2020 NHL Draft Thread: only 365 more days until next years hockey tryouts

[16thOverallSaveUs]

I haven’t watched lundell outside of highlights. That’s being said, it’s pretty obvious that he’s not close to kakko in the offensive department. He’s a much better defensive player and he plays the middle of the ice, which is what is going to be his selling point as a top 5 pick.

I think Mackinnon/Barkov > Laf/Byfield > Matthews/Laine

 

[Wild4Cup]

Has anyone watched Lundell extensively? How does he compare to Kakko?

I'm trying my best to not think about Byfield or Laf cause we're not winning the lottery.

I've watched Lundell quite a bit this season and last season. To me he's not same level prospect as Kakko or Barkov. He's good defensively for his age, extremely good on faceoffs and has a solid wrist shot that he could use more. Skating is ok, not fast but I wouldn't call him slow either. Solid prospect overall, but imo he lacks the X-factor offensively that he would ever become franchise-type of center. High-end 2nd line center or decent 1st line center. If Wild end up drafting him he would be quite easily the best center prospect for them but like every Wild fan knows that doesn't say much

 

[nickschultzfan]

I've watched Lundell quite a bit this season and last season. To me he's not same level prospect as Kakko or Barkov. He's good defensively for his age, extremely good on faceoffs and has a solid wrist shot that he could use more. Skating is ok, not fast but I wouldn't call him slow either. Solid prospect overall, but imo he lacks the X-factor offensively that he would ever become franchise-type of center. High-end 2nd line center or decent 1st line center. If Wild end up drafting him he would be quite easily the best center prospect for them but like every Wild fan knows that doesn't say much

Which is why we are getting him and Byfield. 1-2 for next decade. Believe.

 

[fentonsbrainchild]

Which is why we are getting him and Byfield. 1-2 for next decade. Believe.

Uh......how?

 

[Bazeek]

Uh......how?

1.) Win the lottery
2.) Trade two roster players for 1sts
3.) Trade the two 1sts for a top-10 pick
4.) Tame a unicorn
5.) Teach the unicorn physics and have it invent an perpetual motion machine

 

[TaLoN]

1.) Win the lottery
2.) Trade two roster players for 1sts
3.) Trade the two 1sts for a top-10 pick
4.) Tame a unicorn
5.) Teach the unicorn physics and have it invent an perpetual motion machine

6.) ?
7.) Profit

 

[nickschultzfan]

1.) Win the lottery
2.) Trade two roster players for 1sts
3.) Trade the two 1sts for a top-10 pick
4.) Tame a unicorn
5.) Teach the unicorn physics and have it invent an perpetual motion machine

Not sure what team you are watching. Wild are looking great for a top-2 pick. And also being a seller this year.

Unless you are one to claim that Minnesota sports teams are cursed like that is somehow different than believing in unicorns.

 

[fentonsbrainchild]

Not sure what team you are watching. Wild are looking great for a top-2 pick.

Unless you are one to claim that Minnesota sports teams are cursed like that is somehow different than believing in unicorns.

If you don't believe in the existence of unicorns, I don't think that any of us can help you.

 

[nickschultzfan]

If you don't believe in the existence of unicorns, I don't think that any of us can help you.

Sleep it off. Hawkeyes are a good team and Wiggins was out.

Wild are pure trash though. Which is fine.

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

Sleep it off. Hawkeyes are a good team and Wiggins was out.

Wild are pure trash though. Which is fine.

The goalie is trash. The team is actually competing fairly well.

 

[Wabit]

Not sure what team you are watching. Wild are looking great for a top-2 pick.

Unless you are one to claim that Minnesota sports teams are cursed like that is somehow different than believing in unicorns.

Have you every seen a narwhal?

 

[nickschultzfan]

The goalie is trash. The team is actually competing fairly well.

Goaltending or not, Wild are tied for last in the league at the quarter mark, and they haven't even hit their annual mid-winter slump.

 

[Bazeek]

Not sure what team you are watching. Wild are looking great for a top-2 pick. And also being a seller this year.

Unless you are one to claim that Minnesota sports teams are cursed like that is somehow different than believing in unicorns.

I am one that understands that the team that finishes 31st still only has a 35% chance of getting a top-2 pick, and a 50% chance of picking 4th. It'd be great to win, but I wouldn't consider it a cornerstone of any team-building strategy.

More than the lottery odds though, I think the odds of us trading for a second top-10 pick are significantly lower than 35%.

 

[16thOverallSaveUs]

There is just no shot that we get a second top 10 pick. but I think the person who suggested it was partially joking or just using NHL 20 logic.

That being said, getting elite players have to be the cornerstone of any team-building strategy, imo. I’m open to getting them without being bad if anyone has a plan for doing that, but I think the last 2 decades of existence has shown me that we aren’t capable of turning mid round picks into that player that moves the needle.

