2025 NHL Draft Thread

[Pez68]

I love how I talk about there being a log jam upcoming (and one impacting Isaak) and THEN Phillips is dealt AND hawk beat reporters express a similar concern afterward AND I'm out of touch?

Delusion.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Leafs never won because their forwards are overrated and Matthews is more concerned about squeezing the last dollar of his team's cap every 3 years than actually winning. It is honestly amazing he doesnt get more heat for his contract shenangins.

Oilers went to game 7 of the finals last year any sane person would argue a starting goalie was 1000% a bigger issue than their defense.

Should we talk about all the success Nashville had with their 4 top pairing Dmen the last 20 years? Afterall how could a team that at one point had Timonen, Weber, Suter, Josi, Ellis, Ekholm, Jones, Subban, among others not win? Must have been one big problem front and center with those teams... How about that they lost to a Pittsburgh team who didnt even have a top pairing D in 2017?

Elite center depth > everything else.

Crosby-Malkin, Kopitar-Carter, Bergeron-Krejci (could have been Savard too if Matt Cooke wasnt a prick), Stamkos-Point, ROR-Schenn, Backstrom-Kuznetsov, MacKinnon-Kadri, Datsyuk-Zetterberg, Staal-BrindAmour,

You pretty much have to go back to our Hawks to find a cup winner without at least 2 great centers down the middle and that is the exception if anything, also considering Kane basically was the center for his own line.

Hawks won cups with out of position Sharp, Michal Handzus and Old man Brad Richards as nominally second line centers. Any “one size fits all” declaration is dumb. Sometimes you are stretching the definition of “elite” at which point you could point many great wingers those teams has too. Could say same about elite high end number 1 Defenseman. Do hawks have one right now? But the hawks have drafted a lot of kids with center experience in excess picks.

 

[ClydeLee]

Pittsburgh is the only team in how long to win without a strong #1 Dman. Maybe that's the biggest key? You need someone you can also trust on the ice late and in every single situation.

Center depth surely is strongly needed. But lack of depth at center has not been as universal as top dmen