Prospect Info: #166 Overall, LW Josh Filmon, Swift Current WHL

[Billdo]

this is an absolutely awful list of drafted players. Like it’s ungodly bad to go through 13 drafts and have this be your haul. It’s not surprising the Devils bottomed out so bad.

And it’s also not surprising that when the drafting turned around, the team followed. I’m not saying it’s easy to get star players, but having Hughes and Hischier is not the reason the Devils are good. Every team that sucks for a decade gets good players. You have to take swings with every opportunity like the Devils did on Filmon or else you wind up with Casey Cizikas making 25 million dollars to be your 4C for a decade.

 

[My3Sons]

View attachment 679288

obviously someone's burner account.

 

[tailfins]

this is an absolutely awful list of drafted players. Like it’s ungodly bad to go through 13 drafts and have this be your haul. It’s not surprising the Devils bottomed out so bad.

And it’s also not surprising that when the drafting turned around, the team followed. I’m not saying it’s easy to get star players, but having Hughes and Hischier is not the reason the Devils are good. Every team that sucks for a decade gets good players. You have to take swings with every opportunity like the Devils did on Filmon or else you wind up with Casey Cizikas making 25 million dollars to be your 4C for a decade.

C’mon - that’s just not correct.

The Devils are good because of Hischier, Hughes and then:

UFAs:
Tatar
Hamilton

Trades:
Siegs
Marino
Graves
Vanecek
Meier (hopefully)

Two draft picks:
Bratt
Mercer

Bratt is luck. Mercer is a first round pick that hit (though, we saw even recently with McLeod and Zacha that sometimes first round picks don’t really pan out).

This is not some drafting and development story.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

 

[MadDevil]

Holy shit, did I see a Mauro Jorg reference? That's a deep cut on Conte's greatest hits album.

 

[Guadana]

I was on that diet when I was in my early 20’s . It’s called the vitamin S diet. High doses of vitamin S , eat whatever the hell you want and work out like a beast. It works.

Wow. Are you talking about "Keanu Reaves movie"?

 

[NJ07102]

Certainly didn't look out of place at all. In fact, I liked his game.

 

[Jersey Fan 12]

this is an absolutely awful list of drafted players. Like it’s ungodly bad to go through 13 drafts and have this be your haul. It’s not surprising the Devils bottomed out so bad.

And it’s also not surprising that when the drafting turned around, the team followed. I’m not saying it’s easy to get star players, but having Hughes and Hischier is not the reason the Devils are good. Every team that sucks for a decade gets good players. You have to take swings with every opportunity like the Devils did on Filmon or else you wind up with Casey Cizikas making 25 million dollars to be your 4C for a decade.

Not sure the point of your post but see two major flaws to it's logic - treating the NHL Draft as if it's the main source of players and underestimating the value of two-way checking forwards.

The NHL Draft is not the equivalent of the NFL Draft, which is the primary source of talent and teams that don't draft well languish for decades. Even during the Stanley Cup years with a few notable exceptions the bulk of the roster was acquired through trade or free agency. The same holds true for most of the top teams today.

Secondly, having players like Casey Cizikas and paying them is a good thing. Would hope the Devils have Michael McLeod and Miles Wood for a decade and if so suspect they would earn a similar amount.

 

[Jersey Fan 12]

Anyone see his first game with the Comets?

 

[My3Sons]

Not sure the point of your post but see two major flaws to it's logic - treating the NHL Draft as if it's the main source of players and underestimating the value of two-way checking forwards.

The NHL Draft is not the equivalent of the NFL Draft, which is the primary source of talent and teams that don't draft well languish for decades. Even during the Stanley Cup years with a few notable exceptions the bulk of the roster was acquired through trade or free agency. The same holds true for most of the top teams today.

Secondly, having players like Casey Cizikas and paying them is a good thing. Would hope the Devils have Michael McLeod and Miles Wood for a decade and if so suspect they would earn a similar amount.

