All purpose draft-gripe thread

[Vankiller Whale]

When is it no longer too early to say "I told you so"?

 

[Verviticus]

probably when they start saying "let's not dwell on the past"

 

[CanaFan]

When is it no longer too early to say "I told you so"?

Exactly 12 months after the Horvat crowd gets to say the same about Nichushkin.

 

[me2]

Exactly 12 months after the Horvat crowd gets to say the same about Nichushkin.

just in time for the Domi crowd to show up?

 

[vanuck]

im very unhappy that the canucks drafted virtanen instead of the guys i wanted. just an update y'all

Who were the guys you wanted in 2014? Curious to hear.

 

[Vankiller Whale]

Exactly 12 months after the Horvat crowd gets to say the same about Nichushkin.

Well I'll admit I never expected Nichushkin's career to be derailed due to injury, I'll give you that. But as of right now neither player is exactly lighting it up.

 

[CanaFan]

Well I'll admit I never expected Nichushkin's career to be derailed due to injury, I'll give you that. But as of right now neither player is exactly lighting it up.

Which is why the "I told you so's" generally take awhile. I'm not saying the Horvat crowd should get to say anything, but things look a lot different today than 18 months ago. And the same could still be true for Virtanen in 18 months. When you're dealing with 18 and 19 year old kids there is still a lot that can change.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

Who were the guys you wanted in 2014? Curious to hear.

Ehlers.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

When is it no longer too early to say "I told you so"?

How long did it take for Nino Neiderreiter to go from El Nino, to a bust, to an ahl player, to a 20 goal top 6 winger?

More generally i'd say: When the players you're referencing are considered too old to be called kids by most people.

At the very least maybe wait until there's a 2 in front of their age, or for the really patient when they can legally get a beer in the US.

 

[Verviticus]

Who were the guys you wanted in 2014? Curious to hear.

ehlers and barbashev

edit: wait, how the **** is barbashev playing with the wolves?

must be at the right age cutoff. dang, he'd look good on the comets

 

[Zarpan]

When is it no longer too early to say "I told you so"?

Serious answer - probably 3-4 years or so. There's too many cases of players struggling to make an NHL impact in their first few years and then breaking out to be fully confident about which player will have a better career before that.

See: Ladd, Turris, Johansen. Those are just some top 5 draft picks in the last while who looked no better than bottom 6 players for their first few years.

Trying to figure out the better player after 1-2 years may have resulted in the following I told you so's

Gagner over Turris
Olesz over Ladd (http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=263547)
Skinner in a landslide over Johansen (30 goal scorer as a rookie, while Johansen didn't do much in the NHL until draft +4)

The Olesz/Ladd link is pretty telling about the pitfalls of evaluating players 2 years post draft. Ladd was mostly ranked 4th or 5th out of 6 young players. None of the other players are in the NHL any more, and the player with the second best career in that group after Ladd was Wolski.

 

[vanuck]

ehlers and barbashev

edit: wait, how the **** is barbashev playing with the wolves?

must be at the right age cutoff. dang, he'd look good on the comets

Interesting, those were my two choices as well.

 

[Intangibos]

Interesting, those were my two choices as well.

Same. I think they were the consensus picks around here.

I think there was a poll for who we wanted, and it went Ehlers > Nylander > Virtanen > Richie, which is also the order I wanted. Mostly because I believe I heard Richie had concussion issues and that scares me in a draft pick. Then I think everyone flipped out a little bit when we didn't pick Barbashev, but we calmed down pretty quick because McCann was a solid pick as well, no complains there.

 

[RandV]

Same. I think they were the consensus picks around here.

I think there was a poll for who we wanted, and it went Ehlers > Nylander > Virtanen > Richie, which is also the order I wanted. Mostly because I believe I heard Richie had concussion issues and that scares me in a draft pick. Then I think everyone flipped out a little bit when we didn't pick Barbashev, but we calmed down pretty quick because McCann was a solid pick as well, no complains there.

I think people on here calmed down when 8 more teams passed on Barbashev and he fell to #33.

 

[Verviticus]

I think people on here calmed down when 8 more teams passed on Barbashev and he fell to #33.

i dont think that mattered really. who the **** cares what nhl teams think?

 

[Intangibos]

I think people on here calmed down when 8 more teams passed on Barbashev and he fell to #33.

