2018 Draft Thoughts/Summary/Poster Picks

[TheMadHatTrick]

6'4" RW that was ranked in the top 100 by a few people. Surprised he went undrafted.

So basically our 2nd rounder next year. lol

 

[JEI]

According to Mirtle, Leafs let go of Albelin, Lemaire, Caron, Ladygrin, Namestnikov from their various pro/European/advisory positions.

 

[4thline]

The thing I like about this draft is that (for those of you that remember the of HF rankings) it seems like every pick has the skill to justify at least a 7, with some having obvious growth potential to raise that. The main differentiator is the letter grades

 

[nuck]

I wholeheartedly agree with Dubas on drafting. You have to get prospects that turn into NHL players first and foremost. If that means that you end up lacking some quality, those prospects are actual assets that can be used to get that quality. But if you chase the qualities themselves, you just increase the odds that you get prospects that turn into nothing, and even if they do succeed the quality you targeted might not be a need when they arrive.

My comment was more on: does he value size much at all? Will we see another pint sized draft next year? We really don't know yet, he is an analytics guy without a traditional GM's background. Even if he does overvalue skills over need, if these are solid BPAs this year then its a great draft. It only becomes an issue if you start stocking up similar prospects, because the lower they are in your depth chart, the less they can show their stuff, and the less you can hope to get for them in a trade.

Now if you want the qualities of someone like a Wayne Simmonds you draft players with that basic package. Prospects don't just turn into nothing unless you take Tyler Biggs hoping he is what Tom Wilson turned out to be. If you spend your picks on Bracco's and Durzi's and Korshkovs you will never get that Simmonds type player, and you saw what it cost to trade for him. Teams don't want to trade that sort of an asset, so when they do, you will overpay. When the Leafs went for Middleton and Mattinen they didn't spend a top 100 pick, so the issue wasn't don't draft for size, more like don't spend low picks and count on a big return. Both those guys showed a lot of development though, just not quite enough. Every team in the league passed on Parayko his draft year, and then 85 times his draft+1. Will KD ever look at a Parayko? We don't know yet. We do know he will draft guys who have been passed over so maybe.

My first two picks would have been Veleno and Olofsson because the system lacks centers with size and they are pretty skilled too. I suspect both may be closer to Bozak than a true top center, so if Dubas' top two picks could definitely be better players but I will have filled a need, and KD's two D are competing with Reilly/Dermott and Lily/Zaits rather than the Bozak or the band-aid they bring in this summer.

Of course maybe Dubas is thinking two steps ahead, and he loves Sandin as a potential Reilly replacement who will in turn be moved out for cap reasons. We just don't know.

 

[nuck]

So basically our 2nd rounder next year. lol

Excellent!

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

My comment was more on: does he value size much at all? Will we see another pint sized draft next year? We really don't know yet, he is an analytics guy without a traditional GM's background. Even if he does overvalue skills over need, if these are solid BPAs this year then its a great draft. It only becomes an issue if you start stocking up similar prospects, because the lower they are in your depth chart, the less they can show their stuff, and the less you can hope to get for them in a trade.

well if you go by interviews, it's not that he has a problem with size. his thought process is essentially that it's not important in the current NHL, but once it becomes important again he'll start to construct the team that way

 

[Lightsol]

So let’s sum up the first 4 rounds:

- Dubas trades down and gets fleeced.
- Dubas selects undersized, soft, low ceiling dman from (of course) SSM.
- In round 2 Dubas selects a 98’ born defenseman, who they could’ve signed last season, without burning a 2nd round draft pick.
- Round 3 Dubas selects another mini mite, who can’t even score goals at the junior level. Stotts is an OK pick.
- Round 4 he selects another undersized, 19 year old, dman from you guessed it SSM. He has no chance of being an NHL player and probably would have went undrafted.

