Tyler Wright: Red Wings trying to be trend setters at draft

[Redder Winger]

Why draft for home run picks in 17 when it's obvious that the team is bad enough to land elite talent in 18? If a player is there who checks all the boxes they want to see for the sort of team they are building, why pass him up for a swing at the fences? I may not agree with their direction or their picks, but it's nice to see that they do have a direction.

I think they're a tad more patient than we are. Needing and getting elite talent is certainly a priority, and that elite talent will come. Until then, the plan seems to be size, character, skill and hard to play against. It seems like it could work to build a team that can at least be competitive until the elite talent arrives. And hopefully the high-character guys will result in players willing to take home town discounts or to not threaten defecting to the KHL during contract discussions. Seems that their last couple of drafts have had these things in mind - building toward the team they want to create, get their ducks in a row and land the elite talent when they can (hopefully in the next draft or two). Who knows if it will work, but it's been obvious for over a year now that they do have a plan in place.

I agree with you, I think everyone from Ken Holland down agrees with you about the need for elite talent; I just don't think they want to swing and miss on elite talent when players who fit their future plans are available to them. Hopefully their plan pays off, I'm in wait and see mode.

Why draft for homeruns?
Because you can pick up depth players any time you want.
Home runs are what make and break you.

 

[Frk It]

Let's be fair? And then you throw out complete speculation?
Kuznetsov was coming over.

Name all the first round Russians who stayed in Russia despite being pursued by NHL teams.

There was a lot of speculation around him coming over leading to that draft. If not for being drafted by a team where his good friend was playing (Ovi), I do think it's possible he may not have came over.

Even if you boil it down to Carlson and Semin, those are two huge successes to grab outside the top 10. Semin was a huge talent and impactful player for them, issues or not.

And Backstrom at #4, he was better than at least 2/3 of the guys taken ahead of him. As Injured Choker said, McPhee actually did a great job in the draft. It was the other facets of being a GM where he struggled. So yeah, we shouldn't be scoffing at quotes from McPhee as far as drafting is concerned.

 

[Ezekial]

Let's be fair? And then you throw out complete speculation?
Kuznetsov was coming over.

Name all the first round Russians who stayed in Russia despite being pursued by NHL teams.

There's a ton of articles you can easily look up that show how big of a question it was. Even in 2013.

Evgeny Kuznetsov: I'd stay in KHL for the right contract

"If I am offered a contract here for five to seven years, then I would seriously think about it," he said. "A long-term contract guarantees stability, and I want to feel confident about the future."

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

A more general question: when did drafting for puck skill become the kind of trend you'd want to buck?

 

[Ezekial]

A more general question: when did drafting for puck skill become the kind of trend you'd want to buck?

These big guys that we've spent early round picks on recently aren't unskilled, slow, or only grinding type of forwards.

 

[ChadS]

These big guys that we've spent early round picks on recently aren't unskilled, slow, or only grinding type of forwards.

I think many would like to see them go for more puck skills in later rounds. Focusing on size then will automatically cut out much of the skill left in the draft.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

There was a lot of speculation around him coming over leading to that draft. If not for being drafted by a team where his good friend was playing (Ovi), I do think it's possible he may not have came over.

Even if you boil it down to Carlson and Semin, those are two huge successes to grab outside the top 10. Semin was a huge talent and impactful player for them, issues or not.

And Backstrom at #4, he was better than at least 2/3 of the guys taken ahead of him. As Injured Choker said, McPhee actually did a great job in the draft. It was the other facets of being a GM where he struggled. So yeah, we shouldn't be scoffing at quotes from McPhee as far as drafting is concerned.

That's fair.

I wasn't trying to say that you should ignore McPhee... just giving a little bit of context to "he got X, X, X, and X and that's amazing." It was some very good drafting, no doubt, but I wanted to point out that some of them did have caveats in that only Washington could have made the picks... or that picking a guy #4OA is not that much different than the top 3.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

I think many would like to see them go for more puck skills in later rounds. Focusing on size then will automatically cut out much of the skill left in the draft.

Yeah, I can see that... but late in the draft, you're taking any guy you think can make it into the league. And MOST of the time, any and all players taken in the 5th and later are super long shots to make it at all. Guys with puck skills in the 5th-7th round tend to be more Adam Almqvists than Pavel Datsyuks. Most of the skill guys left late in the draft aren't especially skilled. A lot of times by that point, you're identifying one characteristic that is easily quantifiable and just going with it.

