Prospect Info: The 2015 NHL Draft Thread VI

[Missionhockey]

Seriously - going to be a long wait for the draft to finally get here.

If the Devils pick up one of Barzal, Zacha or Rantanen (assuming the top 5 goes as expected) I'll be happy. This franchise just terrifies me with going off the board with their picks (call it the Adrian Foster effect) - though thankfully they made the obvious pick with Larsson a few years back.

I think picks at the end of the first can't be judged the same as picks in the top half of the draft. Besides, the Devils haven't really done a ton of reaches lately. Quenneville and Matteau were rated at around the point they went and Larsson was a no brainer.

 

[Devils Dominion]

Seriously - going to be a long wait for the draft to finally get here.

If the Devils pick up one of Barzal, Zacha or Rantanen (assuming the top 5 goes as expected) I'll be happy. This franchise just terrifies me with going off the board with their picks (call it the Adrian Foster effect) - though thankfully they made the obvious pick with Larsson a few years back.

Whether it's off the board (Foster), unable to decipher talent (Josefson over Johansson) or erroneously drafting based on positional need (Tedenby over Carlson), Conte and his country club associates have whiffed on too many 1st round picks over the years (later rounds is another story).

They just have not hit bull's-eye enough with their darts.

It is pivotal that they finally nail it with the 6th and that they also bring in a few good catches in the 2nd and 3rd rounds in a deep draft.

 

[JimEIV]

Whether it's off the board (Foster), unable to decipher talent (Josefson over Johansson) or erroneously drafting based on positional need (Tedenby over Carlson)

Why do you do this? Seriously why? Find a player after our pick who has some success and use it as evidence of our poor drafting...It really makes no sense.

Look at all the misses before and after the Josefson pick -- Maybe we should have taken Jordan Schroeder, Jordan Caron, Pilippe Paradis or Carter Ashton over Josefson? There were bust all over the bottom of that draft and the same is true with the Tedenby draft. How about the two centers taken before Josefson? Anaheim with Peter Holland and Montreal with Louis Leblanc... Yeah 6 picks completely miss right around the time of our pick, who is still playing I might add, and you want to find the ONE who is performing better to compare? Sorry man, but that is nonsense. Ignoring all failure in a particular draft and finding one near instance of success is just craziness

 

[Devils Dominion]

Why do you do this? Seriously why? Find a player after our pick who has some success and use it as evidence of our poor drafting...It really makes no sense.

Look at all the misses before and after the Josefson pick -- Maybe we should have taken Jordan Schroeder, Jordan Caron, Pilippe Paradis or Carter Ashton over Josefson? There were bust all over the bottom of that draft and the same is true with the Tedenby draft. How about the two centers taken before Josefson? Anaheim with Peter Holland and Montreal with Louis Leblanc... Yeah 6 picks completely miss right around the time of our pick, who is still playing I might add, and you want to find the ONE who is performing better to compare? Sorry man, but that is nonsense. Ignoring all failure in a particular draft and finding one near instance of success is just craziness

If our scout who covers Sweden could honestly not tell the difference between Johannson and Josefson he should find another line of work.
No need for anyone to reply the CSS ratings either. Our scouts have to do above and beyond work, especially in Europe.

Palmieri was who I was hoping to draft at the time, but Conte does not have a favorable opinion of local players.

 

[Unknown Caller]

Why do you do this? Seriously why? Find a player after our pick who has some success and use it as evidence of our poor drafting...It really makes no sense.

Look at all the misses before and after the Josefson pick -- Maybe we should have taken Jordan Schroeder, Jordan Caron, Pilippe Paradis or Carter Ashton over Josefson? There were bust all over the bottom of that draft and the same is true with the Tedenby draft. How about the two centers taken before Josefson? Anaheim with Peter Holland and Montreal with Louis Leblanc... Yeah 6 picks completely miss right around the time of our pick, who is still playing I might add, and you want to find the ONE who is performing better to compare? Sorry man, but that is nonsense. Ignoring all failure in a particular draft and finding one near instance of success is just craziness

Nobody takes his draft posts seriously, just ignore it. He's either busting balls or completely delusional about scouting and drafting. My proposal to Devils Dominion: give us your rankings pre-draft and let's revisit them down the line. It will avoid this whole Monday morning quarterback routine where we call out Conte for not drafting a specific guy in the middle of the second round when the 20 other picks before and after him were busts.

 

[Brodeur]

Why do you do this? Seriously why?

I think he's repeated these things to himself so often that he believes that scouting 18 year olds is an easy process.

 

[GeNeXt]

Josefson was considered the best Euro forward after Paajarvi.

I don't know much about Johansson when he was drafted, but Josefson was touted for a strong two-way game and hockey sense. He seemed easily translatable to the NHL.

Johansson's also had the privilege of playing on the top line with Ovechkin and Backstrom regularly. Josefson never really got a chance to center Parise and Kovalchuk, because of Parise's injury in 2010, Josefson being injured at times, and Henrique stole the opportunity from Josefson during the November and December months of 2011, when he was injured.

 

[Devils Dominion]

Nobody takes his draft posts seriously, just ignore it. He's either busting balls or completely delusional about scouting and drafting. My proposal to Devils Dominion: give us your rankings pre-draft and let's revisit them down the line. It will avoid this whole Monday morning quarterback routine where we call out Conte for not drafting a specific guy in the middle of the second round when the 20 other picks before and after him were busts.

I've somewhat done that in prior drafts.

In the Josefson draft year, I was asking for Palmieri for weeks leading up.

He's not the 2nd coming of Dave Taylor but he's clearly been better than JJ thus far.

I've taken Conte's whiffs seriously as poor scouting/drafting is the crux of our current unsatisfactory status.

The lack of skilled & talented players at forward is the root cause of 4 out of 5 non playoff seasons.
Our forward corps was as impotent and punchless as you can put on the ice this past season.

Conte has a chance this June to relieve the drought, especially with our first pick.
He's shown signs of a rebirth in recent drafts which has given hope.

Let's hope he scores a hatty with our first 3 picks and then adds one for good measure in the later rounds.

 

[JimEIV]

But the point is, is it a "whiff" if there are 7 complete misses around the time you are picking as well?

To me a whiff is Hugh Jessimen where from just about every pick before and after is a better player...But when you look at a draft where you are picking 20-ish and there are many bust before and after that is not a whiff...It just isn't sorry. It that draft you are talking 1 maybe 2 players in the bottom 10 of the first round who is clearly better than Josefson.

 

[Zippy316]

It's not even that. Teams value players for different reasons.

I'm sure a player that could go first round on one teams board, another team would not even consider him until the third round, and vice versa.

Like I said you can't complain that the Devils drafted Hoeffel in front of Simmonds. For all we know, they could've had no intention of drafting Simmonds. I'm sure they would have their reason if that were the case. Now, if the Devils were debating between Simmonds/Hoeffel or Tedenby/Carlsson and picked the wrong one, then maybe you have a point to argue.

Even then, there's absolutely no reason to think Simmonds developing as a Devils prospect would yield the same player he is now. Same goes for if any other team had picked Hoeffel. It's just a stupid argument altogether.

 

[Drewr15]

The only one I agree with on a bit is Tedenby over Carlson. That one pissed me off. And I agree with Jim's point about the whiffs around him as there were a lot but there were a lot of questions about Tedenby and his size whereas Carlson was projected to be a strong steady dman, he was from Jersey, adored stevens, etc. There was hardly any question on whether he could be an NHL dman but with Tedenby there were a ton of questions on whether he could play in the NHL. And we did not have the stable of young D like we do now so can't use that as an excuse. Head to head it should have been Carlson.

That said the other picks like JJ and the way he was touted I felt it was the right pick and safe pick at the time. Still hoping he hasn't hit his ceiling yet.

 

[Missionhockey]

The only one I agree with on a bit is Tedenby over Carlson. That one pissed me off. And I agree with Jim's point about the whiffs around him as there were a lot but there were a lot of questions about Tedenby and his size whereas Carlson was projected to be a strong steady dman, he was from Jersey, adored stevens, etc. There was hardly any question on whether he could be an NHL dman but with Tedenby there were a ton of questions on whether he could play in the NHL. And we did not have the stable of young D like we do now so can't use that as an excuse. Head to head it should have been Carlson.

That said the other picks like JJ and the way he was touted I felt it was the right pick and safe pick at the time. Still hoping he hasn't hit his ceiling yet.

Tedenby was certainly a home run pick. There were mocks where he went in the top 10 and then others where he went in the bottom of the first round. If I had to guess, his hockey sense questions were probably not as glaring in the lower levels because his speed helped make up for it. Plus, for all the crap he gets for being knocked off the puck easily, he was not a guy that minded going into the tough areas of the ice, which is what you need if you're an undersized forward.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Tedenby had horrible hockey IQ and probably was never going to turn into a great NHL player. however I still think that this organization ruined his development.

 

[Drewr15]

Tedenby was certainly a home run pick. There were mocks where he went in the top 10 and then others where he went in the bottom of the first round. If I had to guess, his hockey sense questions were probably not as glaring in the lower levels because his speed helped make up for it. Plus, for all the crap he gets for being knocked off the puck easily, he was not a guy that minded going into the tough areas of the ice, which is what you need if you're an undersized forward.

Tedenby's problem to me was that he didn't learn to play within his size. He would go into the tough areas and try to out muscle guys and lose and I would be like what are you doing? I went to a few Albany games in 2012 and I can't tell you how many times I watched Tedenby come through NZ with speed, blow by the first guy and then dip his shoulder and try to muscle his way past the second and lose the puck. I think his nose for the net and how he went to it ended up being a detriment for him.

