18/19 Tank Tracker Part Deux

[Dotter]

Watching you two argue is amusing, because you are both the extremists of the HF boards DRW posters. Shaman is TANK OR DIE and basically hates almost every move made by KH (except the ones in retrospect proven beyond doubt to be successful), and Dotter hates the pro-tank stance just as much. Almost everyone else on here is somewhere these two positions on most subjects.

Me? As I've said before, I liked the streak, and thought it was worth trying to rebuild on the fly, but there were some major mistakes in the last few years of that approach - though more in particular than policy. Now, I like the moves. Introduce the kids a few at a time, lean on them when they show the requisite work ethic, take them out of the spotlight when they struggle, and slowly sell of vets for more picks. Apart from the Abby contract combined with the Nielsen contract, its hard to hate too much of the recent period, even if not everything has panned out exactly as we'd have hoped.

Re picks, its hard to complain too much if other teams have shown a far greater expertise at tanking even though we had a team mostly made up of kids and AHL-ers down the stretch. Disappointed that NJ snuck into 3rd ahead of us, but they have missed their best player by a mile for most of the season. LA have been threatening to fall over for a while, and Ottowa don't even get anything for their spectacular suicide over the last 2-3 years.

Also, lets argue the toss when we know what pick we have. We can get anywhere between 1 & 7. I doubt there's consensus beyond 1 & 2 who we should pick, but frankly, if you can't find a player to improve this franchise with a top 7 pick, you need to sack your head scout.

I'm not anti-tank. Last night game made me happy. I wanted Wings to finish 4th instead of 6th as I suspected NYRs were going to lose.

But I also am not going to burn down the city if Wings finish 4th instead of 1st. The silver-lining to this awesome season was the kids. They were so much fun to watch and Blashill's system with team speed is exciting hockey. These 1 goal games are much funner to watch than 6-1 blowouts.

Awesome regualar season for a rebuilding team! Sensational, memorable, and happy with the brass from ownership, to Ken Holland to Blashill.

For me, this was the perfect tank. The kids foiled our chances at top 3 losers, but also who would have predicted LA Kings were going to be so bad??? And the kids stepped up and wanted to win. That's how tanking should be!

Let the chips fall as they may, let the hockey gods decide on lottery day. Wings are getting a good player in this draft regardless where they pick!

 

[Shaman464]

Watching you two argue is amusing, because you are both the extremists of the HF boards DRW posters. Shaman is TANK OR DIE and basically hates almost every move made by KH (except the ones in retrospect proven beyond doubt to be successful), and Dotter hates the pro-tank stance just as much. Almost everyone else on here is somewhere between these two positions on most subjects.

Me? As I've said before, I liked the streak, and thought it was worth trying to rebuild on the fly, but there were some major mistakes in the last few years of that approach - though more in particular than policy. Now, I like the moves. Introduce the kids a few at a time, lean on them when they show the requisite work ethic, take them out of the spotlight when they struggle, and slowly sell of vets for more picks. Apart from the Abby contract combined with the Nielsen contract, its hard to hate too much of the recent period, even if not everything has panned out exactly as we'd have hoped.

Re picks, its hard to complain too much if other teams have shown a far greater expertise at tanking even though we had a team mostly made up of kids and AHL-ers down the stretch. Disappointed that NJ snuck into 3rd ahead of us, but they have missed their best player by a mile for most of the season. LA have been threatening to fall over for a while, and Ottowa don't even get anything for their spectacular suicide over the last 2-3 years.

Also, lets argue the toss when we know what pick we have. We can get anywhere between 1 & 7. I doubt there's consensus beyond 1 & 2 who we should pick, but frankly, if you can't find a player to improve this franchise with a top 7 pick, you need to sack your head scout.

If you go back to my posts before 2014, I was actually on team Holland. And I actually had good things to say about him when it came to the Tatar trade, and a few other moves. And I like the fact he's given Blash a lot of leeway and time. I definitely am not a fan of Holland, and think his conservatism is now a hindering trait, but he's not some cartoon character only capable of bad.

