Speculation: Seravalli: Arizona looking to add, no longer subtract

[GiveAFlyingPuck]

What did Wheeler, Turris and Strome do for us?

Gave us someone to boo incessantly.

 

[Sinurgy]

Ya know why we have invested so much into having a great scouting staff? Because we can't always pick top 5 and there's plenty of superstars that get picked after that. Some of the best players get picked waaaay after that.

It's not about where the pick is at, it's about making the right pick.

Of course like I said before, that's the hope. The higher the pick though the higher the chance the scouts get it right. Cooley looking like a prime example of that.

 

[rt]

What did Landeskog, MacKinnon, Makar and Byram do for Colorado? Honestly what's the point of cherry picking? It's well documented you have a better chance of landing superstars at the top of the draft, this isn't really debatable. I've repeatedly made it clear that's not the ONLY way to be successful but history shows it does increase your chances.

I didn’t cherry pick. I just named all of them.

 

[TheLegend]

Gave us someone to boo incessantly.

Always the voice of reason....

 

[Bonsai Tree]

Will be interesting to see if BA is big BPA guy or if positional importance, or positional need comes into play.

 

[Jakey53]

Ya know why we have invested so much into having a great scouting staff? Because we can't always pick top 5 and there's plenty of superstars that get picked after that. Some of the best players get picked waaaay after that.

It's not about where the pick is at, it's about making the right pick.

Picking top 5 you are hoping for a damn good player, maybe a superstar or star player for sure, but finding a star player in later rounds is probably more important because you won't always be picking top 5 or top 10. That is why you need a great scouting dept. and this has probably been BA's biggest accomplishment so far. Having said that, the draft is still a big crap shoot. Players should be drafted at 20 years old.

 

[AZviaNJ]

Will be interesting to see if BA is big BPA guy or if positional importance, or positional need comes into play.

With 22 top 3 round picks in the next 3 years think we’ll see a bit of both.

 

[Jakey53]

Will be interesting to see if BA is big BPA guy or if positional importance, or positional need comes into play.

He already explained this. BPA, then if both are equal then position of need. That is probably true for most teams I would think. Just because WE think a team reached for a player doesn't mean he was a reach to that team. I thought Detroit was crazy picking Seider. Look who was wrong.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

Will be interesting to see if BA is big BPA guy or if positional importance, or positional need comes into play.

I think he's entrusted his scouts with a lot of leeway on this. I think I remember him saying that he relies on the scouts to have a good sense of situational awareness when it comes to the draft so that they can make a pick-by-pick judgment call between BPA/positional need depending on context.

This, I believe, is a much healthier philosophy than the previous spreadsheet (Chayka), bloodlines (Maloney), and friggin' dartboard (Gretzky and his cronies) approaches used in the past.

 

[Jakey53]

With 22 top 3 round picks in the next 3 years think we’ll see a bit of both.

It's always BPA, unless two players are equal, then position of need. That was stated by our scouting dept.

 

[PainForShane]

This whole have to have top 5 pick to win BS - from 2011-2020 only Landeskog, Mackinnon, Makar, & Byram were top 5 picks and won SC on team picked them - all on AVS. Eichel won on non-drafted team, thats it. 10 drafts 50 players only 5 have won (4 same team) SC.

???

There are a few other players too -- maybe you've heard of Sidney Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin, Stamkos, Hedman, J. Toews, Kane, Drew Doughty, Backstrom, Marc-Andre Fleury. Pietrangelo. I'm sure there are others that I'm forgetting that's just off the top of my head.

Maybe you haven't heard of any of these guys. Or maybe you have heard of some of these players and are just arguing in extremely bad faith.

No idea why you or anyone would say (or actually believe) something like this. Here's a better idea -- why don't you take a look again at the Stanley Cup Champs from 2011-2020 (your dates, not mine) and see if you can find a single SC winner that doesn't have at least one of their homegrown top 5 picks as a cornerstone of their roster. Good luck, you will need it.

In the meantime, I don't have time for this and neither does anyone else.

edited for clarity / spelling

 

[Dirty Old Man]

Nah, I'm with bwhsocal here.

We've just had 2 examples in the last 5 years of teams that drafted 0 or 1 of their 3 top 10 overall draftees on their roster winning the Stanley Cup (curiously, they both involved Alex Pietrangelo)... this horsesh*t about "if you don't suck for years you're not trying hard enough" is right up there with "the beatings will continue until morale improves".