I think people were expecting Benning to get some meat and potatoes, and worried about him not picking Russians. While we all wanted Barbashev, some posters came out with reports on McCann and that settled a lot of people down.

Barbashev had a hell of a season last year though and is looking good right now. It will be interesting to see how Barbashev compares to McCann in future years. It's also important to note that while McCann is a very Gillis pick, he also would not pick Barbashev as he didn't seem to want to pick Russians ever. So even if Barbashev turns out amazing, it's not one of those times where the argument could be made that Gillis would have taken him if he were still GM. There is literally no reason for anyone to bash the McCann pick anymore, solid pick that looks to be turning out well.

I wonder if we would have taken Barbashev over Demko at 36 if he were still available. Would be interesting to see where the scouting staff ranked those two, along with McCann, Pastrnak, Scherbak and Goldobin.

Edit: I mean I wonder if Benning would have taken Barbashev over Demko if Barbashev was still available.

 

[Verviticus]

no. gillis categorically would not have picked barbashev. I would have been mad at him there too

 

[biturbo19]

I think people were expecting Benning to get some meat and potatoes, and worried about him not picking Russians. While we all wanted Barbashev, some posters came out with reports on McCann and that settled a lot of people down.

Barbashev had a hell of a season last year though and is looking good right now. It will be interesting to see how Barbashev compares to McCann in future years. It's also important to note that while McCann is a very Gillis pick, he also would not pick Barbashev as he didn't seem to want to pick Russians ever. So even if Barbashev turns out amazing, it's not one of those times where the argument could be made that Gillis would have taken him if he were still GM. There is literally no reason for anyone to bash the McCann pick anymore, solid pick that looks to be turning out well.

I wonder if we would have taken Barbashev over Demko at 36 if he were still available. Would be interesting to see where the scouting staff ranked those two, along with McCann, Pastrnak, Scherbak and Goldobin.

Edit: I mean I wonder if Benning would have taken Barbashev over Demko if Barbashev was still available.

Yeah. McCann reeks of typical Gillis "slider pick" with a late 1st like that. Don't think it's a stretch to say he very well could have been the Gillis pick (especially with the late emphasis on OHL).

The one that makes me shudder a bit...is musing about how Gillis might have handled Ho-Sang. We'll never know, and the story is still far from finished there...but that idea makes me nervous.


Whatever the case on the McCann vs Barbashev thing down the road...ultimately, if McCann pans out as a top-9 NHL forward for us (and it's super early, but despite the ups and downs, he looks well on his way to flashing at least top-9 upside @ 19 years of age), if you can get that type of one-shot scorer top-9 center with a late 1st, you're cooking with fire.

There's always something to nitpick about, someone picked later who was better. That's not reasonable expectation though.

 

[DFAC]

Nylander 1st in AHL scoring..........

 

[geebaan]

Nylander 1st in AHL scoring..........

I'm not a fan of the virtanen pick that high, as much as anyone really, but people leading the ahl in scoring don't really impress me. I.e. If anyone remembers Jason krug, or even as recently as linden vey.

 

[Peen]

I'm not a fan of the virtanen pick that high, as much as anyone really, but people leading the ahl in scoring don't really impress me. I.e. If anyone remembers Jason krug, or even as recently as linden vey.

he's carrying his linemates though. he's a fantastic player. difference b/w those kinds of players is you could see by watching that they would be limited at the nhl level.

 

[MISC*]

I wanted Ritchie but what do I know.

 

[VanillaCoke]

I'm not a fan of the virtanen pick that high, as much as anyone really, but people leading the ahl in scoring don't really impress me. I.e. If anyone remembers Jason krug, or even as recently as linden vey.

It may or may not translate to the NHL.

But I'm still pretty damn impressed by it.

 

[bossram]

I'm not a fan of the virtanen pick that high, as much as anyone really, but people leading the ahl in scoring don't really impress me. I.e. If anyone remembers Jason krug, or even as recently as linden vey.

Completely different situations. Krug was a career AHLer and Vey didn't dominate the AHL until he was like 23.

Nylander is the best player in the AHL. He's 19.

He was by far my preferred pick in 2014 and my most objective measures it looks pretty justified.

 

[KeninsFan]

I wanted Ritchie but what do I know.

He had a lot of fans on this board after his 5 goal game pre draft.

This board was pretty close between Nylander (my pick) and Ehlers. Virtanen was pretty much thought of as Raffi Torres.