I agree 100% on your philosophy with drafting high upside players in the early rounds. I am concerned when I hear the upside of Minten as a third line centre - that's a decent prospect but not the guy you should be drafting in the early second round. However, it's entirely possible the Leafs see more upside than the "experts" do, which you also mention.
I find draft grades to generally be useless in any sport because it basically becomes a case of giving high grades for a 'steal' (i.e. taking a higher ranked player that falls to you) and low grades for a 'reach' (because the player wasn't so high in the rankings). If it was as easy as that, we could just assign the players to each team based on the central scouting list and save the hours it takes to get through the actual draft. Finally, the vast majority of people in this thread have no idea about any of these prospects, or at least didn't until the Leafs drafted them.
I like the Mrazek trade and I'm surprised the Blackhawks took the entire contract to only move up 13 spots. Of course, the Mrazek signing was predictably bad and if that hadn't happened, the Leafs could have kept the pick. I also like the Leafs trading down to get some more picks because they need quantity as much as quality in their prospect pool right now.
In a few years we will come back and see where things are. I don't think Dubas has earned the confidence many people show in his drafting, but neither should we be bashing his picks since most of them have not year reached the point or age where they can reasonably be expected to contribute in the NHL.
Ya I think everything you said is completely fair. I am a big fan of Kyle Dubas' management style for a number of reasons, some of which were on full display this weekend. It would have been easy for Kyle to run it back with Petr and attribute his bad year as just an off year derailed by injury. It's what a large number of NHL GM's have done and continue to do whenever they make mistakes. They'd much rather go down with their "pride" in tact vs. cutting their losses and admitting defeat. Moving down 13 spots in the draft to shed 2 years at 3.8AAV was an incredible move from Kyle IMO. It goes against any comparable price to dispose of a bad deal like that. Some tweets were suggesting the price of moving on from Mrazek and losing 13 spots in draft position is equivalent to a 7th rounder. Sure the signing in general probably should have never happened given Mrazek's lengthy injury history, but it was also understandable given our goaltending situation heading into last season. All n all, it was a very small price to pay to attempt getting competition/security in the pipes for 1 year. It was a swing and a miss, but really not the end of the world as it was mitigated very well with the trade.
In terms of Kyle's ability to draft, you're 100% correct on the fact that we cannot definitively applaud or scrutinize his selections quite yet. I will say, the early indications are very promising especially given the lack of high picks. I do suspect the Kyle's draft selections to start making an impact shortly though. Nick Robertson, Pontus Holmberg, Alex Steeves (UDFA), Curtis Douglas (UFA) being the likeliest of the bunch to make an impact this next coming year.
The Fraser Minten selection seemingly looks outside the traditional mold for what Dubas has historically selected in that position. He lacks the higher upside that we've seen in those higher picks. But as you mentioned, most people on here, including myself, really don't know shit about these kids and really base their "scouting" reports on internet clips and other people's scouting reports. I really believe the Leafs believe Fraser has some untapped potential that he has yet to showcase. I just cannot see them having Minten in their top 15 if they feel like his upside is 3rd line center. Makes no sense.
I am very interested in seeing him play at the summer showcase
