Dennis "Chili Dog" Cholowski

[Frk It]

Not a big fan of Morgan Reilly. I don't think he is terrible, but I think he is pretty close to what he is. Which for me is really a second pairing offensive D-man if used correctly on a good team.

I liked Ryan Murray in his draft year, for what it's worth. But his offensive just hasn't developed or progressed much at all. Caught some bad breaks with injuries and all, but at this point I'm not sure he'll be more than a second pair defensive guy. So by your assessment of Reilly, I'd take a second pair offensive guy over a second pair defensive guy.

But the top 15 of that year was littered with some land mines. So I guess I can give Wright and co. a pass on that year. I mean Ryan Murray looks like Ray Bourque compared to Griffin Reinhardt, haha. Hopefully one of our guys hits for us in a few years here.

 

[DatsyukToZetterberg]

Are you acting like we don't ever make reaches? The thing about reaches is, no one cares if they turn out in the end.
Tyler Bertuzzi was a humongous reach. Cholowski was a reach just last year.

The Wings do pick reaches but as you pointed out people only care if they work out or they completely blow up in your face. The Wings reached for Bertuzzi, IIRC he wasn't ranked in the final NA CSS rankings, they also reached for Saarijarvi who wasn't ranked among NA skaters.

I'd also say that Cholowski wasn't a reach as he was ranked in the 20-30 range in most mocks by the end of the season.

On the topic of Cholowski he seems to be doing well and is putting up numbers comparable to his contemporaries. I also think that this time next year he will be playing for Canada at the WJC. The 2017 draft doesn't really have any standouts that should leap frog him on TC's depth chart and he's among the 6 best dmen taken from Canada in 2016 imo.

 

[Frk It]

The Wings do pick reaches but as you pointed out people only care if they work out or they completely blow up in your face. The Wings reached for Bertuzzi, IIRC he wasn't ranked in the final NA CSS rankings, they also reached for Saarijarvi who wasn't ranked among NA skaters.

I'd also say that Cholowski wasn't a reach as he was ranked in the 20-30 range in most mocks by the end of the season.

On the topic of Cholowski he seems to be doing well and is putting up numbers comparable to his contemporaries. I also think that this time next year he will be playing for Canada at the WJC. The 2017 draft doesn't really have any standouts that should leap frog him on TC's depth chart and he's among the 6 best dmen taken from Canada in 2016 imo.

Yeah, Cholo wasn't a big reach but here is where he ended up ranked:

- 2016 NHL Entry Draft: Ranked #26 by Hockeyprospect.com
- 2016 NHL Entry Draft: Ranked #38 by ISS Hockey
- 2016 NHL Entry Draft: Ranked #51 by Future Considerations
- 2016 NHL Entry Draft: Ranked #18 by McKeen's Hockey
- 2016 NHL Entry Draft: Ranked #23 by NHL Central Scouting (NA Skaters)
- 2016 NHL Entry Draft: Ranked #25 by TSN/McKenzie
- See more at: http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=247137#sthash.tu4MGISu.dpuf

So just about every scouting outlet had him ranked after where we ultimately took him. I'd call it somewhat of a reach.

 

[Dotter]

Where would you like to start? Frk over Severson and Ghost? Ritola over Yandle and Hjalmarsson? Ferraro over Barrie? Nestrasil over Savard? That is 60 seconds of research and ignores that we took Kindl over Niskanen, Letang and Vlasic.

I understand that drafting defensemen is very difficult. It is dishonest, however, to suggest that we did not have the opportunity to acquire top 4 defensemen outside of the first round that would help our team today. Again, results matter and we came up short. If we were going to succeed at the famed "rebuild on the fly" we really needed to hit on some defensemen (outside of the first round it would happen). Unfortunately we came up short in that department and are now squarely facing a rebuild (whether Holland wants to admit it or not).

Now if it was impossible for us to do better than we did in drafting defensemen, re-building on the fly was never really an option, was it?

It took you 60 seconds to look back 5785436 minutes in history to see your 20/20 hindsight vision is crystal clear. I digress, hindsight is not a useful skill to have in hockey.

I'm sure even Lidstrom wishes he would have went top shelf on Fluery in the dying seconds back in the 2009 SCF to tie the game. And he's the perfect human. But I don't see him on here complaining about it.

 

[ginnungagap]

I personally would like to lobby for his nickname to be "The Dude" or the "The Big Cholowski". I'm going to try and catch as many Saint Cloud State games as I can over the next couple years- but he is pretty much the stereotypical, late-riser heading into the draft that takes time to shake out. The natural skating style and heads up play give me hope though.