LegionOfDoom91
Registered User
“All I know is they’ll look great in our pressbox down the line”
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 . . .
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.
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.
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.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.
Yeah, I totally get what you’re saying here.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.
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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.
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.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.
Have a feeling he’s going to be in Edmonton.Boqvist won't play behind Bouchard
Have a feeling he’s going to be in Edmonton.
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 . . .
Hakstol more than likely won’t be the coach when Farabee is ready.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.
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.