kipwinger

The guy you're thinking of is Nikolai Vakourov, who was the principle scout in Finland for a while. But I'm pretty sure they reorganized how the scouts operate a few years ago. They no longer have area scouts and instead have European and N. American scouts who overlap their coverage. But Tyler Wright is the head of all amateur scouting, just like Mark Howe is the head of all pro scouting. I'd imagine that Wright sees every potential first round pick a least once or twice. Similarly I'd imagine Mark Howe sees every guy the Wings may be interested in signing as a UFA and/or trading for.

Hakan is the head of European scouting, so if a player gets drafted out of a European League by the Red Wings then that player has been given the stamp of approval by Hakan. I misspoke earlier, Hronek is definitely a Hakan pick. Zadina, however, is not because while European he was on loan to Halifax in his draft year and would have fallen under the purview of the North American scouting team.

I don't see any reason (yet) to think McIsaac won't be just as good as any of those guys. There are a few things he really has going for him, particularly his skating, overall athleticism, and the fact that by all account he already plays a very mature game in terms of his defensive positioning. The latter may explain why his offensive numbers in the Q aren't insane, but in the long term it will serve him well. My hope is that he turn out to be a Matt Dumba type of guy.

I don't know whether Bouchard will turn out to be that good or not. My point wasn't really to condemn him as a prospect as much as to say that of all the top d-men in last year's draft (Dahlin, Hughes, Boquist, Dobson, Ty Smith, and Bouchard) he's the only one who didn't make the list and he's the one we wanted. And that the knock on him, skating and pace, is such an obvious thing to avoid when going to the draft table is worrying. Not to say that this particular criticism is always warranted; Rasmussen was criticisized for the same thing and I think his skating is fine. It's just a little scary that the best draft we've had in ages sorta fell into our laps, and that the top guy we were looking at turned out to be probably the biggest question mark in the top ten. Having said all that, I think the Berggren and McIsaac picks may end up being the sleepers of the draft for us, so it's hard to be too critical given how excellent those picks were.

I agree with your point, but your facts are a bit off on this one. The year that Mantha and Bertuzzi were drafted was the last year under the old regime, headed by Director of Amateur Scouting Joe McDonnell. McDonnell left that year with Jim Nill on July 6th, 2013, a month after the Mantha draft, and was replaced by Tyler Wright. Wright was responsible for drafting Larkin, Svech, Cholo, Hronek, Rasmussen, Zadina, Veleno, etc. etc. But your general point is correct, that Hakan really didn't have much to do with our recent successes on draft day, though the jury is still out on what we'll be getting from Saarijarvi, Lindstrom, Berggren, who are all Hakan picks.

Horrifying thought, prior to Filip Zadina falling into our laps it was thought (and has since been confirmed) that Evan Bouchard was going to be Detroit's pick. TSN recently published a list of the top 50 NHL prospects and Bouchard didn't make the list. Craig Button mentioned his skating as being a real impediment to his NHL success. So even our best draft in recent memory was very likely a potential bust. Yikes.

It's an intriguing thought. I don't really know much about Broberg though. I see he's fallen on most draft boards, but so have a lot of the early season top picks.

Mantha for Puljujarvi and Edm 1st.

If you took a concussion, turned it into a human, and made it the defense attorney for the NHL in its ongoing concussion lawsuit it would still be more progressive on just about every health related issue than the NFL. The NFL is like the Mountain Dew of sports leagues.

There's one good thing about every dumb s*** GM in the NHL thinking that "all you have to do is get in and then you go on a run". Every 8th seed is looking to buy at the deadline. Much maligned parity is good for sellers apparently.

Again, it's not really about "liking" anybody. My only point is that given how often all these people are wrong about prospects, and given how truly hard it is to be a generational type talent, and given how it's in everyone's interest to have SOMEONE be the "next McDavid" each year, is there reason to believe that Hughes maybe isn't as good as he's being made out to be currently? And if he's not, if the odds are that he'll turn out not noticably better or worse than other top two(ish) prospects, does that change how one might approach the draft? Particularly when the goal of the draft is just as much about making your team better as it is about getting the single best player with your picks. We traded back and got Cholowski and Hronek instead of Chychrun because Arizona thought (correctly) that he was a better prospect than we did. But being a better prospect doesn't mean you'll be a better NHLer (as mock drafts frequently show us). Imagine what you could get for a guy like Hughes if you thought maybe he wasn't as good as everyone else did? I don't have any issue with Hughes, he probably IS the best player available to be honest. The question is ask myself is, "Is he going to be SO much better than someone else I could take in the top two or three that trading back to make the team better is absurd?". I'm not convinced that he is THAT good. Maybe, but I'm not sure. Same with last year, is Rasmus Dahlin SO good that a team wouldn't be better off trading back and drafting Quinn Hughes and getting a bunch of other pieces in the trade? I don't think so. But he was certainly made out to be so, and it was potentially a big missed opportunity.

