community was.

 

[Juxtaposer]

I don't want to keep having this out in the public part of the board, but from the site rules. Rule #1



As I said in the previous post, it's a pretty simple litmus test:

Is the comment you're making critical of or negative towards the poster themselves and not about the post on its own merits?
Yes? Then it's not appropriate.

As I have said to dozens of people in the past, this is not the schoolyard. "They started it" or "they're doing just as bad/worse" is not a valid reason to reset the bar on your own personal conduct or suddenly decide what level of personal snarking is or is not valid. Let the mods worry about what other people do or don't do. Just be aware of what you do and how it shapes the conversation around you.

I don't think it's too much to ask people to treat everyone else how they would want to be treated themselves.

I don't mean to get frustrated. Really, I don't. I just sometimes get a little frazzled because I feel like people don't realize how much of the issues that a lot of the populous seem to have with the level/tone of discourse around here could be solved if everyone could just take a step back and really think about how the image they project and the tone they choose to take contributes to the atmosphere.

People complain that this place isn't as good or as fun as it used to be. A lot of it gets hung on ideas like the site rules being more restrictive (Which is actually the opposite of true: the rules are much more relaxed and macro-level than they ever used to be) or a casual attitude being quashed. But the truth is that a lot of the degredation comes from the change in attitudes and conduct of the masses. The takes are hotter, opinions are stronger, tempers are shorter, and people seem more consumed with being seen as 'right' or 'winning' an argument than they are with just having a spirited by genial conversation. People don't share opinions. It more so ends up like person A says "I think this" and then person B says "No, that's wrong, it's this." and then A responds "That's the stupidest hting I've ever heard, it's clearly what I said." and then the fight is on. And I'm also not singling you out to say that you in particular do all of this. Honestly, much of this paragraph pretty much just spilled out of my brain after I led off the previous paragraph with "I don't mean to get frustrated" inadvertently signaling that I am indeed pretty frustrated with how things go around here sometimes (like now. Post-playoff-exit is far far far and away my least favorite time on HF because the threads become borderline unreadable with how toxic they get.) especially because I know there's no really good reason for it to be like this.

I know you're all better people than what the worst of this place shows. Some of you I know that because I've met you. Others just because I've spoken with you on here over the better part of the last.. oh dear god it's been like 13 years since I joined. At the risk of sounding incredibly trite, this is one of those "be the change you want to see" type things. Or for those that prefer their sage advice in pop culture reference form: "be excellent to each other" (even more relevant since there's a new movie coming! ) It might feel like I expect a lot of you guys/gals sometimes. But I only do it because I know you can live up to that. If everyone could just take ownership of their own behaviour and respectfulness and not be concerned with that of others, we'd be golden.

Hey, I’m sorry for being fresh with you. I do see what you mean. I was just also feeling a little frustrated because it felt like I was being singled out for the type of comment I feel like I see every day with no backlash. But you’re right. I should and will be better.

(Sorry for the double post, but this feels like a rather different tone than my previous.)

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

There’s an entire board of sharks fan right here who only drink alcohol, so that theory goes right out the window.

To the first part (no one team can disprove the tank model) yes. The Jets may be the proverbial exception that proves the rule. Who knows at this point. They kinda need to actually win the cup to tick off all the boxes necessary to qualifying for this thesis.

To the rest of it (validating the tanking model), it's a lot harder case to make because even "8 of the 9 most recent teams" is potentially flawed as evidence because that includes multiple repeat teams. It's difficult to say with any degree of certainty that those teams might not have other factors in play beyond tanking (like, say, Pittsburgh. How much of their success is predicated on Crosby in particular? His presence as one of the defining ultra-star players of his generation could, for all we know, be covering for deficiencies or holes in the rest of their team that are present even accounting for their 'tanking period.'). Ideally we need a broader data set to draw a proper conclusion from. Perhaps we need a better look at tanking teams regular season performance vs the playoffs to see if their success rate in the playoffs is any better than non-tanking teams or if they're succeeding on volume (holding longer contiguous playoff windows gives them more kicks at the can and thus better odds that sooner or later they'll break through. This would be the sort of thing that the Sharks' extended championship drought would cause them to show up as a massive outlier.)

Okay, here’s a better one. Since 1900, no American president elected to office has been equal to or shorter than 5’9.5”; the average height of an American male. I might say “you cannot be equal to or shorter than the average height of an American male in order to win the presidency.”

In theory, if “little Marco” Rubio- listed at 5’8” without his trademark high heels - were to win presidency, that might help disprove my theory that you must be at least 5’10” to be president. However, the fact that Jeb Bush - a man who is much taller than 6’ - lost in the primaries does not disprove that fact because the man who did win presidency was also well over 5’10”.

This is because the suggestion that the president must be at least 5’10” tall to be elected the president of the United States is only a guarantee that the winner must have X quality. It is not a guarantee that any candidate with X quality will become a winner.

