Prospect Info: Devils Picking 4th Overall, Part II

[PKs Broken Stick]

Oh lord. Incoming Reinhart and Risto for our 4th trade incoming .
I have my mind set on one of Hughes or Clarke so that trade would make me want to puke. I nav t even really stopped to think if it would be any good for us or nkt as we need a 1d in a huge way.
Now if we signed Hamilton on top of that .., then maybe it looks a little better.

Hamilton Reinhart Risto F.Anderson in net and Tarasenko via trade. Ok let’s go !

If fitz traded 4th overall for Risto, to say I'd be mad would be putting it very lightly. Maybe if it came with Dahlin too.

 

[Emperoreddy]

If fitz traded 4th overall for Risto, to say I'd be mad would be putting it very lightly. Maybe if it came with Dahlin too.

Reinhart and Risto is what he suggested.

 

[TBF1972]

In 5 years this draft might be a complete mess and a redraft will look entirely different. It will be very interesting to see how it turns out but this year has the most potential for “ what the hell were people thinking drafting Player X when player Y was still available.
Or how the hell did player X slide all the way down to the second round . I just hope our pick pans out to be good and worthy of where we selected.

so let's draft player y ... i mean player x ...
can't you be just consistent with whom the good player is?

 

[aboriginal]

so let's draft player y ... i mean player x ...
can't you be just consistent with whom the good player is?

x gon give it to ya

 

[TBF1972]

Nope. I didn’t say that. I say if the difference isn’t big or visible you are going for need between two or three who you think are BPA’s with no visible/obvious difference.
Every freaking one who said Sanderson isn’t top 10 pick last year, are eating shit right now. You didn’t answer my question about how can we pick between defenseman and forward without visible/obvious difference. But you choose Eklund because of his potential offensive impact. As I said, and I will repeat, you will never build contender or good playoff team. In your vision Tampa had to draft Duchene instead Hedman. You can answer “so what? They hadn’t to draft Stamkos year ago?” No. Difference was obvious. But you know what? 2ndOA doughty was two Stanley cup champion when Stamkos only try to dream about.
So you can never answer how can we understand what we must choose between forward and defenseman. But you know what? You need only six good defenseman to build great defensive line. And it helps to play in conference final or even Stanley cup final. Ask Montreal and islanders fans. If you will build the team in your way? You can ask about it some.. oilers fans. They drafted only one defenseman from 2007 to 2017 by their high pick. They drafted A LOT of BPA in your vision. And you know what? They svck. They svck so hard like no one before. Connor fockin McDaivad play there, best player of the generation. Two playoffs in six years. Leon Draisaitl - top-7 player in the last five years. In the year when oilers got Hall and played together with Eberle, #1OA Hopkins, #1OA Yakupov, with Patric Maroon who helped Devils to make a playoff, their goalie Talbot make 91.7%, backup goalie make 90.1%. And they didn’t make the fockin playoff! You know why? Because their defensive line svck.
Do you know why they are still svck for the team play with a couple of the greatest players of modern days? Because their defense is still svcks.
I could even agree with you. Eklund is very interesting and promising prospect. But when Devils have Hughes, Hischier, Yegor, Janne, Zacha and Bratt, Foote, Holtz and Mercer in their roster and prospect pull, and our future defensive line is looking like Smith and no one, may be Bahl may be not, may be “I will never become a really good defender” Severson may be not… your tactic for this draft svcks. Svcks so hard.

dissmiss!

(I want you to know that I have nothing personal against you. this is a great forum, and I'm sure you're a very nice person. my speech was intentionally emotional, although it is based on consistent logic and conclusions about modern successful teams. I just don't want our franchise not to develop, and it obviously needs a good defense for development as soon as possible, and without it the devils will not succeed. And I specifically added theatricality and rudeness)

but you can always pick up a slavin type in the fourth round.

 

[TBF1972]

If the top-3 are all D, then you absolutely take Beniers at 4 and laugh all the way to the bank. The best forward of the draft falling to you at #4 is a steal in every way.

False. Eklund is the best forward in this draft.

False. Guenther is the best forward in this draft.

how can you defend your forward thinking?

