Prospect Info: 2025 Draft discussion

[eXile3]

Exactly. I think Tij Iginla was in the mid to late 20s this time last year and went 7th (?). Dec 2015, Laine was ranked 10th and went 2nd. There's always a lot of time for guys to move up and down.

Fondell will be interesting to watch. That knee injury isn't what I would consider minor but he will obviously rehab and be back but it's still a blemish on the record. Cayden Lindstrom just had back surgery. Makes me wonder if the CBJ would have still taken him had they known. His surgery involves clipping away a piece of a herniated disc. That's a tough injury to have so young as it's something that will need to be managed for the rest of his career. Does that stop the CBJ from taking him and going to someone like Iginla or Demidov?

Fondell is going to get better the better the knee gets. I would love to have him in this org.

 

[chethejet]

Dubas signed Graves at the time no one thought that was a bad contract. Jarry is still a question here but so far not good. But 5 years is a little over 5AAV for a goalie is not a significant over pay. The issue is after this year can they be moved without giving up assets or picks or retention? Jarry with 3 years in a cap at mid 90 million is not expensive. Graves is playing better but not good enough to show he can help a contender. Other than that, Karlsson will be moved and probably Rust as his contract no longer has movement clauses after this year. Dubas needs to get picks that can be used to move up for higher ranked players.

 

[HandshakeLine]

I thought we invested a lot of resources in scouting and brought over Dubas’ guys from Toronto?

We have one European scout and a bunch of new pro and NA scouts, IIRC.

Dubas signed Graves at the time no one thought that was a bad contract. Jarry is still a question here but so far not good. But 5 years is a little over 5AAV for a goalie is not a significant over pay. The issue is after this year can they be moved without giving up assets or picks or retention? Jarry with 3 years in a cap at mid 90 million is not expensive. Graves is playing better but not good enough to show he can help a contender. Other than that, Karlsson will be moved and probably Rust as his contract no longer has movement clauses after this year. Dubas needs to get picks that can be used to move up for higher ranked players.

I thought it was a bad contract, lol. Hell several people did.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Yeah, but it's easier to retain an impact player than acquire one later. Again, I don't think this team's ownership or management have what it takes to build a championship roster, but I'd be shocked if we weren't at least hovering around the playoffs 6-7 years out. If we're not, then we're clearly not taking the right kinds of players and building the right supporting cast.

I have faith in Dubas' ability to draft and trade, but he's really bad at free agent signings for guys that cost more than a couple mill.
Since a lot of this rebuild will primarily entail the first two, I think there's a decent chance it can go well.
There's a chance he'll learn from his mistakes too.

 

[Freeptop]

We have one European scout and a bunch of new pro and NA scouts, IIRC.

Petri Pakaslahti and Tommy Westlund are officially listed as "European Scouts", but they also have Evgeny Bogdanovich and Brian Ihnacak listed as an Amateur Scouts, and when they hired them, they were said to both be based in Europe.

In the past, when the Pens had "European Scouts", they scouted both junior leagues and pro leagues, so I'm guessing that's still the case, while the "Amateur Scouts" are probably exclusively looking at the junior leagues.

In any case, that's a total of four scouts in Europe, so it is definitely better than it used to be.