In a similar fashion, I am suggesting that you must tank and draft top-5 in back to back years in order to win a Stanley Cup in a year that isn’t a massive fluke, and be a consistent contender to win the Stanley Cup.

Edmonton being awful does not disprove this theory at all. Neither does any other tank team being terrible. The only way that a team would disprove this theory is if a non-tank team won the Cup in a year that wasn’t a massive fluke, and remained consistent contenders for a period of time, without drafting top-5 in the draft in back-to-back years. In a similar fashion, a president under the height of 5’10” winning president is the only way to disprove my prior theory. There have been plenty of losers that have also been equal to or taller than 5’10”, but that disproves nothing.

@Juxtaposer that draft history is insane. Truly jaw dropping. But you still cannot say that Winnipeg would have made those picks in our position because there is simply no way to guarantee that, and there is no way to copy 100% perfect scouting. Hell, I doubt that Winnipeg’s scouts can even replicate that over the course of the next 7 years. There’s no way to model your team after that; I’m all for spending more on scouting and trying to copy some of the models used that got Winnipeg’s scouting to be so damn ridiculous but there is just no way that you’re going to replicate that draft success. Winnipeg is legit though, no lying there.

 

[Alwalys]

Biggest Jets fan in NV today.

I dunno man, jets fans are showing themselves to be unfathomably douchey. Typical for Canadian team fans but it's usually bravado; backed up by an actual good team it's off the richer scale of utter baggery. Vegas has at least got to put a couple Ws up. It'll be such a travesty if Fleury's horseshoe dislodges now.

 

[WSS11]

Just think about how much fun a tank would be on this board, you guys love this stuff. The sky is falling people would have so much more to talk about. Demelo could be the goat in this situation, when losing games is valuable. We'd have blast talking about drafting players 6 months before the draft.

Our scouting team would botch the tank.

 

[Wedgeden]

What was the last first round pick that the Jets didn’t slam dunk on?

Their drafting history is:

2012: selected Mark Scheifele 7th overall, making him the only #1C drafted outside the top-5 in the past decade (ignoring Barzal for a moment). That was an absolute brilliant pick. Slam dunk.

2013: selected Jake Trouba 9th overall. Only player selected behind him that is even arguably better is Forsberg. Trouba is a #1 RHD with size, skating, and two-way ability. Slam dunk.

2014: selected Nikolaj Ehlers. This was the most obvious pick of them all. Certainly it was due to the incompetence of Vancouver and Carolina that Ehlers was even available, but he was an obvious pick. Slam dunk.

2015: selected Kyle Connor 17th overall. Another obvious pick who should never have gotten to 17th overall in the first place. Slam dunk.

selected Jack Roslovic 25th overall. Put up over a point per game in the AHL at age 20. Put up a half a point a game at age 21 in the NHL. Looks on track to be a quality second liner. Only player taken behind him I’d definitively take over him is Sebastian Aho. Slam dunk.

2016: selected Patrik Laine 2nd overall, which was obviously quite lucky, but as I said before, had they remained at 6th overall they would still have one of Tkachuk and Keller, considering their draft history.

selected Logan Stanley 18th overall. This is the only even questionable first round pick in Winnipeg’s history. And still, Stanley put up pretty reasonable production in the OHL, making a huge leap forward; who knows on this one, I’m not writing him off yet. Even then, there wasn’t a really obvious pick that they should have taken instead; there are definitely a half dozen guys picked behind him that I prefer in hindsight, but only DeBrincat (whom practically the whole league missed on) seemed obvious at the time IIRC.

2017: selected Kristian Vesalainen 24th overall. Just put up nearly a point per game in the Finnish Elite League at age 18. Looks like a future slam dunk.

In eight 1st round draft picks in their history as the Jets, there is only one pick I wouldn’t call a slam dunk, and that one is only 19 years old.

I wasn’t super hot on Mantha, but the rest of the scouting community was.

Just wanted to update this.
Mark Scheifele 2011
Jacob Trouba 2012
Josh Morrissey 2013
- 1st pairing Left Defence playing alongside Jacob Trouba
Nicolaj Ehlers 2014

 

[Tkachuk4MVP]

I'm with Jux, I love the way the Jets have put their team together and I hope we can mimic them moving forward. They made smart draft picks and trades and never went into full-blown tank mode. Heck, with better goaltending they might have been in this position a few years ago. They also have a generally likable group of players, play an entertaining style of hockey, and have a passionate fan base who had to deal with the team getting ripped away and has been supporting them like crazy since they've come back. I wouldn't mind it at all if they won a Cup.

 

[WSS11]

What I’m getting at is that people have said a LOT worse things than “grow up” around here. I would not consider “grow up” to be an “attack”.

