Richdg

Holland was already talking about "Cholowski going to St. Cloud St for the next 4 years." Then 1-2 in the AHL, that makes 5-6 years from now. Because of the crap teams that drafted Gauthier Jones, and Chychrun each has a better than 50-50 chance of being in the NHL next year. Same with Rubstov. All 4 will have played at least 1 game by the end of the 2017/18 season. meanwhile Cholowski will be a sophomore in college with 2 years to go.

This is a bad draft for the RW's. True none of us know how any player is going to turn out, neither do the RW's. Every draft in every sport is nothing more than an educated guess. When a team passes over guys ranked in the top 20 for a guy ranked in the mid 30's those are not educated guesses. It isn't about player A or player B or player C. it is about being smart and getting player A AND player B AND player C. 5-6 years from now Cholowski could become a good player. While we are waiting for that how many 20 goal seasons will Gauthier have? How about Jones? Rustabov? Some of the others available when we picked will have 200+ NHL games played before Cholowski ever plays a pro game.

Terrible pick. Holland likes to do this. Makes a good trade with the Yotes. Then instead of taking a better player goes out and takes a reach. Even if Cholowski makes it some day-5-6 years from now, others that were on the board will already be in the NHL producing. Oh well. Terrible pick.

Yup. I see him in the 12 range. There are very few high end Dmen available, so expect an early run. Lots of good F's. Dmen rise F's fall.

My last thoughts before the draft. 1. If we trade I expect it to be up, not down. This is a very shallow draft overall. 40-50 really good prospects then not after that. 2. I think we end up with one of these five guys if we pick at 16: Rustibov C, Gauither RW, Jones LW, McAvoy D, or Mcloud C. Sorry for any mis-spellings.... 3. In the 2nd I want us to take the risk and draft Day. He has top 5 talent and questionable off the ice issues. A true Boom or Bust pick. But if he is a BOOM, it will be a big one. 4. I do expect multiple trades to happen this weekend. Will Holland be part of it?

You must be 12. Gordie was the best. But don't take my word for it take Gretzky's. he thinks/thought Gordie was the best ever as well.

Gordie! Gordie! Gordie! God needed a winger, RIP Mr. Hockey.

Lets not get carried away here. We are talking about a recently turned 20 year old that has never played a pro hockey game. At 6-1/195 his listed size at Barrie he is also a lot smaller than Abby. he is a kid that could become something down the road. The question is what? Is he a Mitch Callahan type? A Lil Bert type? A Abby type? Way to soon to know anything. Getting him for a 3rd is a good move. But does it become a great move?

same type of player as Lil Bert. Same size as well.

He's not my fav choice either, but he is a Holland type of pick. Very good 2 way C that is a good passer, puck handler, faceoff guy, plays a strong 200ft game, has decent size 6-1 or 6-2 depending on which site you read. His talent level is like Larkin. Like I said earlier, the "Russian Question" keeps him out of the top 10, not his talent. He is that talented. Something I am seeing more of is the lack of depth in this draft. Most are starting to say 45-50 good picks, another 10-15 guys with talent but issues, then it really falls far and fast after that. G is a really weak position this year.

There has been growing speculation-read rumors, that German Rubtsov the 6-1/190 C from Russia could be the pick. Talent is top 10 but the "Russian Factor" will keep him in the middle of the 1st.

Not true at all. Pulk was a much better goal scorer in the AHL than Mantha is, that is true. But even at the AHL level Pulk was too small, too slow, and didn't play much D. Mantha is a much better all around player than Pulk is/was. Not saying either will make it/not make it. But they are very different players with very different abilities and talents. For us to finish 10th, which is where I said we could be headed means we have 11 fewer points this year. Col. was 10th overall with 82 points. 11 fewer than we had. But they only won 2 fewer games than we did 41-39. It doesn't take much for us to be down to that level. D and Z are done and N and T can't carry the team. That means we need the next wave to succeed or we will fall. Very simple.