 

[Ezekial]

I think many would like to see them go for more puck skills in later rounds. Focusing on size then will automatically cut out much of the skill left in the draft.

I'm fine with that philosophy, take big cuts in later rounds. I too was disappointed with some of the philosophical decisions in the latter portion of the draft.
I don't think you should try to define your draft before you do it, though. Like I've said before you need to look at every player on the board.

 

[Dotter]

Let's be fair? And then you throw out complete speculation?
Kuznetsov was coming over.

Name all the first round Russians who stayed in Russia despite being pursued by NHL teams.

Without looking it up, 15th overall Alexander Radulov has almost twice as many career games played in the KHL than NHL.

2015 article:

Alexander Radulov has always been a mysterious case to hockey fans, from North America at least. He was once thought to be a top prospect and budding superstar in the NHL. Then, he got homesick and became a nightmare for the Nashville Predators to deal with. Years later, he’s still doing damage in Russia. In fact, he’s very likely the best player outside of the NHL today.

I think might be playing in the NHL again? Just a matter of time till he gets home sick and flights first jet back to Russia.

 

[Redder Winger]

There was a lot of speculation around him coming over leading to that draft. If not for being drafted by a team where his good friend was playing (Ovi), I do think it's possible he may not have came over.

Even if you boil it down to Carlson and Semin, those are two huge successes to grab outside the top 10. Semin was a huge talent and impactful player for them, issues or not.

And Backstrom at #4, he was better than at least 2/3 of the guys taken ahead of him. As Injured Choker said, McPhee actually did a great job in the draft. It was the other facets of being a GM where he struggled. So yeah, we shouldn't be scoffing at quotes from McPhee as far as drafting is concerned.

He made it fairly clear he was going to come over - just night right away.
Regardless, you guys can't name a single first round pick who spurned the NHL and somehow, we're supposed to believe that that Kuznetsov was going to be a Russian lifer.

 

[TheOtherOne]

I think luck is severely underrated in this process. What strategy was Pittsburgh following when they picked Crosby? What strategy was Edmonton following when they picked McDavid? I mean we're going to pick the best player regardless, unless it's a tie, and in that case we won't know whether it was a success for years.

 

[Redder Winger]

I'd love to know the thinking behind Lindstrom and Kotkansalo.
Not a fan of the Rasmussen pick at all, but I can at least buy the reasoning.
Truthfully, from Lidstrom through Gallant, I thought this was a shitty, draft. Very little upside.

Hope I'm wrong, but the scouting reports and stats gave very little to be excited about.
I can at least see some homerun thinking in Petruzzelli, Sektov and Adams.

 

[Nut Upstrom]

Why draft for homeruns?
Because you can pick up depth players any time you want.
Home runs are what make and break you.

If you're going to quote me, respond to more than just a snippet or why bother?

Why draft for home runs when a player is available who fits the direction our team is going?

You left a good chunk of my point on the cutting room floor to respond to a position I have never taken.

 

[Winger98]

I dont think Tyler Wright is saying **** it, we'll draft big guys instead of elite centermen or dmen. But what he has done is identified how the team wants to be built moving forward and is going to draft with that in mind. Despite what some whiners on here would like to say, Rasmussen has a lot of skill. He also happens to be 6'6 and can skate really well. Boston and LA had skill at plenty of positions, but also skilled players that mostly played a certain way with an identity that the whole team bought into. Bergeron and Krejci werent elite centermen (Bergeron is now but wasnt) but they were big guys who would hound the puck, play hard defensively and out work a lot of other guys out there. A similar midset to Larkin really. But having that team identity and playng it really well helped make up for the lack of elite scoring like a Patty Kane type.

Do you really think the wings are looking at guys and saying, well hes probably going to win a Norris but hes not big enough to lets not draft him?

Bergeron and Krejci are not big guys at all. And by their second years in the league they were putting up 60-70+ points. They snuck up on people because Boston wasn't a great team leading up to their cup win, but those guys were playing like top end centers.