WRT Winnipeg: imagine the Sharks had Mantha, Fabbri, Barzal, and one of Yamamoto/Vesalainen/Tolvanen (the three guys that were available that I wanted at 21, right before we picked Josh Norris) instead of Ferraro (the 2nd round pick we got for Mueller), Hansen (who we got for Goldobin), Meier, and Norris. Because that’s who the Jets would have picked if they had been in our position at the time.

Add Barzal, Mantha, and Fabbri to the Sharks core of Burns, Vlasic, Hertl, Couture, Pavelski, etc. and I think you’d have a team that looks a lot like the Jets. Probably not quite as good, because of the Laine thing, but much better than what we currently have.

That’s why I hold Winnipeg up as the ideal model for the Sharks to be following. They only had one top-5 pick (which they got by winning the lottery; every team that missed the playoffs is now a lottery team so there’s that—look at Carolina, Dallas, etc.) but made smart picks at #7, #14 (I think that’s what Morrissey was picked at), #9, #9, and #16. Not exactly draft picks that are out of the reach of the Sharks like #1 and #2 are.

If Winnipeg wins it all, maybe DW will copy them. Hopefully.

Well I guess if you want to completely copy the Jets model we need drop in the standings and in attendance and relocate the team back to a city that used to have a team. Just picture the team in Hartford Whalers jerseys.

 

[Nighthock]

I dunno man, jets fans are showing themselves to be unfathomably *****ey. Typical for Canadian team fans but it's usually bravado; backed up by an actual good team it's off the richer scale of utter baggery. Vegas has at least got to put a couple Ws up. It'll be such a travesty if Fleury's horseshoe dislodges now.

Ah, but you forget the Golden Rule... f*** Vegas.

 

[OrrNumber4]

“Earn your success”? Grow up. Winnipeg earned their success more than any other team in the NHL. They drafted Scheifele 7th overall when everyone else had him in the mid-late teens. They took so much abuse for that pick. They drafted almost their entire team. Instead of trying to outsmart everyone else (cough Sharks cough) they simply took the obvious BPAs in their drafts. Trouba, Ehlers, Morrisey, and Connor are all better than half the players drafted before them. They traded Kane and Bogosian for Myers and mediocre futures when most people (including myself) thought it was a bad trade. They gave Matthieu Perreault a real chance when everyone else was ****ing around. They were patient and developed a great young starting goalie in Hellebuyck. They let go of Ladd at the right time instead of giving him a massive contract. They never wasted assets at the deadline when they were a bubble team but made a savvy trade for Stastny when they finally looked like contenders. And yeah, Byfuglien is a good defenseman. You don’t have to like him to admit that.

Sure, falling ass-backwards into Laine was great luck. But Winnipeg is so, so, so much more than Laine. And let’s say they didn’t have Laine. Let’s say they drafted at 6th overall like they were originally. With how Winnipeg drafts, they’d still have come out with Keller or Tkachuk. Tkachuk scored at a 60 point pace (just ten points less than Laine) this year without playing with Monahan and Gaudreau, and Keller scored 65 points (just five less than Laine) on ****ing Arizona. I bet they’d still be sitting pretty in the WCF this season even if they had Keller or Tkachuk instead of Laine.

Winnipeg is the embodiment of everything I wish the Sharks were. They are smart, they run their team right, and they earned the hell out of their stars.

Their fans are incredibly annoying. That’s just about the only thing you have right.

This is your best-post-of-all-time candidate Juxtaposer.

Welfare on ice indeed. Not only does that ignore all that goes into building a successful hockey team, but it ignores that Winnipeg specifically is a very well-run organization with incredibly passionate fans. I don't begrudge them for their annoyance considering all they have been through.

The organization seems to be able to assess where they are very accurately, and like you have previously mentioned, they don't get ahead of themselves.

 

[Friday]

yeah because that model has worked out REAL well for Edmonton, Arizona, Buffalo, Carolina, Vancouver, Columbus, Florida....

Oil, Yotes, and Sabers literally couldn't be worse ran franchises haha

 

[rangerssharks414]

well wheeler is a #5 though they didn't draft him. i dunno when's the last time we picked top 10? imagine our team with 4 couture/meier level guys?

Timo was a top 10 pick.

 

[rangerssharks414]

With regards to the forced narrative that Canada has to root for Winnipeg, I totally buy it. They did the same thing when the Canucks made the final in 2011. Hell, I bet if the Leafs made the final (god help us all if that happened), the Canadian media would want Habs fans to root for the Leafs.

Disclaimer: I’ve never been to Canada, but I definitely believe the forced narrative.

 

[Nighthock]

Timo was drafted at 9 overall.

Barzal at like 16 (before that argument starts)

 

[hohosaregood]

Timo was drafted at 9 overall.

Barzal at like 16 (before that argument starts)

According to the redraft thread, Timo is the worst player to have been drafted in the first round.