kipwinger

While those are both good players, I wouldn't like this draft strategy. We'd still be lacking a competitive forward corps and you're not likely to get impact forwards outside the top of the draft so you're just kicking the can down the road yet again. Another way of putting it would be: If I could only have 4 all-stars on my team I'd rather they be two centers and two defensemen than 4 defensemen or 4 centers. You can compliment star players with good free agents and be ok, but you can't build and entire forward corps (or defense corps) through free agency. Side note, can you believe that the Red Wings have been looking for a quality 2nd line center since signing Stephen Weiss TEN YEARS AGO? It is completely insane to think that we've had a glaring hole in our lineup for a DECADE and every attempt to fill it (not that there were many) has been a half-assed failure. Weiss, Richards, Neilsen, Suter, Copp. Losers.

And Datsyuk was hurt too. But you'll recall it was Pittsburgh's 3rd line that absolutely killed us that series. I think we were icing Hudler-Filppula-Samuelsson and they had Kennedy-Staal-Talbot. That line came up huge for them.

IMO 2005-06 was the worst. He had SOOOO much talent. FOUR 80+ point players. EIGHT 20+ goal scorers. Stars on offense, stars on defense, quality depth goaltending. Leadership. Youth. Everything. Lost in the 1st round to bottom feeder Edmonton. What a f*cking disaster.

Pronman is usually right about which player is going to go in which draft range. But he ALWAYS thinks centers will play on the wing in the NHL and he always grades guys' skating worse than it actually is. I've read his stuff for years and I always know those two things are coming.

At least three, if he's the super coach that everyone said he was. Babs' reputation was entirely built on the Olympics. He was able to win gold with super teams and everyone started conveniently forgetting that when he was given extremely competitive NHL rosters he usually dropped the ball. He has the exact same success rate in the NHL as Peter Laviolette despite the latter never coaching half the talent that Babs did. He's never been as good as his acolytes said he was.

I thought the exact same thing. Every mock they do Wheeler has Detroit taking an undersized winger. Benson, Perrault, Perron. He keeps saying, "Detroit needs offense". Which is true, but not THAT kind. Bultman (being a Wings beat reporter) understands the nuance a little better. Barlow and Nilsson seem more like Yzerman picks but even then I'm skeptical. I just don't seem him walking away without a center at that top pick. They'll put out 10 more if people keep reading them lol

The Athletic's new two-round mock draft is in. Pronman, Wheeler, and Bultman have the Wings taking: 9. Gabe Perrault (Wheeler's pick) 17. Colby Barlow (Bultman's pick) 41. Felix Nilsson (Bultman's pick) 42. Jayden Perron (Wheeler's pick) 43. Eteinne Morin (Pronman's pick)

I think there's probably a difference between being demanding and being a prick right? Like, requiring players to work hard, follow a game plan, don't blow their assignments, etc. and then holding them accountable when they don't do their job might be considered demanding. But I'd be surprised if players thought it was unreasonable. Playing weird mind games with rookies (Marner), arbitrarily benching/scratching established players for marquee games (Chelios, Spezza, Modanao), and verbally belittling players (Franzen) is probably considered unreasonable to most players. Guys wouldn't be in the NHL if they couldn't handle being pushed really hard. But I think most guys have the right to expect their coach not to cross certain lines. FWIW Babcock himself admitted that he steps over the line during an interview he did for the HBO 24/7 series that aired before the Wings/Leafs outdoor game.

I read an article this morning that said teams only have about 100 players that they seriously scout, and don't draft any players outside of that 100 (or so) players. This is mostly because they don't have the resources to accurately scout hundreds of draft eligible players. But also because someone that they've scouted is always available whenever they step to the podium. I'll see if I can find the article.

I do too. You're better off filling your amateur scouting department with guys who have A) good judgement, and B) a track record of successful talent evaluation and then let them do what they're good at (finding players). Aggregated scoring tends to put different variables on equal footing with one another. And when you do this you get bad results. Across almost every single variable a guy like Joe Pavelski is worse than a guy like Alex Semin, but one of them is good and one isn't? Why? Because all characteristics aren't created equal. Why is Patrice Bergeron better than Tyler Seguin? He shouldn't be if you go through the list of traits that scouts evaluate. He's really only better in two ways, he's smarter and more competitive. But that makes him better overall. Modern hockey analytics does this same thing (treats all skills equally) and over the years I've become very skeptical of analytics for this reason. Look at possession metrics (which are based on shot attempts). You might have two guys on a line that backcheck, win board battles, fight through checks in transition, and gain the offensive zone. Another guy does none of that but shoots any chance he get (Think Brett Hull or low rent versions like Mikael Samuelsson or Teemu Pullkkinen). At the end of the shift they all get the same possession score, but the cumulative effort it took to generate that shot isn't shared equally. The first two guys did A LOT to contribute to the success of that shift. The latter guy did one thing. Who's better? Now, who should you draft? Depends on what you need.