I think his talk of "trendsetters" is a reference to taking bigger guys, I assume with the goal of having a team that grinds things out and sucks up as much of the open ice as possible. And that when they are looking at their draft spot, that size is something that gets weighted into their decision, and it sounds like it carries a fair chunk of weight. As well as intangibles, though I don't think drafting guys with good intangibles is what he is referencing as a "trend setter." I mean, I think pretty much every team tries to draft guys who aren't vicious idiots with no work ethic. There's clearly some grey area there but I'm not sure anyone goes in totally okay drafting guys they can't trust to at least show up to the rink and do the work.

If Rasmussen ends up being our "Jeff Carter" (just big second line center, leave play styles out of it), I'm not sure it matters unless we get (or have) a Kopitar in front of him and a Doughty on the back end. But if you're going to weight your decisions towards size and the ability to take away space, I think that helps erode our chances of getting lucky on a guy in the mid-late rounds of the draft because we're not only looking for a unicorn at that point, we're also trying to get one with wings and that farts gold coins.

 

[Redder Winger]

If you're going to quote me, respond to more than just a snippet or why bother?

Why draft for home runs when a player is available who fits the direction our team is going?

You left a good chunk of my point on the cutting room floor to respond to a position I have never taken.

From my perspective, your bolded text doesn't change the equation.

You want to draft a guy without homerun potential because at 18 years old he might check some boxes you like? Be my guest.
If I had 10 draft picks, I'd draft 10 guys with the best potential, even if many of those guys didn't have much chance.
Because the Sheahans, Helms, Abdelkaders, Ericssons, etc - you can find those guys in free agency for next to nothing.

You don't get many shots at elite players.

Besides - I think another key question here is, what in the f*** direction is Wright going?
What's the new vision for the Red Wings?
Why does he think it's going to create a new trend?

 

[Winger98]

i don't want to go into this direction again, because i actually start to like rasmussen as a prospect, but you could also add that vilardi himself is in the size range of kopitar and barkov, not small by any means

Yeah, I'm liking how Rasmussen seems to be developing,too. I wasn't thrilled with the pick, either. Vilardi isn't small, but he also seemed to be more skilled, there was a ceiling there that I don't think Rasmussen is seen as having. But there was some concern that he couldn't stick as a center. Which seems to be what scared teams off. With how thin the draft was supposed to be, I'm not sure why someone didn't roll the dice on him sooner, though. If he doesn't stick as a center, he's like a very high end wing. But wings were not really sought after at all. The first wing was picked by Florida right after us, and then another didn't go until the Oilers picked Yamamoto at 22.

 

[Redder Winger]

Yeah, I can see that... but late in the draft, you're taking any guy you think can make it into the league. And MOST of the time, any and all players taken in the 5th and later are super long shots to make it at all. Guys with puck skills in the 5th-7th round tend to be more Adam Almqvists than Pavel Datsyuks. Most of the skill guys left late in the draft aren't especially skilled. A lot of times by that point, you're identifying one characteristic that is easily quantifiable and just going with it.

I'll take 10 years of Almquists for a shot at Datsyuk

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

It just seems to me there's a weird implication to the idea that the Wings are trying to be trendsetters instead of following current trends. The reason the current trend is the current trend is because that's what is working in the NHL right now, and other teams want to duplicate it. So it seems to me that the Wings are sort of implicitly admitting that they're not drafting the kind of guys who would be the most successful with the way the game is played right now. But they're hoping the style of play changes, and the trend along with it, which could mean they're one of the only teams poised to take advantage of this new style of play.

But is the league really going back to big, physical, defensive hockey? I don't really see that. The game is less and less physical every year. I suppose the Wings think this could give them an advantage, because they'd be one of the few big, physical teams around. But the game isn't less physical because it's magically unpopular, it's less physical because (1) that stuff is called a ton more/garners suspensions much more often, and (2) the entire hockey world is re-evaluating the place physical contact should even have in the game. Is this really a smart gamble for the Wings? I just don't think so.

And if the Wings are building a team around drafting big, defensive players, but not necessarily physical ones... what style of play are they even envisioning? The new dead puck era? If that's management's vision for the future, I might have to re-evaluate how I feel about Red Wings hockey.

 

[Nut Upstrom]

From my perspective, your bolded text doesn't change the equation.

You want to draft a guy without homerun potential because at 18 years old he might check some boxes you like? Be my guest.
If I had 10 draft picks, I'd draft 10 guys with the best potential, even if many of those guys didn't have much chance.
Because the Sheahans, Helms, Abdelkaders, Ericssons, etc - you can find those guys in free agency for next to nothing.

