Rate the moves of the Draft Weekend

[arsmaster*]

I'm just trying to figure out who's going to take on the tough match-ups. Neither of these guys is ready. Bonino played easy minutes and did OK, Vey played easier minutes and did poorly (worst possession stats on the Kings). Are Sedins the new shutdown duo?

I think the Sedins will be the shutdown duo. I don't think Desjardins will be strict with the matchups, but I see him combatting fire with the only fire it looks like we have.

 

[parabola]

Grading drafts is dumb, but if we're grading moves based on how they might potentially end up I don't see how anyone can rate the moves less than a B. Everything has the potential to be just about what the best possible scenario could be. Not quite the best return for everything nor the best picks (the first 2 picks which are the ones that matter were A picks though).

Definitely no worse than a C. Not sure what the people voting D or F were expecting.

 

[Shareefruck]

^ I think the low grades probably have more to do with the trades.

 

[arsmaster*]

Grading drafts is dumb, but if we're grading moves based on how they might potentially end up I don't see how anyone can rate the moves less than a B. Everything has the potential to be just about what the best possible scenario could be. Not quite the best return for everything nor the best picks (the first 2 picks which are the ones that matter were A picks though).

Definitely no worse than a C. Not sure what the people voting D or F were expecting.

To reply to your last sentence:

We were expecting not to give away a top 4 dman. Actually, we expected more than a 2nd and probably expected not having to give a prospect and a pick as well.

Probably expected not to take a salary dump for kesler. That's what sbisa is until he proves me otherwise.

Bonino, vey and McCann are good pieces.

Dorsett seems like one of those moves where you question all the other moves because the direction looks different. This is a high priced 4th line player who is taking a spot from a potential young player.

I know I'll like him in van, but it's the build up to that point that has me scratching my head.

Here's hoping Bonino improves and Vey becomes our version of Reilly smith.

 

[Lindgren]

^ I think the low grades probably have more to do with the trades.

One thing that seems clear to me is that the trades will very quickly give us a sense of how good Benning and Linden are as talent evaluators (by "us," I mean those who, like me, aren't already confident in their independent evaluation of the incoming players). The players acquired in the draft will take years to reveal themselves. But the organization's bet seems to be that the trade acquisitions will be ready for bigger roles right away. I look forward to seeing if the bet pays off.

 

[Verviticus]

Grading drafts is dumb, but if we're grading moves based on how they might potentially end up I don't see how anyone can rate the moves less than a B. Everything has the potential to be just about what the best possible scenario could be. Not quite the best return for everything nor the best picks (the first 2 picks which are the ones that matter were A picks though).

Definitely no worse than a C. Not sure what the people voting D or F were expecting.

i was expecting not to be able to say "well at least hes not going to x!" and then have x done, multiple times. what were you expecting?

also what? grading drafts isnt dumb. the canucks picked a bunch of players with no chance of making the nhl. we know that already

 

[RandV]

Whether or not grading drafts is dumb depends on how you grade them. Typically following a draft if you ask HF who 'won' the favoured teams, when people aren't just picking their own, it's usually the team that drafted the most 'fallers' where as they fall every teams fan hopes they grab them. But than that begs the question... why are all these professional scouts passing on the player?

On the other hand, there are certain things you can pick up on. Drafting a guy like Nathan Smith pr Patrick White in the 1st round is just a boneheaded move period. Trades made, judging value of the NHL player going out and the position of the prospect coming in, can be judged. Wasting picks on almost guaranteed late round busts on CHL depth players who lack the talent to even score in that lack but have good 'size', the Evan Fuller, Dan Gendur, or Sawyer Hannay's of the draft, are dumb moves. You can see this in any draft, 75% chance if a last round pick makes it anywhere it's a skilled European kid who's playing in some European league. This applies to use as well, with Tommernes, Bliznak, and Hansen.

So you can't really so much on Bennings first 5 round picks, but you can cast judgement on the trades and the decision for the last two picks.

 

[parabola]

To reply to your last sentence:

We were expecting not to give away a top 4 dman. Actually, we expected more than a 2nd and probably expected not having to give a prospect and a pick as well.

