When the goal is to cater to the middle . . .
This is the exact opposite of the problem with hockey development in Canada. The whole system is set up to cater to the interests of rich psycho hockey families that can afford to put their kids in elite high performance camps run by ex-NHLers from the time they're eight years old and drop huge money on travel teams and extra training outside the teams themselves. Hockey development in Canada is slipping because it's all positive feedback loops since even Peewee AAA coaches are running teams to win (and audition for a CHL/Jr. A role and beyond) rather than to develop.
Players that fall behind at 12-14 or even as young as 10 or 11 can get left in the dust and have no chance to catch back up to the guys that developed a bit earlier either due to earlier physical growth or an obsessive training schedule imposed by their parents since they just don't get the playing time. It's even worse with goalies because you have the size obsession on top of that where an early growth spurt can lock an untalented goalie into all the prime development spots over a shorter but better goalie.
Yager is still #1C potential, what we said last year was true, and what we say about next year is true. It will be much easier to find a good top 4 D next year. There are 30 Ds in the first 2 rounds lol. This year that number was 10.
I never said it won't be easier to find a top 4 D next year, I said these things are always overblown a year out. It happens every single year, next year's draft is always the right time because there are 15 potential high-upside picks who haven't shown their warts yet, everybody is a C at 16 and then a bunch of them are wingers at 17, and so on.
Sure, there is a universe where Yager becomes a #1C but at this time last year, people were talking about him being in that top tier after Bedard & Fantilli and now he might not even go in the top 10. Yager was 4th on McKenzie's pre-season list, Cal Ritchie was 6th, Cam Allen was the top dman at 8, while Will Smith was an honourable mention who wasn't even in the top 16. Don't pretend that this draft class today matches the kind of projections and dreams people had last year.
I just think it's foolish to get cute with it and pass on the guy you want based on projections of what a future draft class made up of current 16-17 year old D-1 players will look like as 17-18 year old draft year players next season where you'll then be assessing them based on what you project they'll become as pros age 22-23 and beyond. Yeah of course if you're planning ahead to tank for Bedard that's one thing but otherwise I think this stuff is just overthinking it. If Reinbacher is the guy they want pick Reinbacher, and the same goes for Smith, Benson, or whoever else they might consider. Pick the guy you want instead of trying to fantasy draft a year or two into the future, some of these kids being hyped for the 2024 draft can't even drive a car yet.
It's not because YOU see things in higher definition now and have caught up to what the scouts saw 3 years ago that it makes the scouts' early statements wrong. You just don't know the difference between when a scout talks about spreads vs. projections (apparently).
Just because you put words in my mouth doesn't mean I actually said that. I did not say this draft is not deep at C or F, or that next year's draft will not be deep at D, or that scouts were wrong to say Yager could be a 1C this time last year. I am arguing that these kinds of narratives about a draft class are a silly reason to pass on a guy if you otherwise would want to pick him because so much can change in a year when we're, by definition, talking about players that are 16 and 17 years old. There is just way too much uncertainty between the draft, lottery outcomes, guys not developing the way you'd hope in their draft year after promising D-1 seasons, and uncertainty around where a team's pick will fall to be fretting about picking a D in the forward draft or a forward in the D draft.
