NHL Entry Draft 2018 Draft - Prospect Discussion (Poll added)

[Runback]

I barely go on this forum cuz of exactly this kind of ranting. Seriously, everyone knows where you stand on this issue. Let it go. Let's get back to talking about the potential picks this year. That's the forum topic right?

 

[Micklebot]

Well, the organization obviously didn't think too highly of Dahlen, or they thought way too highly of Burrows, either way, a serious fail from our scouts both at the amateur and pro levels.

You're moving the goalposts here. Is Dahlen not a great prospect now? Could have sworn you were outraged when he was traded. The point being made was that drafting is a team strength, so Dorion making a dumb trade does nothing to dismiss that.

Chabot is a stud, there is no denying that.

The rest all have potential to be nice players, doesn't necessarily mean that we have one of the best scouting staffs in the league, far from it. Heck, we have 9 scouts, so we aren't even covering all our bases.

Bondra made the claim that the group over the last 3 years ranks very well particularly considering where we were drafting. You haven't really done any work to suggest otherwise. We got a stud in Chabot, a couple guys that rocketed up rankings after getting drafted in Batherson and Forementon, and have some solid looking guys in White and Brown that are still regarded as high end prospects.

Can you point to why you think we haven't drafted well in the last three years? At least then we can have a conversation about this. I'll even start the ball rolling; White over Konecny and Bowers over Toivanen. We're certainly not perfect, by both those picks should pan out to be ok for where they were chosen.

 

[aragorn]

Why don't we draft out of every country on the planet? A good scouting team would be doing this given the vast number of Russians, etc that are stars in this league. You literally made my point by saying we don't scout russians, we literally scout a fraction of the players that other teams do, how in reality are we supposed to consistently get BPA? It's not possible and why we are bottom 10 in the league in prospect pool.

Did I mention we have something like 7 amateur scouts vs over 20 for good scouting teams. Unless our guys are working 24hr days 365 days a year vs the competition at 8hrs a day we can't compete. Our guys are simply outnumbered.

No team has scouts in every country on the planet but the rich teams can afford to have more scouts in all the countries that produce the most hockey players. Ottawa is a small market team who can't seem to afford a large hockey operations & have some scouts in places that produce the most hockey players. Canada & the US produce the most hockey players & therefore they have scouts constantly viewing players here. I believe that the European scouts are also responsible for scouting in Russia, the Czech Republic & Slovakia as well as Sweden & Finland. But there are also numerous agencies with their own scouting staffs that rank these players & these days it seems when a player gets to be pretty good almost everybody knows about it & sends a scout to watch the kid.

Regarding Ottawa's prospect pool, of course they have missed on some players but so has every team in the league missed a guy in one draft or another, it's mostly a crap shoot after the top 10 guys are selected & even some of them have been busts. They've also hit some home runs on players taken in later rounds in Hoffman, Stone, Dzingel, Jaros & others. They may not have the best prospect pool but they don't have the worse either & IMO they have at least a dozen players who could play in the NHL sooner or later. Elite, generational players are not always available when Ottawa gets to draft, 15 teams did not draft EK who fell to Ottawa. Even when you are the worse team in the NHL like Buffalo was the yr before they also lost the lottery & lost McDavid. There is no guarantee to get the best player(s). You make the best selections you can based on all the analysis you have & hope that it works out & every team has strikes & hits. Some teams are luckier than others based on lottery results more than scouting.

 

[harrisb]

Batherson is 29th...and is generally considered anywhere from 2-5th on our rankings

Dahlen is 31st

Missed that one, so we have one prospect in the top 50 after missing the playoffs 50% of the time over the last decade. You have lower standards than the rest of the league, Dahlen isn't ours....both guys were also a reach, one an overager.

We'll never agree, you do have a bias when you can't show a single third party that agrees with your opinion. Our prospect pool is anything but good, we lack D, we lack top end talent up front and we just recently had to get a G in trade to shore up the misses on Hogberg, Dreidger, O'Connor, D'Accord. What position are we actually good at? Having a bunch of projected tweeners and 4-6 D is a horrible position to be in given the mediocrity that has been our team. Before Mann it was Dorion leading the scouting and he continues to do so even though Mann now has a title. Nothing changed so we can't reset the clock at 2015 and say all is well.

