Draft Day Megathread (BS-APPROVED, NO DOUBTERS ALLOWED!)

[LegionOfDoom91]

“All I know is they’ll look great in our pressbox down the line”

 

[deadhead]

I don't think Farabee has any more reason to worry about the press box than Provorov and Patrick.
We'll see about O'Brien, hopefully he's more polished than TK by the time he comes out.

Players bench themselves, cherry picking is for orchards, bad cross ice passes for junior hockey.
Ghost learned, TK learned . . .

 

[Captain Dave Poulin]

I don't think Farabee has any more reason to worry about the press box than Provorov and Patrick.
We'll see about O'Brien, hopefully he's more polished than TK by the time he comes out.

Players bench themselves, cherry picking is for orchards, bad cross ice passes for junior hockey.
Ghost learned, TK learned . . .

 

[FLYguy3911]

Not liking the draft really comes down your opinion on the second round pick, not having a 3rd rounder, and taking another goalie (doesn't bother me like it does most people). Another top 90 pick spices things up a bit. We've gotten spoiled the last 3 years with having a ton of picks in the top 100. Yeah you can nitpick the late round picks for lack of upside, but it is what it is.

The draft will come down to the first rounders, specifically O'Brien. Farabee isn't real sexy, but I think people know what they are getting. I think people need time to warm up to O'Brien like they did Frost. The Flyers are as good as anyone in the 1st round and they presumably got 2 of their top 15 targets. If Jay is a top 6 guy, winner winner chicken dinner.

edit: sorry for the semi-serious post.

 

[Striiker]

It's inferred. "Defensive types" is just Hockey Guy code.

I've seen these players. I'm saying it myself: they're safe and low upside.

Gotta say, this has been stuck in my head and I don’t think I can necessarily agree with this inference.

It’s not that I’m saying you’re wrong, because that absolutely could be what that meant, but I dont think it’s a given. I’m also not really talking about these players either, just specifically about if those terms are interchangeable.

I think it’s possible a player can be a defensive player and not necessarily a high ceiling guy, without being “safe”. Take someone like Gudas, if we drafted someone they think could be a clone of him, it wouldn’t be a high ceiling guy, definitely not a skill guy, but also not really an aim low “safe” pick.

Does that make any sense? I’m not sure if I explained what I’m thinking properly (I’ll go ahead and blame this fever and all the meds ).

 

[deadhead]

I understand exactly what you're saying:

High skill, limited IQ - high upside but low floor, can he at least be mediocre on defense (Voracek) or is he brain dead (Drouin, Gagner)
Good skill, high IQ - this is seen as safe but limited upside, except Couts had 62 ES points, don't get much higher upside than that! Kopitar, etc.
Above Average skill, high IQ - this is safe but limited upside, and what gets people confused, Vorobyev, who should be a solid bottom six center
Good skill, limited IQ, good size - this is seen as safe, but really not because if you don't learn the game, you lack the speed to out skate your mistakes
Average skill, high IQ, good size - you're not going to excite anyone, but you'll be in the right place with the muscle to make it work, this is your best top 4 defensive D-men, physical forwards, etc., don't score a lot of points, but make a lot of smart little plays and add toughness, Raffl, he can skate but bad hands.

The reason people are wary of smurfs is they have to be both high skill and high IQ to work, we see this with Ghost, if he's tied he loses, he has to anticipate on defense and be in the right position, took him three years to understand that - which is why you see a lot of fast, scoring players with -30 +/-, they never figure out how to play and stick with what worked in junior hockey (skate like the wind).

Being a good defensive player curtails your offense to some extent, but mostly the high risk/low reward moves that pad stats but hurt your team. The object isn't to score, but outscore the opposition.
Which is where you have to use all advanced stats, a good Corsi means you're generating shots, a bad xGF% means you're not generating good shots and you're leaving your teammates out to dry too often.

Hextall doesn't want great offensive players, he wants good offensive players who are great hockey players - and Frost and Farabee are exhibit 1A and 1B.