As for drafting after the top 3, to pick ~8 there is a significant drop in value according to the math nerds, that is the largest drop of any stretch. Some measures say a #3 is worth twice as much as the #8th. From 8th you have to go all the way to 23rd-25th to see a 50% decrease in value like that. Its a significant drop from the first 3-4 picks to the 5-10th in value. That's scary. This team needs elite talent. I don't see how anyone could argue that. And the best way to get that is by drafting in the top 3. The best way to maximize that is by finishing in the bottom 3. While it was nice to see Bert and Mantha play great for a few games, I don't think it made them better players in the long run, their ceiling is the same. Those wins just don't change anything about the team, other than their chances of getting the talent they desperately need.

 

[Dotter]

And Wing still could win the lottery. 4th worse is just fine in the lottery era. And draft eligible players from 3rd through 7th overall are (in my opinion) interchangeable and will help Detroit's future for a couple decades.

 

[ricky0034]

If you go back to my posts before 2014, I was actually on team Holland. And I actually had good things to say about him when it came to the Tatar trade, and a few other moves. And I like the fact he's given Blash a lot of leeway and time. I definitely am not a fan of Holland, and think his conservatism is now a hindering trait, but he's not some cartoon character only capable of bad.

As for drafting after the top 3, to pick ~8 there is a significant drop in value according to the math nerds, that is the largest drop of any stretch. Some measures say a #3 is worth twice as much as the #8th. From 8th you have to go all the way to 23rd-25th to see a 50% decrease in value like that. Its a significant drop from the first 3-4 picks to the 5-10th in value. That's scary. This team needs elite talent. I don't see how anyone could argue that. And the best way to get that is by drafting in the top 3. The best way to maximize that is by finishing in the bottom 3. While it was nice to see Bert and Mantha play great for a few games, I don't think it made them better players in the long run, their ceiling is the same. Those wins just don't change anything about the team, other than their chances of getting the talent they desperately need.

interesting how things change over the years

I remember I used to spend most of the time I was on this forum my first couple years here defending Holland and his moves but just got worn down over time

it's tough to stay positive when the team hasn't been good in a couple years and beyond washed up Cleary is playing with Datsyuk and getting powerplay time and oh look Nyquist is tearing up the AHL but it's a mens league and he's not the answer and oh hey lets trade our top prospect for David Legwand then take him off the line he's been clicking with and drop him to the 4th line for some reason when guys get back from injury

and there hasn't exactly been a ton of reason for that negativity to reverse since then

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

If you go back to my posts before 2014, I was actually on team Holland. And I actually had good things to say about him when it came to the Tatar trade, and a few other moves. And I like the fact he's given Blash a lot of leeway and time. I definitely am not a fan of Holland, and think his conservatism is now a hindering trait, but he's not some cartoon character only capable of bad.

As for drafting after the top 3, to pick ~8 there is a significant drop in value according to the math nerds, that is the largest drop of any stretch. Some measures say a #3 is worth twice as much as the #8th. From 8th you have to go all the way to 23rd-25th to see a 50% decrease in value like that. Its a significant drop from the first 3-4 picks to the 5-10th in value. That's scary. This team needs elite talent. I don't see how anyone could argue that. And the best way to get that is by drafting in the top 3. The best way to maximize that is by finishing in the bottom 3. While it was nice to see Bert and Mantha play great for a few games, I don't think it made them better players in the long run, their ceiling is the same. Those wins just don't change anything about the team, other than their chances of getting the talent they desperately need.

But this year, you had guys like Dach and Cozens garnering talk about 1OA or top 3 as recently as the start of the season. Averages and average value are all well and good, but you have to look at the players too. I mean, once upon a time Jakob Chychrun was THE 1OA in his class. Then he got heavily scouted and slipped to 16.

I agree with you that on average, you have a higher likelihood in the top 3. But if you look at what was all said, Filip Zadina was the 3OA prospect for pretty much the entire season his draft year. For every Sasha Barkov you get in the top 3, you get a Pavel Brendl. For every Thomas Hickey you get a bit later, you get Ivan Provorov or Zach Werenski. Draft picks are not and never will be a solely mathematical or logical thing. So while mathematically and logically, you want a top 3 pick... what you really want is a player that fits your team and what you want.

But lastly, the draft is completely luck based for the lottery. And for building a team, it is silly to rely on luck. Successful people make their own luck.

 

[jkutswings]

But lastly, the draft is completely luck based for the lottery. And for building a team, it is silly to rely on luck. Successful people make their own luck.