Anyway I still kicked the TV when we drafted him over Carlson. I wanted him to succeed and kept cheering for the guy but alas...

 

[Devils Dominion]

JJ has shown improvement since Pete left but he just is not the player that Johansson is and won't reach that level.

If you reversed the draft and JJ went to Wash and Johansson to NJ, we'd have a solid 2nd line player and Wash would have what JJ is giving us now.

 

[Zippy316]

JJ has shown improvement since Pete left but he just is not the player that Johansson is and won't reach that level.

If you reversed the draft and JJ went to Wash and Johansson to NJ, we'd have a solid 2nd line player and Wash would have what JJ is giving us now.

That's an incredibly ridiculous and baseless assumption.

Johansson fits Washingtons system, that's why they drafted him and that's why he excels there. Josefson didn't exactly fit Petes system, which likely hurt his development, and it's why you saw a different player when DeBoers system.

If that's what you want to believe, then go right ahead, but there's absolutely no indication that would ever be the case had the roles been reversed.

 

[JimEIV]

Some of the Centers taken in the 1st round of that draft

8 Dallas Scott Glennie C Brandon Wheat Kings [WHL] NHL games 1

10 Edmonton Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson L Timra IK [SEL] 228

13 Buffalo Zack Kassian R Peterborough Petes [OHL] 198

15 Anaheim Peter Holland C Guelph Storm [OHL] 130

18 Montreal Louis Leblanc C Omaha Lancers [USHL] 50

20 New Jersey Jacob Josefson C Djurgardens IF Stockholm [SEL] 180

22 Vancouver Jordan Schroeder C U. of Minnesota [WCHA] 81

24 Washington Marcus Johansson C Farjestads BK Karlstad [SEL] 345

 

[Emperoreddy]

That's an incredibly ridiculous and baseless assumption.

Johansson fits Washingtons system, that's why they drafted him and that's why he excels there. Josefson didn't exactly fit Petes system, which likely hurt his development, and it's why you saw a different player when DeBoers system.

If that's what you want to believe, then go right ahead, but there's absolutely no indication that would ever be the case had the roles been reversed.

JJ also suffered some devastating injuries that also contributed to his slower development. That should not be forgotten that the injuries really set him back.

 

[JimEIV]

Josefson also had better numbers in the SEL in his draft year than Johansson ...


Josefson
2008-09 Djurgardens IF Stockholm SEL 50 5 11 16 14 -3

Johansson
2008-09 Farjestads BK Karlstad SEL 45 5 5 10 10 4

 

[GhostofKenKlee]

The only one I agree with on a bit is Tedenby over Carlson. That one pissed me off. And I agree with Jim's point about the whiffs around him as there were a lot but there were a lot of questions about Tedenby and his size whereas Carlson was projected to be a strong steady dman, he was from Jersey, adored stevens, etc. There was hardly any question on whether he could be an NHL dman but with Tedenby there were a ton of questions on whether he could play in the NHL. And we did not have the stable of young D like we do now so can't use that as an excuse. Head to head it should have been Carlson.

That said the other picks like JJ and the way he was touted I felt it was the right pick and safe pick at the time. Still hoping he hasn't hit his ceiling yet.

Carlson was a weird one, he's a product of Vanderbeeks' Rockets as well. Perhaps his parents being friends and STH of Vanderbeek and the Devils played into that?

 

[JimEIV]

Carlson was a weird one, he's a product of Vanderbeeks' Rockets as well. Perhaps his parents being friends and STH of Vanderbeek and the Devils played into that?

They probably thought Tedenby was a higher value at #24 than a defensemen - would make sense?

 

[HBK27]

The Tedenby pick over Carlson is the one that really stings - to this day, I still get a little sick hearing Carlson's name during a Caps game. Leading up to that draft I didn't do much research on prospects, but I do recall a lot of people on this boards wanting Carlson and being disappointed immediately when that didn't happen. I know Lou/Conte would never let a player being from NJ influence a pick, but c'mon...if it's close, why not.

 

[Burner Account]

I haven't been personally let down harder by many more prospects than Mattias Tedenby.

 

[GhostofKenKlee]

They probably thought Tedenby was a higher value at #24 than a defensemen - would make sense?

Yes and no.

If we were to believe that Vanderbeek made personnel decisions ie Kovalchuk, it's not far fetched he would influence on a draft pick.

 

[HBK27]

I haven't been personally let down harder by many more prospects than Mattias Tedenby.

Yup - huge disappointment considering how desperate the Devils have been for offense in recent years. I even held out hope he could possibly find his game in Sweden this year and give the NHL another crack, but it looks like he had a very lackluster year there - finishing 8th on his team in scoring.