So? So we're set. Logan Cooley's a #2 and Barrett Hayton's a #5. Just find one other top 5 "someday" that wants to come here and we can meet the (lol) "minimum criteria" necessary to win a cup without continuing to sabotage our roster.

 

[Schemp]

Is it time for a team to take advantage of TBL's cap situation? Do they need to blow up the team and rebuild?
Would a Andrew Peeke for Ingram trade make sense, and if it would need tweaking?
Dreaming about Scheifele centering Keller and Schmaltz, but it wouldn't make any kind of sense for the long term plans or worth the cost to acquire.
Tourigny could help resurrect Tyler Meyer's career and @$1M, shouldn't be considered a top pair-er, but 1 of the 8 Ds.

I'm still hoping Cooley signs and guess that the possibility depends on an arena location being decided, construction started, and what GMBA does with the roster before camp starts.

 

[Bonsai Tree]

I would like for Cooley to come into the league in the 24-25 season surrounded by a team which can compete for the playoffs. I don't want him squandering years on a team still deep in rebuild. If he is a legit superstar, we need to support him with good D and good goalie play. We should have playoff calibre forward lines, with who we have and this draft's add.

 

[PainForShane]

Longish post incoming, conclusion's bolded near the end in TLDR form, the rest of this includes full context. And I don't need to talk about this anymore unless other ppl want to.

***

After thinking about it last night, I'm becoming more convinced that we most likely do not have enough quality players / prospects (at least not yet) to decide to start pulling out of the rebuild, at least not if we want a potential SC winner at the other end of this. Right now our best players / prospects are Keller, Cooley, Guenther (maybe Crouse) and a whole lot of magic beans in the form of future picks in the next few years. Comparing this to other SC contending teams, or other teams in a similar-ish point in rebuild (ie Buffalo, Ana etc), we are simply not as good as them in terms of quality of pipeline.

A lot of people seem to be making the argument of... "oh, when we try to get better, we probably won't get better anyway (and maybe we'll actually get worse) so who cares" and my response is a head shake.

The whole point is to be a SC contender at the end of this. To be one of the best teams in the league for an extended period of time. Among other things, that requires quite a few good players and good roster construction ie no real holes in the lineup. We've never had that since we've moved to AZ.

If instead we want to be a consistent playoff team for a few years, one that wins a series or two but never really has a chance to win the cup before fading into yet another rebuild? Sure let's end this rebuild early and let's expect a period of "success" like the early 2010s where we made the playoffs for a few years and made the WCF that one time... but never really challenged for the cup. I am not interested in that, at all.

***

Looking at it from the other direction, this is the ONE time that we can be bad and no one will care. There are no expectations. We barely have an arena, we don't (yet) have a place to play after this lease is done, we might even be moved after this lease is up and no one will be surprised. And yet, we're still going to sell out anyway because we only have 4600 seats. We're such a sh*tshow our top prospect Cooley isn't even joining the team this year, and no one cares because everyone understands where he's coming from.

And realistically no matter what we do, we're most likely not making the playoffs this year even if we sign every big UFA out there, which is not realistic anyway because top players don't want to come here right now.

So like... even if we do everything we can to win now, instead of missing the playoffs by 25 points maybe we miss by 15 points instead. Is there a difference? Before someone says something about "losing culture," Tourigny has us playing hard regardless of whether we finish with 60, 70, or even 80 points. But, regardless, to me, culture now is not an issue at all. Culture when Cooley et al enter their primes in 4-7 years? Yes that would be an issue, we can address it then if needed.

To me, right now by far the biggest concern is making sure we surround Cooley / Keller etc with enough talent to play with so that we have a chance of winning a cup while they're still in their primes or at least still productive players (like Ovi with WSH or Stamkos with Tampa). Imo, that's the only thing we should be concerned about right now, nothing else is even remotely as important. So the team is bad for another year or two, who cares. The team will be bad anyway, as long as there's a cup contending team at the end of this that's all that matters.

***

P.S. To be clear, I am not suggesting we trade Keller / Crouse etc to enter yet another rebuild. I am definitely suggesting we see this current rebuild through instead of pulling out early. Which I am surprised seems to be the minority opinion here, but so be it

 

[Schemp]

If the Coyotes would do an offer sheet, that would drive hfboards crazy. Not expecting it though.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

So like... even if we do everything we can to win now, instead of missing the playoffs by 25 points maybe we miss by 15 points instead. Is there a difference? Before someone says something about "losing culture," Tourigny has us playing hard regardless of whether we finish with 60, 70, or even 80 points. But, regardless, to me, culture now is not an issue at all. Culture when Cooley et al enter their primes in 4-7 years? Yes that would be an issue, we can address it then if needed.

