Prospect Info: All-Purpose 2024 Draft Thread & Celebrini discussion (also the 14th pick and whatever else is draft related)

[Pinkfloyd]

If none of the D are there at 14, and the org isn’t high on Helenius, MBN, or Sennecke (or simply rate them all evenly) I’d want them to move back 3-5 spots and pick up the extra 2nd. They may still end up with one of those guys, or Solberg/Emery, and any extra swings in the 40-60 range seem like something a rebuilding team should be taking advantage of.

Possibly. I don't know that I'd agree with the assessment of not being that high on those players but getting an extra 2nd for 3-5 spots would only be useful to me if we then took it with 42 or 33 to move up because I don't really see non-complete lottery prospects past 40.

 

[TheBeard]

Ekblad, Reinhart and Bennett were universally seen as the top-3 in that draft, the Oilers reached for Draisaitl, they deserve credit on that one


What do you mean by this?

No aspersions cast, I legitimately don't understand what you're saying so I am hoping you don't mind explaining

Do you mean picking a bunch of forwards?

More like neglecting defense. During that era of them picking high they were continually in the bottom 5 in goals against and rarely addressed the position. Even after the year they drafted Connor (which had made it 8 forwards in a span of 9 years), they still continued to address forward by drafting Puuljarvi at 4 and then the next year they STILL continued going F-heavy drafting Yamamoto. It's not as if they ever went out and addressed the position in FA uness you want to include the ghost of Duncan Keith or trading for Larrsson.

It's no surprise that position still continues to plague them

 

[jMoneyBrah]

Possibly. I don't know that I'd agree with the assessment of not being that high on those players but getting an extra 2nd for 3-5 spots would only be useful to me if we then took it with 42 or 33 to move up because I don't really see non-complete lottery prospects past 40.

I think my phrasing was weird: what I was trying to say was IF the org isn’t as high on those players and the top 6 D are gone.

I like moving up with the additional pick too, but even if it ends up being a lottery ticket those are okay too. More swings in the top 60 are a good thing.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

I think my phrasing was weird: what I was trying to say was IF the org isn’t as high on those players and the top 6 D are gone.

I like moving up with the additional pick too, but even if it ends up being a lottery ticket those are okay too. More swings in the top 60 are a good thing.

No, I think you're phrasing was perfectly fine. Not agreeing with that assessment was under the impression of the team having those sentiments like you said. I agree that more swings are a good thing in that range but I feel more confident in the odds at 14 than I do at 18. I just don't think another swing in what seems like a lottery pick range in this draft is worth it even if it's best used moving up from 42.

 

[weastern bias]

More like neglecting defense. During that era of them picking high they were continually in the bottom 5 in goals against and rarely addressed the position. Even after the year they drafted Connor (which had made it 8 forwards in a span of 9 years), they still continued to address forward by drafting Puuljarvi at 4 and then the next year they STILL continued going F-heavy drafting Yamamoto. It's not as if they ever went out and addressed the position in FA uness you want to include the ghost of Duncan Keith or trading for Larrsson.

It's no surprise that position still continues to plague them

Thank you for clarifying

I also have anxieties about our D prospect pool, it's terrible, but we're so early in the rebuild and so thin at every position as far as prospect depth (even center needs every big name we have to hit to be passable) that I hope the org is just going BPA based on their board regardless of position

I would definitely hope we get an impact D at 14 or move up to get one earlier, but if the move isn't there and all the defensemen our scouts really like are gone at 14 I'd prefer they take a forward with higher potential rather than reaching just to fill a position of need, the way I see it EVERY position is currently a position of need

 

[zombie kopitar]

They have enough ammo to do one of two things: move up from 14 to get a D-man or package 33 and 42 to get a d-man, but there is absolutely no reason not to end up with three 1sts in this draft if there are particular guys they want and they want to be aggressive to make sure they get them. Missing out on someone because Grier wanted to outsmart everyone by getting the 41st ranked Finnish d-man at 42 would leave a bitter taste.

Until he turns into Brent Seabrookenen

 

[TheBeard]

Until he turns into Brent Seabrookenen

Bjork Seabrekken

 

[coooldude]

Just to try to continue to baseline everyone on the public lists that matter the most (seemingly - pronman, whose final ranking is out, and MacKenzie, whose isn't yet... Both of these guys respected currently as having a lot of front office connections)

Last year, "Bubble top and middle of the lineup player" tier included: 11 Leonard, Perreault, Honzek, Wood, Willander, Yager, Benson, Edstrom, Moore, 20 Barlow. Musty was the first player in the next tier "middle of lineup player."

The tier above, "top of the lineup player," went 6 Reinbacher, Danielson, Dvorsky, But, 10 Simashev.

Meanwhile, Mackenzie had Leonard at 6, Reinbacher at 8, then Benson and Perreault, and Simashev T at 19.

This year, we can't underestimate the distortion happening because of 6 very good D prospects. