C Jay O'Brien - Toronto Marlies, AHL (2018, 19th, PHI released)

[wetcoast]

I dont even know what you are talking about at this point. My original comment was that KAndre Miller is a really good player that was picked after OBrien - after someone claimed there werent any. Now you are spewing nonsense I dont even understand what you are trying to say

Here is your orginal comment that I expanded on sorry if the truth hits a sore spot.

Maybe I am super biased but K’Andre Miller seems like a pretty big time player

Anyways I'm done here for now we can continue this is another NYR for the 23-24 season thread instead.

 

[bigdog16]

Here is your orginal comment that I expanded on sorry if the truth hits a sore spot.




Anyways I'm done here for now we can continue this is another NYR for the 23-24 season thread instead.

Lol are you insinuating that I meant KAndre Miller is going to single handidly win us a Stanley Cup? Jesus dude you are right, would much rather have Jay OBrien than KAndre.

 

[Mrfenn92]

Any word on O’Brien potential destination?

 

[DFF]

Like a Mercedes

More like a Vinfast

 

[wetcoast]

Lol are you insinuating that I meant KAndre Miller is going to single handidly win us a Stanley Cup? Jesus dude you are right, would much rather have Jay OBrien than KAndre.

I say this respectfully but go Kravtsov.

 

[Sasso09]

Wasn't a huge reach, went ~10 spots ahead of where he was expected. See that multiple times every draft.

It was a very bad evaluation of an older guy against prep school kids

It was indeed a huge reach, I didn't have him in my top 50 (I keep logs of my top 50 for every year as far Back as 2014) and I don't think many people if any had him in their top 30. It wasn't 10 spots

 

[Kevin Musto]

Any word on O’Brien potential destination?

Nothing yet.

I think he's going to have to settle for an AHL contract though.

I don't think teams are lining up with ELC offers.

 

[Sasso09]

No it wasn’t. Go back and look. Search for Jay. It was mostly positive or mixed. More people wanted Bode Wilde, not Miller as a D pick there. Those threads are also full of so many other bad opinions, so who cares what they thought anyway.

Yeah, there's no way you're a flyers fan. The pick was unanimously hated and 90% wanted Miller.

Ok and I would take Shesterkin over Bobrovsky. Which was the entire point of my post. Shesterkin can single handidly win the Rangers the cup. The Rangers are good enough in front of him to win if he stands on his head.

But again back to Jay Obrien

No goalie can win the Rangers the cup

 

[Mrfenn92]

Nothing yet.

I think he's going to have to settle for an AHL contract though.

I don't think teams are lining up with ELC offers.

Ok bring him to Rockford for the year

 

[Sasso09]

Any word on O’Brien potential destination?

I'd be shocked if Obrien played a game in the NHL

 

[Mrfenn92]

I'd be shocked if Obrien played a game in the NHL

Ok

 

[BondraTime]

It was indeed a huge reach, I didn't have him in my top 50 (I keep logs of my top 50 for every year as far Back as 2014) and I don't think many people if any had him in their top 30. It wasn't 10 spots

Well, as long as your rankings say so

It was expected he was going to be taken from 20-30, everyone knew a team was going to take him in that range. Some had him very high. He was ranked 34th on Mckenzies list for a reason, was mocked by Button a week before at 26 for a reason. He met with every team at the combine.

It was a poorly formed projection of a player against prep teams that led to a lot of teams in the league viewing him as a guy that was going to get taken very high. Where he went wasn’t surprising, or a huge reach, whatsoever. It was fully expected at the draft. If it wasn’t the Flyers it would have been one of the other teams soon after.

Was 24th in the Black Book, had a ton of quotes from NHL scouts that said he was a 1st for them.



“Lots of teams angry the flyers grabbed him”, “Rangers were one of the teams looking for him with one of their 1st rounders”, “all the guys ranked in the early 30’s are a threat in the 1st round”

He was a guy that was never getting out of the 1st, him going 19th wasn’t surprising. Was 15 ahead of his ranking (~10…)

 

[Brodeur]

It was indeed a huge reach, I didn't have him in my top 50 (I keep logs of my top 50 for every year as far Back as 2014) and I don't think many people if any had him in their top 30. It wasn't 10 spots

Kotkaniemi surges into top five of TSN Draft Ranking - TSN.ca

Finn’s strong performance at the World Under-18 Championships in April has some scouts believing he’s a potential future No. 1 centre, Bob McKenzie writes. His late push could make the top 10 of the draft more unpredictable than originally anticipated.

www.tsn.ca

Bob's final ranking/survey had O'Brien at #34 and he generates that list with direct feedback from NHL teams. I also recall listening to a Pierre Maguire interview a couple weeks before the draft where he didn't identify O'Brien by name but made thinly veiled reference that he had heard of a couple teams ready to him late in the first round.

