23rd Overall - Conner Bleackley

[Pokecheque]

Eh...that whole 2014 draft is what finally got Pracey fired. Not sure why they even kept him after 2013 if there was as much vehement disagreement between Roy and Pracey as has been reported.

The only remaining pieces are Julien Nantel and Anton Lindholm, and I'll be pretty shocked if either are still in North American professional hockey next year.

I don't want to remind people of this but the 2016 draft class is looking just about as bleak, especially if the Avs end up not signing Morrison.

 

[AvsRobin]

Two takeaways:

1. Safe is death
2. High character can easily be thrown out the window

Ya, people stopped drafting defensive defenseman high, we were one of the last to do it. I think the Jost and Bleackleys will fade too. You don't draft someone high who doesn't have a stand out quality to build around. Being good at everything can make you dominate junior, but take one step up and all of a sudden none of your qualities stand out.

If we take Jost for example, it's not like he is just gonna develop a good shot or morph into a playmaker. Or learn how to skate fast for that matter. If we are lucky he can at least become a good defensive center, just because it's easier to learn than offensive talent.

 

[cgf]

Two takeaways:

1. Safe is death
2. High character can easily be thrown out the window

This should be tattooed on the forehead of anyone who makes decisions for any hockey team.

Ya, people stopped drafting defensive defenseman high, we were one of the last to do it. I think the Jost and Bleackleys will fade too. You don't draft someone high who doesn't have a stand out quality to build around. Being good at everything can make you dominate junior, but take one step up and all of a sudden none of your qualities stand out.

If we take Jost for example, it's not like he is just gonna develop a good shot or morph into a playmaker. Or learn how to skate fast for that matter. If we are lucky he can at least become a good defensive center, just because it's easier to learn than offensive talent.

This. Sooooo much.

 

[AvsRobin]

This should be tattooed on the forehead of anyone who makes decisions for any hockey team.


This. Sooooo much.

What even is "safe" if this is the safe? No one is "safe". Anyone can bust and not even make it to the league. If all you want is a guaranteed NHLer, then just hit free agency...

 

[CobraAcesS]

This is depressing. It also brings up Jost's draft for me. f***in Boston. Picks way later don't bother me, but closer like those two are hard to let go of.

 

[UncleRisto]

Did BrickAHL start this thread?

 

[Avsboy]

Boston is to us what we have been to Florida or New Jersey

 

[cgf]

What even is "safe" if this is the safe? No one is "safe". Anyone can bust and not even make it to the league. If all you want is a guaranteed NHLer, then just hit free agency...

What NHL dinosaurs think "safe" is...and why it is death...is exactly what you described in the part that I bolded.

 

[cgf]

Boston is to us what we have been to Florida or New Jersey

This too is less fun when we are on the disappointing end...

 

[AvsGuy]

This is depressing. It also brings up Jost's draft for me. ****in Boston. Picks way later don't bother me, but closer like those two are hard to let go of.

My consolation with 2016 is that after Jost in the 1st round, there's really only McAvoy and Chychrun. Not a lot of other salt in the wound, not yet anyways

In 2014, it's literally the entire rest of the round that had success on some level

As well, even though we hate on Jost, he's an NHL player, just not an overly good one. He's played 181 games already, deserved or not

Bleackley was a complete, 100% NHL non-factor

 

[Pokecheque]

I don't ever recall an NHL prospect falling apart quite so spectacularly as Bleackley. Possibly Emile Poirier, but that was due to alcohol abuse. Reminds me of that episode of Married With Children when Peg won a weekend with fitness guru Jim Saturn and by the time she was done with him he went from a health-conscious adonis to a flabby, smoking couch potato who immediately had a heart attack on TV. If you don't know what I'm talking about...probably a little before your time. Just weird how sudden it was.