Probably expected not to take a salary dump for kesler. That's what sbisa is until he proves me otherwise.

Bonino, vey and McCann are good pieces.

Dorsett seems like one of those moves where you question all the other moves because the direction looks different. This is a high priced 4th line player who is taking a spot from a potential young player.

I don't understand how this = D or F though. To me you're making it sound like a C even though I would disagree with that. I think coming out of the draft with 3-4 good pieces is a good draft

i was expecting not to be able to say "well at least hes not going to x!" and then have x done, multiple times. what were you expecting?

also what? grading drafts isnt dumb. the canucks picked a bunch of players with no chance of making the nhl. we know that already

No we don't know that. And so what if our 5th, 6th, 7th round picks are reaches? That's usually the case for those picks. Our 2 1sts and 2nd round pick will most likely make the NHL. Or at least have a very strong chance to make the NHL.

Whether or not grading drafts is dumb depends on how you grade them. Typically following a draft if you ask HF who 'won' the favoured teams, when people aren't just picking their own, it's usually the team that drafted the most 'fallers' where as they fall every teams fan hopes they grab them. But than that begs the question... why are all these professional scouts passing on the player?

On the other hand, there are certain things you can pick up on. Drafting a guy like Nathan Smith pr Patrick White in the 1st round is just a boneheaded move period. Trades made, judging value of the NHL player going out and the position of the prospect coming in, can be judged. Wasting picks on almost guaranteed late round busts on CHL depth players who lack the talent to even score in that lack but have good 'size', the Evan Fuller, Dan Gendur, or Sawyer Hannay's of the draft, are dumb moves. You can see this in any draft, 75% chance if a last round pick makes it anywhere it's a skilled European kid who's playing in some European league. This applies to use as well, with Tommernes, Bliznak, and Hansen.

So you can't really so much on Bennings first 5 round picks, but you can cast judgement on the trades and the decision for the last two picks.

I can agree with most of this. Although come on, very few teams will strike home runs with the last two picks.

 

[RandV]

I can agree with most of this. Although come on, very few teams will strike home runs with the last two picks.

Yes but just because you don't get a homerun don't mean you can't get a useful pick. Bliznak and now Tommernes came over and played full time in the AHL. This helps build a stronger farm team, which is useful for developing your more promising prospects, and adds more organization depth in case you need an emergency injury call up. Even if the player never makes it and/or goes back to Europe, that's at least some value gained out of the pick, and I would think a decent expectation from a late rounder.

A key factor is both Bliznak and Tommernes were drafted out of European mens leagues. As good as it is the CHL is a late teenagers league, and a very high scoring one at that. If a kid like Pettit has the advantage of being 6'4 in this league and can only score 10 points in a season, when he graduates to playing against men chances are he tops out at the ECHL level, if even that.

I mean I don't want to rag on these kids and really hope for the best with them, but we've made so many of these sorts of last round picks over the years and they always end up the same.

 

[realist99]

No possible way to rate what was done this weekend. I really really like the theory behind the moves, but since I haven't seen the players actually play then I can't really judge.

 

[parabola]

Yes but just because you don't get a homerun don't mean you can't get a useful pick. Bliznak and now Tommernes came over and played full time in the AHL. This helps build a stronger farm team, which is useful for developing your more promising prospects, and adds more organization depth in case you need an emergency injury call up. Even if the player never makes it and/or goes back to Europe, that's at least some value gained out of the pick, and I would think a decent expectation from a late rounder.

A key factor is both Bliznak and Tommernes were drafted out of European mens leagues. As good as it is the CHL is a late teenagers league, and a very high scoring one at that. If a kid like Pettit has the advantage of being 6'4 in this league and can only score 10 points in a season, when he graduates to playing against men chances are he tops out at the ECHL level, if even that.

I mean I don't want to rag on these kids and really hope for the best with them, but we've made so many of these sorts of last round picks over the years and they always end up the same.