It’s hard to find core players outside thr drsft. For purposes of thr discussion I’ll assume Bratt and Meier are both extended this offseason. To me that makes thr core Hughes Hischier Bratt Meier and Hamilton. I expect Luke and Mercer to join them but for today I won’t count them. That would break down thr corr as three drafted one free agent and one trade. My guess is most cores are similar. I agree you have to do a good job with trading and free agents to fill out your roster but the cap being what it is you want to pay a bit less than thr market for any player. The market more or less sets itself and a good GM knows thr market for any given player. I’m guessing thr teams have the analytics guys work up contract models and comparisons. It’s probably part of the problem with signing Bratt is thr team’s model and his agent’s model conflict.

 

[devilsblood]

Not sure the point of your post but see two major flaws to it's logic - treating the NHL Draft as if it's the main source of players and underestimating the value of two-way checking forwards.

The NHL Draft is not the equivalent of the NFL Draft, which is the primary source of talent and teams that don't draft well languish for decades. Even during the Stanley Cup years with a few notable exceptions the bulk of the roster was acquired through trade or free agency. The same holds true for most of the top teams today.

Secondly, having players like Casey Cizikas and paying them is a good thing. Would hope the Devils have Michael McLeod and Miles Wood for a decade and if so suspect they would earn a similar amount.

We are pretty draft heavy at fwd. And we’ve been able to squeeze out some bottom 6 players from 1st and 2nd round “dissapointments”. Which may point to our ability to develop guys into role players.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

I know people like to crap on the drafting, and it was legitimately poor, but I don't really know that it was much more than luck.

Shero's 2015 class - yes they all played, but Colton White is the only one outside the top 2 rounds who *might* cross 100 games. And likely only because he's on the Ducks.

Meanwhile, from 2000 - 2014, you've got 13 players:

- Rupp, 2000 3rd round, 609 GP
- Engelland, 2000 6th round, 671 GP
- Aaron Voros, 2001 6th round, 162 GP
- Cam Janssen, 2002 4th round, 336 GP
- Mark Fraser, 2005 3rd round, 219 GP
- Mark Fayne, 2005 5th round, 389 GP
- Matt Halischuk, 2007 4th round, 280 GP
- Adam Henrique, 2008 3rd round, 825 GP
- Scott Wedgewood, 2010 3rd round, 95 GP (still active)
- Blake Coleman, 2011 3rd round, 457 GP
- Reid Boucher, 2011 4th round, 133 GP (would like to forget about him)
- Alexander Kerfoot, 2012 5th round, 434 GP
- Miles Wood, 2013 4th round, 395 GP

That's nearly a player per year. That seems pretty reasonable hit rate to me?

The issue here is that none other than Henrique, Coleman, and Kerfoot are players of consequence (and you can argue on Kerfoot - both because he didn't sign with the Devils and because the Leafs have been trying to trade him almost since the day he arrived). That combined with the lack of success from the 1st and 2nd round (due to combo of limited # of picks, low position of those picks, and just poor drafting) really did the team in.

But, even with the recent later round success, how many will be impact players? Bratt obviously. But, then? Hopefully Schmid. Maybe Sharangovich. Fingers crossed on Gritsyuk. It's still early for Daws. Villen, Orlov, Brennan, Hauser, Fillmon, Barabosha. Notice those are all since 2018. In part because it looks like we have something with Rango and Schmid. But also in part because it's too early to call on the others. A few years ago, we might have added Zharkov or Urbom to our list of late round hits. Unfortunately, most of the names above will end up in the same spot.

this haul is AWFUL lol are you seriously defending it?!

That list right there is the main reason the Devils have mostly sucked for the better part of the last decade

 

[Hockey Sports Fan]

this haul is AWFUL lol are you seriously defending it?!

That list right there is the main reason the Devils have mostly sucked for the better part of the last decade

yeah i feel like i’m getting trolled or something

 

[Triumph]

I know people like to crap on the drafting, and it was legitimately poor, but I don't really know that it was much more than luck.

Shero's 2015 class - yes they all played, but Colton White is the only one outside the top 2 rounds who *might* cross 100 games. And likely only because he's on the Ducks.

