kipwinger

Videos in which Pronman bashes the Seider pick, as you’ve insinuated.

Link some for me to watch?

Here's what Pronman said of the Seider draft when he did his "Draft Grades" article immediately following the 2019 Draft. Doesn't really seem like he's saying it's "bad" given the B grade, the fact that he thought Seider would be a top four defenseman, and that he explicitly says "I like Moritz Seider". Seems like he wasn't sure of the upside. But think what you want I guess. Detroit Red Wings: B Detroit had an interesting draft. They got talent. The debate over the next few years is did they get the right talent. I like Moritz Seider a lot, just not at No. 6. I like Antti Tuomisto, just not at No. 35. For what it’s worth, Detroit wasn’t the only team high on both those players, even if it wasn’t a consensus opinion. They had a lot of day two picks, as has been the case the past few years, and they added a lot to their farm system. I think Seider will be a quality top-four defenseman, Robert Mastrosimone and Albin Grewe play, Tuomisto has a good chance to play, and several other picks are on the radar. For the assets they had, was it enough, though? I have some skepticism, but time will tell. This is one of the most fascinating team classes of the past few years.

Agreed. But you didn't really answer the question. If you think someone is going 13th and they go 6th does that count (in your mind) as being badly wrong?

Pronman mock drafted Seider going 13th. He went 6th. Does that count as "badly wrong"?

Yep, sure did. He’s right, I’m wrong.

McIsaac's contract is two-way. He doesn't need to be waived to be sent down.

Where did Pronman say he "never bothered to scout" Seider? I'm genuinely unfamiliar with that piece of info. According to this article (by Pronman) it sure seems like he scouted him. "Moritz Seider, RHD, Detroit Seider was a unique evaluation in 2019. He played in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL), not a league many were used to contextualizing top-10 picks in at the time. His club in Mannheim was very strong, and he didn’t receive a ton of ice time or power-play opportunity. You still saw this huge, mobile, competitive defenseman with some puck game and it was clear he was a very good prospect. Whether he had the offensive upside to be a true top-end prospect was the question for myself and a lot of NHL scouts. I rated him as a mid-first-rounder. There probably wasn’t the evidence at the time to support what he’s done offensively since then, but there was evidence to suggest he was going to be an excellent two-way defenseman. Seider went to the U20 B pool that winter and was the clear best defenseman, helping elevate Germany to the A pool. Even that, while impressive, is not usually indicative of an elite prospect. His world championship was different. He showed up for Germany versus some of the best players in the world and didn’t look like a fish out of water. It was around that time I started to hear from NHL scouts that this player was for real, and it was here that I erred in not valuing how good he looked for a U18 defenseman at arguably the second-highest level behind the NHL. I don’t think I would with that information have moved him up to a top-five range as he’d go now in a redraft, but he should have been rated as a very reasonable top-10 pick." https://theathletic.com/2952636/2021/11/16/pronman-nhl-prospects-i-was-wrong-about-the-2021-22-edition/

I understand being critical of sports/hockey media in general, but I don't really understand the specific criticism of Pronman. He's no oracle, but he personally scouts hundreds of players all over the world year after year. People gush over Bob McKenzie and Craig Button and they don't do that. They're not freezing their asses off watching s***ty U18 games in Czechia or whatever. Pronman does. Does that mean he's always right? No. But it does mean that his takes are his own, and they're the product of his own personal evaluation process. What's that worth (you might ask)? Well, he did get Seider wrong (as did pretty much everyone else). But he's the ONLY person that got the Slafkovsky/Shane Wright draft correct and that was a HUGE take that nobody else was even close on. Pronman predicted (Slafkovsky, Jiricek, Cooley, and Wright) and the actual draft was nearly identical (swap Jiricek for the other top RHD Simon Nemec). That's quite a take to stake your professional reputation on. IMO Pronman is better than most talent evaluators because he puts the work in. Quite a few others with similar (or higher) reputations don't do the work he does. I'm much more critical of guys like Wheeler, Button, or Chris Peters (FloHockey) who are very wrong, year after year, without any of the successes that Pronman has had.

I thought that Lethemon was just sorta getting an "atta boy" for stepping up and helping out the organization last season when our goaltenders were all hurt or underperforming? I really didn't get the impression that the organization saw any potential in him.

