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- Oct 28, 2006
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The hit rate for goalies is still not great in the early rounds when compared to skaters. While investing a higher pick in a goaltender improves your chances of finding a quality tender, the opportunity cost is high.
That's why I like to mid-to-late round flier every year, because the opportunity cost is much less--most skaters picked in those rounds won't end up being NHLers either. Chances are you won't get a legit prospect, but if you do that's huge because unlike other positions, all you really need are a couple legit guys developing. But whenever the pipeline starts to dry up (picks in successive years miss, guys graduate or leave the system, etc.), that's when you need to use a higher round pick to shore it up. Depending on what happens with Ullmark in the expansion draft and with the uncertainty surrounding Petersen, we could be looking at a very dry pipeline. The fact that Murray really did not address it in his past few drafts means we have fewer lottery tickets to hit on as well.
That's why I'd like to see us grab one earlier (quality) and one later (quantity) to see if we can't help shore that pipeline up. I suppose if Ullmark stays it might make grabbing an earlier one less of a need, but it may still not be a bad idea, especially given that we have some extra picks to work with.
The other thing is that the development curve for goalies is much longer, meaning you cannot wait until it's a dire need to address it. You have to start before it gets to that point.
That's why I like to mid-to-late round flier every year, because the opportunity cost is much less--most skaters picked in those rounds won't end up being NHLers either. Chances are you won't get a legit prospect, but if you do that's huge because unlike other positions, all you really need are a couple legit guys developing. But whenever the pipeline starts to dry up (picks in successive years miss, guys graduate or leave the system, etc.), that's when you need to use a higher round pick to shore it up. Depending on what happens with Ullmark in the expansion draft and with the uncertainty surrounding Petersen, we could be looking at a very dry pipeline. The fact that Murray really did not address it in his past few drafts means we have fewer lottery tickets to hit on as well.
That's why I'd like to see us grab one earlier (quality) and one later (quantity) to see if we can't help shore that pipeline up. I suppose if Ullmark stays it might make grabbing an earlier one less of a need, but it may still not be a bad idea, especially given that we have some extra picks to work with.
The other thing is that the development curve for goalies is much longer, meaning you cannot wait until it's a dire need to address it. You have to start before it gets to that point.