I don't agree, but not because I find fault with the theory you're proposing per se. It's because there I don't think there's any good way of determining who the "best" player is. For a bunch of reasons. First, you shouldn't really care who the best player is on the day you draft them. You should care who the best player is going to be. If you took the "best" player in the draft each year most of them would be 2nd year eligible players since they tend to dominate 1st year eligibles both physically and statistically. But NHL teams don't take those players often. Why? Because even though they're the best now, they probably won't be long term. Second, You can easily determine who the fastest, strongest, most accurate shooter, etc. But that doesn't denote the "best" player. Not even close. In fact, it's that kind of thinking that made Ken Holland (along with every other talent evaluator) think that Filip Zadina was the BPA and not Quinn Hughes right? You can score players across a bunch of variables and aggregate them, but often a player with a singular skill (or two) that's far and above his peers becomes the better player. Quinn Hughes is a better player than Zadina because Zadina is a little better than his peers in several ways, and Hughes is WAY better than his peers in one or two ways. But that makes him more effective. Third, every team weights different characteristics differently. Why would Yzerman tell his scouting staff (as he did) that he wanted to focus on drafting the most competitive players (at the expense of skill) if the Wings' scouting department could reasonably figure out who the "best player" is without emphasizing competitiveness? Some teams might prefer the inverse too (value skill over compete). It's no secret that managements draft players based on how well they fit with a team's "identity" and style of play. You think a team that values transitional play is going to draft a player that's bad in transition but good at everything else? Probably not before that draft a slightly less skilled player who excels in transition. Remember when Yzerman said he likes big defenseman and then drafted a million big defensemen? If the BPA was the BPA regardless of what the manager wants then it would be EXTREMELY unlikely that the BPA every time Yzerman steps to the podium to select a defenseman just happens to be really big and athletic right? Matter of fact, the only time the Yzerman used a pick on a sub 6ft. defender was Johansson and that was because Hakan Andersson was "pounding the table for him", not because he was the next best guy on their draft board (they've admitted this publicly). SY: I want big, mobile, defensemen. KD: Sorry Steve, we've crunched the numbers and it looks like the BPA is slow, 5'9 midget defenseman Lane Hutson so that's who you're taking. SY: You're right Kris, my hands are tied.

I did read the article. It says the Wings are interested in bringing him back. His name is in the headline. The very first sentence of the article says " The Detroit Red Wings would like to re-sign forwards Pius Suter and Alex Chiasson". They can prefer a two-way deal all they want, it doesn't change their interest. Tons and tons of guys have played for the Red Wings over the years on two-way deals.

You say these things like you know. It's cute. Except that we see year after year that it's not the case. A year ago we need centers and to nobody's surprise the BPA each time we picked just happened to be a center? The year before that we needed a goalie and we were able to trade up and the BPA just happened to be a goalie? This after drafting a stud left defenseman instead of a stud RHD, and that's just because he was the BPA and not because we had two stud righties on our team already? And not just the top picks. Yzerman says he wants to build from the back end out and the "BPA" for three of his first four draft picks are defensemen? That's odd. In fact it's extremely unlikely statistically. Also, a ranking doesn't determine a player's talent level (as you say above). A players talent is not changed by a ranking. They don't become more or less talented depending on which team's scouts are evaluating them. Boards don't reflect who's the most talented player. They reflect who the team values the most at each draft position. And it's absurd to think the team doesn't weight things like position, handedness, and organizational needs when determining who they value the most for each draft position. Edit: Also, every single year we hear Yzerman or Draper or someone say "This is the player Hakan Andersson was banging the table for". Why would that be necessary if there was no variability in who was selected at any given pick? And if there is some variability then there's no BPA...or teams are ignoring it.

Did they? That's odd because I remember him playing that EXACT role last year when he was called up and now they wanna bring him back. I"m sure they'll use him in a totally different way this time though. Being on a two-way deal does not preclude him from making the team as a 13th forward and playing on the powerplay when he's in the lineup. Exactly. Like. He. Did. Last. Year.

I've never argued that scouts don't score players. I'm suggesting that how GMs weight each score is entirely subjective. Which is better, a player with the highest scoring shot or the highest scoring passing ability? What about size vs. speed? Ceiling vs. floor? Even strength vs. powerplay scoring? Character vs. compete? Scores only give GMs a picture of who the player is, not whether he should pick them or not.

You seem to know a lot for a guy who said "Chiasson isn't worth bringing back" on the very same day it was reported that the Wings want to bring him back. Please, drop some more wisdom. You've done a bang up job of educating me so far.

