Have a few issues with your post,
@Edge
1. Comparisons to Miller and Kreider are... soft. There's a difference between "reaching" or "going safe" at 7OA versus 15OA and 19OA. This is why the established vernacular "first-round" pick is misleading. The first-round is really four different rounds for the most part. 1OA, 2-3, 4-10, everyone else. Generally, binning is bad. Even the "four rounds" thing I just did is bad. Each pick can be classified as it's own value, but the drop-off isn't consistent. The drop from 7 to 15 or 7 to 19 is huge.
2. Why are you ignoring Mittlestadt and Tippet? Two other guys who could've easily been picked at 7 and only focusing on Vilardi?
3. He was the third-ranked Euro skater, but how does that compare to where he was in the grand scheme of things? McKenzie has him at #13 in his aggregated list. Does that matter? I'm not sure. I think Klim Kostin was the #1 ranked Euro skater, right? And he went 31st.
4. It's' not that there was an "obvious, consensus" choice sitting on the board at #7. There very rarely ever is at that point in the draft. But, that doesn't take away from the fact that there were
potentially better picks on the board available than LA was.
For all intents and purposes, it seems like the Rangers drafted safe instead of for boom. The chance that LA will be an NHL player, is probably pretty high. At the very least, he'll establish himself as a bottom-6 player. But, does he have that boom potential to ever solidify himself as a first-line center? I have my personal doubts about that.
Meanwhile, you have guys like Mittlestadt, and Tippet, who, IMO, do have that boom potential. But, do they have the same floor that Andersson does? I don't know.
If I was Gorton, I'd have gone Tippet. Give me the shooter all day every day. Kid's played 10 games since being sent back to the OHL and has 56 shots on goal. 5th on the team and he's played at least 14 less games than anyone above him.
Volume shooters and goal scorers. Not safe guys. Safe is death in the draft. You can find quality middle-6 players on the FA market every year. You can't find first-liners all that often.
1. I think it really all comes down to what you view as Andersson's upside. To me, all the conversations begin and end with that basic premise. If you believe he's more of a 20/50 player, it's just fine. If you think he's more of a 15/40 player, you'll probably take issue with it. If you view him as the former, you probably use the word "safe" and likewise you probably use the word "reach" if you don't think the offense is there.
Personally, when we look at his production, in his role, and his team, it doesn't paint a picture of a player who is limited offensively. I still don't see him as a first line center, but I don't see him as a bottom line center either. I think he can very comfortably be a second option who brings more to the table than just offense.
2. I haven't ignored Mittlestadt or Tippet. They weren't in my most recent post because we were discussing Vilardi. However, I've addressed both Middlestat and Tippet in other posts.
3. I believe the point was that he wasn't some player who was completely out of left field.
4. Of course there were. And I don't think anyone has denied that. But I think the people who don't like the LA pick are seriously overstating the upside/odds of some of those other options, while simultaneously (and intentionally) understating the upside of Andersson. In the process, unintentionally perhaps, I think we're almost creating this narrative that there was an obvious pick out there. And there simply wasn't.
For all intents and purposes, it seems to be that people keep equating "safe" as meaning "without skill" and it almost always seems to come back to offense. LA has offensive skill and upside - it just isn't as high as some other options. That doesn't mean it's non-existent. While LA's odds are higher than other guys of playing in the NHL and tapping into the majority of his abilities, it shouldn't be interpreted as being his
ONLY attribute.
It's almost as if some people
want to create an impossible standard for Andersson, because they just didn't want him picked there.
If he's not going to score 30 goals or 70 points, we don't like that. Nevermind that he very well could score 20/50.
If he doesn't have the highest offensive upside, we don't like that. Nevermind that he doesn't exactly project as Jan Erixon either.
If he has areas in his game he needs to work on, we don't like that. Nevermind that every single player around him has things they are working on.
People were told there was a possibility he could make the NHL, but he didn't. So we don't like that. Nevermind that most of the other kids who "made" the NHL out of camp are already down with their respective junior/overseas clubs.
We talk about going for broke as if we weren't missing a first rounder five years in a row, or as if Andersson is completely devoid of offensive ability. We've turned "safe" into a four a letter word and manipulated it into something it isn't. And we keep beating that drum while ignoring a plethora of other factors - about the player we drafted, and about the ones we didn't.
Yeah, Tippet puts a lot of shots on goal, and he lacks in a number of other areas. He looks like a very impressive junior scorer - and there are a lot of very impressive junior scorers who become journeymen NHL players because they score just enough to stay employed, but don't bring quite enough other elements to be a core player.
Tippet has a shot to be a very good NHL player, and yes, he might be better than Andersson.
And Andersson has a shot to be a very good NHL player, and yes, he might be better than Tippet.
So what happens if Tippet scores 30 goals, 55 points and is a guy who is deployed as an offensive weapon and Anderson scores 20 goals, 50 points but is deployed in all situations? Is 10 goals and 5 points worth more than the overall play? How do we assign values to these things?
I think we base some of these assumptions off the highest upside for a guy like Tippet and the lowest upside for a guy like Andersson. Well, no kidding it's going to look lopsided.
But let's not equate the word "Safe" as being without "skill." There's a fair amount of skill there with LA - including a high hockey IQ, the ability to get into position, adaptability, a good shot, a good frame, two-way awareness and a high compete level.
When people talk about Andersson, they mention an upside similar to guys like O'Reilly or Horvat or other players in that mold. Those guys were seen as "Safe" in their draft years. They've never been mistaken for the most talented player on just about any higher level team they've played for - be it juniors or at the pro level. No one ever projected a point per game pace from them, or saw them as the driving offensive players of their teams.
But yeah, if we're going to take Andersson's low-end projection, and everyone else's high end projections, that's going to paint a pretty unflattering picture for our selection.