Plenty of luck, but not 100%. The odds are weighted, and there's a limit to how far you can fall.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Plenty of luck, but not 100%. The odds are weighted, and there's a limit to how far you can fall.

Still though, you know what I mean. So much more of what makes a good team is done the rest of the year and the rest of the offseason. It isn't "we have a 9.3% chance to be good or else we'll suck forever".

The draft is but one method to improve your team.

To quote The Office

"My future is not going to be determined by 5 little white balls. It's going to be determined by two big black ones."

Hope to win the lottery. If you do, the work should be easier. If you don't (and it is likely you won't), get your ass to work.

 

[The Zermanator]

But this year, you had guys like Dach and Cozens garnering talk about 1OA or top 3 as recently as the start of the season. Averages and average value are all well and good, but you have to look at the players too. I mean, once upon a time Jakob Chychrun was THE 1OA in his class. Then he got heavily scouted and slipped to 16.

I agree with you that on average, you have a higher likelihood in the top 3. But if you look at what was all said, Filip Zadina was the 3OA prospect for pretty much the entire season his draft year. For every Sasha Barkov you get in the top 3, you get a Pavel Brendl. For every Thomas Hickey you get a bit later, you get Ivan Provorov or Zach Werenski. Draft picks are not and never will be a solely mathematical or logical thing. So while mathematically and logically, you want a top 3 pick... what you really want is a player that fits your team and what you want.

But lastly, the draft is completely luck based for the lottery. And for building a team, it is silly to rely on luck. Successful people make their own luck.

What? Dach or Cozens were never considered over Hughes or Kaako, especially Hughes.

Still though, you know what I mean. So much more of what makes a good team is done the rest of the year and the rest of the offseason. It isn't "we have a 9.3% chance to be good or else we'll suck forever".

It's not one or the other though. Even the most ardent supporters of an outright tank have never suggested other areas weren't necessary. You have to execute well in all of them obviously. Look no further than Edmonton doing seemingly everything in their power to build a pile of s*@t around McDavid, obviously 1OA on its own isn't sufficient.

The claim is that without at the very least one lottery pick this team will always fall short of the ultimate prize. And with every Cup winner since the lockout having at least one lottery pick on it, I can't say I'm unsympathetic to that viewpoint.

Side note: Boston won with their only lottery pick being Seguin, who wasn't a big contributor at that point. However, they did have an all-time great playoff performance out of Tim Thomas. And if there's one thing in hockey that's completely unpredictable, it's goalies. So not really something you can bank on happening. So for me the lesson is that sure you can get extremely lucky with a goalie and take it all (while still having a good team obviously), but that you can't plan on that like you can plan on 1st-3rd OA being difference-makers in building a competitive team.

 

[Frk It]

Not too mad with where we ended up... was worried for awhile we were going to pick like 8-11.

 

[jkutswings]

Still though, you know what I mean. So much more of what makes a good team is done the rest of the year and the rest of the offseason. It isn't "we have a 9.3% chance to be good or else we'll suck forever".

The draft is but one method to improve your team.

To quote The Office

"My future is not going to be determined by 5 little white balls. It's going to be determined by two big black ones."

Hope to win the lottery. If you do, the work should be easier. If you don't (and it is likely you won't), get your ass to work.

Ok. But my issue is that I believe the current staff is excellent at finding nearly every piece... except the hardest ones to find. And I'm rather pessimistic they'll ever find either a top center or a top defenseman outside the very top of the draft.

So if they upgrade the staff, ok. But if there isn't much turnover in scouting and management, then I think it handicaps the ceiling of the rebuild, unless they luck into a Hughes or a Lafreniere.

 

[Frk It]

I mean, once upon a time Jakob Chychrun was THE 1OA in his class. Then he got heavily scouted and slipped to 16.

Nope, it was always Auston Matthews.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Nope, it was always Auston Matthews.

Oh ****. I got years crossed up. But still Chychrun was hailed as a top 5 pick and it was mind blowing that he dropped as far as he did.

I must have been thinking Liljegrens draft year.

 

[Frk It]

Oh ****. I got years crossed up. But still Chychrun was hailed as a top 5 pick and it was mind blowing that he dropped as far as he did.

I must have been thinking Liljegrens draft year.