We had 9 scouts listed then canned 2, 9-2=7

 

[BatherSeason]

You're moving the goalposts here. Is Dahlen not a great prospect now? Could have sworn you were outraged when he was traded. The point being made was that drafting is a team strength, so Dorion making a dumb trade does nothing to dismiss that.

I wouldn't say great. What is a great prospect to you? Or to anyone else?? Great is a level on its own, reserved for prospects like McDavid, Eichel, etc. Is he a good prospect? A absolutely. And yes, I was absolutely outraged when he was traded, and based on the way Burrows has fallen off a cliff and Dahlen's stock has risen, everyone should be outraged about the trade.

Drafting is not a strength of this team, have we uncovered some gems, absolutely, but really, do we even know how these guys will turn out?? Batherson was a fantastic pick and I truly believe that he will be an impact player, but common, this team has swung and missed a heck of a lot to be considered a "strong drafting team".

Remember Lazar?? Cody Ceci, Matt Puempel, Shane Prince, Noesen, Weircoch, Cowen, Lehner, Jacob Culek, Andreas Englund. Lots of very underwhelming first and second round picks.

Yes, we have found some gems in later rounds, but so have so many other teams.

The 2015 draft class has a chance to be a good one (Chabot, White, Wolanin, Chlapik, Gagne) but we gotta remember, not all these guys pan out to be NHLers. Lets not fool ourselves here, we have some nice complimentary pieces but no sure fire top prospect.

 

[BondraTime]

Missed that one, so we have one prospect in the top 50 after missing the playoffs 50% of the time over the last decade. You have lower standards than the rest of the league, Dahlen isn't ours....both guys were also a reach, one an overager.

We'll never agree, you do have a bias when you can't show a single third party that agrees with your opinion. Our prospect pool is anything but good, we lack D, we lack top end talent up front and we just recently had to get a D in trade to shore up the misses on Hogberg, Dreidger, O'Connor, D'Accord. What position are we actually good at? Having a bunch of projected tweeners and 4-6 D is a horrible position to be in given the mediocrity that has been our team. Before Mann it was Dorion leading the scouting and he continues to do so even though Mann now has a title. Nothing changed so we can't reset the clock at 2015 and say all is well.

We had 9 scouts listed then canned 2, 9-2=7

We are discussing our scouts, our scouts took Dahlen...

"Both guys were a reach" "One was an overager" Uh, so?

What does how we finished from 2008-2014 have to do with our current prospect pool? Lordy.

Yeah I don't see this discussion going anywhere. You win

 

[harrisb]

Batherson is 29th...and is generally considered anywhere from 2-5th on our rankings

Dahlen is 31st



Toronto Winnipeg Montreal Edmonton with none.

Pool Party, Kap, Winnipeg's prospects all considered graduated. If the habs are the measuring stick we're royally screwed.

 

[BondraTime]

Pool Party, Kap, Winnipeg's prospects all considered graduated. If the habs are the measuring stick we're royally screwed.

Just like Chabot and White were considered graduated...

 

[stempniaksen]

Pool Party, Kap, Winnipeg's prospects all considered graduated. If the habs are the measuring stick we're royally screwed.

I'm assuming Chabot is too, no?

If you're gonna give those teams a pass because their top prospects are graduated you should probably do the same for us.

 

[harrisb]

I'm assuming Chabot is too, no?

If you're gonna give those teams a pass because their top prospects are graduated you should probably do the same for us.

We graduated Chabot, White, maybe a stretch and we add Wolanin
Edmonton graduated McDavid, Draisatl, PoolParty, Nurse.
Winnipeg graduated Laine, Roslovic, Ehlers, Connor, Morrissey
Toronto graduated Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Kap
Montreal is just horrible at everything and should not be a measuring stick.

Given how many top players those teams you pointed out have graduated I would expect one of the top drafting teams in the league to have quite a few studs in the top 50, hence why everyone outside the ottawa fanbase ranks us bottom 10

Again, what non-Sens analyst has us top 10? Even top 15 would be above the average but it just doesn't exist.

