RFA Sheet, Had They Done It
- Thread starter Mogo
- Start date
Well, it's hard to say who they would have gotten specifically. Different teams have different priorities on draft day. Those picks could have been shipped to other clubs on or before the draft.
Colorado and Detroit would have received five first round picks, both stretching from 1998 to 2002. These were the players that were selected in those years by NYR and Carolina, respectively:
1998: Manny Malholtra, Jeff Heerema
1999: Pavel Brendl and Jamie Lundmark, David Tanabe (Technically, the pick that belonged to the Rangers was used by Calgary to select Oleg Saprykin, but after all the draft day flip-flopping in 1999, the Rangers landed Brendl and Lundmark. At the time, they looked brilliant).
2000: None and None (Not sure what happened to these picks. I believe Tampa Bay acquired NYR's pick in the Pavel Brendl deal. TB chose Nikita Alexeev - a big, fleet-footed winger with little else in the way of talent. Carolina's pick wound up in Colorado. The Avs selected Vaclav Nedorost, a Czech centre who received rave reviews for his two-way abilities. One scout touted him as the No. 2 player in the draft. He left his offence in the Czech Republic).
2001: Dan Blackburn and Igor Knayzev
2002: None and Cam Ward. (The pick that NYR should have had, 10th overall, wound up in Calgary, and the Flames selected Eric Nystrom).
The thing to remember is that there's no guarantee that Colorado and Detroit select these players. Colorado would have likely picked Malholtra - people were shocked when he slipped to No. 7 on Draft Day after a spectacular Memorial Cup - but who's to say. Outside of Ward, none of these players have really done much, and Dan Blackburn is the only player who can blame injuries.
Colorado and Detroit would have received five first round picks, both stretching from 1998 to 2002. These were the players that were selected in those years by NYR and Carolina, respectively:
1998: Manny Malholtra, Jeff Heerema
1999: Pavel Brendl and Jamie Lundmark, David Tanabe (Technically, the pick that belonged to the Rangers was used by Calgary to select Oleg Saprykin, but after all the draft day flip-flopping in 1999, the Rangers landed Brendl and Lundmark. At the time, they looked brilliant).
2000: None and None (Not sure what happened to these picks. I believe Tampa Bay acquired NYR's pick in the Pavel Brendl deal. TB chose Nikita Alexeev - a big, fleet-footed winger with little else in the way of talent. Carolina's pick wound up in Colorado. The Avs selected Vaclav Nedorost, a Czech centre who received rave reviews for his two-way abilities. One scout touted him as the No. 2 player in the draft. He left his offence in the Czech Republic).
2001: Dan Blackburn and Igor Knayzev
2002: None and Cam Ward. (The pick that NYR should have had, 10th overall, wound up in Calgary, and the Flames selected Eric Nystrom).
The thing to remember is that there's no guarantee that Colorado and Detroit select these players. Colorado would have likely picked Malholtra - people were shocked when he slipped to No. 7 on Draft Day after a spectacular Memorial Cup - but who's to say. Outside of Ward, none of these players have really done much, and Dan Blackburn is the only player who can blame injuries.
Great idea for thread.
Regarding Malhotra, when the Central Scouting people got together to finalize their rankings in their 'War Room', one of the hottest debates ever was about the final ranking of Manny Malhotra. Some scouts said he was definitetly a Top 10 prospect and other scouts insisted that he had no upside offensively. In the end, it looks like he was taken too high in the draft.
Regarding Malhotra, when the Central Scouting people got together to finalize their rankings in their 'War Room', one of the hottest debates ever was about the final ranking of Manny Malhotra. Some scouts said he was definitetly a Top 10 prospect and other scouts insisted that he had no upside offensively. In the end, it looks like he was taken too high in the draft.
Malhotra was labelled as the quintessential safe pick. Fabulous two-way forward in junior who many thought could be the next Rod Brind'Amour/Trevor Linden: a superb second line centre who can play on your first line, and do it all, on and off the ice, especially at playoff time.
He was brilliant at the 1998 Memorial Cup. Absolutely brilliant. One of the best performances by a draft-eligible player since the move to the 18-year-old draft. At a tournament that featured Marian Hossa, Brenden Morrow, Roberto Luongo and other future NHL stars, Malholtra was the class of the tournament. If Guelph would have won, Malhotra would have been named MVP.
He was rated No. 4 by THN in its draft preview. It was funny to see, because he wasn't productive or a nasty physical player. He was under a point-per-game, with low PIMs, and good, but not great size. But by the time Draft Day rolled around, he was up to No. 3 on many scouts lists based on his Memorial Cup performance.
Even without the Memorial Cup performance, he still probably goes No. 7 to NYR. I think the Rangers hindered his development by bringing him up early. Mentally, he was ready. Physically, he was not. In hindsight, I don't think Malhotra would have ever amounted to much more than a really strong third liner who might get a Selke nomination at some point in his career. I wouldn't be surprised if he reaches that level at some point anyways.
Some say the Rangers brought him up too quickly and ruined his progress. When I saw him as a rookie with the Rangers, it appeared to me he had really no talent -couldnt handle the puck at all (which to me is the deal breaker - if you play hockey for a living and the puck is like a stick of dynamite in your clumsy hands...), didnt have any moves, didnt skate well and didnt have much quickness, didnt have a nose for the net or anything that would make up for his shortcomings, was a big guy but not huge like Lindros. Couldnt really tell much about his hockey sense because he was a 4th liner who played the occasional special teams. If he was supposed to be a Gainey, he was a few strides too slow.
Mind you he was 19.
I didnt see him play in Junior but jeez he was a 3rd rounder at best.
Also worth noting Sakic may have improved the Rag$ fortunes and made the picks further down, Colorado was a much better drafting team than the Rangers and the Rangers botched Malhotra's development.
All you guys have valid points about Malhotra regarding his play at the Memorial Cup, his skill set (or lack of) and his development. I don't have a real opinion not having watch Malhotra much in junior but I'm just relaying some inside info on a particular player from the ratings discussion. There were some scouts who said that Malhotra would never be more than a 3rd line winger. Others saw the Memorial Cup tournament and enhanced their opinions based on that. There was quite a difference in views.