Meanwhile, from 2000 - 2014, you've got 13 players:

- Rupp, 2000 3rd round, 609 GP
- Engelland, 2000 6th round, 671 GP
- Aaron Voros, 2001 6th round, 162 GP
- Cam Janssen, 2002 4th round, 336 GP
- Mark Fraser, 2005 3rd round, 219 GP
- Mark Fayne, 2005 5th round, 389 GP
- Matt Halischuk, 2007 4th round, 280 GP
- Adam Henrique, 2008 3rd round, 825 GP
- Scott Wedgewood, 2010 3rd round, 95 GP (still active)
- Blake Coleman, 2011 3rd round, 457 GP
- Reid Boucher, 2011 4th round, 133 GP (would like to forget about him)
- Alexander Kerfoot, 2012 5th round, 434 GP
- Miles Wood, 2013 4th round, 395 GP

That's nearly a player per year. That seems pretty reasonable hit rate to me?

The issue here is that none other than Henrique, Coleman, and Kerfoot are players of consequence (and you can argue on Kerfoot - both because he didn't sign with the Devils and because the Leafs have been trying to trade him almost since the day he arrived). That combined with the lack of success from the 1st and 2nd round (due to combo of limited # of picks, low position of those picks, and just poor drafting) really did the team in.

But, even with the recent later round success, how many will be impact players? Bratt obviously. But, then? Hopefully Schmid. Maybe Sharangovich. Fingers crossed on Gritsyuk. It's still early for Daws. Villen, Orlov, Brennan, Hauser, Fillmon, Barabosha. Notice those are all since 2018. In part because it looks like we have something with Rango and Schmid. But also in part because it's too early to call on the others. A few years ago, we might have added Zharkov or Urbom to our list of late round hits. Unfortunately, most of the names above will end up in the same spot.

Late round drafting is always going to be more luck than science, but the problem was that the Devils were often throwing the science part out the window by drafting players with poor results relative to their drafted peers. To come out of a decade of late round drafting - 2001 to 2010 - with Henrique, Fayne, and Merrill as your three hits is pathetic.

I always say that the Devils late-round drafting actually got better as we moved into the 2010s - 2011 with Coleman, Boucher, Pietila, and Scarlett, that's 4 good picks in a row, all of those guys became good professional players and one of them became an NHL regular. 2014 is a disaster but 2015 was okay.

The class of 2015 was not Shero's class because he was only there for 2 months, and I find it very unlikely that he would know much about individual players beyond the 1st round; enough to supercede the scouts. He might've told them the kind of players he wants, but that's merely a general guideline and the scouts have been assembling lists for months before he got there.

Nonetheless, it is absurd goalpost shifting to post things like Engelland and Voros as successes at the top of your post and then quibble with the idea of Sharangovich being an impact player. Those 2005-2014 teams were crying out for a guy like Sharangovich; the Devils absolutely never had forward depth, or at least had a giant hole somewhere in the lineup - adding a 15-15 guy to the third line would've been huge.

Anyway to bring this back to Filmon, he's had the best D+1 I can remember out of a Devils prospect that was picked late, probably better than anyone picked 3rd round or later? Hard to say. And that season earned him some bonuses as well as a high salary in the minors.

 

[Hockey Sports Fan]

The class of 2015 was not Shero's class because he was only there for 2 months, and I find it very unlikely that he would know much about individual players beyond the 1st round; enough to supercede the scouts. He might've told them the kind of players he wants, but that's merely a general guideline and the scouts have been assembling lists for months before he got there.

jeeze was it really only 2 months? That totally escaped my memory. Maybe Lou or Conte really did learn something after one of the worst drafts of all time.

 

[Lou is God]

I know people like to crap on the drafting, and it was legitimately poor, but I don't really know that it was much more than luck.

Shero's 2015 class - yes they all played, but Colton White is the only one outside the top 2 rounds who *might* cross 100 games. And likely only because he's on the Ducks.