 

[TBF1972]

They trade Johansson because they play him in top-3/6 center role. We will not give that role to Beniers.

Buffalo doesn’t make rebuild. They are svck) year after year. Colorado - good example. They drafted forwards and defensemen in that period.

I remember correctly how Yakupov wasn’t an obvious pick. Hopkins was. Larsson over Hopkins? Is it really bad? They can not trade Hall and be more competitive. And there were obvious difference between Hall and seguin and others. Don’t try to change my narrative. This is not about draft defenseman over forward every time. This is about draft defenseman when you need defenseman, your D core isn’t ready and difference isn’t obvious. I don’t like your substitution of my concepts)


Again. Their draft choices weren’t bad. They just didn’t draft defensemen when they have good option and it ruined them.
About Yamamoto I can't say anything. I don't know how thing working in those draft. If they were wrong here, but chose to pick D in their previous not obvious situations - I think picture could be better. May be could be better only. Like you said its easy to judge the past. Yes. It is. I'm not oilers fan. I'm devils fan and I try to change my mind in better way when I have more data.
What can I say about our draft? Our rebuild started in 2015. Do you know what I mean? There were two drafts when devils have option to draft defensemen. Things could change after and devils could not win those lotteries. And draft other impact players like zebras, cozens, heiskanen, etc. If we will - i understand logic to draft Hischier. There are no choice between him and Makar. There were choice between him and Patrick. I'm ok with that. I was not with McLeod draft. And I'm not hater of Mickey and Pavel. I just try to look at the past and try to understand how to make better decisions. When things are not obvious.

Drafting Jones and drafting Beniers isn't the same story. Jones played top-4 role, Beniers will not play top6 center role. Anyway he must be drafted, after that he must start to play in roster, after that he must start to play winger role and fit there. (Don't forget we have Yegor, Pavel and Foote for that role). He must be better than experienced guys. And only after that we can trade him for defenseman. Whom we are lack. Wow. Do you think its a hard way to trade for defenseman? I think yes. Easier way to draft and develop him.

Things are not obvious today. I truly belive best forward will be drafted where we don't expect. I thing story can repeat itself here for defenseman too. But we don't choose between all defensemen. This is about only two or three names.

honestly i think you are late to the party with your passionate arguments, as the devils started the rebuild with their forward core.

if you do a rebuild from scratch, you should prioritize first the positions, which take longest to develop. obviously you don't ignore a connor mcdavid like talent to just draft the best tender in a draft. but as forwards normally have the quickest impact on the nhl roster, you can still add them, when the defensive groundwork has been laid out.
drafting d and g first has less impact on the w-l column or, if they play early in the nhl, a negative one, which again allows you in future drafts to draft early the missing f. loser mentality and a lot of talented players coming of their elc's at the same time are potential road blocks to build a contender like this.

if we look at the current nj devils, the nhl roster has the youngest forward core (with johnsson the oldest at 26), a patch work defensive group with only smith and severson looking like mid to long term options and blackwood and nothing else matters between the pipe. the next look to the prospect pipeline shows mostly forwards, which we expect to make noise on the nhl level in the near future. foote, mercer, holtz are the prime assets sitting in the pipeline. the bahls, muk, ok, vuk fraction seem to need some maturation to develop some offensive/puck possession skills and walsh doesn't qualify for much more than the butcher role. the goalie pipeline is just a shade lighter than a black hole.

i agree with you, that the devils need to invest more draft capital towards the defense/goalie. i just fear the roi of those picks will arrive too late.

 

[Guadana]

I think there's another side to the BPA vs need debate that hasn't been touched upon, but forgive me if it has. Need changes. A team might draft for need now, but then three years down the line, they may have wished they drafted a player from a position we may have perceived as a strength at the time, but has since become a weakness. For example, in 2016, we drafted McLeod, who was absolute need at the time. We had no forwards in the pool, so he made sense. Looking at it now, though, we seemingly have strength in forwards and a defensive weakness, which would have been solved by drafting what might have been BPA (McAvoy or Chychrun) over McLeod.