You voted for "C" so while I don't agree with you, I believe you have a valid argument. It's the people who voted worse than that, those are the people I have an issue with.

Plus I know you actually know what you're talking about from your previous posts so it's hard for me to rag on your opinion too much. Opinions are allowed after all.

 

[Addison Rae]

Why is this ronnyweed character so obsessed with the Canucks? Constantly bashes the Canucks on the main board, visits our board for at least an hour a day and tries to skew our poll results. Yikes.

 

[Dead Cat Bounce]

Mark Siedel of Central Scouting ranks how the Canadian teams did at the draft.

Canucks get the top marks.


"CANUCKS A+

Vancouver used their two first-round round picks wisely to acquire excellent pieces in Jake Virtanen and Jared McCann ... Both kids are very low risk and do a lot of important things to help their teams win ...

They then got arguably the best goaltender in the draft, Thatcher Demko, who led Boston College to the Frozen Four as a freshman starter which is unheard of ...

Size then seemed a priority when they took the mountainous Nikita Tryamkin who needs work but has a lot of the tools you want in a big prospect ... Kyle Pettit & Mackenzie Stewart are big kids who need work but have some potential ...

Jim Benning has been known as a shrewd guy in the league and proved it with his drafting and trades this weekend."

http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/06/28/report-card-on-canadian-teams-nhl-drafting

 

[DadBod]

LastWordOnSports rated each teams drafts below are Canucks.

Vancouver Canucks (includes various trades)
2014 NHL Draft Grade B+
Favorite Value Pick: Jarred McCann, 24th overall
Jim Benning was the talk of the NHL draft. The Canucks lost talent in the Kesler and Garrison trades, but Kesler really handcuffed the team with his trade demands, and Garrison was a redundant piece on the Canucks blueline. The pickup of Dorsett was a solid move. The team might not be better today after all of these moves, but they are ones that needed to be done. Word out of Vancouver is that the Canucks have been in love with first rounder Jake Virtanen for a long time now, and the pick isn’t a bad one even if its not necessarily the way we would have gone. Later in the first round the Canucks got the best value of the round taking Jared McCann with the pick. He’ll be a nice one-two punch with Bo Horvat down the road. Thatcher Demko was our number one ranked goalie in the draft, and getting him at 36 was good value. In Nikita Trymakin and Gustav Forsling the Canucks take two polar opposite. One is an absolute Giant (6’7″) on the blue line who uses his size and reach to play strong defence but needs to work on his awkward skating. Gustav Forsling is an undersized defenceman with very strong skating and offensive skills including a rocket of a point shot. Some people (including Canucks fans) have been rough on this draft, but we think Jim Benning made the best of some bad situations, and then made some solid pickups for the Canucks future.

 

[y2kcanucks]

LastWordOnSports rated each teams drafts below are Canucks.

Vancouver Canucks (includes various trades)
2014 NHL Draft Grade B+
Favorite Value Pick: Jarred McCann, 24th overall
Jim Benning was the talk of the NHL draft. The Canucks lost talent in the Kesler and Garrison trades, but Kesler really handcuffed the team with his trade demands, and Garrison was a redundant piece on the Canucks blueline. The pickup of Dorsett was a solid move. The team might not be better today after all of these moves, but they are ones that needed to be done. Word out of Vancouver is that the Canucks have been in love with first rounder Jake Virtanen for a long time now, and the pick isn’t a bad one even if its not necessarily the way we would have gone. Later in the first round the Canucks got the best value of the round taking Jared McCann with the pick. He’ll be a nice one-two punch with Bo Horvat down the road. Thatcher Demko was our number one ranked goalie in the draft, and getting him at 36 was good value. In Nikita Trymakin and Gustav Forsling the Canucks take two polar opposite. One is an absolute Giant (6’7″) on the blue line who uses his size and reach to play strong defence but needs to work on his awkward skating. Gustav Forsling is an undersized defenceman with very strong skating and offensive skills including a rocket of a point shot. Some people (including Canucks fans) have been rough on this draft, but we think Jim Benning made the best of some bad situations, and then made some solid pickups for the Canucks future.