 

[TruePowerSlave]

Beauty pick

 

[cgf]

I don't ever recall an NHL prospect falling apart quite so spectacularly as Bleackley. Possibly Emile Poirier, but that was due to alcohol abuse. Reminds me of that episode of Married With Children when Peg won a weekend with fitness guru Jim Saturn and by the time she was done with him he went from a health-conscious adonis to a flabby, smoking couch potato who immediately had a heart attack on TV. If you don't know what I'm talking about...probably a little before your time. Just weird how sudden it was.

 

[henchman21]

Ya, people stopped drafting defensive defenseman high, we were one of the last to do it. I think the Jost and Bleackleys will fade too. You don't draft someone high who doesn't have a stand out quality to build around. Being good at everything can make you dominate junior, but take one step up and all of a sudden none of your qualities stand out.

If we take Jost for example, it's not like he is just gonna develop a good shot or morph into a playmaker. Or learn how to skate fast for that matter. If we are lucky he can at least become a good defensive center, just because it's easier to learn than offensive talent.

In time the 'safe' idea may fade, but damn we still sure do see it a lot. Even here, Kaut was a 'safe' pick. Ty Smith, Veleno, Lundestrom, and Dellandrea would be other 2018 first round picks thrown in that category. 2019 you could argue Boldy, York, Krebs, Poulin, Holmstrom, and Johnson also fit. I even get why... having a 'sure thing' 3rd liner or 4/5 defensemen is tempting as a pick over somebody who may never player. It is a hard urge to overcome, but it can be a real killer when it comes to getting impact NHL players.

I don't ever recall an NHL prospect falling apart quite so spectacularly as Bleackley. Possibly Emile Poirier, but that was due to alcohol abuse. Reminds me of that episode of Married With Children when Peg won a weekend with fitness guru Jim Saturn and by the time she was done with him he went from a health-conscious adonis to a flabby, smoking couch potato who immediately had a heart attack on TV. If you don't know what I'm talking about...probably a little before your time. Just weird how sudden it was.

Not as dissimilar as you'd think. Bleackley's fall from grace just isn't public.

 

[McMetal]

The responses on the first page actually say something a little different to me. Everybody likes to shit on the scouts in hindsight when their picks don't turn out, but it's not like they were on an island with the Bleakley pick. He was a consensus late 1st round pick that year among people whose entire jobs involve watching prospects, and most of our board were satisfied with it. Not one person pined for Pasternak the day of the draft. It was only with the benefit of hindsight that anybody was able to see what Pasta would become and that Bleaks would become an epic dud.

Being an NHL scout is hard as shit, because nobody can see the future. Even professionals whiff all the time. The Pavel Datsyuk pick in the 6th round looks like a stroke of genius for the Red Wings, until you look at that draft and realize they had Calle Steen, Brent Hobday, Jake McCracken, and Jiri Fischer ALL ahead of him on their list on draft day. Of the seven players the Wings took ahead of Datsyuk, only two played an NHL game, one of them without a point in two games total.

Was it a good pick? Yeah, but that was kind of based on luck as much as anything else. Every other team with their own scouting teams passed on drafting him entirely through nearly six full rounds. So savaging the Avs draft team for missing once in a while seems kind of over the top. Even legendary drafting regimes like the Red Wings and Lightning make mistakes in their evaluations, it happens.

 

[henchman21]

The responses on the first page actually say something a little different to me. Everybody likes to **** on the scouts in hindsight when their picks don't turn out, but it's not like they were on an island with the Bleakley pick. He was a consensus late 1st round pick that year among people whose entire jobs involve watching prospects, and most of our board were satisfied with it. Not one person pined for Pasternak the day of the draft. It was only with the benefit of hindsight that anybody was able to see what Pasta would become and that Bleaks would become an epic dud.

Being an NHL scout is hard as ****, because nobody can see the future. Even professionals whiff all the time. The Pavel Datsyuk pick in the 6th round looks like a stroke of genius for the Red Wings, until you look at that draft and realize they had Calle Steen, Brent Hobday, Jake McCracken, and Jiri Fischer ALL ahead of him on their list on draft day. Of the seven players the Wings took ahead of Datsyuk, only two played an NHL game, one of them without a point in two games total.