So we know this about Dubas:

1) He loves undersized players.
2) He just can’t stop himself from drafting players from SSM.
3) He was unable to find any value whatsoever with these draft picks.
4) He can’t find value in a trade.

This draft is nothing short of embarrassing. If Dubas goal is to make this team as small and soft as possible, then he is doing a tremendous job.

Congrats. I'm so tired of your embarrassing and quite frankly STUPID takes that you are now on my Ignore list. Have fun.

 

[LilySmoov]

So lets sum up your 258 posts
- whinging

Ignorant, misinformed whinging, specifically.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

also the reason it looks like Dubas hates size is because he completely ignored size as a factor. it's not the same thing. If there was a 6'3 defenseman who was as good as Hollowell he'd obviously have taken him, but that guy probably would have gone in the top 15. it's all about finding inefficiencies, and ignoring size to draft quality players is a very reasonable approach

 

[Seath The Scaleless]

So let’s sum up the first 4 rounds:

- Dubas trades down and gets fleeced.
- Dubas selects undersized, soft, low ceiling dman from (of course) SSM.
- In round 2 Dubas selects a 98’ born defenseman, who they could’ve signed last season, without burning a 2nd round draft pick.
- Round 3 Dubas selects another mini mite, who can’t even score goals at the junior level. Stotts is an OK pick.
- Round 4 he selects another undersized, 19 year old, dman from you guessed it SSM. He has no chance of being an NHL player and probably would have went undrafted.

So we know this about Dubas:

1) He loves undersized players.
2) He just can’t stop himself from drafting players from SSM.
3) He was unable to find any value whatsoever with these draft picks.
4) He can’t find value in a trade.

This draft is nothing short of embarrassing. If Dubas goal is to make this team as small and soft as possible, then he is doing a tremendous job.

Sure. Let's have a team full of Nick Ritchies and Luke Schenns. We need grit, sandpaper, belligerence, pugnacity, and whatever crap Brian Burke said.

 

[Lightsol]

Sure. Let's have a team full of Nick Ritchies and Luke Schenns. We need grit, sandpaper, belligerence, pugnacity, and whatever crap Brian Burke said.

Well, we could use some of that, but drafting for it is a fool's game. Teams waste way too many draft picks trying to find "the next Milan Lucic".

 

[hotpaws]

i don't have a problem drafting smaller players but i have no idea how many of them Dubas thinks you can dress at the same time and go deep in the playoffs and i have no idea why he drafted so many of them at one time

 

[BertCorbeau]

Sure. Let's have a team full of Nick Ritchies and Luke Schenns. We need grit, sandpaper, belligerence, pugnacity, and whatever crap Brian Burke said.

Clearly need more Middleton, Descrocher, Mattinen, Valiev types.

 

[Walshy7]

i don't have a problem drafting smaller players but i have no idea how many of them Dubas thinks you can dress at the same time and go deep in the playoffs and i have no idea why he drafted so many of them at one time

Honestly how many draft picks per draft do you think nhl teams average? 1-3 will make it. So it won’t be 9 from this draft and 7 next year.

If a smaller winger makes it, it will make another smaller nhl winger on the leafs tradeable, or the player himself making the leafs with no spot would be the one traded.

 

[dirk41]

i don't have a problem drafting smaller players but i have no idea how many of them Dubas thinks you can dress at the same time and go deep in the playoffs and i have no idea why he drafted so many of them at one time

Because the vast majority of picks, regardless of size, after pick 28 never make it?

 

[BertCorbeau]

i don't have a problem drafting smaller players but i have no idea how many of them Dubas thinks you can dress at the same time and go deep in the playoffs and i have no idea why he drafted so many of them at one time

Well that's getting more on the topic of current roster need, similar to positional need. And typically drafting for needs isn't the smartest approach to draft. Take the BPA per your criteria (and according to Dubas it's IQ, skill, and skating) and then it's on him to use those assets to address roster needs later on. Dubas said so himself that it's about getting the best players and developing them properly, and if there is a hole or a logjam somewhere that's on him to sort out.