 

[Foggy14]

I was going to bump the Schenn trade thread from a year ago, but it was closed.

Anyway, while it's still early yet, the return for Brayden is looking good.

A legit, skilled center who had a very nice draft +1 season and, now, a very smart and talented wing who has played at a high level against strong age group competition, and things are looking good.

I can't wait to see Frost and Farabee in the Orange and Black.

Of course, you never know what the flying fickle finger of fate has in store.

And we still have Jori for another season at a $4.7m cap hit!

But this is looking like a sweet deal.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

Well the Flyers dipping their toes in the USNDPT water again this year for the first time since 2007 is welcoming news. As the U17 team was loaded this year even when they got pilaged at the end of the year by the U18 team with call-up’s.

U.S. National U17 Team at eliteprospects.com

For those not familiar with how it goes in a normal year the U17 team as a whole typically struggles against the USHL & college exhibition schedules where they’re really giving up maturity & experience to their peers. You don’t not see nearly the whole team above .50 PPG like that team did last year & goaltending like Spencer Knight gave.

Hughes gets all the attention but there’s a lot of potential first & second rounders on that team. Only Rolston & Farrell are late birthdays & will be in the 2020 draft.

 

[Magua]

I think it’s possible a player can be a defensive player and not necessarily a high ceiling guy, without being “safe”. Take someone like Gudas, if we drafted someone they think could be a clone of him, it wouldn’t be a high ceiling guy, definitely not a skill guy, but also not really an aim low “safe” pick.

It makes sense. I'm not sure Gudas is a template, as he's one weird f***ing player who took a strange development path to end up one of the more unique specimens in the NHL. But Gudas or whoever, I get your point.

I just don't think they did it. We'll see; the fun is the years to come in assessing what went right/wrong. But to me, right after draft weekend, I don't see it. I want to separate St. Ivany because defensemen with skating issues don't make for easy projection, but he legitimately has the brain/skill to be what you're describing. Wylie is an okay player, though he's very very safe and low upside to me (like a #6) -- but not a bad player. If they went this route at #50, I'd say Alec Regula fits exactly what you're describing better than Ginning, who Day 2 hinged on and colored everything else to a degree. I don't have a bias against defensive d-men, but they shouldn't all get lumped together as a uniform group either, as they often do.

You can be a defensive defenseman but still have enough presentable puck skill and IQ and 5v5 offensive ability to be a potential top 4 NHL defender. "Defensive defenseman" doesn't have to mean a big slug. It can be Slavin or Pesce or Stralman or Manson or Hjalmarsson or Dumoulin or Vlasic or Ekholm or McNabb. There's varying degrees of talent in there -- I often use the term "defensive d" more loosely than some -- but those are all mid-late round picks primarily known for their defense. For a few, their offense came around more than early years indicated. Did the Flyers draft anyone with THAT potential? From 2nd onwards? If St. Ivany figures out how to skate, quite possibly. But not Ginning (because I just don't think he's that good and they drafted the wrong player) and not Wylie (I don't see any plausible upside) to me. I don't want to make it sound easy or that all these teams knew, but that should still be the goal when drafting.

So, yes, Hexy said, "defensive defensemen" and that doesn't have to mean "safe" or "low upside." He might not feel they are to the extent I do, especially Ginning. But it's what they did from my perspective, either for questionable fit reasons or questionable evaluating. The Flyers aren't really outside the box thinkers, and they thought Robert Hagg was/is top 4 worthy. Typically, if you're chasing a "defensive defenseman" and tweaking your board for such, you're going to get the more stereotypical low upside ones. It's no different than chasing flashy skill in the mid-late rounds instead of letting it come to you: you probably won't make the best picks.

 

[Psuhockey]

We’re not crapping on this draft at all.

Just saying there’s no way you can say it’s currently better than one where we got a #1D, top line winger, and a bunch of other quality prospects.

Right. It’s way to early to tell about this past draft. Give it a year and there could be a surprise or two. Myers, although there were some injuries issues there, was also thought to be only a defensive defensemen and his development exploded one year after he was draft eligible. The same could happen again.