I think he was the #2 before the emergence of Laine, so not too far off... but Matthews was the clear-cut #1 for the long run there.

 

[The Zermanator]

Not too mad with where we ended up... was worried for awhile we were going to pick like 8-11.

Same here, but we're not in the clear yet. I'll be praying to the hockey gods that we get some luck in the lottery and either stay at 4 or, crossing my fingers, move up. Even if it's just a spot.

Because if we end up picking 5-7 (68.4% chance), we're going to need that luck at the draft and that's what worries me still. 1-3 tend to be either what you expect or an outright homerun. Busts are few and far between for those picks. 5-7 you can still find gems for sure, like Petterson or Monahan, but there's also plenty of Fleurys or Virtanens there too.

EDIT: The back half of the top 10 is dangerous. It's where everybody looks pretty shiny before the draft, but we know statistically speaking that several of them will either fall short of expectations or bust out entirely.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Ok. But my issue is that I believe the current staff is excellent at finding nearly every piece... except the hardest ones to find. And I'm rather pessimistic they'll ever find either a top center or a top defenseman outside the very top of the draft.

So if they upgrade the staff, ok. But if there isn't much turnover in scouting and management, then I think it handicaps the ceiling of the rebuild, unless they luck into a Hughes or a Lafreniere.

No staff is excellent at finding those hardest pieces... even at the top of the draft.

 

[Invictus12]

Scoring is way up this season, almost at 05-06 levels. Comparing bulk totals doesn't really tell you much. Kopitars countless 70 pt seasons were way better finishes than Larkin's 70 pt season.

Larkin barely finished top 50 in scoring this season. Sure 70 pts looks ice but it wasn't anything special. For example, Kopitars 74 point season in 15-16 ended up being 13th in scoring thzt year. For Larkin to have a similar finish hed have had to put up 92 points this season. Huge difference.

On the other hand, in this high scoring year, Larkin finished higher than Kopitar did and I don't think Kopitar suddenly isn't a top center all of a sudden. Nor can you really make much of a case that one or the other was in a better position to succeed either.

 

[jkutswings]

No staff is excellent at finding those hardest pieces... even at the top of the draft.

I'm not claiming they're easy to find. Just that this group is below average at it, relative to their peers. They smoke the competition at getting a top six winger in the 3rd/4th round, but can't find a great defenseman in ANY round to save their life.

 

[Invictus12]

I'm not claiming they're easy to find. Just that this group is below average at it, relative to their peers. They smoke the competition at getting a top six winger in the 3rd/4th round, but can't find a great defenseman in ANY round to save their life.

They're not that easy to find... Hence why those impact Ds were in later rounds to begin with. There are plenty of guys with talent but most don't hit their full potential.

 

[The Zermanator]

No staff is excellent at finding those hardest pieces... even at the top of the draft.

You don't have to be excellent at the top of the draft because those players become stars more often than not anyway. From 2010-2016 drafts, I count at least 15 out of 21 players drafted I would consider a star. Could be even higher depending on what you consider to be a star.

 

[Frk It]

Same here, but we're not in the clear yet. I'll be praying to the hockey gods that we get some luck in the lottery and either stay at 4 or, crossing my fingers, move up. Even if it's just a spot.

Because if we end up picking 5-7 (68.4% chance), we're going to need that luck at the draft and that's what worries me still. 1-3 tend to be either what you expect or an outright homerun. Busts are few and far between for those picks. 5-7 you can still find gems for sure, like Petterson or Monahan, but there's also plenty of Fleurys or Virtanens there too.

EDIT: The back half of the top 10 is dangerous. It's where everybody looks pretty shiny before the draft, but we know statistically speaking that several of them will either fall short of expectations or bust out entirely.

In this particular draft, I think #5/#6 can return something really nice. It feels like the sweet spot for the guys I like most after Hughes/Kakko.

 

[Hen Kolland]

Same here, but we're not in the clear yet. I'll be praying to the hockey gods that we get some luck in the lottery and either stay at 4 or, crossing my fingers, move up. Even if it's just a spot.

Because if we end up picking 5-7 (68.4% chance), we're going to need that luck at the draft and that's what worries me still. 1-3 tend to be either what you expect or an outright homerun. Busts are few and far between for those picks. 5-7 you can still find gems for sure, like Petterson or Monahan, but there's also plenty of Fleurys or Virtanens there too.

