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Pre-Game Talk: 2025 NHL Draft Thread

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LetsGoBooze said:
He's my prediction for our pick. I think he'll fall and be available while were on the clock, and our management will jump at his size and potential.
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Depending on where we end up, it wouldn't be the worst thing.
That said, the #4 pick is well within reach and we should really be focused on getting there.
 
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do you think army realizes the opportunity he has to maybe grab a true difference maker this year? Seems like anyone in the top seven and in my opinion especially Martone or Desnoyers is a player that could really propel us forward in the coming years. or to my frustrations have the veterans play a ton and keep us out of this range? Thanks for discussion guys.
 
HighNote said:
We're winnin the lottery so there's no point in talkin about these guys goin #3-10
:naughty:
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Damian Frerker said:
do you think army realizes the opportunity he has to maybe grab a true difference maker this year? Seems like anyone in the top seven and in my opinion especially Martone or Desnoyers is a player that could really propel us forward in the coming years. or to my frustrations have the veterans play a ton and keep us out of this range? Thanks for discussion guys.
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Army insists on this team being competitive despite all signs that this core group doesn't have any cohesiveness or ability to lead this team against the league's best. We may very well end up in Minnesota Mild territory without enough top end talent after this is all said and done...
 
BlueMed said:
Army insists on this team being competitive despite all signs that this core group doesn't have any cohesiveness or ability to lead this team against the league's best. We may very well end up in Minnesota Mild territory without enough top end talent after this is all said and done...
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I think you really have to fully commit to like 7+ years of being very bad to go the full route, and there is no route that comes with guaranteed success. I don’t know that the blues group is necessarily making every best choice, but I think they don’t have the flexibility that an armchair gm like us have. In order to move players they need a destination and dance partner.

I think a lot of the Blues condition is based on the pandemic cap. Every team froze.

The pandemic cap forced action. Previously signed deals eliminated the ability to make choices. Most every team in some kind of cap challenge.

I’d guess if you laid out 10 plans to rebuild the team that the path we’re on has a high chance of success but also a lower dwell time. That being said those 10 plans wouldn’t be all that crazily different: it’s was most recently hard to make moves in this environment.

IMO tho none of it matters. McDavid, Matthews, Marner, Eichel, MacKinnon and Makar are going to battle on stacked teams for the next 2-5 years. We don’t have those guys. Their teams will be wagons. It’s futile to try harder than we are, to jeopardize the future to be better now, but it’s wasteful to have a fire sale and lose a lot of organizational talent value.

This is a big ship. It takes a moment to turn around. The process of turning around isn’t achieved in a day or a draft. It’s a gradual process where you’re maximizing the value you have given the circumstances, selling things to the market as they build the capacity and appetite to pay the bill. Metering the exchange of core from one group to the next while providing an environment that is as conducive to winning hockey as possible so that you never have to stop being that way. I think their philosophy is that You don’t want to turn winning hockey on and off. You want to keep it always on; do the things (like Fowler, Texier, Matt Joseph, Faksa) to give a chance, and then use the opportunity that failure provides to improve.
 
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StlBigFly said:
I think you really have to fully commit to like 7+ years of being very bad to go the full route, and there is no route that comes with guaranteed success. I don’t know that the blues group is necessarily making every best choice, but I think they don’t have the flexibility that an armchair gm like us have. In order to move players they need a destination and dance partner.

I think a lot of the Blues condition is based on the pandemic cap. Every team froze.

The pandemic cap forced action. Previously signed deals eliminated the ability to make choices. Most every team in some kind of cap challenge.

I’d guess if you laid out 10 plans to rebuild the team that the path we’re on has a high chance of success but also a lower dwell time. That being said those 10 plans wouldn’t be all that crazily different: it’s was most recently hard to make moves in this environment.

IMO tho none of it matters. McDavid, Matthews, Marner, Eichel, MacKinnon and Makar are going to battle on stacked teams for the next 2-5 years. We don’t have those guys. Their teams will be wagons. It’s futile to try harder than we are, to jeopardize the future to be better now, but it’s wasteful to have a fire sale and lose a lot of organizational talent value.

This is a big ship. It takes a moment to turn around. The process of turning around isn’t achieved in a day or a draft. It’s a gradual process where you’re maximizing the value you have given the circumstances, selling things to the market as they build the capacity and appetite to pay the bill. Metering the exchange of core from one group to the next while providing an environment that is as conducive to winning hockey as possible so that you never have to stop being that way. I think their philosophy is that You don’t want to turn winning hockey on and off. You want to keep it always on; do the things (like Fowler, Texier, Matt Joseph, Faksa) to give a chance, and then use the opportunity that failure provides to improve.
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Personally, I've gone back and forth on Army's philosophy, but it's becoming abundantly clear that his vision of this team is optimistic at best. I understand that he wants to protect the culture and values within this organization, but those intangibles will only take a team so far. There needs to be a foundation of talent in place, and I currently don't see much evidence that finishing 8th worst in the league will lead to a significant drop in sales or mindset in the locker room compared to finishing 14th worst overall. However, when you're looking at the draft talent, there is a clear drop from picking 8th overall to 14th overall, and that shouldn't be overlooked. Army has vocalized that tanking will not necessarily garner high-end talent, but neither does finishing competitively in the middle either (just ask Minnesota Wild fans). His plan to convert a rebuild to a retool may have its own risks including the opportunity cost of losing out on premier talent necessary to compete with Chicago, San Jose, and Anaheim when those teams inevitably rise up again.
 
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I'd be perfectly happy with Eklund, he's seemingly in everyone's top 10, in that 5-8 range. Depending on where we are picking, he's one of those guys where if teams ahead of us go with more premium positions, just take the higher rated winger.
 
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Now I’m thinking about having a version of Dylan Holloway on both of our top 6 lines. That would be nice.
 
I wouldn’t mind Eklund. But we talk all the time about how we’re overstocked in LHD, and honestly we have just as much of a logjam at LW right now. Between Buchnevich, Holloway, Neighbours, and Bolduc, it’s already going to be hard enough to get Stenberg squeezed onto this roster. Let alone Stancl or Pekarcik. Eklund is a right shot at least.

I don’t get our scouting department’s preoccupation with left shots, but it makes things difficult to project.
 
There's just way more left shots compared to right shots. You used to rely on RW being right-shots, but in more recent times, you see RW prefer to be on their off-side to be able to cut into the ice like Tarasenko did. I think wings is less of an issue because it's easier to find a winger that can play both sides, Buchnevich is an example. And how many of our young wingers do we feel are pretty safe bets to be top 6 NHL guys.

Eklund would also project to be our best winger, so similar to I wouldn't pass up a LD that projects to be better than Broberg and Lindstein, just because we have Broberg and Lindstein.
 
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bleedblue1223 said:
There's just way more left shots compared to right shots. You used to rely on RW being right-shots, but in more recent times, you see RW prefer to be on their off-side to be able to cut into the ice like Tarasenko did. I think wings is less of an issue because it's easier to find a winger that can play both sides, Buchnevich is an example. And how many of our young wingers do we feel are pretty safe bets to be top 6 NHL guys.

Eklund would also project to be our best winger, so similar to I wouldn't pass up a LD that projects to be better than Broberg and Lindstein, just because we have Broberg and Lindstein.
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You can always use surplus of talent to exchange for areas of need. I agree that I would not pass up on talent if it came down to handedness. Frankly, the Blues need talent. If that talent is left handed, who am I to say no if what that player has will help the team rise up to contender status.
 
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