Was it a good pick? Yeah, but that was kind of based on luck as much as anything else. Every other team with their own scouting teams passed on drafting him entirely through nearly six full rounds. So savaging the Avs draft team for missing once in a while seems kind of over the top. Even legendary drafting regimes like the Red Wings and Lightning make mistakes in their evaluations, it happens.

Hindsight obviously Bleacks was a poor pick and there were reasons outside the selection itself that happened. Bad picks happen and if it was just one or two, nobody would bat an eye... but how about this? From the 2010 to 2016 drafts the Avs had 46 selections (might be off by one or two), only 5 of those selections have played 150 or more games in the NHL. Only one of those 5 was outside the top 10 and he left as a UFA. Another of 4 top 10 picks is routinely thought of here as a bust. So for the Avs, only 3 out of their 46 selections impacted the team positively. That is horrendous, and just because people here are not professionals as scouting doesn't mean they shouldn't expect more.

As a comparison to a good drafting team. Ottawa picked up Stone, Zibi, JGP, Dzingel, Ceci, and Chabot in the same timeframe. White will surpass the 150 mark soon. Noesen, Claesson, and Sorenson all did... with some other names that have potential.

 

[Pokecheque]

The responses on the first page actually say something a little different to me. Everybody likes to **** on the scouts in hindsight when their picks don't turn out, but it's not like they were on an island with the Bleakley pick. He was a consensus late 1st round pick that year among people whose entire jobs involve watching prospects, and most of our board were satisfied with it. Not one person pined for Pasternak the day of the draft. It was only with the benefit of hindsight that anybody was able to see what Pasta would become and that Bleaks would become an epic dud.

Being an NHL scout is hard as ****, because nobody can see the future. Even professionals whiff all the time. The Pavel Datsyuk pick in the 6th round looks like a stroke of genius for the Red Wings, until you look at that draft and realize they had Calle Steen, Brent Hobday, Jake McCracken, and Jiri Fischer ALL ahead of him on their list on draft day. Of the seven players the Wings took ahead of Datsyuk, only two played an NHL game, one of them without a point in two games total.

Was it a good pick? Yeah, but that was kind of based on luck as much as anything else. Every other team with their own scouting teams passed on drafting him entirely through nearly six full rounds. So savaging the Avs draft team for missing once in a while seems kind of over the top. Even legendary drafting regimes like the Red Wings and Lightning make mistakes in their evaluations, it happens.

To be fair, we're not just shitting on this pick, though in hindsight this one may have been the worst one of many that Pracey made, it's the entire track record. Pracey had one miraculous draft class in 2009 that yielded three high-impact players. Beyond that it was a litany of failure. It's true that many did not see Bleackley's fall happening, and frankly some off-ice stuff obviously happened that no one saw coming. But it's still a complete and total failure of a draft that's indicative of fallacies of the Avs' scouting and talent evaluation process at the time. And honestly, I still think too many of those fallacies are still in place.

NO ONE is saying good drafting teams don't make mistakes. Of course they do. The vast, vast majority of players drafted will never see a single shift in the NHL. The difference between good drafting team and a poor one is whether or not they can squeeze decent value out of lower rounds and get a few hits here and there in the lower-1st and 2nd rounds. Anyone can hit with a lottery pick, and everyone knows the lower rounds just don't yield that much for the most part. But if you're good, you can find good players regularly in that "sweet spot" as it has been referred to on here.

 

[McMetal]

Hindsight obviously Bleacks was a poor pick and there were reasons outside the selection itself that happened. Bad picks happen and if it was just one or two, nobody would bat an eye... but how about this? From the 2010 to 2016 drafts the Avs had 46 selections (might be off by one or two), only 5 of those selections have played 150 or more games in the NHL. Only one of those 5 was outside the top 10 and he left as a UFA. Another of 4 top 10 picks is routinely thought of here as a bust. So for the Avs, only 3 out of their 46 selections impacted the team positively. That is horrendous, and just because people here are not professionals as scouting doesn't mean they shouldn't expect more.