The problem with this is the old axiom - "It takes years to cultivate a good reputation, but only seconds to lose one."

You're right - now is not the time to start building a winning culture. The time was at the very start of the rebuild. BA himself said that we're over a quarter of the way through the rebuild - more like closer to halfway.

Culture is not just winning or losing on the ice, either. Culture is a top-to-bottom environment that says that losing is never a good thing, but it is at least palatable if the ultimate goal is to not just win, but to create a habit of winning, and if the losses occur while progress is still being made in that direction. That's gotta be in place from day one of a rebuild or else, no matter what happens, the rebuild will be a failure.

So if you say, as you appear to in the quote above, that culture is not going to be something to worry about for the next 4-7 years, that's a very bad sign. That implies the luxury of coasting or maintaining a status quo. Homeostasis is the human body's tendency toward an established equilibrium, and once the body achieves it, it very much does not want to depart from it. So if you're 40 pounds overweight, the body will fight like hell to stay there, and the process of breaking out of that equilibrium is a lot of effort and pain. It's the same with a sports team. If at any point you establish a "holding pattern" or say that a certain time frame is a waiting period, you immediately create a homeostatic point from which it will be very hard to deviate.

For me, therefore, culture is the only important issue at the moment. Wins and losses are not. They are incidental. But culturally, at all levels - from the lowliest fan to the owner himself - there needs to be not just a sense, but clear evidence with receipts, of forward and upward movement. That's why Keller issued an ultimatum. He doesn't much care if Schmaltz gets traded... if it means that the team gets better in the grand scheme because of it. He doesn't need to see a physical arena - just evidence that there's a plan and it's moving forward. Etc.

The stockpiling of futures phase is done at this point - we have the reservoir, and now what we need to do is establish a steady trickle to keep the levels high. But we don't need to get picks and prospects in bunches after this, if we're doing the team building thing correctly. The pipeline is built, we just keep the flow going. Now is the time to start piecing this thing together - carefully and intelligently without rushing - so that in 3 to 5 years everything will all come together and we'll have a sustainable high level of competition with the rest of the league.

 

[PainForShane]

The problem with this is the old axiom - "It takes years to cultivate a good reputation, but only seconds to lose one."

You're right - now is not the time to start building a winning culture. The time was at the very start of the rebuild. BA himself said that we're over a quarter of the way through the rebuild - more like closer to halfway.

Culture is not just winning or losing on the ice, either. Culture is a top-to-bottom environment that says that losing is never a good thing, but it is at least palatable if the ultimate goal is to not just win, but to create a habit of winning, and if the losses occur while progress is still being made in that direction. That's gotta be in place from day one of a rebuild or else, no matter what happens, the rebuild will be a failure.

So if you say, as you appear to in the quote above, that culture is not going to be something to worry about for the next 4-7 years, that's a very bad sign. That implies the luxury of coasting or maintaining a status quo. Homeostasis is the human body's tendency toward an established equilibrium, and once the body achieves it, it very much does not want to depart from it. So if you're 40 pounds overweight, the body will fight like hell to stay there, and the process of breaking out of that equilibrium is a lot of effort and pain. It's the same with a sports team. If at any point you establish a "holding pattern" or say that a certain time frame is a waiting period, you immediately create a homeostatic point from which it will be very hard to deviate.

For me, therefore, culture is the only important issue at the moment. Wins and losses are not. They are incidental. But culturally, at all levels - from the lowliest fan to the owner himself - there needs to be not just a sense, but clear evidence with receipts, of forward and upward movement. That's why Keller issued an ultimatum. He doesn't much care if Schmaltz gets traded... if it means that the team gets better in the grand scheme because of it. He doesn't need to see a physical arena - just evidence that there's a plan and it's moving forward. Etc.

The stockpiling of futures phase is done at this point - we have the reservoir, and now what we need to do is establish a steady trickle to keep the levels high. But we don't need to get picks and prospects in bunches after this, if we're doing the team building thing correctly. The pipeline is built, we just keep the flow going. Now is the time to start piecing this thing together - carefully and intelligently without rushing - so that in 3 to 5 years everything will all come together and we'll have a sustainable high level of competition with the rest of the league.