 

[Sens in Process]

Craig Button's final list

https://www.tsn.ca/craig-s-list-svechnikov-solidifies-hold-on-second-spot-in-draft-1.1104012

1. Rasmus Dahlin, Frolunda (SHL) D
2 Andrei Svechnikov, Barrie (OHL) RW
3 Filip Zadina Halifax, (QMJHL) RW
4 Brady Tkachuk, Boston U (NCAA) LW
5 Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Ässät (SM Liiga) C
6 Quinn Hughes, Michigan (NCAA) D
7 Barrett Hayton, S.S. Marie (OHL) C
8 Noah Dobson, A-Bathurst (QMJHL) D
9 Evan Bouchard, London (OHL) D
10 Oliver Wahlstrom, USA NTDP (USHL) RW

 

[Micklebot]

We graduated Chabot, White, maybe a stretch and we add Wolanin
Edmonton graduated McDavid, Draisatl, PoolParty, Nurse.
Winnipeg graduated Laine, Roslovic, Ehlers, Connor, Morrissey
Toronto graduated Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Kap
Montreal is just horrible at everything and should not be a measuring stick.

Given how many top players those teams you pointed out have graduated I would expect one of the top drafting teams in the league to have quite a few studs in the top 50, hence why everyone outside the ottawa fanbase ranks us bottom 10

I'm not sure it's fair to be comparing Edmonton's 1st, 3rd, 4th and 7th OA, to our 11th, 18th, and 21st OA and treat them as equal when discussing quality of scouting. In fact, I'm positive it's not.

I'm also pretty sure it pretty stupid to bring up a Pens draft pick in Kapanen to pump up how great Toronto is at drafting... but aside from that, again, comparing 1st, 4th 8th, OA to our picks makes no sense when evaluating scouting.

Even Winnipeg, 2nd, 9th, 13th 17th, 25th were in a much better situation than Ottawa to pick elite talent.

Ottawa's (and any other team for that matter) drafting needs to be judged with where they are drafting as context. Without doing so is a pointless exercise

 

[stempniaksen]

I'm not sure it's fair to be comparing Edmonton's 1st, 3rd, 4th and 7th OA, to our 11th, 18th, and 21st OA and treat them as equal when discussing quality of scouting. In fact, I'm positive it's not.

I'm also pretty sure it pretty stupid to bring up a Pens draft pick in Kapanen to pump up how great Toronto is at drafting... but aside from that, again, comparing 1st, 4th 8th, OA to our picks makes no sense when evaluating scouting.

Even Winnipeg, 2nd, 9th, 13th 17th, 25th were in a much better situation than Ottawa to pick elite talent.

Ottawa's (and any other team for that matter) drafting needs to be judged with where they are drafting as context. Without doing so is a pointless exercise

Bingo. It's easy to say "x team drafts better than us" when they've loaded up on lottery picks. I think it's also fair to say that our ownership and management haven't helped our scouting staff by "selling" draft picks (not the fault of amateur scouting).

Honestly, there's so much to complain about with this team it seems silly to harp on the one area where we've done okay the last few years.

 

[BondraTime]

I'm not sure it's fair to be comparing Edmonton's 1st, 3rd, 4th and 7th OA, to our 11th, 18th, and 21st OA and treat them as equal when discussing quality of scouting. In fact, I'm positive it's not.

I'm also pretty sure it pretty stupid to bring up a Pens draft pick in Kapanen to pump up how great Toronto is at drafting... but aside from that, again, comparing 1st, 4th 8th, OA to our picks makes no sense when evaluating scouting.

Even Winnipeg, 2nd, 9th, 13th 17th, 25th were in a much better situation than Ottawa to pick elite talent.

Ottawa's (and any other team for that matter) drafting needs to be judged with where they are drafting as context. Without doing so is a pointless exercise

That only makes sense, he's not looking to do that

 

[Micklebot]

Craig Button's final list

https://www.tsn.ca/craig-s-list-svechnikov-solidifies-hold-on-second-spot-in-draft-1.1104012

1. Rasmus Dahlin, Frolunda (SHL) D
2 Andrei Svechnikov, Barrie (OHL) RW
3 Filip Zadina Halifax, (QMJHL) RW
4 Brady Tkachuk, Boston U (NCAA) LW
5 Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Ässät (SM Liiga) C
6 Quinn Hughes, Michigan (NCAA) D
7 Barrett Hayton, S.S. Marie (OHL) C
8 Noah Dobson, A-Bathurst (QMJHL) D
9 Evan Bouchard, London (OHL) D
10 Oliver Wahlstrom, USA NTDP (USHL) RW

Tkachuk -2 spots, Svech and Zadina each up 1. Kotkaniemi up 5. Hughes up 6, Bouchard down 4 and Wahlstrom down one from his previous list.