I disagree with the ranking.

Was not happy with McCann at 24. Don't like him as a prospect and see him as having 3C potential as his ceiling. Might be ok if we had a lot of first and second line prospects, but we don't.

Virtanen was an OK pick. Nothing to get excited about. High risk/high reward type pick at 6. Would have preferred Ritchie, but not that upset with the Virtanen pick.

Demko...OK. We could use a decent goalie prospect like him given our goaltending pipeline looks kind of week right now. Top rated goalie in the draft, sure.

I like the Forsling pick. Didn't know much about him but the more I read about him the more he sounds promising. If Subban doesn't pan out for us, Forsling could be the guy who's our next solid puck moving defenseman.

Tryamkin, meh. Stewart, meh. 7th round pick so I don't really care too much.

A little surprised we wouldn't go after someone like Tkachev, even at 7. I think the guy has potential to be a player, and in the 7th round if you have someone like that available it's wise to take him.

 

[thefeebster]

I'll rate everything instead, since it's still so early

Excellent:
- Getting Forsling in 5th round (Gradin again)
- the approach of trading players for picks and leaving us with what looks to be a worse team next year rather than stubbornly trading away picks to compete. Looks like we may be doing more of a rebuild than Benning/Linden let on, and next year is the excellent time for a poor-standing-results transition year.
- Signing Willie Desjardins

Good:
- Getting McCann at 24
- Getting Demko at 36
- The idea of getting rid of Garrison
- The idea of holding onto Edler for now
- The decisiveness of getting rid of Kesler rather than letting this drag out
- Buying out David Booth
- Not selling the farm for Reinhart considering the price that Florida seemed to want.

Somewhat Satisfied:
- Return from the Kesler trade
- The idea of trading the 2nd for a young almost-ready-to-make-the-team player in an attempt to speed up the rebuild
- Taking a gamble with Tryamkin. It's a little unorthodox and maybe should have tried for it later, but I'm okay with the gamble.

Disappointed:
- Not getting the 10th overall in lieu of Bonino-- Would have much preferred getting Virtanen, Ritchie, and McCann/Barbashev for Kesler over what we got
- Passing on Barbashev which is exactly what we needed
- Passing on McKeowyn-- I would have preferred him over Linden Vey

Bad/Awful:
- The return for Garrison was bad
- Not re-signing Santorelli is a stupid idea
- Trading the third round pick for Derek Dorsett.
- The idea that some of the moves above seem to conflict with the direction they seem to want to go in-- It seems like Benning/Linden wants it both ways-- They want to compete now while doing a full rebuild, which is weird.
- The inclusion of Lucas Sbisa in the Kesler trade. Why?

Mind-bogglingly idiotic
- The approach that management seems to have a "who cares about the late round picks?" mentality. Kyle Pettit and McKenze Stewart scream "who gives a ****" from management. The placement where they were drafted often don't work out, sure, but it feels more like Linden/Benning are flat out throwing in the towel in these rounds when they do stuff like this.

Basically I'm all over the map-- I love the direction/approach but alot of the execution was kind of god-awful.

C+?

Here is what I wish he did/would do if I had a fantasy do-over

- Trade Kesler for 10th overall, 24th overall, give or take something that isn't Sbisa (or not)
- Sign Santorelli for the Bonino role
- Don't trade for Dorsett
- Sign Willie Desjardins
- Try to get better return for Garrison (if impossible, so be it, trade him anyways)

Draft:
1. Virtanen (6th Overall)
2. Ritchie (10th Overall)
3. Barbashev (24th Overall)
4. Demko (2nd round)
5. McKeowyn (2nd round)
6. Anything but Dorsett (3rd round)
7. Tryamkin (3rd round)
7. Forsling (5th round)
8. Not what we got (6th round)
9. Not what we got (7th round)

Transition year roster (not looking to compete with it). Goal is to have just enough insulation that the young players don't get completely burned/mentally destroyed, have a physically competitive atmosphere where it isn't completely hopeless on a game-by-game basis, but still be devoid of talent enough that we'll get high picks.

