GDT: 2023 NHL Draft

spintheblackcircle

incoming!!!
Mar 1, 2002
66,425
12,347
Lol everyone else absolutely loves our draft except the actual fans of the team. That’s hilarious to me.

As for me I’m not sure yet I need to look into these kids a bit. This is the least amount I’ve ever know about a draft (thanks work) so I’ll get into them tonight. I only scouted the top 10.

"Everyone hates on Columbus. Nobody ever talks us up."

"Great job Columbus"

"Meh"
 

Toe Pick

Registered User
Jun 13, 2011
1,408
1,912
Columbus, OH

Columbus Blue Jackets: A

Adam Fantilli is a big reason for the high grade for Columbus. I’m a big believer in this player. I had him as the No. 2 prospect in the draft and I think he can be a star No. 1 center for the Blue Jackets. I do like his Michigan teammate Gavin Brindley quite a lot as well and think he has a real shot to be a top-nine forward. William Whitelaw, Andrew Strathmann and Luca Pinelli have varying chances to play games, but that Michigan duo brings an excellent infusion of speed, skill and compete into the Columbus organization.

He only gave out 6 As:
1 A+ (Hawks)
2 A (CBJ, Flyers)
3 A- (Ducks, Coyotes, Sharks)
 

Cowumbus

Registered User
Mar 1, 2014
11,718
6,481
Arena District - Columbus
Lol everyone else absolutely loves our draft except the actual fans of the team. That’s hilarious to me.

As for me I’m not sure yet I need to look into these kids a bit. This is the least amount I’ve ever know about a draft (thanks work) so I’ll get into them tonight. I only scouted the top 10.
They picked 3 guys that I would have, Fantilli/Brindley/Pinelli. I’m pretty happy with it, A-.
 
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Ice9

Registered User
Jun 25, 2016
1,419
757
In the woods
Lol everyone else absolutely loves our draft except the actual fans of the team. That’s hilarious to me.

As for me I’m not sure yet I need to look into these kids a bit. This is the least amount I’ve ever know about a draft (thanks work) so I’ll get into them tonight. I only scouted the top 10.
I wonder how many offers of GM positions certain fans have been offered?...
 

NotWendell

Has also never won the lottery.
Sponsor
Oct 31, 2005
27,061
7,453
Columbus, Ohio
I like Brindley. He's just not a big powerful presence that I'd like to see at center. After the 2nd round, it's a crapshoot. So go big or go home.
 

Doggy

Registered User
Oct 11, 2011
3,325
2,367
So every player selected in the first round got to choose their "walk out" song. Oliver Moore chose Mr Blue Sky. ELO :yo:, ergo I am now an Oliver Moore fan.
 

koteka

Registered User
Jan 1, 2017
3,993
4,341
Central Ohio
Size convo is interesting and got me looking through the past 3 drafts for the count of sub-6 ft players per round:

Here is a trend that I have now noticed. We started drafting more short North Americans and drafting them earlier in the draft starting in 2021 and it has really increased the last two drafts. We used to draft a lot of Europeans and not many people considered short. Abramov is a notable exception. Now we are drafting a lot of shorter players, and they tend to be North American. This draft made it obvious, but something happened in 2021. (Maybe that something was no more Torts in the building???)

Let’s ignore the first round (because the first round is it’s own animal) and goalies and look at two groups - small North Americans and Europeans. I somewhat arbitrarily define small as less than 6’0” for defense or less than 5’10” for forwards.

Here are the last 10 drafts:

2014
Europeans - 0
Small North Americans - 0

2015
Europeans - 5
Small North Americans - 0

2016
Europeans - 2
Small North Americans - 0

2017
Europeans - 3
Small North Americans - 0

2018
Europeans - 3
Small North Americans - 1 (TF-W in round 7)

2019
Europeans - 2
Small North Americans - 0

2020
Europeans - 4
Small North Americans - 0

2021
Europeans - 4
Small North Americans - 1 (Malatesta in round 5)

2022
Europeans - 1
Small North Americans - 1 (Dumais in round 3, plus Mateychuk in round 1)

2023
Europeans - 1
Small North Americans - 4 (Brindley at the top of round 2, Whitelaw in round 3, Strathman and Pinelli in round 4)

From 2014-2020 we drafted one small North American and that was a 7th rounder used on TF-W. He has certainly played above his draft position.

In 2021 we drafted Malatesta in the 5th round. On its own not very noticeable, but when you look at 2022 and 2023 it shows the beginning of a shift. In 2022 we not only drafted a small North American in the 3rd round, we actually drafted one in the 1st round as well. Plus we only drafted 1 European non goalie after the first round in 2022, which was the lowest number since 2014. And then in 2023 we drafted 4 smaller North Americans, and only 1 non goalie European.

I find this very interesting. Is it a coincidence? Is there some weird factor contributing to it? Has COVID impacted our scouting? Did losing Torts change our drafting? Have we had a shift in how we evaluate players and are less concerned with size? Did the success of Tre Fix-Wolansky wake people up to the skill of small North Americans?

One thing that concerns me is we used to be pretty damn good finding value in later round European picks like Nuti, Gavi, Tex, Bemstrom, Marchenko, and hopefully Voronkov, but we havent been using our draft picks for Europeans the last two drafts.
 

Finner

Registered User
Dec 8, 2018
1,639
1,139
Draft selection A-. 1st and 2nd picks A++.
Electricity D. This was kind a boring draft?
 

CBJWerenski8

Formerly CBJWennberg10 (RIP Kivi)
Jun 13, 2009
42,487
24,450
I kinda lay in the middle of what the "experts" say and what we're saying on here.

I am fine with the CBJ taking multiple hard swings on smaller "talent" guys. Look at how valuable Dumais is even with his flaws. If a few of them hit, or appear to hit, they become good trade chips. If we get our own drafted version of DeBrincat, Caufield, or even Cam then I think we're good. The thing I do like about these guys is they all bring their own version of play. Brindley doesn't play to his small stature, Whitelaw is a wild card, the defenseman kid I think is the "safest" non Fantilli pick we got. I didn't love the goalie pick, I am fine with picking a goalie but I think they picked primarily based off size there.

I am fine with taking swings on players who were ranked highly but fell for certain reasons.

The last draft we went with a bigger mold of kids (Dolzchenkov, Jiricek, Mateychuk (with his weight not height) and Fisher) with some picks and smaller on others (Dumais, Ivanov). I am fine with taking some risks.

My meaningless draft grade because we won't know for another 3+ years: B+
 
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majormajor

Registered User
Jun 23, 2018
25,059
29,920
I am fine with the CBJ taking multiple hard swings on smaller "talent" guys. Look at how valuable Dumais is even with his flaws.

It's still up in the air if Dumais can become an NHLer so I wouldn't use him as proof that this works yet.

So far the only thing we know for sure is that these 5'9 forwards are good for scoring twitter points.
 

CBJWerenski8

Formerly CBJWennberg10 (RIP Kivi)
Jun 13, 2009
42,487
24,450
It's still up in the air if Dumais can become an NHLer so I wouldn't use him as proof that this works yet.

So far the only thing we know for sure is that these 5'9 forwards are good for scoring twitter points.
Well sure but Dumais hasn't even had an opportunity yet. If we were to put him on the table for a hypothetical trade, I think we'd get a very nice piece back. Which also matters.
 

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