Totally agree. I see Kasper as a Ryan Kesler type of center. Matchup guy that scores 50-70 pts. I think Danielson will in the 80-90 point range while still playing good defense (more like Larkin).

I genuinely think N8 will have better offense than Kasper. And I love Kasper. You do a search on his name in the LGW archives and you’ll see I was the first guy to pump his tires. But as much as I love him I think N8 scores more. His shot and handles are better and he’s just as good in transition. They’re both going to be insanely useful when we win a Cup (which I’m fully expecting now that our cupboards are full with absolute studs) but I think Danielson will be the offensive guy and Kasper will be the matchup guy.

Wheeler has been low on him all year. His stupidity is well documented. He had Andrew Cristall in his top 15. He has a clear bias toward small wingers with tons of flash. I guarantee Danielson outperforms quite a few guys Wheeler was really high on (Perreault, Benson, Cristall, Sale, Yager). TL;DR: Scott Wheeler is a total hack.

Been doing as deep a dive as I can on Nate Danielson the last few nights and I'm SO pumped about this guy. I think he's going to be an absolute stud. There's nothing that this guy doesn't do well. His skating, stick handling, and shot are all noticeable. His playmaking is good, maybe not elite, but it's hard to say if that's because his wingers completely suck. When he fills out he's going to be a horse. I think the range of outcomes for him is somewhere between Jordan Staal (on the low end) and Alexsander Barkov on the high end.

An underrated part of Yzerman's tenure as GM has been his cap management. By keeping contracts low and short he's been able to sit on a ton of cap space, which he has routinely used to acquire (and flip) players for draft picks and better players. He made something out of nothing in a way that would have baffled Ken Holland.

This guy sucked in his draft year and he sucks now. If he had the EXACT same career up to this point, but was drafted in the late first round (instead of early) nobody would give a single sh*t about him and he'd be working at his dad's used car dealership in Winnipeg right now.

Seen him compared to Dylan Cozens, Elias Lindholm, and Roope Hintz. I just don't see someone with his physical profile, skating, and skill not being able to score. It works far more often than it doesn't.

Max Bultman of The Athletic compared his ceiling to Kris Letang. Agree or disagree?

The Red Wings make the playoffs Chiarot-Holl are a really solid 3rd defensive pair Rasmussen, Berggren, Kostin, and Veleno all have break out seasons

It’s basically to the point for me where if I see a guy in the SHL at 17yo putting up ANY points I’m going to conclude the dude is a legit player. Its definitely already a noticeable trend.

I genuinely don't know a ton about ASP, but I recall hearing that he's a willing defender that can even be physical. He just needs to add strength. Is that more or less accurate? It's hard to imagine SY picking a guy who's bad defensively AND doesn't compete.

I agree with most of this. But I don't agree that Gostisbehere sucks at defense. Or at least not to the extent DeAngelo does. Gostisbehere's defensive metrics grade out a good deal better than DeAngelo's. IMO he's more like Hronek than he is like DeAngelo. Which is to say, not a super defender but roughly league average amongst defensemen.

Good point.

No doubt, I think I'm on record somewhere saying Edvinsson is going to be better than Seider. I'm definitely not down on any of our guys picked under Yzerman. Every single one of them has performed as good, or better, than expected. But I made the thread because before Seider the idea that the Red Wings would be drafting elite players (instead of just good ones) was entirely theoretical. After Seider's second year we moved from "we need elite prospects" to "we have elite prospects" and that is an absolutely huge step for this organization that I don't think SY even knew he was getting with that pick.

That was actually the motivation for this thread. I was thinking about the embarrassment of riches the Red Wings have aged 25 and under (Ras, Raymond, Berggren, Edvinsson, Kasper, Danielson, ASP, Mazur, Cossa, Lombardi, Wallinder, Sodorblom, Johansson, etc. etc. etc.) and I realized I hadn't even remembered Seider. He's the first truly elite player we've drafted since Zetterberg??? Maybe Larkin if we're being generous. It genuinely feels like it was a complete game changer though. I'll admit that personally I was not fully convinced SY was all that great of a GM when he was first hired. But after it became clear that Seider was an elite player (sometime during his stint with Rogle) my attitude about the entire organization changed. It seemed like we finally had something to build around.