You could absolutely do that, and pick players based on an aggregated score of their physical traits. But if you think that would find the "best player" you're a dumb dumb. Why? Because one bad trait can pretty easily upset the apple cart. Scouts: Player X is really really really fast, he's got size, excellent hands, scores goals, can be used on the powerplay, and has versatility enough to play all forward positions. GM: Is he a p*ssy? Scouts: Kinda. GM: The Detroit Red Wings are proud to select Andreas Athanasiou (in the 5th round). Edit: Not to mention the fact that you'd end up having a bunch of guys with the same scores and you'd still have to choose between them. Also, the NHL already does this for teams at the scouting combine and GM after GM say the combine doesn't factor that much into their selection process.

Whoa, you’re blowing my mind!?! You mean to tell me that a 13th forward might be on a 2 way deal? That’s unheard of! You are a f*cking genius. I’m in awe.

Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so. https://www.mlive.com/redwings/2023/06/red-wings-interested-in-pius-suter-alex-chiasson-among-their-own-ufas.html

You didn't really need an analogy to illustrate your point. You could have made the same point by simply just saying the bolded part. You shoehorned Trump into the conversation and then make an odd accusation that other people can't get over the guy. This despite the fact that you're the only person who mentioned him. Edit: I also think your whole "why don't people stop talking about two guys who are currently in the news" is an odd position to take as well. One just got hired by an NHL team and the other is running for President. Who should we talk about? Grover Cleveland and Al Arbour?

But you bringing it up is a case of "not letting it go". You could have just said "Commodore is pathetic and Babcock lives rent free in his head". Instead you used an analogy centered on Trump that illustrated the exact opposite point you were trying to make. "People can't get over Babcock in the same way they can't get over Trump" said the only guy on this board talking about Donald Trump.

Nobody is saying that. And that's not how the draft happens anyway. GMs aren't faced with the choice of 5 good defensemen and a mediocre center. They're choosing between a good center and a good defenseman. There is absolutely no objective way of determining whether Dalibor Dvorsky is a "better" center than David Reinbacher is a defenseman. But pretty much everyone universally agrees that they're roughly as good at their respective positions as the other is. THAT'S the decision GMs have to make. "Best" is an objective term that denotes quality. If you have a scale from 1-10, 1 being worst and 10 being best, then the "best" player available would be the player highest on the scale who can still be chosen. But that's not how teams work because there's no way of determining whether a good playmaker is better than an equally good shooter (for example). They chose the player they "like" the most of the remaining choices. And that's totally subjective and could be based on a whole bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with hockey skill. Every single year we hear about a kid who would have gone higher if not for "character issues". Or a goalie with starter upside who gets drafted later than a middle six winger because "goalies are voodoo". GMs also routinely choose players with a higher floor but a lower ceiling, not because they're "better" but because they're safer. These aren't objective talent evaluations, they're preferences. Take the Seider draft as an example. Literally nobody (other than Yzerman) thought he was going to get picked 6th. So one of two things must be true. Either Yzerman is the only person in hockey who is capable of accurately determining who the "best" player is, or Yzerman took the player he liked the most, who also happened to play a position of need, and that player turned out to be the best player after the fact. Zadina is the same example in reverse. EVERYONE agreed he was the best player for Detroit to take based on their evaluations. But clearly he wasn't. So either everyone has no idea what the "best" player looks like, or there is absolutely no way of telling on draft day. In either case, it would be completely idiotic to base your draft strategy on it.

Commodore is sooooooo lame. Here's a fun story about him though. Back when I was on Twitter I actually got him to engage with me. He had taken up mountaineering after he retired from the NHL and was training to climb/hike Mount Kilimanjaro. I made a smart ass comment about how if he failed to summit the mountain he'd blame it on Mike Babcock and Commodore seemed to find that pretty funny. There was a little bit of banter between us and then he moved on. Of course it didn't stop him from complaining about Babcock every single change he got after that point, but I do think he's got some levity about the whole thing. To be fair, guys like you bring up Trump CONSTANTLY. For instance, you just did it to make a point in a hockey forum about two other people that have nothing to do with Trump. So maybe the libs won't let it go because neither will any of you?

Either way, the point is that the talent evaluation is completely subjective. There's no "best player available" because every team has a different idea of what "best" means. The reality is that teams take the player they like the most at that particular spot. But because many other teams would like different players at that same draft position, it becomes a truism. If SY came out and said "I drafted the guys I liked the most" a chorus of "no s***" would ring from the fanbase. Not to mention the fact that the minute he got one wrong everyone would question his judgement. So he says "BPA" and all the dummies look at their preferred draft rankings and see how far he "reached" before the decide whether they like the pick as much as he did.

Exactly, if there was a way to determine "best player available" trade backs would almost never happen. And goalies would go a lot higher than they do. I think GMs repeat the BPA mantra so that they don't have to spend a single second discussing their actual draft strategy to dimwit fans and media types. They just say BPA and dumb dumbs eat it up and they move on. Edit: Also, if "BPA" was an actual thing then teams wouldn't bother having meetings with players to gauge their character/temperment/attitude. "Well sure Alex Semin, we'll draft you. You score a billion goals and are tall, fast, and skilled. Why would we care if you're a lazy crybaby? You're the best."