GDT: 2024 NHL Entry Draft (HFSJ Edition) - Round 1: Fri, Jun 28 4pm PT/7pm ET | Rounds 2-7: Sat, Jun 29, 8:30am PT/11:30am ET

[TheBeard]

Random aside but Eklund, Celebrini, Smith, and Dickinson look like they could be members of a boy band and I expect a Christmas video to match that.

Or a law firm.

 

[bluefunnel]

Random aside but Eklund, Celebrini, Smith, and Dickinson look like they could be members of a boy band and I expect a Christmas video to match that.

Do we need to get Nieto back for his veteran Christmas video presence?

 

[sampler]

Just an insane take on many levels. Grier was handed one of the worst situations of any professional sports teams in North America, not just the NHL. He’s gotten excellent value on the contracts he’s shed and has also gotten excellent value out of those assets he obtained.

He has not been perfect, but I’m surely not going to judge him for having to overpay role players to come to San Jose and play for a team everyone knows is horrible and nowhere close to contention.

His priority in free agency right now should not be to dole out massive amounts of money to overpay guys, it should be to bring in veterans and leaders on short term deals to make life easier on the younger guys and show them the ropes as they grow.

We are still years away, and he has a lot left to prove, but thus far, he’s done a tremendous job of restarting this franchise.

I dont see his situation as bad as you do. He got a norris trophy season from karlsson. Hertl and meier were still definitely top 6 forwards. Cooch's injury was bad luck, but I think the sharks could have been respectable with a better coach and some good deployment of capital. I am not the "tear it all down" type. But Quinn was a disaster. Kunin (who is somehow still here), lindbom and co were complete failures.

All that said, I agree that the real clock starts now. he jettisoned everyone he could (pickles and cooch aside) and got as much value as he could (maybe). our last two drafts have yielded a ton of talent. So, now its time to add some talent, not more "grit" that sucks.

One of the downsides of ELC's is that they are limited. After three years, those players often get big raises. Those ELC years allow a team to get top 9 forwards and top 4 D for practically free. But, if those years are wasted mired at the bottom of the league because the GM failed to put talent around them, then it's a waste. The ELC's are really starting now on Eklund, graf, smith and celly, bystedt, edtrom, musty, halt, etc as well. Every year of stinking is a burned year of cheap talent.

Its also very hard to add 3 top 9 forwards and 2-3 top 4 D in one offseason. Those have to be added over time.

If Grier grabs at least 1-2 top 6 forwards and 1-2 top 4 D in UFA, then I will consider it a solid start. I dont want another bottom feeder season and I dont see that as needed. Cooch and pickles cap hits will be coming off in the next 2-3 years, so we dont have to wait until they are gone to bring in talent.

This summer is the first real test for me for grier. He's torn it all down and put nearly the worst product on the ice in the NHL in the last 20 years.He got lots of good picks. It's time to get better....

 

[Quid Pro Clowe]

Stating the obvious, but Grier killed it in this draft. After those first 4 picks he could afford to trade up and take flyers on guys he really wanted.

Just throughly impressed and happy with how this entire draft played out. Now it’s time to see which vets they bring in to bridge the gap until these young guys are really ready to take over this team.

 

[TheBigDrunkPanda]

He got us out of Karlsson's 11.5 million dollar contract with tiny retention AND got us the 1st that got us Dickenson.

Everyone said we would have to retain 50% AND pay someone a pick.

I'm not sure what you expected there, but that was more of a miracle than miracle on ice.

He also did good on the Timo trade.

Maybe everyone here thought 50% retention common sense was 20-25% which getting down to 13% wasn’t unreasonable however taking on Hoffman and having conditions on the draft pick is where most pundits saw a hang up if your taking Hoffman there should’ve been nom conditions on the first (not that it mattered in the long run)

 

[TheBeard]

Maybe everyone here thought 50% retention common sense was 20-25% which getting down to 13% wasn’t unreasonable however taking on Hoffman and having conditions on the draft pick is where most pundits saw a hang up if your taking Hoffman there should’ve been nom conditions on the first (not that it mattered in the long run)

SJ had few trade options considering who could afford him and EK's NTC. Hasso wasn't going to pay 30 million for him to go away. What Grier got for EK was nothing short of a miracle.

 

[TheBigDrunkPanda]

Underlying assumptions:

1) Grier wants to help the Sharks
2) It was well-known that Burns/Karlsson/Meier was available
3) Plattner had certain financial conditions Grier had to meet

Hence, Grier undoubtedly took the best return available. Maybe there is some nuance in the way he valued picks/prospects (say he took the NJ offer because he preferred Zetterlund and Mukhamadullin over St. Louis's two first-rounders, etc.)