Edit: I dug up my 2018 rankings for my keeper league draft. Obviously a little different with a fantasy hockey spin, but I had O'Brien #23. We do our draft a week before (6/15 that year) the real one (6/22) just to add to the degree of difficulty. In that year, I didn't have the benefit of making adjustments when Bob released his rankings (6/18).

For the lolz, here's my list. I had pick #19 and ended up with Denisenko. I got O'Brien with #45 and Sean Durzi (#48 on my list) at #74.

2018 NHL Draft Rankings

2018 NHL draft rankings. A compilation of the top NHL draft prospects rankings for the 2018 draft from a variety of NHL scouting service and media outlets.

www.mynhldraft.com

Along with that Pierre interview, Cam Robinson of DobberProspects had O'Brien #25 and HockeyProspect.com had him #24.

 

[FlyguyOX]

Gotta say I'm pretty shocked there's this many people interested in this kid. I've seen way less interest in prospects with 100x the potential. Let the bust fade away. We got our 2nd.

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

Gotta say I'm pretty shocked there's this many people interested in this kid. I've seen way less interest in prospects with 100x the potential. Let the bust fade away. We got our 2nd.

He was a mid 1st round pick. People will think he's just a slow developer like some.

There's always going to be a hard on for him, but like you said the flyers got their 2nd next year for him, so they don't give a f*** about where he plays.

 

[Chuck Downie]

I remember Tony Amonte pumping him up around his draft time

 

[PDX Flyer]

I remember Tony Amonte pumping him up around his draft time

Amonte was his prep coach iirc.

 

[Dirty Dog]

I dont even know what you are talking about at this point. My original comment was that KAndre Miller is a really good player that was picked after OBrien - after someone claimed there werent any. Now you are spewing nonsense I dont even understand what you are trying to say

If you go back and read that comment you’ll see he said there weren’t a “bunch” of good players picked right after him and explicitly said Miller was the exception…

 

[Preposterone]

Yet another example of why taking prep kids in the first couple of rounds is moronic. Who is the best case scenario recently; jankowski? Middlestadt at least had a dozen games of USHL pre draft

 

[WarriorofTime]

Yet another example of why taking prep kids in the first couple of rounds is moronic. Who is the best case scenario recently; jankowski? Middlestadt at least had a dozen games of USHL pre draft

Kevin Hayes was a good pick at his draft spot, but he bolted for the Rangers as a college free agent.

I think that's probably the biggest risk, lol. These non-USNDPT, non-CHL, non-USHL guys are necessarily going to be long-term types at which point they can wait out and go be a free agent.

 

[Filthy Dangles]

I'm so confused...how/why do Flyers get a compensatory pick for drafting a big bust...?

Where's my NYR's compensation for all the draft busts they've taken?????

Maybe I am super biased but K’Andre Miller seems like a pretty big time player

A bunch of other teams before Philthy swung and miss and missed out on him too. He was a gem of a find in the late 1st round...

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

I'm so confused...how/why do Flyers get a compensatory pick for drafting a big bust...?

Where's my NYR's compensation for all the draft busts they've taken?????



A bunch of other teams before Philthy swung and miss and missed out on him too. He was a gem of a find in the late 1st round...

You get a compensation pick for 1st rounders only and that's if you don't sign them.

You got a pick that's 32 spots after the spot you drafted your 1st rounder in assuming you don't sign them.

 

[Brodeur]

I'm so confused...how/why do Flyers get a compensatory pick for drafting a big bust...?

Where's my NYR's compensation for all the draft busts they've taken?????

Unfortunately the CBA doesn't distinguish between a 1st rounder unwilling to sign (Blake Wheeler, Kevin Hayes) or a team preferring a do over on a 1st rounder who didn't develop (Conner Bleackley, Patrick White).

Maybe a bit of a relic from when the rule was added in the 1995 CBA. There was a rookie salary cap but it wasn't as stringent as it is today, so they wanted to give some small market clubs some insurance in case they got the cold shoulder from the first rounder. Naturally some teams used the rule not quite as intended.