 

[harrisb]

I'm not sure it's fair to be comparing Edmonton's 1st, 3rd, 4th and 7th OA, to our 11th, 18th, and 21st OA and treat them as equal when discussing quality of scouting. In fact, I'm positive it's not.

I'm also pretty sure it pretty stupid to bring up a Pens draft pick in Kapanen to pump up how great Toronto is at drafting... but aside from that, again, comparing 1st, 4th 8th, OA to our picks makes no sense when evaluating scouting.

Even Winnipeg, 2nd, 9th, 13th 17th, 25th were in a much better situation than Ottawa to pick elite talent.

Ottawa's (and any other team for that matter) drafting needs to be judged with where they are drafting as context. Without doing so is a pointless exercise

You keep leaving out which third party analysts have us in the top half of the league? I provided a bunch that don't....Same for Bondra

I'm not the one who said we are great at drafting and have an excellent prospect pool. I provided 3rd party evidence that the world outside sens land doesn't agree.

 

[Cosmix]

Craig’s List for first round:

1 Rasmus Dahlin, Frolunda (SHL) D
2 Andrei Svechnikov, Barrie (OHL) RW
3 Filip Zadina Halifax, (QMJHL) RW
4 Brady Tkachuk, Boston U (NCAA) LW
5 Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Ässät (SM Liiga) C
6 Quinn Hughes, Michigan (NCAA) D
7 Barrett Hayton, S.S. Marie (OHL) C
8 Noah Dobson, A-Bathurst (QMJHL) D
9 Evan Bouchard, London (OHL) D
10 Oliver Wahlstrom, USA NTDP (USHL) RW
11 Joel Farabee, USA NTDP (USHL) LW
12 Adam Boqvist, Brynäs (SWE J20) D
13 Grigori Denisenko, Yaroslavl (MHL) LW
14 Serron Noel, Oshawa (OHL) RW
15 Rasmus Sandin, S.S. Marie (OHL) D
16 Bode Wilde USA NTDP (USHL) D
17 Akil Thomas Niagara (OHL) RW
18 Ty Dellandrea Flint (OHL) C/RW
19 Isac Lundestrom Luleå (SHL) C/LW
20 Nicolas Beaudin Drummondville (QMJHL) D
21 Filip Hallander Timra (SWE-Als) C/LW
22 Ty Smith Spokane (WHL) D
23 Vitali Kravtsov Chelyabinsk (MHL) RW
24 Ryan Merkley Guelph (OHL) D
25 Jacob Olofsson Timra (SWE-Als) C
26 Jared McIsaac Halifax (QMJHL) D
27 Rasmus Kupari Kärpät (SM Liiga) C
28 Joe Veleno Drummondville (QMJHL) C
29 Ryan McLeod Mississuaga (OHL) C/LW
30 Dominik Bokk Vaxjo (SWE J20) RW
31 K'Andre Miller USA NTDP (USHL) D

 

[BondraTime]

You keep leaving out which third party analysts have us in the top half of the league? I provided a bunch that don't....Same for Bondra

I'm not the one who said we are great at drafting and have an excellent prospect pool. I provided 3rd party evidence that the world outside sens land doesn't agree.

You provided 1, from Setember 2017, and 1 lst from HF 2015 (That clearly isn't worth using seeing as it has Chabot as a #4D ceiling, perfect ranking...) The previous year from that publication it was 15th (Jeez, is that within your time frame???).

Formenton and Batherson have both taken huge steps from the 2017 draft, each likely top 50 prospects. We have a top 3 goalie prospect in the league. Neither was contributing to that process of that ranking at the level they do now.