Sedin - Sedin - Jensen
Higgins - Santorelli - Kassian
Burrows - Horvat - Hansen
Dalpe - Matthias - Richardson
Welsh
Schroeder
Sestito

Hamhuis - Tanev
Edler - Corrado
Stanton - Bieksa
Sbisa?
Weber

Lack
Markstrom

Great response, well thought-out and thorough. I agree with almost everything here.

 

[CCF]

Voted D but that's probably not fair. I would grade the trades made thus far as a 'D' - of the 4 made, I think we gave up the better assets in each (although remain optimistic on the Vey deal).

I'll refrain from grading the draft at this point.

 

[Tobi Wan Kenobi]

I disagree with the ranking.

Was not happy with McCann at 24. Don't like him as a prospect and see him as having 3C potential as his ceiling. Might be ok if we had a lot of first and second line prospects, but we don't.

Virtanen was an OK pick. Nothing to get excited about. High risk/high reward type pick at 6. Would have preferred Ritchie, but not that upset with the Virtanen pick.

Demko...OK. We could use a decent goalie prospect like him given our goaltending pipeline looks kind of week right now. Top rated goalie in the draft, sure.

I like the Forsling pick. Didn't know much about him but the more I read about him the more he sounds promising. If Subban doesn't pan out for us, Forsling could be the guy who's our next solid puck moving defenseman.

Tryamkin, meh. Stewart, meh. 7th round pick so I don't really care too much.

A little surprised we wouldn't go after someone like Tkachev, even at 7. I think the guy has potential to be a player, and in the 7th round if you have someone like that available it's wise to take him.

lol McCann has higher potential then that. I'm happy we got him. He has elite skill.

 

[DadBod]

First and foremost we should have taken Barbashev instead of McCann. That alone makes this draft almost piss poor. I think the real outcome of this draft lays in Tryamkin. If Tryamkin comes to North America and becomes ANYTHING that resembles a tough, physical, mean defenseman he'll single handed lay take this draft from poor to excellent.

 

[galiano]

A big part of what Benning has done is free up a lot of cap space so we really can't judge how this is to be graded until we see what he does with free agents. So far I'd give him a B+ If I had to grade part way through the process.

I think the sleeper is Linden Vey.

 

[Ryp37]

Virtanen was an OK pick. Nothing to get excited about.

Lol arguably the highest upside of anyone in the draft but nothing to get excited about because it's not who you wanted

 

[y2kcanucks]

lol McCann has higher potential then that. I'm happy we got him. He has elite skill.

No he doesn't.

 

[CanaFan]

No he doesn't.

Eh, I think the term "elite" gets thrown around a bit too easily around here but McCann does have very high end skills. Excellent skating, shot, puck handling, passing. His main issue is between his ears as he makes some baffling decisions with the puck sometimes and goes through stretches where he doesn't create much offensively.

He's got A minus skills with a C plus brain. Still has tremendous upside if he "figures" his game out but could also be a frustratingly ineffective player too in the mold of a Mason Raymond type.

 

[Tiranis]

Eh, I think the term "elite" gets thrown around a bit too easily around here but McCann does have very high end skills. Excellent skating, shot, puck handling, passing. His main issue is between his ears as he makes some baffling decisions with the puck sometimes and goes through stretches where he doesn't create much offensively.

He's got A minus skills with a C plus brain. Still has tremendous upside if he "figures" his game out but could also be a frustratingly ineffective player too in the mold of a Mason Raymond type.

The downside is more of a Darren Helm than Mason Raymond.

 

[Royal Canuck]

Trades - B
Draft - B

-Kesler handcuffed us, Benning made the most of what he had.

-Garrison deal is only a piece to a bigger puzzle. People will praise the deal more when we bring in a big name with the cap we freed up with this deal.

- The Dorsett deal was just alright.

- Vey deal gives us even more depth at center in our bottom-six, have to figure someone gets moved soon.

- Draft was exceptional. Wasn't too hyped about Virtanen at #6, but every other pick was great.