Even though we have a need at defense right now, we might draft a defender and then happen to be stuck in a defensive logjam when they are ready to contribute three years down the line, and we might wish we got a winger like Dylan Guenther who could definitely be BPA on some boards. I am not saying this situation is going to happen, but it has happened to us in the past.

What is your opinion on this idea of need changing over time?

That’s great take.
The question is - how our prospect pool was lookin when we draft McLeod and how it looks now. How our roster pool was lookin and how it’s lookin now.
We drafted McLeod when we already know Gelinas isn’t good player. Moore was Moore with his good and bad sides of his game, Merril played exactly like Merril every year and Devils were exposed him year after and were very lucky, Helgeson and Scarlett were our best defensemen in Albany and Devils did try Seth on the big ice. He wasn’t impressive) Wecould say that in Zacha draft our defensive prospect pool was promising, not year after.
And Devils made trade back. There were a good chance to draft Chychrun or Mcavoy.

today we have an obvious picture that we have Bratt - top-6 player, and Kukka… middle-6 player. I think Bastian is great for the fourth liner. I would say Great. He is good positionaly, he is good forechecker and he makes good and smart simple decisions with the puck, he is very hard puckbattler. This is how fourth liner must to look like. And guys like that aren’t very often product. People who think we can easily find another one just forgot how long we were lack of guy like that. Who is tough, who can be competitive enough. And the most important thing - he has a chemistry. That’s most important thing in hockey. yes we must add rwinger here and now. But we have Holtz and Mercer who are very promising prospects. Much more promising than our defensive prospect. We have Clarke who was +/- one of the best on AHL ice. Even Thompson can turn into something if he will work on himself a lot.
I wrote before that development of young forward is a long way that never guarantee we can trade him for good defenseman after.

What we have with defense… funny question) Smith, whom I don’t wanna play against speedy aggressive skilled players. And Severson - our best defenseman who was never be a good nhl defenseman in protecting breakaways, zone playing and on the slot. Prospect pool? Bahl is big and strong in puck battles but he doesn’t understand where he should be. He can grow into 2nd pair great shot down guy, but he isn’t for now. Okhotyuk was lookin good in defensive game in ahl, but I can’t say he makes right decisions when the puck is on his stick. I would say I like Vukoevic too, but both didn’t produce much. Vukoevic had a good start but after he doesn’t have a lot of points. And we don’t know how they will play against real competitive players. Walsh? God, no. No. No. Butcher is breaking my heart all the time. Walsh is exactly like Butcher clone. Mukha is interesting, but he is raw and his weakness is play with the puck under pressure. We don’t know how he live with that on the short rink.

I really hope someone or a couple of someone’s will be Nhl defensemen. But we don’t have real signs of that. And it’s a freakin full line of players. In modern NHL teams with good defensive lines are much more successful than teams with good offensive line and bad defensive line.

And the most fun time for me. Dallas 2015. 2nd best scoring team. No playoff. Dallas 2020. 3rd worst scoring team, but second best GA. Stanley cup final. If we will remember offensive and defensive line of Stanley cup finalist Nashville, islanders success, etc. this is how modern hockey works. Team must have great defense to win, team must have great everything to try to win Cup. We svck at defense. If we want playoff and success, we Must draft defensemen, find them on the markets and trades. No matter how much pucks they score in COVID year. If Defenseman will be great in his work - he is what we need to have. If our scouts think that Edvinsson is a future top-4 D, no matter how much pucks he will score, we need him and he is what we must to draft. No matter how impactful Eklund or Guenther will be. Because we will never have top-4 defenseman in his prime if we will not draft him.

Btw if Fitz has an option to trade Zacha/Bratt/4th pick for young good defenseman I think he must to make it. But I don’t think this is gonna happen.

