ATD 2018 Summary

[TorontoTrades]

Expected Foote to be posted.. and sure enough lol. I knowingly went early on him to make sure I didn't miss out on him. He was my ideal partner for Paul Coffey. Picking 256th with no 12th round pick and waiting for 299th to pick again I had to make that pick happen then.

Not that I'm upset or anything just explaining my logic behind it.

 

[TorontoTrades]

'Worst' Selection
9th round: Jonathan Toews
11th round: Adam Foote
15th round: Butch Goring
20th round: Brian Campbell

..Don't expect a Christmas card.

 

[jarek]

I am puzzled by VanI thinking Pospisil was a bad pick. I thought he along with Cameron were the best D left when I took him.

 

[Sturminator]

I am puzzled by VanI thinking Pospisil was a bad pick. I thought he along with Cameron were the best D left when I took him.

I'd have taken Pospisil ahead of a few D taken before him.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Biggest Steal(s) of the draft: Tommy Smith and Red Sullivan. Passable 2nd line LW and passable 3rd line C in the 22nd round

Biggest Reach(es) of the draft: Johnny Bucyk at 55. Great player, but this is just way too early. HMs to Sundin at 141 and Konstantinov at 178.

Smartest/best strategic pick in the draft: I thought that rmartin was clever to draft Rod Gilbert where he did, because it allowed him to draft Stamkos late and make the line actually work.

Biggest blunder selection of the draft: Alf Smith looks like a really bad choice to add toughness to the top 6 of a team built around playmaking centers, since any top 6 offense he may have is largely based of recontructed assists, not his goal scoring.

A Player finally getting respect in the draft: Marty Barry is finally getting praised as the good value I always thought he was.

A player always taken too high, finally getting picked where he should in the draft: Bun Cook. First draft I've been in when I thought he was actually good value when selected.

A player you've discovered in this draft: Hmm... I guess Vladimir Martinec's defensive game has finally been fleshed out.

Most underrated player taken: I underrated Patrick Kane's historical position going into this draft and I wasn't the only one. Many GMs seem to still underrate Red Sullivan.

Most overrated player taken: I feel I say Wayne Cashman every year

Favorite scoring line of the draft: Cy Denneny - Frank Nighbor - Patrick Kane

Favorite checking line of the draft: Can I vote for myself? Sorry. I'll pick Herbie Lewis - Doug Gilmour - Marian Hossa then. That's the team's real checking line, right?

Best assembled line of the draft: #6 Hector "Toe" Blake (A) - #19 Steve Yzerman (C) - #5 Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion

Worst assembled line of the draft: Dick Duff - Vyacheslav Starshinov (R) - Frank Finnigan or Don Marshall - Russell Bowie - Owen Nolan. Why draft a goal scoring center and not even attempt to get wingers who can feed him?

Favorite pairing of defensemen: Picking Bobby Orr is cheating, so I'll go with Salming - Park.

Most puzzling pairing of defensemen: Willie Mitchell - Dave Burrows.

Team in the other conference it'd be interesting to meet in the finals: Any GM willing to make honest arguments for their team

Team in the other conference you wouldn't want to meet in the finals: Any GM willing to make dishonest arguments for their team

A funny/dramatic story (related to the ATD) you've learned about since the start of the draft: "My brudder is bedder than your brudder"

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

What’s so puzzling about a Pronovost - MacInnis pairing?

Al was no slouch defensively. So if you’re implying that he’s some kind of liability out there I disagree.

Information was presented this draft that Pronovost was really known as a rushing defenseman. (We already knew he was a guy who skated around looking for hits and at least sometimes rushing). That's a bad partner for early career MacInnis who wasn't terrible defensively, but wasn't what I'd call good, either. Late career MacInnis was subtly strong defensively, so I think he'd be fine with Pronovost, though it isn't necessarily how I'd use him.

 

[VanIslander]

Favorite checking line of the draft: Can I vote for myself? Sorry. I'll pick Herbie Lewis - Doug Gilmour - Marian Hossa then. That's the team's real checking line, right?

Tikhonov didn't have a checking line per se, (centers backchecked, wingers got to be as creative as they wanted) but yeah, that line is to go into skate-to-skate confrontations against the opposition's best line.

In protecting a lead, the team could very well ice Walsh between Selke finalists as wingers Tonelli and Kesler.

 

[kruezer]

Worst assembled line of the draft: Don Marshall - Russell Bowie - Owen Nolan. Why draft a goal scoring center and not even attempt to get wingers who can feed him?

Yeah this line is brutal, gonna need to reshuffle my bottom line forwards a little.