As a comparison to a good drafting team. Ottawa picked up Stone, Zibi, JGP, Dzingel, Ceci, and Chabot in the same timeframe. White will surpass the 150 mark soon. Noesen, Claesson, and Sorenson all did... with some other names that have potential.

Of course they can do better, I'm just saying that I think people here nitpick a lot about the drafting with the benefit of hindsight, when a lot of us would have made similar choices on the day of the draft.

I know you in particular were lobbying for McAvoy in 2016 over Jost, but the general consensus around here at the time was positive around that pick. Many even got their wish when Jost's name was called, and he was picked right around where most consensus lists had him. The fact that it should have been McAvoy is clear to everyone now and it was definitely a poor choice, but it just feels a little bit hypocritical of us to collectively pooh-pooh the pick and rip into the scouts when we were largely behind it three years ago, and the scouts didn't make a wildly off-board selection at the time. No doubt several teams behind us were disappointed when he went off the board.

 

[Pokecheque]

Of course they can do better, I'm just saying that I think people here nitpick a lot about the drafting with the benefit of hindsight, when a lot of us would have made similar choices on the day of the draft.

I know you in particular were lobbying for McAvoy in 2016 over Jost, but the general consensus around here at the time was positive around that pick. Many even got their wish when Jost's name was called, and he was picked right around where most consensus lists had him. The fact that it should have been McAvoy is clear to everyone now and it was definitely a poor choice, but it just feels a little bit hypocritical of us to collectively pooh-pooh the pick and rip into the scouts when we were largely behind it three years ago, and the scouts didn't make a wildly off-board selection at the time. No doubt several teams behind us were disappointed when he went off the board.

All due respect, just because we have the gift of hindsight doesn't mean the criticism isn't warranted. If the team we root for isn't drafting well, it's well within our rights to analyze and take apart why that is. And there's a long-enough track record to warrant it. I defended Pracey mightily when the firing was first announced, it wasn't until later and I did some reading that I realized just how awful a job he did.

Saying we wouldn't do a better job than the scouts is akin to saying we wouldn't do much better on the ice if we were to switch places with a player who made a big mistake on the ice. It's true, but I don't think that means they're exempt from criticism.

And yes, there are some consensus picks (Poolparty being a prime example) who just didn't pan out. Still, even if you whiff on your first rounder, you should still be making smart picks in subsequent rounds. Pracey didn't do that, and it's debatable if Hepple is.

 

[BrickNHL]

Did BrickAHL start this thread?

Huh?

 

[shadow1]

Not to purposefully depress everyone, but I stumbled on this and it couldn't be ignored

View attachment 304251

Every single player chosen in the 1st round in 2014 has played at least 30 NHL games, except one

Awful pick, but hey, at least they moved on and didn't blow pick on him two years later when he was clearly a bust.

(Note: The St. Louis Blues drafted Bleackley in the 5th round, 144th overall in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft)

 

[AvsRobin]

The responses on the first page actually say something a little different to me. Everybody likes to **** on the scouts in hindsight when their picks don't turn out, but it's not like they were on an island with the Bleakley pick. He was a consensus late 1st round pick that year among people whose entire jobs involve watching prospects, and most of our board were satisfied with it. Not one person pined for Pasternak the day of the draft. It was only with the benefit of hindsight that anybody was able to see what Pasta would become and that Bleaks would become an epic dud.

Being an NHL scout is hard as ****, because nobody can see the future. Even professionals whiff all the time. The Pavel Datsyuk pick in the 6th round looks like a stroke of genius for the Red Wings, until you look at that draft and realize they had Calle Steen, Brent Hobday, Jake McCracken, and Jiri Fischer ALL ahead of him on their list on draft day. Of the seven players the Wings took ahead of Datsyuk, only two played an NHL game, one of them without a point in two games total.