I really like Zetturlund a lot he’s one of my favorite types of players but he’s a high tier 3rd liner on a team with depth

Underlying assumptions:

1) Grier wants to help the Sharks
2) It was well-known that Burns/Karlsson/Meier was available
3) Plattner had certain financial conditions Grier had to meet

Hence, Grier undoubtedly took the best return available. Maybe there is some nuance in the way he valued picks/prospects (say he took the NJ offer because he preferred Zetterlund and Mukhamadullin over St. Louis's two first-rounders, etc.)

i really like zetterlund a lot he’s my favorite type of player but in a team with depth he’s a top tier 3rd liner, Muk is projecting at best 3/4 id would’ve rather of had 2 first rounders in a rebuild.
By the time this team is contending will either of them still be productive not likely. Now could those 2 be leveraged for first rounders in the next 2 season possible but not likely you might get a first for Zetts and a 2nd for Muk.

 

[OrrNumber4]

I really like Zetturlund a lot he’s one of my favorite types of players but he’s a high tier 3rd liner on a team with depth

i really like zetterlund a lot he’s my favorite type of player but in a team with depth he’s a top tier 3rd liner, Muk is projecting at best 3/4 id would’ve rather of had 2 first rounders in a rebuild.
By the time this team is contending will either of them still be productive not likely. Now could those 2 be leveraged for first rounders in the next 2 season possible but not likely you might get a first for Zetts and a 2nd for Muk.

I disagree with your assessment, but in any case the Sharks *also* got a first round pick from New Jersey, as well as the conditional one that ended up being a high second.

 

[timorous me]

I dont see his situation as bad as you do. He got a norris trophy season from karlsson. Hertl and meier were still definitely top 6 forwards. Cooch's injury was bad luck, but I think the sharks could have been respectable with a better coach and some good deployment of capital. I am not the "tear it all down" type. But Quinn was a disaster. Kunin (who is somehow still here), lindbom and co were complete failures.

All that said, I agree that the real clock starts now. he jettisoned everyone he could (pickles and cooch aside) and got as much value as he could (maybe). our last two drafts have yielded a ton of talent. So, now its time to add some talent, not more "grit" that sucks.

One of the downsides of ELC's is that they are limited. After three years, those players often get big raises. Those ELC years allow a team to get top 9 forwards and top 4 D for practically free. But, if those years are wasted mired at the bottom of the league because the GM failed to put talent around them, then it's a waste. The ELC's are really starting now on Eklund, graf, smith and celly, bystedt, edtrom, musty, halt, etc as well. Every year of stinking is a burned year of cheap talent.

Its also very hard to add 3 top 9 forwards and 2-3 top 4 D in one offseason. Those have to be added over time.

If Grier grabs at least 1-2 top 6 forwards and 1-2 top 4 D in UFA, then I will consider it a solid start. I dont want another bottom feeder season and I dont see that as needed. Cooch and pickles cap hits will be coming off in the next 2-3 years, so we dont have to wait until they are gone to bring in talent.

This summer is the first real test for me for grier. He's torn it all down and put nearly the worst product on the ice in the NHL in the last 20 years.He got lots of good picks. It's time to get better....

I like how you use language here to subtly make sure to give Grier as little credit as possible. He didn't draft well--no, the last two drafts "yielded a ton of talent."

And now you expect a shitty team to somehow be able to entice 1-2 top six forwards and 1-2 top 4 defenseman...for it to simply be a solid start? After in two decades Doug Wilson signed how many of those guys as UFAs while the team was actually appealing and good?

 

[LadyStanley]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1807494261438587107

Exosphere vids of first round picks

 

[Munnyro]

Outside of the first round, it is the scouting team that runs it so we need to pump the breaks on GMMG being the draft king. He's the draft facilitator.

 

[The Nemesis]

Does anyone have relatively current NHLe conversion factors? Not just a calculator but the actual numbers to do the conversion math on. I need them for... reasons but the most current I have myself are from like 5 or 6 years ago and don't include some lower leagues like MHL or Euro Jr/dev programs.

 

[TheBigDrunkPanda]

SJ had few trade options considering who could afford him and EK's NTC. Hasso wasn't going to pay 30 million for him to go away. What Grier got for EK was nothing short of a miracle.

I disagree with your assessment, but in any case the Sharks *also* got a first round pick from New Jersey, as well as the conditional one that ended up being a high second.