You don't get many shots at elite players.

Besides - I think another key question here is, what in the **** direction is Wright going?
What's the new vision for the Red Wings?
Why does he think it's going to create a new trend?

It's not what I want that matters, clearly our draft team would rather grab a player who checks the boxes they are after rather than risking striking out on a homerun attempt. I totally get where you're coming from, that temptation to swing for the fences is exciting and awesome when it pays off. But opting to swing for those homeruns when a player is there who meets your needs is just acting hastily and impatiently. I'm not talking about the Sheahans and Helms, we're talking about the team's recent drafts pertaining to this article and this "rebuild." This thread is about players like Rasmussen and Cholowski; stating the obvious like you'd rather go for broke than draft another Ericsson is something everyone is likely cool with. Hell, for all we know the scouts were swinging for the fences when they selected the players you speak of - but as recent as those drafts are, it's pretty much a whole different era in our team's (re)building.

You don't get many shots at elite players is true, but we should get a shot or two in the next few drafts. Hopefully we land some elite talent and hopefully some of the players we landed in the last few drafts can turn into serious complimentary pieces.

As far as what direction is he heading? I couldn't read the article so you'd know his thoughts on the matter better than I would. I've mentioned what the plan seems to be in my opinion, but I don't mind repeating it: I think they want to build a team that can be competitive without elite talent. Skilled, big, hard to play against character guys who play a style that can create problems for their opponents. Add some elite talent to that and who knows what might happen. Their plan will succeed or fail based on getting that elite talent of course. If they don't nail down some elite players in the next draft or two I will be full on against this plan. For now, as I've said, I'll wait and see.

 

[jkutswings]

I'd like to use a bit of data to dispell something that has popped up a few times in this thread:

It turns out that Dylan Larkin is very average in terms of size for an NHL center (or player, in general).

He's 6'1". The average size of an NHL player is 6'1". And, as of this post, the top ten scoring centers in the league range from 5'10" to 6'3", with an average of 6'1".

So while there's nothing wrong with the kid's size (or play in general), he's not at all an example of adding size down the middle, because he's at the very center of the bell curve, at least for his height.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Besides - I think another key question here is, what in the **** direction is Wright going?
What's the new vision for the Red Wings?
Why does he think it's going to create a new trend?

Way I see it:

* Mobile, puck-moving D with mix of size and skill : Hronek and VS are prototypical smallish PMDs, Cholo a two-way guy in the Keith mold, Setkov/Kotkansalo/Lindstrom/Sambrook/etc are guys with size and upside. Not going to be Karlssons but not just dumb, big guys either.

* Hard-to-play-against forwards: Good size, good skating, good skill, hard-working guys that make life hard for other teams.

Drop in a truly elite talent in either of the two groups (Dahlin/Svech?) and you could definitely have something imo. People need to realize the entire team isn’t rebuilt in one draft and some of our highest picks could yet be ahead, and future drafts could have more emphasis on boom/bust now that we’re building up the prospect depth.

 

[obey86]

A more general question: when did drafting for puck skill become the kind of trend you'd want to buck?

Where are you getting this from? Tyler Wright, in the original post, never said they were doing anything of the sort.

 

[obey86]

I think luck is severely underrated in this process. What strategy was Pittsburgh following when they picked Crosby? What strategy was Edmonton following when they picked McDavid? I mean we're going to pick the best player regardless, unless it's a tie, and in that case we won't know whether it was a success for years.

bingo

 

[obey86]

From my perspective, your bolded text doesn't change the equation.

You want to draft a guy without homerun potential because at 18 years old he might check some boxes you like? Be my guest.
If I had 10 draft picks, I'd draft 10 guys with the best potential, even if many of those guys didn't have much chance.
Because the Sheahans, Helms, Abdelkaders, Ericssons, etc - you can find those guys in free agency for next to nothing.

You don't get many shots at elite players.

Besides - I think another key question here is, what in the **** direction is Wright going?
What's the new vision for the Red Wings?
Why does he think it's going to create a new trend?

Where are you going with this? The Red Wings haven't had a shot at elite players in the draft in the last 20 years. There were no "elite players" (that were simply small/skilled) available at #9 last year if that's what you mean. The Red Wings didn't pass up drafting an elite player to draft a big dude.