Meanwhile, from 2000 - 2014, you've got 13 players:

- Rupp, 2000 3rd round, 609 GP
- Engelland, 2000 6th round, 671 GP
- Aaron Voros, 2001 6th round, 162 GP
- Cam Janssen, 2002 4th round, 336 GP
- Mark Fraser, 2005 3rd round, 219 GP
- Mark Fayne, 2005 5th round, 389 GP
- Matt Halischuk, 2007 4th round, 280 GP
- Adam Henrique, 2008 3rd round, 825 GP
- Scott Wedgewood, 2010 3rd round, 95 GP (still active)
- Blake Coleman, 2011 3rd round, 457 GP
- Reid Boucher, 2011 4th round, 133 GP (would like to forget about him)
- Alexander Kerfoot, 2012 5th round, 434 GP
- Miles Wood, 2013 4th round, 395 GP

That's nearly a player per year. That seems pretty reasonable hit rate to me?

The issue here is that none other than Henrique, Coleman, and Kerfoot are players of consequence (and you can argue on Kerfoot - both because he didn't sign with the Devils and because the Leafs have been trying to trade him almost since the day he arrived). That combined with the lack of success from the 1st and 2nd round (due to combo of limited # of picks, low position of those picks, and just poor drafting) really did the team in.

But, even with the recent later round success, how many will be impact players? Bratt obviously. But, then? Hopefully Schmid. Maybe Sharangovich. Fingers crossed on Gritsyuk. It's still early for Daws. Villen, Orlov, Brennan, Hauser, Fillmon, Barabosha. Notice those are all since 2018. In part because it looks like we have something with Rango and Schmid. But also in part because it's too early to call on the others. A few years ago, we might have added Zharkov or Urbom to our list of late round hits. Unfortunately, most of the names above will end up in the same spot.

Not only is that a weak crop of drafted players, not one of them were a Euros player.

Conte lost his touch once we hit the new century.

 

[Hockey Sports Fan]

View attachment 679288

Missed this before but it’s simply true. Every team has at least an acceptable core of players these days (except Arizona, who only has one IMO). You’re not going anywhere if you don’t surround them with a good team. Edmonton missed the playoffs 3 times and got swept twice with McDavid and Draisaitl.

 

[Guttersniped]

Not sure the point of your post but see two major flaws to it's logic - treating the NHL Draft as if it's the main source of players and underestimating the value of two-way checking forwards.

The NHL Draft is not the equivalent of the NFL Draft, which is the primary source of talent and teams that don't draft well languish for decades. Even during the Stanley Cup years with a few notable exceptions the bulk of the roster was acquired through trade or free agency. The same holds true for most of the top teams today.

Secondly, having players like Casey Cizikas and paying them is a good thing. Would hope the Devils have Michael McLeod and Miles Wood for a decade and if so suspect they would earn a similar amount.

Not sure what Wood and Cizikas have in common other than playing in the bottom six.

Cizikas was also pretty fringy for years until he got a lot of attention by scoring 20 goals in Trotz’s first season.

The Isles drafted Cizikas in 2009 in the 4th Rd (#92), in the same draft they got Anders Lee (6th Rd #152).

And they also drafted John Tavares and Calvin de Haan in the 1st Rd that year, it was a pretty big draft for them.

In 2008, they drafted Josh Bailey (1st Rd #9) and Matt Martin (5th Rd #148).

And also Travis Hamonic (2nd #53) and Jared Spurgeon (6th #156, he ended up signing with Minnesota instead though) in the same draft.

In 2010, they drafted Brock Nelson (1st Rd #30) plus Nino Niederreiter (1st Rd #5), who they traded for Clutterbuck.

In 2011, they drafted Scott Mayfield (2nd Rd #34), as well as Ryan Strome (1st Rd #5), who they traded to get Eberle.

In 2012, they drafted Griffen Reinhart (1st Rd #4), who was traded to get the picks used to get both Barzal (1st Rd #16) and Beauvillier (1st Rd #28) in 2015. They also drafted Adam Pelech (3rd Rd #65).

In 2013, they drafted Ryan Pulock (1st Rd #15). In 2014, they drafted Ilya Sorokin (3rd Rd #78) and Devon Toews (4th Rd #108).

The Isles were an underfunded mess under Wang & Snow but Snow drafted or traded for most of the veteran team that went to the ECF twice under Lou.

A team has to draft well, it’s difficult to get many long-term team controlled assets with by trading just your allotted picks.