 

[Striiker]

It makes sense. I'm not sure Gudas is a template, as he's one weird ****ing player who took a strange development path to end up one of the more unique specimens in the NHL. But Gudas or whoever, I get your point.

I just don't think they did it. We'll see; the fun is the years to come in assessing what went right/wrong. But to me, right after draft weekend, I don't see it. I want to separate St. Ivany because defensemen with skating issues don't make for easy projection, but he legitimately has the brain/skill to be what you're describing. Wylie is an okay player, though he's very very safe and low upside to me (like a #6) -- but not a bad player. If they went this route at #50, I'd say Alec Regula fits exactly what you're describing better than Ginning, who Day 2 hinged on and colored everything else to a degree. I don't have a bias against defensive d-men, but they shouldn't all get lumped together as a uniform group either, as they often do.

You can be a defensive defenseman but still have enough presentable puck skill and IQ and 5v5 offensive ability to be a potential top 4 NHL defender. "Defensive defenseman" doesn't have to mean a big slug. It can be Slavin or Pesce or Stralman or Manson or Hjalmarsson or Dumoulin or Vlasic or Ekholm or McNabb. There's varying degrees of talent in there -- I often use the term "defensive d" more loosely than some -- but those are all mid-late round picks primarily known for their defense. For a few, their offense came around more than early years indicated. Did the Flyers draft anyone with THAT potential? From 2nd onwards? If St. Ivany figures out how to skate, quite possibly. But not Ginning (because I just don't think he's that good and they drafted the wrong player) and not Wylie (I don't see any plausible upside) to me. I don't want to make it sound easy or that all these teams knew, but that should still be the goal when drafting.

So, yes, Hexy said, "defensive defensemen" and that doesn't have to mean "safe" or "low upside." He might not feel they are to the extent I do, especially Ginning. But it's what they did from my perspective, either for questionable fit reasons or questionable evaluating. The Flyers aren't really outside the box thinkers, and they thought Robert Hagg was/is top 4 worthy. Typically, if you're chasing a "defensive defenseman" and tweaking your board for such, you're going to get the more stereotypical low upside ones. It's no different than chasing flashy skill in the mid-late rounds instead of letting it come to you: you probably won't make the best picks.

Yeah, I totally get what you’re saying here.

And like I said, I’m not disagreeing with anything you said about the guys we picked on day 2, I was just thinking about the overall concept of those labels and if they could fit together in a different way.

I haven’t seen a single second of any of our day 2 picks, so I have nothing of any value to say about any of them, positive or negative. I’ll trust your evaluations here but still hope for the best. I’m a little confused by these picks though, since they seem different than the majority of our picks since 2014. I don’t know if the focus was different or if they just seem them differently than you do. Either way, next year will be especially interesting, both for the NHL team and the prospects.

 

[Psuhockey]

For a different opinion:
NHL Draft grades 2018: Islanders, Red Wings earn full marks; Rangers tank

.
Philadelphia Flyers
Grade: A-
The hits keep on coming for the Flyers and GM Ron Hextall, who came into the weekend already owning the league’s best pool of prospects. It doesn’t seem fair that he added a three-zone assassin like winger Joel Farabee (14th) and speed demon Jay O’Brien (19th) — two highly-skilled American kids with star potential who will marinate in college for another two or three years. They took a pair of punishing defenders in Sweden’s Adam Ginning (50th) and overager Jack St. Ivany (112th), but it’s cerebral two-way defenseman Wyatte Wylie (127th) who could become the best of the bunch. A Flyers’ draft just isn’t a Flyers’ draft without them taking a goalie, and Hextall dipped once again into Sweden’s talent pool to take netminder Samuel Ersson (143rd). They got great value with their later-round picks with playmaking NTDPer Gavin Hain (174th) and aggressive two-way center Marcus Westfalt (205) – two players ranked in my top-150. Philadelphia, however, was yet another team that opted to not draft a pure puck-moving defenseman.