I will take my own knowledge and opinion over yours every day of the week. You have done less than nothing to sway my opinion, other than show a lack of understanding and logic.

 

[Karl Prime]

I have a sneaky suspicion we're taking Kotkaniemi.

 

[aragorn]

If we view Button's list as a possible scenario for the best ranking & Tkachuk is the 4th best player on the board & most agree in almost every draft that they should take the best player available then they should select Tkachuk here since he is the BPA. A little surprised to see both Dobson & Bouchard fall that far. After being near or around the top ten Joe Veleno has almost fallen out of the 1st rd & Noel keeps climbing. With two selections in the 1st rd in this yr's draft it's quite possible Ottawa could jump several spots in the next prospect pool ranking, if they select the right prospects that is. I like Tkachuk & Noel.

 

[Micklebot]

You keep leaving out which third party analysts have us in the top half of the league? I provided a bunch that don't....Same for Bondra

I'm not the one who said we are great at drafting and have an excellent prospect pool. I provided 3rd party evidence that the world outside sens land doesn't agree.

So, you provided a couple lists outside of the timeframe being discussed and the lists were taking about farm systems, not quality of drafting, the latter would evaluate based on the where the team had picks while the former is purely a round up of all the picks that the team has.

Our issue with our farm has been that we trade off picks and players, not that we don't do well with the choices we make. Trading off a 1st for Ryan, a 2nd for Brassard, a second for Phaneuf, Dahlen for Burrows, ect all plays into the quality of our farm over the years but doesn't impact the quality of our drafting.

Here's an example of somebody that actually put in the effort to evaluate drafting, it's a bit dated (or rather, the area of selection is not in the range we discussed, because it's difficult to quantitatively evaluate draft picks before they have career's in the NHL) but it does a far more objective job of evaluating drafting than farm system lists.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...ton_scholars&usg=AOvVaw0EkmSU64_y1VMqtaVS8d8h

 

[Burrowsaurus]

Missed that one, so we have one prospect in the top 50 after missing the playoffs 50% of the time over the last decade. You have lower standards than the rest of the league, Dahlen isn't ours....both guys were also a reach, one an overager.

We'll never agree, you do have a bias when you can't show a single third party that agrees with your opinion. Our prospect pool is anything but good, we lack D, we lack top end talent up front and we just recently had to get a G in trade to shore up the misses on Hogberg, Dreidger, O'Connor, D'Accord. What position are we actually good at? Having a bunch of projected tweeners and 4-6 D is a horrible position to be in given the mediocrity that has been our team. Before Mann it was Dorion leading the scouting and he continues to do so even though Mann now has a title. Nothing changed so we can't reset the clock at 2015 and say all is well.

We had 9 scouts listed then canned 2, 9-2=7

if you reach, and it ends up being a good pick.. thats pretty brilliant scouting by our scouts...

 

[harrisb]

If you guys are happy then stay in your happy place. I'd much prefer to be a Tampa, Boston, St Louis, etc who have all had worse draft positions than us. Our pool with few graduations is still bottom half of the league and that's a joke. I guess you guys are satisfied with one year in and one year out of the playoffs as that's exactly what we've been getting from our drafting.

 

[YouGotAStuGoing]

If you guys are happy then stay in your happy place. I'd much prefer to be a Tampa, Boston, St Louis, etc who have all had worse draft positions than us. Our pool with few graduations is still bottom half of the league and that's a joke. I guess you guys are satisfied with one year in and one year out of the playoffs as that's exactly what we've been getting from our drafting.

Are you kidding me? There are PLENTY of reasons to be down on this team and PLENTY of areas for improvement. More scouts would be a great start, but drafting is far from a weakness.

 

[Micklebot]

If you guys are happy then stay in your happy place. I'd much prefer to be a Tampa, Boston, St Louis, etc who have all had worse draft positions than us. Our pool with few graduations is still bottom half of the league and that's a joke. I guess you guys are satisfied with one year in and one year out of the playoffs as that's exactly what we've been getting from our drafting.

Boston has had 6 1st round picks in the last 3 years to our 4, 4 of which were top 15 picks compared to one of ours, and have had 3 more picks in the top 2 rounds than us, how have we drafted in a better position than them?