MLD 2017 Draft Thread

[seventieslord]

Milan Hejduk, a steal in round 1? is he even as good as Kovalev? I'm not trying to pump up Kovalev at all, not my player anymore, not a fan, but he's a top line caliber player in this draft. Hejduk might be as well, but just a run-of-the-mill scoring liner, nothing that screams "OMG you're a fool if you don't take this guy RIGHT AWAY in round 1".

 

[seventieslord]

Really glad to see VI take Hitchcock and Tikhonov. I would say that even if he had Kovalev, Ribeiro, and Iafrate on his squad. These guys are so good that the team fit is secondary at this point. To see them fall any further would have been nothing short of a joke.

There are still three more coaches who need to be selected soon, but they're not as glaring as those two in their omission thus far.

 

[VanIslander]

Milan Hejduk, a steal in round 1? is he even as good as Kovalev? I'm not trying to pump up Kovalev at all, not my player anymore, not a fan, but he's a top line caliber player in this draft. Hejduk might be as well, but just a run-of-the-mill scoring liner, nothing that screams "OMG you're a fool if you don't take this guy RIGHT AWAY in round 1".

His effort wasn't as questionable as Kovy's and his peak was also greater than Kovalev's. Milan won the Rocket Richard. Milan also had a better 7-year peak. And two years before that he led the NHL in goals, The Duke was the Avs' leading winger and team's assist leader in the Stanley Cup championship postseason (Kovy wasn't top-3 in Rags goals or assists in their championship).

So, to sum up: One of the two had a stellar regular season, a better 7-year peak, a greater cup postseason and no knocks on his work ethic.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Really glad to see VI take Hitchcock and Tikhonov. I would say that even if he had Kovalev, Ribeiro, and Iafrate on his squad. These guys are so good that the team fit is secondary at this point. To see them fall any further would have been nothing short of a joke.

There are still three more coaches who need to be selected soon, but they're not as glaring as those two in their omission thus far.

Hitchcock not getting taken in the main draft is indeed baffling. Sure he's one of those coaches kind of obsessed with defense, but as those coaches go, he's not even that tough. He proved with Brett Hull that he could coach primadonnas just fine

Tikhonov makes sense, as he's quite difficult to build a team for in this format.

 

[Johnny Engine]

Sure he's one of those coaches kind of obsessed with defense, but as those coaches go, he's not even that tough. He proved with Brett Hull that he could coach primadonnas just fine.

I got the feeling that building an "offense first" team was trendy this year to the point that a lot of GMs maybe didn't even realize where they stood among the rest of the league, stylistically. For a hypothetical example, and to pick a handful of easy-to-discuss modern players, if Henrik Sedin, Jeremy Roenick and Nicklas Backstrom are all third line centres, yes, those are skilled guys who bring more than a shutdown game. But if the team with Backstrom wants to build a 3rd line that gives them a competitive advantage over the other team, they'd want a defensive coach that plays up the fact that their guy's two-way game is a bit better than the other two, right? Not to get in line behind a dozen other teams to draft the 20th best offensive-minded coach of all time.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I got the feeling that building an "offense first" team was trendy this year to the point that a lot of GMs maybe didn't even realize where they stood among the rest of the league, stylistically. For a hypothetical example, and to pick a handful of easy-to-discuss modern players, if Henrik Sedin, Jeremy Roenick and Nicklas Backstrom are all third line centres, yes, those are skilled guys who bring more than a shutdown game. But if the team with Backstrom wants to build a 3rd line that gives them a competitive advantage over the other team, they'd want a defensive coach that plays up the fact that their guy's two-way game is a bit better than the other two, right? Not to get in line behind a dozen other teams to draft the 20th best offensive-minded coach of all time.

Well, for basically every draft I participated in, defensive-first players were always drafted too high relative to offense-first players of similar quality. As such, the average value of offensive guys just made them the more likely choice for GMs who wanted to win. I believe Sturminator is the one who really first exploited this skewing of supply and demand in favor of offensive teams; Rob Scuderi and I both won 2 championships with it, as well, though I at least tried to have my teams more balanced in a way that I don't think Rob even bothered with.