It's not a matter of comparison, which is a fine analytical tool. It's a matter of profundity. The problem arises when certain stylistic similarities drive a narrative without any consideration for proper scope. The same thing happened when Stamkos and Laine were given the "next Ovechkin" treatment given that they both are righties with awesome slapshots. It will ALWAYS be easier (and therefore more likely) to be the next Yzerman or Sakic than the next Gretzky or Lemieux. It will be ALWAYS be easier to be the next Kurri or Iginla than Bossy, Ovechkin, or Hull. Not that either is likely, but one is so much more unlikely as to be almost silly. That's my issue. Sakic and Yzerman, for example, were far more comparable to each other than either were to Gretzky. So much so that any comparison made to him is almost laughable, and those were are among the greatest players of all time. Lots of players have been as good as Kopitar or Barkov, almost none have been as good as McDavid is shaping up to be. That's my whole point. There's a very real chance that Hughes and Kakko have closer careers to each other than either of them have to McDavid.

You're selling Kuznetsov short. He put up 77 pts in 82 games as a 2nd year player on the second line without Ovechkin. He's super good, I've seen him play a ton, his athleticism is freakish. He displaced Backstrom, who is also a super good player, as the top center for the Caps and is probably the biggest reason the Caps were finally able to get over the hump (i.e. past Pittsburgh). Which is my whole point, one good center (Backstrom) with even the best wingers in the world (Ovechkin) won't beat teams that have multiple top centers (Crosby, Malkin). You have to have top end center depth (Kuznetsov, Backstrom).

Here's three I found in the last 30 seconds lol. He's getting the same treatment as Dahlin got last year, when he was described as the "Connor McDavid of defensemen". People DO put too much stock in the WJC. But people also love trying to spot the next superstar. Trouble is, there is a HUGE difference between McDavid or Crosby and even the very best of the rest...which is sorta what I object to. If I were a betting man I'd take the odds that Kakko turns out like Kopitar WAY before I'd take Hughes being the next McDavid or Crosby. http://www.sportingnews.com/us/nhl/news/jack-hughes-nhl-draft-2019-world-junior-championship/nt8oxhtf6zns11k4dlrwokofu http://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/23864766/nhl-meet-jack-hughes-record-breaking-no-1-ranked-2019-nhl-draft-prospect https://thehockeywriters.com/nhl-draft-teams-need-jack-hughes-most/

Exactly. Nobody is saying Larkin isn't a top line center. It just takes two guys who are that good to really compete for Cups against elite teams.

It's insane how quickly a single tournament can change people's minds about a player. Prior to the WJC I'd seen Hughes described as the best prospect since Connor McDavid, and even that he's not far off from McDavid as far as his offense. Now he's neck and neck with a guy based on this one tourney. Just in case anybody thought pre-draft hype wasn't a thing.

I generally agree with this. Say we land a Cozens, and he turns out to be a Kuznetsov level talent. I feel quite good about that team, provided Hronek, Cholo, Ras continue to get better (don't see why they wouldn't), and Zadina and McIsaac turns into a top six and top four players respectively. And that's not even including all the rest of the picks we get this year and next. Then just add complimentary pieces in UFA and you've got a quality team.

I basically agree. We need another high end center. I feel really good about our wingers, we're basically all set there. I feet pretty good about our defense, it needs improvement but not a superstar per se. But we absolutely need another center, preferably one with top end offensive talent in the 80ish point range. Fortunately there are a few guys in this draft with that kind of upside I think. Aside from Hughes, I'm curious to see if Kakko plays center at the NHL level. I also like Cozens, Zegras, and to a lesser extent Newhook and Dach as top end offensive guys. Then I'd just fill out the rest of the roster with UFA signings.

Oh I definitely think he can be a defensively responsible center who chips in 50ish points. Trouble is, in today's NHL that's not good enough as a 2C. Lets say Larkin turns into a solid, two-way, 70 point center, and Veleno is a solid, two-way 50-60 point center. That seem like a reasonable projection for both right? That's still not good enough. The Caps had 70 and 80 point centers last year, Kuznetsov/Backstrom. The Pens have Crosby/Malkin, Matthews/Tavares, McDavid/Draisaitl, Stamkos/Point, etc. etc. etc. It's possible that Larkin/Veleno could be the next Bergeron/Krejci, but I don't even think that team could win again. Or maybe they become the new Hawks and have a low scoring 1C and a ton of excellent supporting players on the wings and on defense. Entirely possible. But in general the modern blueprint calls for two top end centers. Ideally Larkin would be your 2C and matchup guy and you'd have a 1C scoring machine anchoring another line. I don't think Veleno fits that bill.

I hope so, but that's asking a lot out of a guy who wasn't very good offensively until this year. I'm still waiting to see on Veleno as a 2C.

There aren't many guys in the NHL making 8 million per, so that's probably reaching a bit. Given his track record and comparables (Ryan O'Reilly for instance) he'll probably make around 6.5-7, which is pretty much fair value. I'd be way more worried about the kind of term he would get than the actual salary considering how many ELCs and bridge deals we'll have on the books over the next couple years.

I don't know whether it's impressive or not. We just haven't had a 30 goal scorer since 2009, and only two 20 goal guys last year. We're getting a ton of scoring from the guys who need to be. We just need more depth scoring (which is on the way) and some points from the defense (which is also on the way) and we might start looking like a real team. Need a second line center though.

I mean, we definitely need some addition via subtraction on the defense but I actually think our defense is better this year than last year (at least offensively) and our long term defensive situation is probably better than we give ourselves credit for.

It's entirely possible that we'll end the season with two 30 goal players (Larkin, AA) and two 20 goal players (Mantha, Bert), and still be one of the worst teams in the league.

Saarijarvi with a three point night for the Griffs this evening. Would love to see him get the monkey off his back and start producing.