Yeah, you're right about the culture piece. I think I wasn't clear enough in my msg.

What I meant to say was something around, "what is most important for our team now?" In other words more important than the other things. And to me that is future player quality, however you define that. Part of that is skill, part of that compete etc -- but regarding the culture piece, it is important too. Winning teams clearly need to have winning habits, like you're implying it's hard to immediately flip switch about that. More specifically, how many skilled players aren't tough in the corners / don't play hard / block shots, and if the entire team doesn't play hard then what are we doing thinking we can win in the playoffs let alone win the cup. That said, Tourigny has us playing hard so I'm not really worried for our team culture-wise, not even a little bit. Either way, thx for calling me out on that.

What I am concerned with is the future talent piece (I mean talent to also include players who play hard / winning habits), and getting better draft picks inarguably helps our chances with that.

I agree that wins / losses are not important this season.

My ideal for this next season is a hope of Arizona playing hard / entertaining hockey with a few signature games, finishing somewhere in the bottom of the league standings-wise, which maximizes the chance of getting a high draft pick who will eventually turn into a 1D (or a different position of similar quality) a few years down the road. That's what I'm hoping for this year. Oh, and an arena / place to play in (located in AZ) after this Mullett lease is done

 

[Kai Yo T]

suggesting we see this current rebuild through instead of pulling out early.

I don't see this as pulling out early. We're just moving on to phase 2. The rebuild still has a long way to go. Buffalo continued to get top talent years after they stopped actively sabotaging the roster. That's where were headed IMO. No more sabotage and garbage players for draft capital. We're a long ways off from competing and BA knows it.

Hasn't BA said all along that this was the plan? Anyways I'm not surprised by it, I expected it based on what he's said in the past. I don't see any deviation here.

 

[LuckyNumber11]

I think signing MAYBE one good player or a role player or two does not constitute pulling out of the rebuild. But I don't know, that's just me.

That said if you could fill one role (Outside of 1C or 1D) what would be the player you pick up? Middle Pairing D? Middle six winger or center?

 

[hbk]

Longish post incoming, conclusion's bolded near the end in TLDR form, the rest of this includes full context. And I don't need to talk about this anymore unless other ppl want to.

***

After thinking about it last night, I'm becoming more convinced that we most likely do not have enough quality players / prospects (at least not yet) to decide to start pulling out of the rebuild, at least not if we want a potential SC winner at the other end of this. Right now our best players / prospects are Keller, Cooley, Guenther (maybe Crouse) and a whole lot of magic beans in the form of future picks in the next few years. Comparing this to other SC contending teams, or other teams in a similar-ish point in rebuild (ie Buffalo, Ana etc), we are simply not as good as them in terms of quality of pipeline.

A lot of people seem to be making the argument of... "oh, when we try to get better, we probably won't get better anyway (and maybe we'll actually get worse) so who cares" and my response is a head shake.

The whole point is to be a SC contender at the end of this. To be one of the best teams in the league for an extended period of time. Among other things, that requires quite a few good players and good roster construction ie no real holes in the lineup. We've never had that since we've moved to AZ.

If instead we want to be a consistent playoff team for a few years, one that wins a series or two but never really has a chance to win the cup before fading into yet another rebuild? Sure let's end this rebuild early and let's expect a period of "success" like the early 2010s where we made the playoffs for a few years and made the WCF that one time... but never really challenged for the cup. I am not interested in that, at all.

***

Looking at it from the other direction, this is the ONE time that we can be bad and no one will care. There are no expectations. We barely have an arena, we don't (yet) have a place to play after this lease is done, we might even be moved after this lease is up and no one will be surprised. And yet, we're still going to sell out anyway because we only have 4600 seats. We're such a sh*tshow our top prospect Cooley isn't even joining the team this year, and no one cares because everyone understands where he's coming from.

And realistically no matter what we do, we're most likely not making the playoffs this year even if we sign every big UFA out there, which is not realistic anyway because top players don't want to come here right now.

So like... even if we do everything we can to win now, instead of missing the playoffs by 25 points maybe we miss by 15 points instead. Is there a difference? Before someone says something about "losing culture," Tourigny has us playing hard regardless of whether we finish with 60, 70, or even 80 points. But, regardless, to me, culture now is not an issue at all. Culture when Cooley et al enter their primes in 4-7 years? Yes that would be an issue, we can address it then if needed.