 

[WarriorofTime]

The biggest issue is really that the USHL is such a midwestern League that east coast kids are somewhat hesitant to leave too far away from home when the prep schools have historically been a strong route to college hockey. They're also in the QMJHL region, most do not going to go that route and have to play in a place where english is not the native language.

Let's go through MA-born NHL players:

Jack Eichel - USNDTP
Matt Boldy - USNDTP
Matty Beniers - USNDTP
Chris Kreider - Prep School (3 years NCAA)
Kevin Hayes - Prep School (4 years NCAA)
Conor Garland - QMJHL
Charlie Coyle - Prep school then East Coast Junior Hockey (essentially Tier II USA), then 1.5 year of NCAA then bolted mid-season for QMJHL
Frank Vatrano - USNDTP
Noah Hanifin - USNDTP
Conor Sheary - Prep School (4 years NCAA)
John Carlson (although he grew up in New Jersey) - USHL then OHL (after being drafted, was OHL eligible because he moved to Indianapolis prior)
Ryan Donato - Prep School (3 years NCAA)
Matt Grzelcyk - USNDTP
Jimmy Vesey - Prep school then East Coast Junior Hockey (see Coyle) (4 years NCAA)
John Marino - USPHL (I think breakway Tier II, but east-coast based) then USHL (after getting drafted) (3 years NCAA)
Jordan Harris - Prep School (4 years NCAA)
Colin White - USNDTP
Colin Blackwell - Prep School (4 years NCAA)

Part of the issue is the USNDTP is just so all-encompassing of an engulfer of top American talent from all over the country. USA Hockey is essentially getting to hand-select the best 25 players in the country and remove them from the rest of the ecosystem. A lot of the best kids heading into their Age 16 year old season remain the best kids and they get all the USA Hockey resources flushed upon them, so a bunch of them go on to the NHL of course.

For the later bloomers, it's tough. This is a bigger issue as the share of American drafted players has been increasing, there was a time when not being a Top 25 player by that age probably meant you were a longshot, but that's more and more no longer the case. But since you weren't a Top 25 player, you may not be thinking as seriously about the best possible path to making the NHL and your focus is more directed towards college, where the prep schools combo of hockey and academics can put you in a good position to succeed. But this means you're gonna be a bit behind the eight-ball for the ones that do continue to get better and can seriously work towards the NHL, which is why you see the ones that did make it turn out to be much longer term projects.

If there simply was no USNDTP, I think Junior Hockey in the USA could seriously be overhauled in a positive way for the longterm future of a broader base of players than simply the 25 special darlings that earn the USNDTP golden ticket. I imagine the USHL would be more like an overall umbrella organization and there would be multiple functioning leagues representing the Western States, the Midwest and the East Coast. Essentially what you see in Canada with the QMJHL, OHL and WHL. Just expanding the existing USHL probably doesn't work, country is way too spread out to support that kind of travel for junior hockey. The best talent wouldn't get plucked off to USNDTP and would all be going to head to head with each other in a diffused system that gives the "non-Top 25" kids time to catch up prior to the NHL Draft.

In many ways, I think the USA has outgrown the need for a USNDTP, and I think that they can care to sacrifice some U18 tournament success to create a system that is more favorable to a much broader base of players. I know that's never going to happen though, and it'll continue to focus on the exceptional kids and swallowing up many of USA Hockey's resources in the way it does now.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Unfortunately the CBA doesn't distinguish between a 1st rounder unwilling to sign (Blake Wheeler, Kevin Hayes) or a team preferring a do over on a 1st rounder who didn't develop (Conner Bleackley, Patrick White).

Maybe a bit of a relic from when the rule was added in the 1995 CBA. There was a rookie salary cap but it wasn't as stringent as it is today, so they wanted to give some small market clubs some insurance in case they got the cold shoulder from the first rounder. Naturally some teams used the rule not quite as intended.

Yes a bit unfair if a player is saying "hey I'm ready to sign" and the team says "get lost" if they'd rather have the 2nd round pick... when if the player was picked in any other round, they'd get signed by the drafting team.

Some sort of bonafide offer procedure should be in place in a perfect world, so that you only get the comp pick if you made a real attempt to sign the player. It's not like it's ever a matter of haggling over details given ELC salaries.