EDIT: The back half of the top 10 is dangerous. It's where everybody looks pretty shiny before the draft, but we know statistically speaking that several of them will either fall short of expectations or bust out entirely.

Just picked the names in the 5-7 range that you are specifying:

2008: L.Schenn, N.Filatov, C.Wilson
2009: B.Schenn, O.Ekman-Larsson, N.Kadri
2010: N.Niederreiter, B.Connolly, J.Skinner
2011: R.Strome, M.Zibanejad, M.Scheifele
2012: M.Rielly, H.Lindholm, M.Dumba
2013: E.Lindholm, S.Monahan, D.Nurse
2014: M.Dal Colle, J.Virtanen, H.Fleury
2015: N.Hanifin, P.Zacha, I.Provorov
2016: O.Juolevi, M.Tkachuk, C.Keller
2017: E.Pettersson, C.Glass, L.Andersson
2018: B.Hayton, F.Zadina, Q.Hughes

The only years that look particularly bad are 2008 and maybe 2014. 2014 is still in the "potential" range, so it's probably too early to write them off. All in all, there are more good players than bad players that come out of that 5-7 range, and a decent amount of very good/promising players.

 

[obey86]

What? Dach or Cozens were never considered over Hughes or Kaako, especially Hughes.



It's not one or the other though. Even the most ardent supporters of an outright tank have never suggested other areas weren't necessary. You have to execute well in all of them obviously. Look no further than Edmonton doing seemingly everything in their power to build a pile of s*@t around McDavid, obviously 1OA on its own isn't sufficient.

The claim is that without at the very least one lottery pick this team will always fall short of the ultimate prize. And with every Cup winner since the lockout having at least one lottery pick on it, I can't say I'm unsympathetic to that viewpoint.

Side note: Boston won with their only lottery pick being Seguin, who wasn't a big contributor at that point. However, they did have an all-time great playoff performance out of Tim Thomas. And if there's one thing in hockey that's completely unpredictable, it's goalies. So not really something you can bank on happening. So for me the lesson is that sure you can get extremely lucky with a goalie and take it all (while still having a good team obviously), but that you can't plan on that like you can plan on 1st-3rd OA being difference-makers in building a competitive team.

As opposed to banking on a lottery pick that turns your franchise around? That requires a shitload of good fortune as well. You can't plan on that.

To "plan" for a lottery pick that turns your team around, not only would you have to 1) almost purposely decimate your team to finish last for the best odds, but you would also have to 2) get lucky with the way the ping pong balls bounce, but you would also 3) have to do it in the right draft year (sorry in advance if you got lucky with the #1, #2, or #3 picks in the wrong years.)

*Let's say there are 7 teams in any given year who are bad enough going into the season that they could reasonably finish in last in the NHL if things go their way: 14.28% chance of your team finishing last.
*The last place team has a 49.4% chance of drafting top 3 after the lottery balls are chosen: 49.4%
*And finally, looking through the past 10 drafts (except 2018 - too early, so 2008 - 2017), about 14 of the 30 picks did not become a star/franchise changing player (IMO, YMMV). - So that's a 53.3% chance of actually drafting the player you need even if the two above bullet points actually fall into place.

So what are the odds of all three of these things happening in any given year? 14.28% x 49.4% x 53.3% is approximately 3.76%. Are those good odds to "plan" on? No, in my opinion.

So, in conclusion, i'm certainly all for getting that #1 -#3 pick and would love to have the best odds to do it. If it happens, it happens and great! Awesome for sure. But i'm not sure it's smart franchise building to plan on that happening and always plan on building your team around that great top 3 pick that may or may not materialize. It should be looked at as kind of an added bonus if it actually does happen.

 

[Pavels Dog]

I'm not claiming they're easy to find. Just that this group is below average at it, relative to their peers. They smoke the competition at getting a top six winger in the 3rd/4th round, but can't find a great defenseman in ANY round to save their life.

It's karma because we got Lidstrom so late in the draft. I think we've paid our dues, and now we have a couple of guys that are trending really well.

and let's face it, no team has the secret formula for drafting a great d-man late. it's tons of luck and focusing on drafting D. We've done that, and we should probably keep doing it. That's the only way.