 

[Sturminator]

Biggest Steal(s) of the draft: Hall/Wentworth - no idea why these guys dropped to the 15th round.
Biggest Reach(es) of the draft: Vladimir Konstantinov - I hate to pick on Vladdy, but he needs to drop quite a bit in the draft.
Smartest/best strategic pick in the draft: Darryl Sittler - waited just the right amount of time to find a center for Gordie.
Biggest blunder selection of the draft: Darryl Sutter - think he'd hate that team's best scorers.
A Player finally getting respect in the draft: Sergei Kapustin - he's been slowly climbing, and is now about where he belongs, imo.
A player always taken too high, finally getting picked where he should in the draft: Larry Murphy
A player you've discovered in this draft: Alex Pietrangelo - had never really thought of him as an ATDer before, but he belongs.
Most underrated player taken: probably Dave Poulin
Most overrated player taken: Gary Suter, I guess
Favorite scoring line of the draft: Schriner - Ullman - Dillon
Favorite checking line of the draft: Pulford - Goyette - Provost
Best assembled line of the draft: Delvecchio - Fedorov - Selanne
Worst assembled line of the draft: Harris - Messier - Mosienko
Favorite pairing of defensemen: Johnson - Harvey
Most puzzling pairing of defensemen: Reinhart - Hatcher
Team in the other conference it'd be interesting to meet in the finals:
Team in the other conference you wouldn't want to meet in the finals:
A funny/dramatic story (related to the ATD) you've learned about since the start of the draft: The details of the Habs - Leafs rivalry, I guess.

---

Best selection: You cannot vote for players you own
1st round: Red Kelly
2nd round: Ted Lindsay
3rd round: Dickie Moore
4th round: Anatoli Firsov
5th round: J.C. Tremblay
6th round: Patrick Kane
7th round: Ed Belfour
8th round: Paul Thompson
9th round: Jiri Holecek
10th round: Darryl Sittler
11th round: Frank Fredrickson
12nd round: Baldy Northcott
13th round: Bernie Morris
14th round: Tiny Thompson
15th round: Cy Wentworth
16th round: Marty Pavelich
17th round: Hugh Lehman
18th round: Dave Poulin
19th round: Glen Harmon
20th round: Ron Ellis
21st round: Camille Henry
22nd round: Victor Kuzkin
23th round: Pete Mahovlich
24th round: Frank McGee
25th round: meh

'Worst' Selection
1st round: Larry Robinson
2nd round: Steve Yzerman
3rd round: Johnny Bucyk
4th round: Pavel Bure
5th round: Erik Karlsson
6th round: Mats Sundin
7th round: Sergei Zubov
8th round: Vladimir Konstantinov
9th round: Patrice Bergeron
10th round: Punch Broadbent
11th round: Henrik Sedin
12nd round: Pat Quinn
13th round: Pavol Demitra
14th round: Ken Hodge
15th round: none stand out as particularly bad
16th round: Victor Hedman
17th round: Pat Egan
18th round: Darryl Sutter
19th round: Bobby Holik
20th round: Bob Nystrom
21st round: nothing terrible
22nd round: ???
23th round: Taylor Hall
24th round: ???
25th round: meh

 

[Dreakmur]

Most overrated player taken: Gary Suter, I guess

He's not even the best Suter anymore.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

'Worst' Selection
2nd round: Steve Yzerman

I assume this is at least partly because of how guys like Boucher and Lalonde were still around 20 picks later, but if you look at it from a draft strategy point of view, neither were around when our next pick came up, and we still got a quality 1st line winger in Geoffrion in the 3rd round. My point is, I don't think we could've came up with a better combo if we went Winger 2nd round / Center 3rd round (without making a trade).

Also, for what it's worth, we did try to trade down from the Yzerman pick but got no takers.

As far as available Centers at the time we picked Yzerman, I have no problem conceding that you can make arguments that others available guys are better, but I certainly don't think it's clear cut (unlike Robinson - Kelly in the 1st round), and those guys are likely more difficult to build around.

I understand it's generally pretty hard to pick a "worst" selection in the early rounds, so I'm not taking this as a big mark against our team or anything, just telling you how papershoes and I were looking at it.

 

[VMBM]

A player you've discovered in this draft: Hmm... I guess Vladimir Martinec's defensive game has finally been fleshed out.

Has it though? Have I missed some wider discussion/essential quotes about it? I know the mention in the quote in DN28's thread on international hockey 1971-72, and there is another quote by a Czech journalist which I have posted earlier on HFBOARDS that has something about it, but both are rather just mentions in passing than something definitive. Or is it just that even small mentions in the case of Czechoslovak players are "worth of gold"?

But if the consensus was that his defensive game was non-existant (not in my view though!), then, I guess there has been at least something fleshed out...