Was it a good pick? Yeah, but that was kind of based on luck as much as anything else. Every other team with their own scouting teams passed on drafting him entirely through nearly six full rounds. So savaging the Avs draft team for missing once in a while seems kind of over the top. Even legendary drafting regimes like the Red Wings and Lightning make mistakes in their evaluations, it happens.

I actually did, but on twitter though. But it's easy for me to say who had watched Pasta in Sweden and had no idea how Bleackley ranked in comparison. I can never make a list cause half the guys I have simply never seen play. I was suprised Fagemo and Höglander went when they did in the 2nd round this summer, but I don't know if there is 10 or 30 canadiens that should rank ahead.

But I agree with your post. People liked the pick on the day, it wasn't off the board either. Many smart people liked him.

 

[henchman21]

Of course they can do better, I'm just saying that I think people here nitpick a lot about the drafting with the benefit of hindsight, when a lot of us would have made similar choices on the day of the draft.

I know you in particular were lobbying for McAvoy in 2016 over Jost, but the general consensus around here at the time was positive around that pick. Many even got their wish when Jost's name was called, and he was picked right around where most consensus lists had him. The fact that it should have been McAvoy is clear to everyone now and it was definitely a poor choice, but it just feels a little bit hypocritical of us to collectively pooh-pooh the pick and rip into the scouts when we were largely behind it three years ago, and the scouts didn't make a wildly off-board selection at the time. No doubt several teams behind us were disappointed when he went off the board.

I think fans largely want to be positive about a team and the future. Which I’d say causes people to be more positive about who the Avs select and their future. Bleaks was a situation that happens from time to time. Not the end of the world, just not something that should be a pattern. More of the issue is he is the rule not the exception

 

[LieutenantDangle]

Eh...that whole 2014 draft is what finally got Pracey fired. Not sure why they even kept him after 2013 if there was as much vehement disagreement between Roy and Pracey as has been reported.

The only remaining pieces are Julien Nantel and Anton Lindholm, and I'll be pretty shocked if either are still in North American professional hockey next year.

I don't want to remind people of this but the 2016 draft class is looking just about as bleak, especially if the Avs end up not signing Morrison.

for as frustrating and useless and Jost can be for the avs, he’s 1000 times the player Bleackley was and will be in the NHL for several years to come

 

[McMetal]

All due respect, just because we have the gift of hindsight doesn't mean the criticism isn't warranted. If the team we root for isn't drafting well, it's well within our rights to analyze and take apart why that is. And there's a long-enough track record to warrant it. I defended Pracey mightily when the firing was first announced, it wasn't until later and I did some reading that I realized just how awful a job he did.

Saying we wouldn't do a better job than the scouts is akin to saying we wouldn't do much better on the ice if we were to switch places with a player who made a big mistake on the ice. It's true, but I don't think that means they're exempt from criticism.

And yes, there are some consensus picks (Poolparty being a prime example) who just didn't pan out. Still, even if you whiff on your first rounder, you should still be making smart picks in subsequent rounds. Pracey didn't do that, and it's debatable if Hepple is.

I'm just saying that there is an uncomfortable amount of pure luck involved with NHL drafting. We like to think of it as a science where you can cleanly judge good and bad jobs, but sometimes hitting on a late round pick is just the result of the dice rolling your way that year. As in the Datsyuk example, even a team that has as stellar a drafting record as the 1990s Red Wings thought Calle Steen was a better bet than Datsyuk in 1998. If late round drafting was all about pure skill and nothing else, that just wouldn't happen.

Scouts can't see the future, and although there definitely is a significant element of skill involved with scouting, there's also a lot of luck involved with late round picks turning out or not. Not to mention that development plays a critical role in helping players take the next step, too.