 

[Bazeek]

There is just no shot that we get a second top 10 pick. but I think the person who suggested it was partially joking or just using NHL 20 logic.

That being said, getting elite players have to be the cornerstone of any team-building strategy, imo. I’m open to getting them without being bad if anyone has a plan for doing that, but I think the last 2 decades of existence has shown me that we aren’t capable of turning mid round picks into that player that moves the needle.

A team should pursue elite players by any and all available avenues, it's just important to remember that it's a crapshoot in every direction.

 

[nickschultzfan]

I am one that understands that the team that finishes 31st still only has a 35% chance of getting a top-2 pick, and a 50% chance of picking 4th. It'd be great to win, but I wouldn't consider it a cornerstone of any team-building strategy.

More than the lottery odds though, I think the odds of us trading for a second top-10 pick are significantly lower than 35%.

Probabilities cut both ways. Wild could move up or down. Looking at the NHL teams and the trends, Wild are almost a lock for being bottom-4, with a great chance of the worst team in hockey. A top-2 pick is not likely, it is a quite real possibility.

As for a second top-10 pick, that has a lot more contigencies, but that doesn't make it is improbable. In fact, it has very little to do with randomness of draft odds, and more to Bill G.'s strategy. To put simply, if he were to decide that he wanted a second top-10 pick above other things, it is a high likelihood that he could make it happen. Zucker, Staal, Brodin, etc. are on the table for acquiring extra 1st. If there is an actual liquidation, grabbing 2 more 1sts is within his reach. Then it is just a question of how much he wants to add to get up into the top-10, or whether he wants a player in the 11-15 range instead.

For example, if the Rangers end up at 8th overall, they could like a deal for Brodin + two later 1sts for the 8th overall and a cap dump like M.Staal.

 

[Wabit]

Probabilities cut both ways. Wild could move up or down. Looking at the NHL teams and the trends, Wild are almost a lock for being bottom-4, with a great chance of the worst team in hockey. A top-2 pick is not likely, it is a quite real possibility.

As for a second top-10 pick, that has a lot more contigencies, but that doesn't make it is improbable. In fact, it has very little to do with randomness of draft odds, and more to Bill G.'s strategy. To put simply, if he were to decide that he wanted a second top-10 pick above other things, it is a high likelihood that he could make it happen. Zucker, Staal, Brodin, etc. are on the table for acquiring extra 1st. If there is an actual liquidation, grabbing 2 more 1sts is within his reach. Then it is just a question of how much he wants to add to get up into the top-10, or whether he wants a player in the 11-15 range instead.

For example, if the Rangers end up at 8th overall, they could like a deal for Brodin + two later 1sts for the 8th overall and a cap dump like M.Staal.

Just to pop a balloon.

The only player the Wild have that could get a top-10 1st is Dumba. Nothing else really moves the needle for any top-10 picking team as far as players. They aren't going to want rentals (Staal/Brodin) and a Zucker (25g/25a? guy) that can be gotten as a UFA for free. The other 1st that MN somehow gets would likely have more value.

The Wild are on pace for a 77.5p season (home ppg *41 plus away ppg *41); which wouldn't be a bottom-3 pick any year since the lockout. They'll probably end up in the 80-85p range this year so that all fans are unhappy with the end results of the season.

 

[Bazeek]

Probabilities cut both ways. Wild could move up or down. Looking at the NHL teams and the trends, Wild are almost a lock for being bottom-4, with a great chance of the worst team in hockey. A top-2 pick is not likely, it is a quite real possibility.

As for a second top-10 pick, that has a lot more contigencies, but that doesn't make it is improbable. In fact, it has very little to do with randomness of draft odds, and more to Bill G.'s strategy. To put simply, if he were to decide that he wanted a second top-10 pick above other things, it is a high likelihood that he could make it happen. Zucker, Staal, Brodin, etc. are on the table for acquiring extra 1st. If there is an actual liquidation, grabbing 2 more 1sts is within his reach. Then it is just a question of how much he wants to add to get up into the top-10, or whether he wants a player in the 11-15 range instead.

For example, if the Rangers end up at 8th overall, they could like a deal for Brodin + two later 1sts for the 8th overall and a cap dump like M.Staal.

Like @Wabit said, they're probably better than their record has shown so far. With our goaltending I can't rule out a bottom-5 finish for the first time in a long time, but if they end up getting even league-average goaltending at some point we're probably looking more at the 10-20 range. Even with crappy goaltending and a home-heavy schedule with probably claw our ways up to around 20th.

Not that it's impossible. Maybe Guerin makes a full-court press for futures and sells everything that isn't tied down. We haven't seen much from him yet and Leipold sounds like he's become less resistant to the idea. I'm just not counting on it until I see more about where Guerin's head is at.