 

[deadhead]

I think we should be careful with Ginning, a 6'4 17 year old is hard to assess, Myers was a good example, often they take a couple years to grow into their bodies (develop body control) and there can be a big jump in skating and puck handling when they do. Flyer scouts may see some growth potential in that regard.

Older guys like St Ivany are easier to project, in his case I guess like Strome you're betting on his skating coach.

Wylie's a 5th rd pick, at that point you're betting on a positive attribute, skating, shooting or in his case intelligence. Salitrini is a good example, speed wasn't enough.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

CHL

Here’s the draft order for the CHL Import Draft. It’s on Thursday morning. So you’ll start hearing some rumors these next few days as it’s not a traditional type of draft. Deals are made ahead of time based on whether a player will or not report to such teams.

Adam Boqvist (London), Martin Kaut (Brandon), Rasmus Kupari (Sault Ste. Marie), & Dominik Bokk (Prince Albert) were recent NHL first rounders that were selected last year & thus those teams still hold those rights.

 

[BigToe]

CHL

Here’s the draft order for the CHL Import Draft. It’s on Thursday morning. So you’ll start hearing some rumors these next few days as it’s not a traditional type of draft. Deals are made ahead of time based on whether a player will or not report to such teams.

Adam Boqvist (London), Martin Kaut (Brandon), Rasmus Kupari (Sault Ste. Marie), & Dominik Bokk (Prince Albert) were recent NHL first rounders that were selected last year & thus those teams still hold those rights.

Didn’t know Kaut was picked by Brandon, that’s interesting. Wonder if they still would’ve went with O’Brien if Kaut was also on the board.

 

[Magua]

None of those players have anything to gain from coming over really. Boqvist won't play behind Bouchard, and he'd be better off trying to get time in Sweden's tier 1 or 2 leagues.. Kupari and Bokk get pro playing time and need it. Kaut is far too advanced for junior hockey. If they bring him over, it should be to the AHL. Or another year in Extraliga.

Didn’t know Kaut was picked by Brandon, that’s interesting. Wonder if they still would’ve went with O’Brien if Kaut was also on the board.

I would bet anything he was high on their board. Whether he was above JOB no one can say. But my Flyer Draft Sense is tingling.

 

[FLYguy3911]

Boqvist won't play behind Bouchard

Have a feeling he’s going to be in Edmonton.

 

[Magua]

Have a feeling he’s going to be in Edmonton.

Edmonton. Didn’t even enter my brain. Yes, silly me.

 

[Ghosts Beer]

Boqvist would obliterate the OHL if he went to London.

 

[wankstifier]

I don't think Farabee has any more reason to worry about the press box than Provorov and Patrick.
We'll see about O'Brien, hopefully he's more polished than TK by the time he comes out.

Players bench themselves, cherry picking is for orchards, bad cross ice passes for junior hockey.
Ghost learned, TK learned . . .

Both players still get benched. When will the coach learn?

 

[deadhead]

Farabee will never get benched by Hakstol, he loves high IQ players who don't require him to repeat things.

 

[Prongo]

Farabee will never get benched by Hakstol, he loves high IQ players who don't require him to repeat things.

Hakstol more than likely won’t be the coach when Farabee is ready.

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

Hakstol more than likely won’t be the coach when Farabee is ready.

Sick burn

 

[Chinatown88]

Time to get those 2019 Draft favorites started!

 

[wankstifier]

I think we should be careful with Ginning, a 6'4 17 year old is hard to assess, Myers was a good example, often they take a couple years to grow into their bodies (develop body control) and there can be a big jump in skating and puck handling when they do. Flyer scouts may see some growth potential in that regard.

Older guys like St Ivany are easier to project, in his case I guess like Strome you're betting on his skating coach.

Wylie's a 5th rd pick, at that point you're betting on a positive attribute, skating, shooting or in his case intelligence. Salitrini is a good example, speed wasn't enough.

Myers is a terrible example.