I didn't really follow this last draft; from what you said, would you say that it seems the pendulum may have finally swung the other way, where there is a glut of offensive teams and not enough defensive... to the point where there might actually be better value in building a defense-first team?

I mean - I never went into the ATD intending to build offense-first teams, but it always happened based on where I thought the value was.
_____

Though with good coaches, there just is a glut of defense-first guys compared to the other way around.

 

[seventieslord]

His effort wasn't as questionable as Kovy's and his peak was also greater than Kovalev's. Milan won the Rocket Richard. Milan also had a better 7-year peak. And two years before that he led the NHL in goals, The Duke was the Avs' leading winger and team's assist leader in the Stanley Cup championship postseason (Kovy wasn't top-3 in Rags goals or assists in their championship).

So, to sum up: One of the two had a stellar regular season, a better 7-year peak, a greater cup postseason and no knocks on his work ethic.

Why is being 4th in points playing next to a Hart winner any better than being 5th playing next to a Ross winner?

In Kovalev's next best seasons, he was 10th, 11th and 19th.
In Hejduk's next best, he was 14th, 22nd and 24th.

Did Kovalev benefit from excellent linemates in most of his best seasons? Yes he did. But not in 2008. This was a truly outstanding season, and Hejduk never did anything close to that.

In Kovalev's 7-year prime (01-08) he outscored the players who scored points with him by 38% on average. This is similar to players like Robitaille and Recchi. Hejduk's number? 8%. That's in the Glen Murray range - the type of number that makes it clear you were never a catalyst.

And by the way, this:

(Kovy wasn't top-3 in Rags goals or assists in their championship).

...is a truly disgusting manipulation of facts in an attempt to make a point. Kovalev was 3rd in points for the Rangers in the 1994 playoffs, something obviously more important than goals or assists on their own.

I'll take the playoff record of the guy with 24 more points in just 11 more games, or to put another way, the guy with six 10+ point playoffs over the guy with two.

 

[Theokritos]

A little observation by a non-participant: If I didn't make mistake when counting, 46 of the 592 players picked in the 2017 ATD were Europeans who were eligible for the HOH European non-NHLers project. That's 7.8 % of all players in the ATD. In the 2017 MLD, 7 of the 143 players picked would have been eligible for the same project. That's 4.9 % of all players in the MLD. (In the ATD, 4.9 % would mean only 29 of those players would have been picked, not 46). Any idea what the reason for this disparity could be?

 

[Johnny Engine]

Well, for basically every draft I participated in, defensive-first players were always drafted too high relative to offense-first players of similar quality. As such, the average value of offensive guys just made them the more likely choice for GMs who wanted to win. I believe Sturminator is the one who really first exploited this skewing of supply and demand in favor of offensive teams; Rob Scuderi and I both won 2 championships with it, as well, though I at least tried to have my teams more balanced in a way that I don't think Rob even bothered with.

I didn't really follow this last draft; from what you said, would you say that it seems the pendulum may have finally swung the other way, where there is a glut of offensive teams and not enough defensive... to the point where there might actually be better value in building a defense-first team?

I mean - I never went into the ATD intending to build offense-first teams, but it always happened based on where I thought the value was.
_____

Though with good coaches, there just is a glut of defense-first guys compared to the other way around.

That was my perception anyway. And I think the angle you're looking at from - supply and demand - and the angle I'm looking at it from - traits being relative - both apply. And I think you have to keep both approaches in mind if you're going to fully take advantage of the inefficiencies that exist in this mini-market. If you've gone out and drafted the most offensive team possible - let's say you started with Lafleur, and you added Coffey, Dionne, and Kovalchuk along the way, you need to be right up in line to get yourself a Sather or some other coach that will let your horses run. But if you started with a balanced lineup, and when it came time to pick out your bottom sixers, you're still thinking "no, I want some skill, I'm going to take a player that's decent defensively but has a good VsX score, and leave Draper and Jarvis on the shelf", then you're still giving yourself the chance to be way better defensively than the first guy, especially if you pick a Hitchcock, or an Imlach. These guys don't need Peter Laviolette to let them score goals and win - Brett Hull and Sergei Zubov will tell you that any day of the week.