I do think that this is as good a time as any to have one spectacularly awful year, finish in the bottom-5, explore selling at the deadline, and see what happens with the draft lottery. This team isn't going anywhere in the playoffs with a Dubnyk/Stalock tandem and short of Kahkonen or Robson pulling a Binnington I don't see an in-season fix for that. I'm not optimistic about a top-3 pick, but it's not like I'm not hoping it'll happen.

 

[16thOverallSaveUs]

Our average ppg puts us on pace for 65 over a full season. I don’t see this team finishing bottom 2(Ottawa and Detroit are bad), but I also don’t see us finishing higher than 7th. To put it into perspective, last year we finished 11th worst with 83 points. To get to that point total we’d need to pace at something like this through the rest of the season: 30-25-7. I don’t see us getting points in well over half the games that are left this year.

 

[Wabit]

Our average ppg puts us on pace for 65 over a full season. I don’t see this team finishing bottom 2(Ottawa and Detroit are bad), but I also don’t see us finishing higher than 7th. To put it into perspective, last year we finished 11th worst with 83 points. To get to that point total we’d need to pace at something like this through the rest of the season: 30-25-7. I don’t see us getting points in well over half the games that are left this year.

34 home games left (20-10-4), 28 away games (10-15-3). That doesn't seem unreasonable for the rest of the season to me.

 

[Bazeek]

Our average ppg puts us on pace for 65 over a full season. I don’t see this team finishing bottom 2(Ottawa and Detroit are bad), but I also don’t see us finishing higher than 7th. To put it into perspective, last year we finished 11th worst with 83 points. To get to that point total we’d need to pace at something like this through the rest of the season: 30-25-7. I don’t see us getting points in well over half the games that are left this year.

I'd feel the same if we weren't losing so many games where we give up 2-3 stupid goals in the 1st period.

Looking at the shot-quality metrics we're still one of the top-5 teams in the league. Obviously that doesn't guarantee success because we've been good at that for a few seasons and we all know how it's turned out, but historically that plus even decent goaltending has been a recipe for a bubble team. Our scoring problems still limit us too, but our offensive numbers are pretty middle-of-the-pack this year. So good/great defense + lackluster offense + horribad goaltending and we've all seen what happens to this team if you change that last variable.

Again, not saying that this team isn't capable of hitting the absolute floor this year since we've spent over a month crawling around on it, or even that it'd be bad to do so. I'm just saying that if you look at the "underlying" numbers this team could turn around on a dime if the goaltending improves.

On the flip-side... we do have a lot riding on guys like Staal and Koivu playing well. Maybe not every single game, but overall. If those guys get tired as the season wears on the "underlying" numbers could collapse just as badly as Dubnyk.

 

[16thOverallSaveUs]

I'd feel the same if we weren't losing so many games where we give up 2-3 stupid goals in the 1st period.

Looking at the shot-quality metrics we're still one of the top-5 teams in the league. Obviously that doesn't guarantee success because we've been good at that for a few seasons and we all know how it's turned out, but historically that plus even decent goaltending has been a recipe for a bubble team. Our scoring problems still limit us too, but our offensive numbers are pretty middle-of-the-pack this year. So good/great defense + lackluster offense + horribad goaltending and we've all seen what happens to this team if you change that last variable.

Again, not saying that this team isn't capable of hitting the absolute floor this year since we've spent over a month crawling around on it, or even that it'd be bad to do so. I'm just saying that if you look at the "underlying" numbers this team could turn around on a dime if the goaltending improves.

On the flip-side... we do have a lot riding on guys like Staal and Koivu playing well. Maybe not every single game, but overall. If those guys get tired as the season wears on the "underlying" numbers could collapse just as badly as Dubnyk.

I see what your saying. If we have decent goaltending we’re probably a bubble team right now. I just don’t see how we get that decent goaltending. I don’t see Guerin making a move this year to bring a goalie in. Our offense has been fine, That said, I don’t want to see what we’d look like if we had an injury to a Staal or Zucker

 

[16thOverallSaveUs]

34 home games left (20-10-4), 28 away games (10-15-3). That doesn't seem unreasonable for the rest of the season to me.

Have you watched Dubnyk lately?

 

[Wabit]

Have you watched Dubnyk lately?

I've watched the rest of the team come back and at least tie games up.

If Dub doesn't get better I see the GM picking up a goalie in a trade before selling off the players the team has. Maybe it works, and maybe it doesn't; but he (and the owner) have to be saying the same things some fans on here have been: "If we only had a league average goalie."

 

[16thOverallSaveUs]

I've watched the rest of the team come back and at least tie games up.

If Dub doesn't get better I see the GM picking up a goalie in a trade before selling off the players the team has. Maybe it works, and maybe it doesn't; but he (and the owner) have to be saying the same things some fans on here have been: "If we only had a league average goalie."

When have they said that?