 

[VanIslander]

... I don't think we could've came up with a better combo if we went Winger 2nd round / Center 3rd round (without making a trade).

The gaunlet has been thrown!

Yzerman-Geofferion
vs...

uh,...

35. papershoes & Hawkey Town 18 - Kenora Thistles - Steve Yzerman, C
36. Claude the Fraud - Winnipeg Jets - Mike Bossy, RW
37. Iceman - Stockholm Rockets - Ted Lindsay, LW
38. Habsfan18 - Vancouver Millionaires - Al MacInnis, D
39. Darth Yoda - Pominville Estacades - Sergei Makarov, RW
40. jarek - Kingsman Secret Agents - Pierre Pilote, D
41. Stoneberg & markrander87 - Halifax Citadels - Sprague Cleghorn, D
42. tinyzombies - N.D.G. Maroons - Chris Pronger, D
43. ResilientBeast - Edmonton Oilers - Fred "Cyclone" Taylor, C
44. Voight - Amarillo Bulls - Marcel Dionne, C
45. 29GoalHoglund - Brampton Beavers - Jacques Plante, G
46. VanIslander - Worcester Railers - Earl Seibert, D
47. Leaf Lander - Toronto Maple Leafs - Tim Horton, D
48. ResilientBeast - Edmonton Oilers - Charlie Conacher, RW
49. overpass - Ottawa Senators - Scott Stevens, D
50. Leaf Lander - Toronto Maple Leafs - Teemu Selanne, RW
51. VanIslander - Worcester Railers - Zdeno Chara, D
52. 29GoalHoglund - Brampton Beavers - Brian Leetch, D
53. Voight - Amarillo Bulls - Valery Kharlamov, LW
54. overpass - Ottawa Senators - Henri Richard, C
55. tinyzombies - N.D.G. Maroons - Johnny Bucyk, LW
56. Stoneberg & markrander87 - Halifax Citadels - Frank Boucher, C
57. Velociraptor - HC Kunlun Red Star - Syl Apps Sr., C
58. Darth Yoda - Pominville Estacades - Glenn Hall, G
59. Habsfan18 - Vancouver Millionares - Milt Schmidt, C
60. Iceman - Stockholm Rockets - Edouard "Newsy" Lalonde, C
61. Claude the Fraud - Winnipeg Jets- Peter Forsberg, C
62. papershoes & Hawkey Town 18 - Kenora Thistles - Bernie Geoffrion, RW

The Jets selected Mike Bossy & Petr Forsberg.
When healthy they edge out Yzerman-Boom Boom, but agreed, in terms of career length and ability to remain effective through injury, your duo slightly wins.

The Rockets have Lindsay-Lalonde... hands down, this blows Y-BB and B-F out of the water, if you truly look at what they did relative to era.

The Bulls have Dionne-Kharlamov, which is in the ballpark but ain't better.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Thanks for the reply VI, but none of those centers were on the board when we selected Geoffrion. That was my point, if we went winger in the 2nd round, the available centers to us in the 3rd would have been MUCH worse than Yzerman compared to whatever winger upgrade we would have gotten over Geoffrion.

 

[VanIslander]

hawkeytowm... I looked at your C and W.... in those two rounds... and looked at other W & C or C & W (order not important) those two rounds and came up with my last post...

It clearly shows the relative value of Yzerman-Geofferion over any other c&W (W&C) combo available!!!!!

That is what you were talking about essentially.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

hawkeytowm... I looked at your C and W.... in those two rounds... and looked at other W & C or C & W (order not important) those two rounds and came up with my last post...

It clearly shows the relative value of Yzerman-Geofferion over any other c&W (W&C) combo available!!!!!

That is what you were talking about essentially.

I understand your comparison and relative value to players taken in similar spots, but that is not what I was talking about. I was talking about our team's draft strategy. When we took Yzerman we did so because we didn't think there would be good value at center when our next pick came up (we were right, look at who was available) and we weren't confident about being able to make a reasonable trade up because we had just tried to trade down and got no takers.

 

[VanIslander]

As always, this is just an opinion:

I was talking about our team's draft strategy. When we took Yzerman we did so because we didn't think there would be good value at center when our next pick came up (we were right, look at who was available)...

You took Yzerman at 35th... your next pick was 62nd (Geoffrion a winger)... I showed how you could have gotten the same value and even better with a different C/W, W/C combo...

Now maybe you were myopic and only thinking of C and not considering options you'd have in the 3rd round,... then Yzerman at 35th beats the c's who would be available at 62nd (Kennedy, Malone... both of whom went much later). Though, again, why not trade down a few spots, and up a few spots next round to better what some other teams did!)