 

[VanIslander]

A little observation by a non-participant: If I didn't make mistake when counting, 46 of the 592 players picked in the 2017 ATD were Europeans who were eligible for the HOH European non-NHLers project. That's 7.8 % of all players in the ATD. In the 2017 MLD, 7 of the 143 players picked would have been eligible for the same project. That's 4.9 % of all players in the MLD. (In the ATD, 4.9 % would mean only 29 of those players would have been picked, not 46). Any idea what the reason for this disparity could be?

No Soviets were drafted in the MLD but at least 3-4 should have been selected without a doubt. (They will be heralded in the AAA 2017 )

If I wasn't building my squad around two non-NHL Swedish greats, I would've snapped some up. (A team can only have a few question marks in terms of competition level.) And ironically, my team's coach, Soviet Tikhonov, made me have to ignore a few of the Soviet greats, as he really did hate one of them and would have disliked the lack of hard work without the puck of another.

 

[Hobnobs]

A little observation by a non-participant: If I didn't make mistake when counting, 46 of the 592 players picked in the 2017 ATD were Europeans who were eligible for the HOH European non-NHLers project. That's 7.8 % of all players in the ATD. In the 2017 MLD, 7 of the 143 players picked would have been eligible for the same project. That's 4.9 % of all players in the MLD. (In the ATD, 4.9 % would mean only 29 of those players would have been picked, not 46). Any idea what the reason for this disparity could be?

The ATD canon rests on what ethno-centric people said about players in the past. Usually this means that euros (mostly older ones) get undervalued.

 

[Theokritos]

The ATD canon rests on what ethno-centric people said about players in the past. Usually this means that euros (mostly older ones) get undervalued.

That would be a potential answer to a question that looked something like this: "Do European players tend to be undervalued by the ATD participants? And if so, why is that the case?"

But my question was: why do European players seem to get valued more in the ATD than in the MLD?

 

[jarek]

That would be a potential answer to a question that looked something like this: "Do European players tend to be undervalued by the ATD participants? And if so, why is that the case?"

But my question was: why do European players seem to get valued more in the ATD than in the MLD?

Probably because the depth of European talent falls off much more steeply than NHL talent, and I don't necessarily think it's linear either.

For example, the 200th best NHLer is probably as good as the 150th best European. The 300th best NHLer is probably as good as the 175th best European. Etc.

 

[Hobnobs]

That would be a potential answer to a question that looked something like this: "Do European players tend to be undervalued by the ATD participants? And if so, why is that the case?"

But my question was: why do European players seem to get valued more in the ATD than in the MLD?

Theyre not, they just enter the "questionable" domain much faster than north americans.

 

[seventieslord]

Did I just dream that VI posted something outlining an approximate timeline for the rest of the MLD and the AAA draft?

 

[VanIslander]

I sent two non-MLD ATDers PMs asking them to collect regular season ranking votes, but neither has replied yet. Expect to receive a PM when it's set.

Voting is scheduled for August 21st and 22nd, just over a week from now.

If you wanna assassinate then go ahead and post your line-up here. I suspect that most just wanna get on with voting. But there's 8 more days to do something or do nothing before voting opens.

 

[Namba 17]

A little observation by a non-participant: If I didn't make mistake when counting, 46 of the 592 players picked in the 2017 ATD were Europeans who were eligible for the HOH European non-NHLers project. That's 7.8 % of all players in the ATD. In the 2017 MLD, 7 of the 143 players picked would have been eligible for the same project. That's 4.9 % of all players in the MLD. (In the ATD, 4.9 % would mean only 29 of those players would have been picked, not 46). Any idea what the reason for this disparity could be?

The vast majority of the participants don't know a thing about European hockey (and don't want to know). They know some most famous names and they use them in the ATD. Players of the MLD are less known ones, so GMs don't know enough of them.

 

[Theokritos]

The vast majority of the participants don't know a thing about European hockey (and don't want to know).

What gives you that impression?

 

[VanIslander]

Namba, I invited you to play in MLD 2017. Don't you now wish you had joined? Some good Euro value there!

AAA 2017 will begin in September or early October.