I respect both of your opinions but I think we are in agree to disagree land now we ain’t convincing each other who’s got the better opinion
That being said I’m sure I have a little of bias towards D Wil’s trade prowess because at his peak he was pretty damn good, his drafting was a mixed bag probably overall below average despite finding a couple of late round gems. He built the team primarily through good to great trades. I think Griers approach and where he excels is building through the draft not going off the board and taking BAP I still don’t think he has the ability to supplement the line up through trade but hopefully he can do it with RFA/UFA signings just 2 different approaches hopefully equally as good

 

[drunksage]

Outside of the first round, it is the scouting team that runs it so we need to pump the breaks on GMMG being the draft king. He's the draft facilitator.

And who do you think was ultimately in charge of hiring the scouts?

 

[TheBeard]

I respect both of your opinions but I think we are in agree to disagree land now we ain’t convincing each other who’s got the better opinion
That being said I’m sure I have a little of bias towards D Wil’s trade prowess because at his peak he was pretty damn good, his drafting was a mixed bag probably overall below average despite finding a couple of late round gems. He built the team primarily through good to great trades. I think Griers approach and where he excels is building through the draft not going off the board and taking BAP I still don’t think he has the ability to supplement the line up through trade but hopefully he can do it with RFA/UFA signings just 2 different approaches hopefully equally as good

I get what you're saying, however, and this is for all of us, we really don't know what the options were. We don't know what Hasso was willing to retain on and we don't know what Karlsson or the other 31 teams wanted.

It's all moot.

 

[matt trick]

I dont see his situation as bad as you do. He got a norris trophy season from karlsson. Hertl and meier were still definitely top 6 forwards. Cooch's injury was bad luck, but I think the sharks could have been respectable with a better coach and some good deployment of capital. I am not the "tear it all down" type. But Quinn was a disaster. Kunin (who is somehow still here), lindbom and co were complete failures.

All that said, I agree that the real clock starts now. he jettisoned everyone he could (pickles and cooch aside) and got as much value as he could (maybe). our last two drafts have yielded a ton of talent. So, now its time to add some talent, not more "grit" that sucks.

One of the downsides of ELC's is that they are limited. After three years, those players often get big raises. Those ELC years allow a team to get top 9 forwards and top 4 D for practically free. But, if those years are wasted mired at the bottom of the league because the GM failed to put talent around them, then it's a waste. The ELC's are really starting now on Eklund, graf, smith and celly, bystedt, edtrom, musty, halt, etc as well. Every year of stinking is a burned year of cheap talent.

Its also very hard to add 3 top 9 forwards and 2-3 top 4 D in one offseason. Those have to be added over time.

If Grier grabs at least 1-2 top 6 forwards and 1-2 top 4 D in UFA, then I will consider it a solid start. I dont want another bottom feeder season and I dont see that as needed. Cooch and pickles cap hits will be coming off in the next 2-3 years, so we dont have to wait until they are gone to bring in talent.

This summer is the first real test for me for grier. He's torn it all down and put nearly the worst product on the ice in the NHL in the last 20 years.He got lots of good picks. It's time to get better....

The Sharks had Meier, Hertl, Couture, Vlasic, Karlsson, Burns, a disgruntled Kane, and the ghost of Martin Jones making $60M. Couture, Burns, Vlasic, and Karlsson were clearly in decline and Meier was going to require a massive contract. Couture's injury was bad luck, but for an average size, average speed forward who goes to the tough areas, it wasn't a huge surprise. He always had bad injury luck.

With no youth the team needed 2 top 4 D, 2 top 6 forwards, starting goalies, and to fill out the line-up for $22M. Grier absolutely had to tear down. They were 11th the year before and Burns, Karlsson, Couture were going to be a year older. Kane doing stupid shit bailed him out of $7M. 65% of Burns contract was moved (for a poor return). Now we're down to $50M but with a top 6 forward and top pairing d-man to be replaced for that $10M. Somehow, he and Quinn figured out a way to build a system that would help Karlsson get him out of SJ. With Karlsson, Meier, Hertl, and Couture it was going to be tough to get a Celebrini. Not impossible, but much tougher.

Beyond that they had Merkley, Bystedt, Lund, Havelid, Bordeleau, Robins, and Guschin as their top prospects, so no young cheap help was coming help was coming. San Jose had two options. 1) Burn it down 2) Extended mediocrity by investing $30 into a fairly mediocre 'stars and scrubs' model which was more a 'former stars and current scrubs' option. Thankful Grier chose the former.

