I feel no shame.
Pronman is like the only one that like Gandalf though. I think he was like 10th just amongst Euro goalies by Central Scouting a couple months ago.
If anything my dreams are anti-premonitions. I don’t know if I ever mentioned this but I had multiple dreams last year where we won the 2nd lottery and got Fantilli.I saw that too which is why I was surprised he was ranked so highly.
I believe your premonition is a sign
14 feels like a reach on Solberg. Understand he's getting late draft hype, but still not a guy I'd reach on at 14th just to take a D-Man. Feels like a pretty generic #4/5 LHD if he hits. If he was RH, maybe I feel differently just because the scarcity of RHD. That said, if you want to take a player like that trade back with Chicago at 18th.
I agree but I'm also not opposed to drafting forwards every time they're BPA because eventually you get excess you can swap for a blue liner. We're still not exactly flush with forward prospects that are upping their trade value while somehow not able to crack our lineup. I get most are still very young but we're still very early in this process and it's easy to get ahead of ourselves when the two big ones are ready to play here.
it doesnt matter what it needs, BPA all day every day
I'm still firmly in the camp of (if he can) Grier using some of his second round ammo to move up from 14.If my options were a good forward at 14 and a good d-man at 10-11 which ultimately costs us 33 (or 42) then I'd MUCH rather go the latter.
The team has drafted all of 1 D-man in the first two rounds since pre-covid. 1 out of 10. 8 in the first 3 rounds in 13 years. The team seems to prefer drafting D late, which I can understand since the returns on guys like Mueller and Merkeley and Roy have been pretty underwhelming. Grier seems to prefer hand-picking D prospects via trade (Shak, Thrun, Thompson, Okhtiuk, Emberson, Addison).
I don't mind that option. The benefit to drafting forwards is they tend to develop and ascend quicker than defensemen. Most defensemen take five years roughly from their draft to crack the NHL. If we draft a bunch of forwards to make guys legitimately expendable, we have trade chips for proven young defensemen that won't hurt the lineup. But this is also pick 14 where bust potential increases dramatically compared to like the top 5. Any of these three picks, I'll gladly take anyone that develops into an NHL'er at any level.
I agree which is why I'd like to not just keep pushing drafting higher caliber D prospects. I don't want all of our forwards to be cheap stars only to be done in by a shoddy D. I don't want us to be Edmonton, where we cling to our only decent developed prospect and ultimately overpay him making him a detriment more than anything. I do actually have a lot of hope for Pohlkamp and even Furlong to develop into serviceable bottom 6 D-men.
I'm flexible in terms of how this can be approached honestly. I don't think finding serviceable bottom pairing defensemen is going to be our problem. We already have guys like Thrun and Emberson that are young and playing to that level to some degree. We need at least one guy that knows how to manufacture offense from the blue line and we need at least one guy that can handle the tough defensive matchups. I don't know if that sort of player is really available to us. If one thinks someone we can draft can be that, I'm for making that pick.
Honestly, I can see Silayev dropping and if he does and we can move up to grab him in the 9-11 range I'd be absolutely thrilled. Same with Parekh for that matter. Both would immediately be our top defensive and offensive D-men.
). I do not get that at all. I like Thorpe. He's got a good shot and he made massive strides from being a clumsy bottom-6 guy to a capable triggerman and power forward at the junior level. BUT I don't think he's a good enough skater, nor is he physical enough to take the next step in the pros and he missed most of the last 2.5 months of the season after he suffered a nasty cut on his arm from getting stepped on by an opponent. And this his his D+1 year. This feels like the extremely poor man's Brett Leason but Leason was on a 40-goal pace when he got drafted, was a tank, and seemingly got caught up in a ton of hype that he's not really delivering on unless you like 20-point bottom 6 wingers.You basically can't though, you're more likely to get an elite defensive player in free agency or as a rental and those are rare. Being able to trade for a Dougie Hamilton or Chychurun is rare enough even with their defensive shortcomings.
I think, at least reading a lot of prospect talk this past two years, that Pronman's actual descriptions and skill talk is pretty all over the place, but his rankings are a decent summary of what people in the business are actually thinking.I'm always happy to read Pronman's stuff, but I'm starting to question him a little bit more each time I go through his scouting reports.
Comparing Celebrini to Crosby feels excessive. Yes, Celebrini has been the earmarked #1 for this draft for a couple of years now and he is clearly head and shoulders above everyone else, but it's like... does Pronman not remember peak Crosby? He was "the next one" pretty much since he was 13 or 14 and was legitimately on an inner circle HHOF path almost from the get-go. Especially when Pronman specifies that his comps are not stylistic but are, in his own words "what the player can become". Putting the Crosby label on anyone is a ridiculously optimistic take.
Meanwhile I did selfishly/personally skim through the back half of the rankings to see what became of Vancouver D Colton Roberts after he was at the CHL Top Prospects game and garnered some low 2nd round grades at one point in the ranking process. He's now at 107 which is more like a low 3rd/high 4th grade. Ok fine, he didn't have a great year, missed some time, and the book on him seems to be "pretty good at most things but not great at anything" which can be a kiss of death for the amateur->pro transition.
But then a few spots later at 116 was his teammate Tyler Thorpe (not to be confused with the previous season's Giants captain Ty Thorpe, who graduated and went on to cash in his CHL scholarship to play for the University of British Columbia. And yes, both players were on the team last year so they did often ice a lineup with Ty Thorpe and Tyler Thorpe
14th Overall Pick
Well, for the Sharks the options are always going to be severely limited especially while they're still not playoff competitive. I don't think they should ever deviate from BPA for the draft. If that always ends up being a forward then they should keep picking forwards. When they develop an excess, trade it for a defenseman that can be used. Other than that, they have to sign guys where they can and try not to trade 1st and 2nd round picks for a long while even if they end up in the playoffs sooner rather than later.
I meant in trade value, but that's an interesting list. A lotta good D-men have gone 14th including MacAvoy, Gonchar and Seabrook.
BPA is so frequently not that clear. Even this year at 14, if we're looking at MBN, Eiserman, Solberg, Jiricek... Who's BPA? there's no consensus on these players, especially not for who they're going to be in 6 years and for how long. There's an outcome and a risk profile for each. Eiserman has the most elite single skill and has the highest draft profile but has fallen the most. Jiricek has pedigree but a risky injury profile. MBN may be closest to ready, but what does he have that's elite? Solberg is the massive riser who just held his own in an NHL-level tournament as an 18 year old and maybe his ceiling is super high but only in 7 years with risk.
Pronman’s mock drafts are reflective of what NHL scouts are leaning, this is just his personal ranking.