Be there or shhhh until afterwards regarding naming names!

 

[Namba 17]

What gives you that impression?

I seldom met any correct statement about Euro hockey here from NAs and even more seldom - any question about Euro hockey. In the same time you may see very interesting discussions about NA hockey.

 

[Namba 17]

Namba, I invited you to play in MLD 2017. Don't you now wish you had joined? Some good Euro value there!

AAA 2017 will begin in September or early October.

Be there or shhhh until afterwards regarding naming names!

What is the point in good value, if no one can estimate it?

 

[Theokritos]

I seldom met any correct statement about Euro hockey here from NAs and even more seldom - any question about Euro hockey.

The same thing could probably be said about European posters and e.g. Canadian hockey prior to 1945. But IMO it wouldn't be fair to say they "don't want to know". In both cases (NAs and European hockey; Europeans and older NA hockey) many posters are willing to learn when one brings up information that is new to them. It's just that the language(s) barrier makes it a bit more difficult in case of Europe. In North America, everything is in English (and a bit is in French). In Europe, you have to deal with four different languages for original sources from the four major players Russia, Finland, Sweden and Czechia (plus Slovakia) and then you can add some sources in French and German and a few other languages. Even for Europeans, it's not exactly easy to get a good read on historic players from other European countries, particular those numerous quality players who weren't the biggest international stars in their day and didn't get much foreign coverage.

 

[Johnny Engine]

Would anybody be interested in a non-NHL draft this fall, either concurrently or slightly offset from the AAA draft?

When we planned the HOH Top Europeans list, making it a non-NHL list was floated as an option, but it would have made for awkward comparisons than were necessary (and that list's priorities were awkward enough as it is). However, with the ATD sub-drafts, clashing comfort-zone-busting exercises are the name of the game, and I think it would be really interesting to reckon with how these players are sorted. And I think such a draft would help shine a light on some guys who should be playing bigger roles in these drafts - it's easy to stick a Kirk Muller or Simon Gagne onto your ATD 4th line, but going further afield in both time and geography takes more work. Moreover, making this a "non-NHLers" draft instead of a "European" draft forces us to position our players within the big picture - not only by opening up comparisons to guys like Seth Martin, but also looking at how multiple hockey countries developed their game from the ground up.

Hopefully, we'd get enough teams to blow past the big ATD names and really get to the guys who could have, or should have, placed higher in the MLD.

I'd administrate the draft.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Would anybody be interested in a non-NHL draft this fall, either concurrently or slightly offset from the AAA draft?

When we planned the HOH Top Europeans list, making it a non-NHL list was floated as an option, but it would have made for awkward comparisons than were necessary (and that list's priorities were awkward enough as it is). However, with the ATD sub-drafts, clashing comfort-zone-busting exercises are the name of the game, and I think it would be really interesting to reckon with how these players are sorted. And I think such a draft would help shine a light on some guys who should be playing bigger roles in these drafts - it's easy to stick a Kirk Muller or Simon Gagne onto your ATD 4th line, but going further afield in both time and geography takes more work. Moreover, making this a "non-NHLers" draft instead of a "European" draft forces us to position our players within the big picture - not only by opening up comparisons to guys like Seth Martin, but also looking at how multiple hockey countries developed their game from the ground up.

Hopefully, we'd get enough teams to blow past the big ATD names and really get to the guys who could have, or should have, placed higher in the MLD.

I'd administrate the draft.

What the hell... I'd probably do it for a change of pace.

You'd need to define who counts as a "non-NHLer" though... is the intention to include players like Cyclone Taylor?

 

[Johnny Engine]

What the hell... I'd probably do it for a change of pace.

You'd need to define who counts as a "non-NHLer" though... is the intention to include players like Cyclone Taylor?

That's what I'm mulling over. It may or may not be better to stick to a cutoff date of 1917 - so guys who were playing out west in the 20s count, or even 1909, to take in the NHA. But I'd like to create a condition where we're forced to contextualize the Europeans who'll make up the bulk of the draft. I'm not sure how many players you'd end up excluding before 1909.
The WHA and Western Leagues, however, should be absolutely fair game.

If we get other interest, I'll create a rules discussion thread.