Bender
Registered User
- Sep 25, 2002
- 17,332
- 8,609
Bender, this is awesome. You should definitely be charging for this. I’ll throw you a donation.
I’m on Team Pod and Boldy at 4, but I don't think the Avs are leaning that way at all.
Great job as usual.
Thanks for the amazing list. Very helpful.
Couple questions why so low on Byram? You say 1st pairing potential, but have him at 10 under a couple of guys like Newhook, Podkolzin, Cozens etc. who probably end up more of 2nd line guys.
Why so high on Dach? One if his big knocks is effort level consistencies. If I'm drafting at 3, I don't think I'd want a guy with effort question marks. Are his laziness concerns overblown?
First of all...thank you for all the kind words!
For Byram, I was talking to a friend last night and I explained it this way - I've been watching prospects for a long time and sometimes you just get a feeling by watching their play, that maybe he's just not going to translate over the way people think. So let's say for the sake of argument - 50% of time you're right and 50% of the time you're wrong when you get that kind of feeling - would you take a chance on that player you're 'iffy' about with a Top-5 pick? I wouldn't.
The feeling I get with Byram is the same feelling I had with Ryan Murray - that he's going to end up a good player but not as good as people anticipate. I think he'll be like Keith Yandle in terms of quality - a good point producer that can play a lot of minutes but probably not a true #1 guy. I think the best fit for him would be to go to LA where they can pair him up with Doughty and have him learn that way.
I know it's not a popular opinion but if you told people prior to the 2012 draft that Murray might not even be a Top-4 guy 7 years later, people would have laughed. To be fair, I do think Byram ends up better than Murray.
For Kirby Dach, I think it depends on what your expectations are for that player and part of that is knowing what kind of player he is. I think that some of the knocks that I've seen against him are also the same stuff I remember reading about Ryan Getzlaf. When I found out that Getzlaf was his favourite player and the guy he patterned himself after, it all made sense because he plays just like him.
So yeah, a lot of times, it looks as though he's just kind out of there not really doing anything and I absolutely get that people might want him to be more engaged but I think that when it looks like he's doing nothing - he's analyzing and waiting to strike. I liked him well enough throughout the year (specifically his vision and playmaking ability - it's really good) but I thought he really stood out during the playoffs. He looked completely engaged and out there to make a difference.
If you guys are interested, I have some video I could upload (I'll create a you tube channel or something).