 

[Guadana]

honestly i think you are late to the party with your passionate arguments, as the devils started the rebuild with their forward core.

if you do a rebuild from scratch, you should prioritize first the positions, which take longest to develop. obviously you don't ignore a connor mcdavid like talent to just draft the best tender in a draft. but as forwards normally have the quickest impact on the nhl roster, you can still add them, when the defensive groundwork has been laid out.
drafting d and g first has less impact on the w-l column or, if they play early in the nhl, a negative one, which again allows you in future drafts to draft early the missing f. loser mentality and a lot of talented players coming of their elc's at the same time are potential road blocks to build a contender like this.

if we look at the current nj devils, the nhl roster has the youngest forward core (with johnsson the oldest at 26), a patch work defensive group with only smith and severson looking like mid to long term options and blackwood and nothing else matters between the pipe. the next look to the prospect pipeline shows mostly forwards, which we expect to make noise on the nhl level in the near future. foote, mercer, holtz are the prime assets sitting in the pipeline. the bahls, muk, ok, vuk fraction seem to need some maturation to develop some offensive/puck possession skills and walsh doesn't qualify for much more than the butcher role. the goalie pipeline is just a shade lighter than a black hole.

i agree with you, that the devils need to invest more draft capital towards the defense/goalie. i just fear the roi of those picks will arrive too late.

I think we are agree in all of the aspects.
About party - this is a part of ranks of mistakes and making conclusions. Anyway if we made some, let’s not make another one.

 

[Guadana]

but you can always pick up a slavin type in the fourth round.

I really want it) give me an inside please.

 

[TBF1972]

I really want it) give me an inside please.

i am no talent evaluator. i lack in skills.
i just know playing defense is actually a skill and not just pure will and determination, which every player can learn.

 

[aboriginal]

how can you defend your forward thinking?

with reverse psychology

 

[PKs Broken Stick]

For example, in 2016, we drafted McLeod, who was absolute need at the time. We had no forwards in the pool, so he made sense. Looking at it now, though, we seemingly have strength in forwards and a defensive weakness, which would have been solved by drafting what might have been BPA (McAvoy or Chychrun) over McLeod.

Eh, I think a lot of people were not happy we went "need" in that draft. I think most of us wanted Keller or Jost, but with those guys getting taken, my personal next wish was Chychrun. I certainly was not happy with mcleod pick.

 

[aboriginal]

Pretty sure everyone wanted chychrun.

 

[Its Always Sundstrom]

Pretty sure everyone wanted chychrun.

I wanted Chicklets and I got them but they ran out of flavor.

And McAvoy.

This year, Clarke Bar.

 

[My3Sons]

Pretty sure everyone wanted chychrun.

If NJ had picked Provorov and Chychrun instead of Zacha and McLeod I'm not sure if the recent record would have been that much better but the roster would seem to be more balanced. Shero just never put much effort into assembling the defense and it's hard to say he had a good idea of what NHL defense is given his belief in Butcher and Mueller. Hopefully Fitz sees it more clearly.

 

[Hisch13r]

If NJ had picked Provorov and Chychrun instead of Zacha and McLeod I'm not sure if the recent record would have been that much better but the roster would seem to be more balanced. Shero just never put much effort into assembling the defense and it's hard to say he had a good idea of what NHL defense is given his belief in Butcher and Mueller. Hopefully Fitz sees it more clearly.

Well Fitz apparently wants Risto so....

 

[My3Sons]

Well Fitz apparently wants Risto so....

Do we know that for sure or was it something speculated? Also, if the call was "hey, we'll take Risto and give you Butcher and Thompson" I wouldn't have a problem with that. Risto is still in BUF so it couldn't have been much interest from NJ.

 

[Its Always Sundstrom]

I personally have always been intrigued by Risto. With 1 year left, I would pick him up in a Murray like trade. None of this 4th pick for him and SR nonsense. Plays well, keep him or trade him and PK off at the deadline.

 

[Hisch13r]

Do we know that for sure or was it something speculated? Also, if the call was "hey, we'll take Risto and give you Butcher and Thompson" I wouldn't have a problem with that. Risto is still in BUF so it couldn't have been much interest from NJ.

I have a big problem with anything that isn't "we'll take Risto off your hands as a cap dump if you give us back something good". Risto's terrible. He's worse than Butcher and makes ~1.7 more than Butcher. I read that Buffalo doesn't really want to move him unless it's for a good deal. Maybe it's some interest but not enough to get him. Any interest at all is a bad thing though.

 

[aboriginal]

I wanted Chicklets and I got them but they ran out of flavor.

And McAvoy.