The fact is you should have drafted a W in the 2nd round to maximize your value, in hindsight (see my past post). Yet, if you were deadset on a C in the 2nd round, yeah, no other center better dropped to the 3rd round (unless you wanna make a case for Kennedy or Malone), but... you decided against several centers to take Yzerman (not Taylor, Lalonde, Henri Richard and Forsberg).

I don't envy the position you were in. I think the teams a bit later in that round did better valuewise, but I get the "Uh, we wanted a center and think Yzerman was a good one then" reasoning.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

As always, this is just an opinion:

You took Yzerman at 35th... your next pick was 62nd (Geoffrion a winger)... I showed how you could have gotten the same value and even better with a different C/W, W/C combo...

No we couldn't have, because none of the centers you listed were available when our 3rd round pick came up.

Now maybe you were myopic and only thinking of C and not considering options you'd have in the 3rd round,... then Yzerman at 35th beats the c's who would be available at 62nd (Kennedy, Malone... both of whom went much later).

We did want to take a Center with either our 2nd or 3rd round pick. Waiting longer than that was not part of our draft strategy as we put a fairly high importance on #1 C.

Though, again, why not trade down a few spots, and up a few spots next round to better what some other teams did!)

Also, for what it's worth, we did try to trade down from the Yzerman pick but got no takers.

When we took Yzerman we did so because we didn't think there would be good value at center when our next pick came up (we were right, look at who was available) and we weren't confident about being able to make a reasonable trade up because we had just tried to trade down and got no takers.

The fact is you should have drafted a W in the 2nd round to maximize your value, in hindsight (see my past post). Yet, if you were deadset on a C in the 2nd round, yeah, no other center better dropped to the 3rd round (unless you wanna make a case for Kennedy or Malone), but... you decided against several centers to take Yzerman (not Taylor, Lalonde, Henri Richard and Forsberg).

I don't envy the position you were in. I think the teams a bit later in that round did better valuewise, but I get the "Uh, we wanted a center and think Yzerman was a good one then" reasoning.

Taylor and Lalonde have arguments over Yzerman, Richard and Forsberg do not IMO.

Kennedy, Malone, etc., those are the types of Centers you should be looking at when analyzing our actual options for C/W combos, because that's who was available when our 3rd round pick came up.

IMO it would be unreasonable for us to assume Taylor, Lalonde, or Richard would be available when our 3rd round pick came up, none were, and Lalonde was the the only one even close, and most people were shocked he lasted that long (including myself).

It may have been reasonable to assume Forsberg would be available, but I don't think W-Forsberg is better than Yzerman-Geoffrion anyway, and you agreed above.

 

[overpass]

Taylor and Lalonde have arguments over Yzerman, Richard and Forsberg do not IMO.

Depends on what you're looking for. Yzerman brings substantial PP and PK value that Henri Richard does not. On the other hand, Henri Richard was clearly superior to Yzerman at even strength and is a top 5 C all-time at evens.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Depends on what you're looking for. Yzerman brings substantial PP and PK value that Henri Richard does not. On the other hand, Henri Richard was clearly superior to Yzerman at even strength and is a top 5 C all-time at evens.

I was speaking in terms of who's the better player (i.e. we're making a top centers list). I'd be hard pressed to rank Richard over Yzerman in that sense.

I see Richard has a strong ES Vs.X score while missing possibly his best season. Has there been any attempt to make a guess on what that season would be. Did he get PP time that season? My guess would be yes just based on his point total and Beliveau missing some games.

 

[Voight]

I still don't understand the selection of Jay Woodcroft, unless the GM is his brother in law or something.

The guy isn't really accomplished at all. He's never done anything significant except ride McLellans coattails (which hasn't gotten him anywhere), its almost as bad as drafting an arena.

I get it was the 25th round, but damn there were better assistant coaches available.

 

[tinyzombies]

Biggest Reach(es) of the draft: Johnny Bucyk at 55. Great player, but this is just way too early. HMs to Sundin at 141 and Konstantinov at 178.

A player always taken too high, finally getting picked where he should in the draft: Bun Cook. First draft I've been in when I thought he was actually good value when selected.

Worst assembled line of the draft: Dick Duff - Vyacheslav Starshinov (R) - Frank Finnigan or Don Marshall - Russell Bowie - Owen Nolan. Why draft a goal scoring center and not even attempt to get wingers who can feed him?

I didn’t have time to make a proper spreadsheet so I went by an avg of previous draft picks.

Wasn’t even thinking when I picked Bucyk. I know he’s not the 55th best player of all time. It’s not even close.

I fixed my third line by trading Broadbent for Bun Cook and I dropped Finnigan to my fourth line. I also moved Bernie Morris alongside, so: Bun Cook - Starshinov - Morris is now my third line. Finnigan further strengthens my checking line.