 

[Walshy7]

Well that's getting more on the topic of current roster need, similar to positional need. And typically drafting for needs isn't the smartest approach to draft. Take the BPA per your criteria (and according to Dubas it's IQ, skill, and skating) and then it's on him to use those assets to address roster needs later on. Dubas said so himself that it's about getting the best players and developing them properly, and if there is a hole or a logjam somewhere that's on him to sort out.

If the players we picked later in the draft, SDA in particular were 6’1” or higher they wouldn’t be there in the 4,5,6,7th rounds that’s the point and is what dubas is using as part of his inefficiencies in the draft. High IQ, skating and skill in a player over 6’1” goes top2 rounds pretty easily if they scored pretty well in their respective leagues

 

[Menzinger]

An issue is everyone always presumed all of these draft picks are destined for the Leafs, but as Babcock even said himself this draft that’s not the case, they’re just assets - that if they can improve on grit development start to become very valuable as trade chips.

Look at what Tampa just did, used its deep prospect pool to buy a top pairing D man at the TDL.

The fact that the Leafs May have a lot of smaller sized prospects is irrelevant because only a few of them will eventually get a reasonable shot at playing with the big club

 

[hotpaws]

Well that's getting more on the topic of current roster need, similar to positional need. And typically drafting for needs isn't the smartest approach to draft. Take the BPA per your criteria (and according to Dubas it's IQ, skill, and skating) and then it's on him to use those assets to address roster needs later on. Dubas said so himself that it's about getting the best players and developing them properly, and if there is a hole or a logjam somewhere that's on him to sort out.

we already have 2 smaller core player MM/Nylander on the team more pushing for spots on the Marlies so why keep drafting more ?

also there's a never ending supply of small skilled players in the draft and every team has some so unless they've already proven themselves as higher end players in the NHL they don't hold much value in trades

 

[Warden of the North]

we already have 2 smaller core player MM/Nylander on the team more pushing for spots on the Marlies so why keep drafting more ?

also there's a never ending supply of small skilled players in the draft and every team has some so unless they've already proven themselves as higher end players in the NHL they don't hold much value in trades

We've taken a bunch of big players in the past 3 drafts (before this year). How many of them have turned out? Besides Matthews, obviously.

 

[4thline]

We took three notably small players in this draft- in the 3rd,4th, and 6th rounds. I don't get the big deal.

I'm sure if SDA, Hollowell, and Holmberg turn into Gaudreau/Spurgeon/Arvidsson we'll suffer through it

 

[Leafs at Knight]

Hopefully we invite Dunkley and Gogolev.. both should've been drafted.

 

[Stephen]

One important point I'd make is given how this GM likes to trade down to obtain more picks, hopefully we will see an end to those Plekanec, Boyle rentals in the future, which amount to nothing but organizational bunts.

At the trade deadline, a 2nd doesn't feel all that vital, but on draft day, you can see the importance of having that extra ammunition. Also, if we can spin some of our extra NHL bodies into various picks on a more regular basis, that would be useful too. We had so much success recycling Daniel Winnik into picks, but I'm sure this can happen if we manage our surplus veterans as we contend.

 

[hotpaws]

We've taken a bunch of big players in the past 3 drafts (before this year). How many of them have turned out? Besides Matthews, obviously.

And how many of the small players that we drafted outside of MM and Nypander have panned out ?

And my point wasn't that I don't want to draft small players but that there's only so many you can dress .

 

[AppsSyl]

According to Mirtle, Leafs let go of Albelin, Lemaire, Caron, Ladygrin, Namestnikov from their various pro/European/advisory positions.

If true, letting go of Namestnikov is dumb. He is one of our main channels in Russia/KHL (which is underscouted) and helped orchestrate Zaitsev and Ozhiganov from CSKA Moscow.