 

[The Zermanator]

Just picked the names in the 5-7 range that you are specifying:

2008: L.Schenn, N.Filatov, C.Wilson
2009: B.Schenn, O.Ekman-Larsson, N.Kadri
2010: N.Niederreiter, B.Connolly, J.Skinner
2011: R.Strome, M.Zibanejad, M.Scheifele
2012: M.Rielly, H.Lindholm, M.Dumba
2013: E.Lindholm, S.Monahan, D.Nurse
2014: M.Dal Colle, J.Virtanen, H.Fleury
2015: N.Hanifin, P.Zacha, I.Provorov
2016: O.Juolevi, M.Tkachuk, C.Keller
2017: E.Pettersson, C.Glass, L.Andersson
2018: B.Hayton, F.Zadina, Q.Hughes

The only years that look particularly bad are 2008 and maybe 2014. 2014 is still in the "potential" range, so it's probably too early to write them off. All in all, there are more good players than bad players that come out of that 5-7 range, and a decent amount of very good/promising players.

But we have to take into account where we are, how we're composed, and what we're up against as well which I think gets lost in the shuffle a lot on here.

Look at our division. You have Tampa with Kucherov/Stamkos/Point/Hedman, Toronto with Matthews/Tavares/Marner/Rielly, Buffalo with Eichel/Dahlin/Skinner/Reinhart, Florida with Barkov/Huberdeau/Ekblad, Boston with Marchand/Bergeron/Pastrnak/McAvoy... Ignoring the rest of the league, how are we going to be competitive even in our own division when we're fighting those teams with Larkin and a handful of very good but not great players?

Monahan, Ekman-Larsson, Scheifele, Rielly, Pettersson are the only players in that list I would put at the Larkin level. The rest are players that are at an AA/Mantha type level. We already have those, as do all those teams in our division I mentioned. What they also have are several Larkin level players, we have just one. And out of the 33 players you mentioned, like I said I think there are only 5 that have fit the bill so far (still too early to really know from 2016 onward). That's 15%. Even if you allow for 2-3 of the 2016-2018 players becoming stars in their own right, that's still only around a 25% hit rate. Thus a 75% chance of acquiring another 2nd tier 'star', which is simply not what we need.

 

[The Zermanator]

As opposed to banking on a lottery pick that turns your franchise around? That requires a ****load of good fortune as well. You can't plan on that.

To "plan" for a lottery pick that turns your team around, not only would you have to 1) almost purposely decimate your team to finish last for the best odds, but you would also have to 2) get lucky with the way the ping pong balls bounce, but you would also 3) have to do it in the right draft year (sorry in advance if you got lucky with the #1, #2, or #3 picks in the wrong years.)

*Let's say there are 7 teams in any given year who are bad enough going into the season that they could reasonably finish in last in the NHL if things go their way: 14.28% chance of your team finishing last.
*The last place team has a 49.4% chance of drafting top 3 after the lottery balls are chosen: 49.4%
*And finally, looking through the past 10 drafts (except 2018 - too early, so 2008 - 2017), about 14 of the 30 picks did not become a star/franchise changing player (IMO, YMMV). - So that's a 53.3% chance of actually drafting the player you need even if the two above bullet points actually fall into place.

So what are the odds of all three of these things happening in any given year? 14.28% x 49.4% x 53.3% is approximately 3.76%. Are those good odds to "plan" on? No, in my opinion.

So, in conclusion, i'm certainly all for getting that #1 -#3 pick and would love to have the best odds to do it. If it happens, it happens and great! Awesome for sure. But i'm not sure it's smart franchise building to plan on that happening and always plan on building your team around that great top 3 pick that may or may not materialize. It should be looked at as kind of an added bonus if it actually does happen.

I'm certainly not going to argue lottery odds with you, they are what they are. I am arguing on the basis that winning a Cup without lottery picks is something that's not done in the cap era, having only been successfully accomplished once with an otherworldly performance from a goaltender who didn't find his stride and become a star until his mid-30s (talk about bad odds, lottery's got nothing on that ). And even that's technically not true since they had Seguin, albeit undeveloped.

Until it's proven otherwise, I'm going to assume having a lottery pick is an essential component to a Cup winner. So as bad as the odds are, it certainly seems like they're the best bet.