We have a clean cap, SJ's best pool, and the best player we've ever drafted. Smith and Dickenson may crack the 6 all-time forwards and top 4 d-men themselves(Marleau, Couture, Hertl, Pavs, Meier, Whitney; Hannah, Ozo, Stuart, Vlasic) in a 34 year period.

I agree with you that the team needs to add a bit this week. 1-2 top 4 d-men and 1-2 top 6 forwards (more 2 if Couture isn't going to be ready). They'll still finish bottom 3 and should add another excellent prospect with the resulting top 5 pick. Maybe Hagens or Martone? It takes 4-7 star players to win. We're still 1-2 short. The easiest place to find those in the draft.

We're certainly going to be bad next year, probably for the next two. However, Grier will need to show some growth to see the rebuild through. I'm hoping for 57 points this year, and 73 next. 26 point two-year improvement from a last place team is pretty good.

 

[NiWa]

Does anyone have relatively current NHLe conversion factors? Not just a calculator but the actual numbers to do the conversion math on. I need them for... reasons but the most current I have myself are from like 5 or 6 years ago and don't include some lower leagues like MHL or Euro Jr/dev programs.

Here's the post from JTR, NHLe for leagues towards the bottom: NHL Equivalency and Prospect Projection Models: Building the NHL Equivalency Model (Part 2)

 

[ChompChomp]

We're certainly going to be bad next year, probably for the next two. However, Grier will need to show some growth to see the rebuild through. I'm hoping for 57 points this year, and 73 next. 26 point two-year improvement from a last place team is pretty good.

Well said, but I am just quoting this last part. I think last season's 49 pts was an aberration because they had injuries and also dumped players like Hertl. I think it should have been a 50-60 pt team. For me, I'm expecting 60ish points in 24-25 and 70ish in 25-26.

 

[LadyStanley]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1807553451838288128

 

[Friday]

Well said, but I am just quoting this last part. I think last season's 49 pts was an aberration because they had injuries and also dumped players like Hertl. I think it should have been a 50-60 pt team. For me, I'm expecting 60ish points in 24-25 and 70ish in 25-26.

Sharks had 60 points in 2022/23 season with a 101 point EK and full seasons from Couture, Hertl, and 57 games of Timo. I dont think they're anywhere near even that level right now

 

[The Nemesis]

Here's the post from JTR, NHLe for leagues towards the bottom: NHL Equivalency and Prospect Projection Models: Building the NHL Equivalency Model (Part 2)

Thanks. That'll do nicely. It's a couple years old but good enough for something of no real consequence here.

And of course I could've just parsed that table and pulled out the few values I needed manually so it'd take 5 minutes but no I'm a masochist so I spent like half an hour pasting the whole thing into Excel and using like 4 different formulas to strip away the ascii table formatting and pull out just the numbers so they could be plugged into a proper excel table. I'll never need to know the conversion factor from whatever QMEAAA is, but by god I still had to have it in the table

 

[themelkman]

Thanks. That'll do nicely. It's a couple years old but good enough for something of no real consequence here.

And of course I could've just parsed that table and pulled out the few values I needed manually so it'd take 5 minutes but no I'm a masochist so I spent like half an hour pasting the whole thing into Excel and using like 4 different formulas to strip away the ascii table formatting and pull out just the numbers so they could be plugged into a proper excel table. I'll never need to know the conversion factor from whatever QMEAAA is, but by god I still had to have it in the table

I do remember seeing something on Twitter that it’s possible his model hasn’t taken into account the relative downfall of the KHL so players from there will be slightly overrated now compared to then

 

[The Nemesis]

I do remember seeing something on Twitter that it’s possible his model hasn’t taken into account the relative downfall of the KHL so players from there will be slightly overrated now compared to then

Yeah, I figure it's going to have some issues like that. But it's fine. It's one small arm of what I'm doing so if it turns out to be worthlessly noisy I'm not going to be too broken up about it.

 

[Jargon]

Sharks had 60 points in 2022/23 season with a 101 point EK and full seasons from Couture, Hertl, and 57 games of Timo. I dont think they're anywhere near even that level right now

But that’s sort of all we had, I think if the team is built better, more evenly, with more than 1 line and 1 defenseman, there’s a world it’ll be a better team than that one. That team was awful too.

 

[ChompChomp]

Sharks had 60 points in 2022/23 season with a 101 point EK and full seasons from Couture, Hertl, and 57 games of Timo. I dont think they're anywhere near even that level right now

That's an extremely simplistic analysis. I can do it too: if the Sharks had a full season of Couture and Hertl last season, they probably win 5 more games. Which gets them to 59 points. 60 isn't out of reach for 24-25.