UFA? sure, when was the last time we signed a big name UFA that worked out? Hossa..... Trades? Again when was the last time we traded for a 25+ goal scorer? Now bottom 10 team, that is what 10 fewer points per year? Not that far away.

The thing is, we have to have all three of Mantha, Larkin, and Vech turn into quality players. If any of those 3 fail to develop and turn into 25+ goal guys we will become a bottom 10 team in the NHL. These guys are our future stars. We can't afford a miss with any of them right now.

Mantha's final numbers for the year: 79 games played 27 goals 32 assists 59 points. If he can put up those type of numbers at the NHL level we have a stud. He and Lil Bert carried the Griffs in the PO's.

Mantha is currently 3rd in scoring for the AHL playoffs. 8 points in 7 games. 4 goals and 4 assists. This also makes 27 goals in 77 games at all levels.

Good read. http://www.wingingitinmotown.com/2016/4/28/11533382/the-red-wings-are-officially-done-selling-hockey

In the second yes he is. Mentioned him on page 1 as a good risk to take. Great talent. Has issues above the shoulders......

Disagree. We are getting worse because we are drafting worse. Go back a page and look at all the top 20 Dmen taken after the 1st round. Guys that we could have taken in the 1st etc.... Look at all the euros we have drafted that haven't even panned out at the AHL level. Yes I agree with you on the building through the draft should not mean we are 100% drafted players. In fact we have too many guys on our team that we drafted overall. 12-15 draftee's should be the max. The balance then picked up via trade/UFA which is becoming tougher overall. But just because something is tough doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing it. Like Holland you mean? LOL

Yes we have increased our % of players that we drafted, and our record has gotten worse. Yes those things are related. As for your list why didn't you list every player we drafted? The only players that matter are in fact the ones on the team. Ok one can make a case for those traded away to bring in other assets. But how many of those assets are here? How many of our former players are even average NHL players? Very few. You yourself call Andersson a non-NHL talent. You are correct about the 1st round picks. That does hurt us now after helping us in the past. Which is why I said the next 5 drafts are important to see how well we draft. It is possible-not likely but possible than come next fall we will have a grand total of 4 players on the team from the 2001-2010 drafts: Abby, Sheahan, Mrazek, and 1 of tatar/nyquist/pulk. If Ericsson was bought out, and we make trades with Howard, Smith, and 2 of the 3 forwards, that is all that is left. Depending on the moves we could be a better team however.

We did trade away picks, not doubt about that and it did/does have an effect. That is why we need more data from the next 5 seasons to see if we can do better.

Some could be gone. But and this was my point, there are those that "want to build through the draft". Our history doesn't show that we can do that. Having 9 or 10 players on the team out of 10 drafts isn't going to get it done. At that rate it will take 23 years to even field a full roster. Yes I understand we traded away picks. It will be interesting to see over the next 5 years if we can look at the 2011-2020 decade and see a better than 1 per draft average.

Neither are here anymore. Yes KFQ could be resigned and Franzen will never play again. So yes 9 out of 10 years, maybe less if we make trades this summer.

One of the things that comes up from time to time is: Building Through the Draft. Can a team do it? Well..... Here are the years and guys from each draft still on the team or have a legit chance to make the team for the past couple of years. 2001: 0 2002: Ericsson 2003: Howard 2004: 0 2005: Abby and Helm-soon to be gone.... 2006: 0 2007: Smith 2008: Nyquist 2009: Tatar 2010: Sheahan, Pulk, and Mrazek 2011: Jurco, Oullett, Sproul, Marchenko 2012: Frk, Paterson, Athanasiou 2013: Mantha, Natasiak, Bertuzzi 2014: larkin, Turgeon 2015: Svechnikov, Saarijarvi Yes the last couple of years still have chances to get deeper. The better thing to look at is 2001-2010. Ten drafts and only 10 players on the team-soon 9 after Helm leaves. Those are the years that should be the heart of the team.

The second round of the PO's starts tonight for the Griffs. Let's see how Mantha and the other do. With AA back down I expect to see Mantha-AA-Tangradi on a line together. They played the first half of the season together and all did well.