hyduK
Registered User
- Feb 21, 2009
- 2,593
- 584
Draft isn't over but everything at this point is a long shot anyway. I think most of us expected to have landed a D at #6, but it's hard to complain when you get an elite scoring winger at #6.
Combine this with Veleno and Beggren and our forward depth is pretty stacked. Larkin, Rasmussen, Veleno, Svechnikov, Beggren, Mantha, Zadina, AA, Bert, Nyquist, Holmstrom, etc.
Very solid mix of Skill/Size. The only hole I see is arguably a 1C, but we do seem to make up for it with depth.
D is still a problem, but with McIsaac, Cholowski, Regula, Hicketts, Hronek, etc. we at least seem to be on track to have a solid bottom two pairings. We're lacking the top end talent, which we probably weren't going to get this draft anyway, even if we drafted D at 6.
We also will probably need a goalie at some point, but I don't see a point in looking for that until we're ready to start pushing for the playoffs. Goalies are relatively easy to find and getting a good one early is just going to end up with them stealing some games and putting you in a worse lottery position.
Now obviously we're still in a pretty bad spot this year, and should be competing for another lottery pick. We have assets are forward we can move, but really nothing good enough (that we'd want to move) that could fix our problem at D. If we somehow won the Hughes lottery, we'd be in a good spot to package up some of our better prospects and get the D situation moving. Regardless, our cap situation means we can't really do much the next couple years anyhow.
So what's the plan? Should we be trading Nyquist/AA for picks and shooting for defensemen in next years draft (again, we should be in a top 10 position...but I'm not sure what the talent looks like at D for next year). Alternatively, do we package Nyquist/AA+ (maybe another one of our forward prospects?) and try to trade for a D-man? We're not gonna solve the problem but we could probably find a way to get a guy like Faulk?
If I had a concern right now it would be our coaching staff. Not a fan of having Blashill/Bylsma leading our young guys through their development years.
Combine this with Veleno and Beggren and our forward depth is pretty stacked. Larkin, Rasmussen, Veleno, Svechnikov, Beggren, Mantha, Zadina, AA, Bert, Nyquist, Holmstrom, etc.
Very solid mix of Skill/Size. The only hole I see is arguably a 1C, but we do seem to make up for it with depth.
D is still a problem, but with McIsaac, Cholowski, Regula, Hicketts, Hronek, etc. we at least seem to be on track to have a solid bottom two pairings. We're lacking the top end talent, which we probably weren't going to get this draft anyway, even if we drafted D at 6.
We also will probably need a goalie at some point, but I don't see a point in looking for that until we're ready to start pushing for the playoffs. Goalies are relatively easy to find and getting a good one early is just going to end up with them stealing some games and putting you in a worse lottery position.
Now obviously we're still in a pretty bad spot this year, and should be competing for another lottery pick. We have assets are forward we can move, but really nothing good enough (that we'd want to move) that could fix our problem at D. If we somehow won the Hughes lottery, we'd be in a good spot to package up some of our better prospects and get the D situation moving. Regardless, our cap situation means we can't really do much the next couple years anyhow.
So what's the plan? Should we be trading Nyquist/AA for picks and shooting for defensemen in next years draft (again, we should be in a top 10 position...but I'm not sure what the talent looks like at D for next year). Alternatively, do we package Nyquist/AA+ (maybe another one of our forward prospects?) and try to trade for a D-man? We're not gonna solve the problem but we could probably find a way to get a guy like Faulk?
If I had a concern right now it would be our coaching staff. Not a fan of having Blashill/Bylsma leading our young guys through their development years.