This year, Clarke Bar.

 

[My3Sons]

I have a big problem with anything that isn't "we'll take Risto off your hands as a cap dump if you give us back something good". Risto's terrible. He's worse than Butcher and makes ~1.7 more than Butcher. I read that Buffalo doesn't really want to move him unless it's for a good deal. Maybe it's some interest but not enough to get him. Any interest at all is a bad thing though.

I guess it's a matter of degree. I think Butcher is so limited that he's a net drag on NJ even if he could be somewhat effective elsewhere. The same is true for Risto in my view. On a strict third pairing role on a decent team he'd probably be fine. That said trading for another third pair guy in Siegenthaler doesn't make much sense to me unless it was for another buddy for Nico. I guess we will see. At this point, NJ needs to keep the third pair open for development and has to get another left handed veteran to play in a top four role for the upcoming season. I hope the plan goes beyond rolling out a defense of:

Smith Severson
Siegenthaler Subban
Butcher (Bahl?)

That would be ugly. Fingers crossed Fitz and the analytics guys and the pro scouts can cooperate and figure it out.

 

[aboriginal]

Maybe it’s cuz I always want moar finns here but taking a flier on risto would prob worth it. Could help the pp and an another offensive element from the back. And if it doesn’t work out, deal him at the deadline for something. Just get this f***ing kraken draft over with so we can go back to business.

 

[StevenToddIves]

I was never try to say Edvinsson is a new Hedman) I just don't wait something like that from him. Anyway there is great gap between good usable top-4 defenseman and Hedman.
But Sanderson... I don't know. May be? I want players who can be at least maybe. Too bad we were 7, not 5 last year.

I feel that Sanderson is actually a very good comparable for Edvinsson in that they are both left-shot defensemen who have big potential as physical, shut-down D. Both players have had a bit of variation with their draft-year rankings due to questions regarding their offensive potential.

However, I also feel this is an unfair comparison for Edvinsson. Sanderson was one of the younger players available for the 2020 draft, with a July 2002 birthday, while Edvinsson is also on the young side with a February 2003 birthdate. But Sanderson is just over a half year older, and in 2020 he was far and away the most polished defender available in the draft. Edvinsson is a bit of a project, still susceptible to turnovers and missed coverages which we rarely saw out of the amazingly steady Sanderson.

Edvinsson has three elite traits which are his calling cards -- he's an outstanding skater at 6'5, and he's a tremendous puck-handler. He's also quite physical and competitive. Though Sanderson is decidedly smaller at 6'1 and is not as accomplished a stickhandler as Edvinsson, I'd say these are the only traits which Edvinsson can claim over Sanderson.

Sanderson is a superior skater and superior defensive player, he's better positionally; a far better passer and shooter. I'd say Sanderson's offensive potential is far greater. In his draft year, he improved dramatically on the offensive side of the puck all year long and finished with 9 goals and 43 points in 66 games -- and yet faced constant criticism about his offense from numbers-watchers who really did not take the time to watch the fact that this is a player who does not take chances on offense unless his defensive chores are taken care of. Edvinsson finished his own draft-eligible season with 1 goal and 12 points in 38 games despite often taking extreme risks offensively -- and yet many of the same writers who dismissed Sanderson seem to constantly discuss Edvinsson's "huge offensive upside".

Last year, I ranked Jake Sanderson in my top 5 and I stand by that. I'd say he's right there right now with Bowen Byram and Jamie Drysdale in the conversation for top defense prospect in the NHL.

This year, I very much like Simon Edvinsson but I do not consider him a top 10 prospect in the draft. He simply has a lot of work to do defensively and it takes a ton of projection to assume a kid without high end traits in passing, shooting or hockey IQ will someday become a big point-producer at the NHL level. I'd compare Edvinsson more to a kid like Braden Schneider, whom I also really liked last year, but not as a top 10 pick. I think he's be a huge factor defensively with his size and speed combination juxtaposed with physicality and compete. But taking him at #4 overall would be a big stretch in my personal estimation, as he's not exactly air-tight defensively and suspect offensively.

 

[Devils731]

Who wants to take a stab on which prospects they’re discussing?