That’s what asset manage is about. You have team controlled players, prospects and picks. Where are your future players coming from?

You have to have drafted well to have the extra assets to make trades to get the new players or extra picks.

It drives me crazy when people say “we’re done drafting” and then talk about wanting to trade for players next. What are you trading exactly, you can’t just trade your own picks. The return won’t be enough and your own draft will be too thin.

So all of this involves trades with drafting.

Spoiler: You can make hay with cheap assets

Engvall (2014 Rd 7 #144)

The return for Tanner Jeannot (signed as an undrafted FA in 2018)

San Jose signed Middleton as FA in 2020 after he didn’t sign with the LAK (he was the last player drafted in 2016).

The cap crunch caused by the COVID cap freeze has really improved the UFA market, it’s easy to forget how dire it was before that. 2016 is the classic example of brutal UFA class of players who got wildly overpaid with contracts that were immediately awful.

Go look at any team that had long successful run in the post-cap NHL and you’ll see a team that absolutely killed it with drafting, both with 1sts and later picks. Anaheim, San Jose, Tampa, Boston, etc.

Every pick doesn’t have to be a winner, Boston biffed the 2015 draft hard, but they got McAvoy the next year and drafted their ageless core in the 2nd & 3rd round before that. (They did have the most successful UFA signing ever in Chara but the fact that he’s an anomaly should tell you something.)

Picking one very good player in every couple of drafts, while bombing on the 1sts, was very much the reason this team was devoid of talent until recently.

At the end Lou tried to fix it through free agency and that was simply impossible and he had not much of value to trade other than our 1sts (so he started trading those).

 

[Guttersniped]

Missed this before but it’s simply true. Every team has at least an acceptable core of players these days (except Arizona, who only has one IMO). You’re not going anywhere if you don’t surround them with a good team. Edmonton missed the playoffs 3 times and got swept twice with McDavid and Draisaitl.

A badly run team is a badly run team.

If you make god awful trades and terrible UFA signing, plus you play in a city a lot of players don’t want to live in, you get a very flawed team.

There’s things a GM must do beyond good drafting but that’s a critical aspect. It’s the only way you get a McDavid, who literally carries the team while GMs have f***ed up in things around him a comical number of ways.

 

[MasterofGrond]

Not sure the point of your post but see two major flaws to it's logic - treating the NHL Draft as if it's the main source of players and underestimating the value of two-way checking forwards.

The NHL Draft is not the equivalent of the NFL Draft, which is the primary source of talent and teams that don't draft well languish for decades. Even during the Stanley Cup years with a few notable exceptions the bulk of the roster was acquired through trade or free agency. The same holds true for most of the top teams today.

Secondly, having players like Casey Cizikas and paying them is a good thing. Would hope the Devils have Michael McLeod and Miles Wood for a decade and if so suspect they would earn a similar amount.

The NHL draft IS the major source of talent for NHL teams, either directly through player acquisition (and this is especially true for top-line players, who are more likely to be playing for the team that drafted them than role players) or through acquiring assets that can eventually be traded for players.

 

[OmNomNom]

what's this got to do w filmon

 

[Xirik]

what's this got to do w filmon

Absolutely nothing!

 

[glenwo2]

what's this got to do w filmon

Yeah...I mean....we have a whole Discussion thread about anything else...

Poor Josh is probably like "AM I IN THE FRICKIN' ROOM HERE???"

 

[Hockey Sports Fan]

what's this got to do w filmon

hey i was real good about tacking him on to the end of all my posts until the last one!

 

[Bad Goalie]

If Filmon were to play in the AHL next season and do as well as he has in his 1st 2 games, he would not look out of place.

However, He won't be here next season. At least not until his Jr season ends. Add to that the Comets would still have to be playing. With another year of developmnet that goes as well as this one did and some more wt, muscle, and skill improvement, he just may turn out to be the real deal. We all have to hope he doesn't regress or simply repeat this season. He has to continue on an upward swing

I like what I'm seeing at this time. Pinho and Thompson should take note of how he finds open space, gets his shot off quickly, and hits the net, and then gets back hard on the backcheck and can clear the puck out of his zone while under pressure.