To me, right now by far the biggest concern is making sure we surround Cooley / Keller etc with enough talent to play with so that we have a chance of winning a cup while they're still in their primes or at least still productive players (like Ovi with WSH or Stamkos with Tampa). Imo, that's the only thing we should be concerned about right now, nothing else is even remotely as important. So the team is bad for another year or two, who cares. The team will be bad anyway, as long as there's a cup contending team at the end of this that's all that matters.

***

P.S. To be clear, I am not suggesting we trade Keller / Crouse etc to enter yet another rebuild. I am definitely suggesting we see this current rebuild through instead of pulling out early. Which I am surprised seems to be the minority opinion here, but so be it

I just think you have to look at the entry level defense we look like we are rolling out next year and realize that doesn't typically lead to on-ice success in the short run. Lots of mistakes. Lots of goals against. Lots of losses. I think we will be drafting top 5 next year.

 

[PainForShane]

I just think you have to look at the entry level defense we look like we are rolling out next year and realize that doesn't typically lead to on-ice success in the short run. Lots of mistakes. Lots of goals against. Lots of losses. I think we will be drafting top 5 next year.

Ha, well said, thx for that. I actually hadn't taken a look at our D -- and after doing so I'm honestly surprised we bought out Nemeth. Depending what we do this offseason, this could be pretty bad GAA-wise (here it is for everyone else):

100% agree that with this D we should be drafting at least top 5, even if we get a couple of 2-3m UFA Dmen who we can force to play on the top pair. But then... why is mgmt saying the team is looking to become more competitive? I don't get it. Either way thx for the assist.

***

To @Kai Yo T -- YES moving to phase 2 is consistent with Bill's initial timeline but because we messed up the tank this year (ie Bedard, Fantilli are going to other teams), imo we should extend that last part of phase 1 for another year. Meaning, don't blow up the team but plan on getting a good draft pick (to draft another elite talent) before starting to get competitive. That said, if we're able to draft Michkov next week (who I believe is an elite talent), I could be convinced otherwise

 

[Kai Yo T]

Ha, well said, thx for that. I actually hadn't taken a look at our D -- and after doing so I'm honestly surprised we bought out Nemeth. Depending what we do this offseason, this could be pretty bad GAA-wise (here it is for everyone else):

View attachment 720074

100% agree that with this D we should be drafting at least top 5. But then... why is mgmt saying the team is looking to become more competitive? I don't get it. Either way thx for the assist.

***

To @Kai Yo T -- YES moving to phase 2 is consistent with Bill's initial timeline but because we messed up the tank this year (ie Bedard, Fantilli are going to other teams), imo we should extend that last part of phase 1 for another year. Meaning, don't blow up the team but plan on getting a good draft pick (to draft another elite talent) before starting to get competitive. That said, if we're able to draft Michkov next week (who I believe is an elite talent), I could be convinced otherwise

Every time this team has made a real effort to get a top 3 pick it has failed miserably. The hockey god's are surely going to reward us for losing a lot of games the honest way, at the next draft.

 

[hbk]

Ha, well said, thx for that. I actually hadn't taken a look at our D -- and after doing so I'm honestly surprised we bought out Nemeth. Depending what we do this offseason, this could be pretty bad GAA-wise (here it is for everyone else):

View attachment 720074

100% agree that with this D we should be drafting at least top 5, even if we get a couple of 2-3m UFA Dmen who we can force to play on the top pair. But then... why is mgmt saying the team is looking to become more competitive? I don't get it. Either way thx for the assist.

***

To @Kai Yo T -- YES moving to phase 2 is consistent with Bill's initial timeline but because we messed up the tank this year (ie Bedard, Fantilli are going to other teams), imo we should extend that last part of phase 1 for another year. Meaning, don't blow up the team but plan on getting a good draft pick (to draft another elite talent) before starting to get competitive. That said, if we're able to draft Michkov next week (who I believe is an elite talent), I could be convinced otherwise

if anything we should be critical of the structure of the rebuild. You should be building starting with the defense. We didn't. We took BPA and I can't say I disagree with Cooley and Guenther being part of our prospect pool. We don't have that hotshot D prospect to take the pressure off. We do however, have the top drafted prospect (as of today) so I can't find fault with what our scouts did. We just have a obvious weakness that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. which makes me wonder if the most recent articles from Morgan are just the organization blowing smoke because they plan on taking a D at 6 or 12.

 

[AZviaNJ]

It's always BPA, unless two players are equal, then position of need. That was stated by our scouting dept.

First round, sure

After that position need is a big factor.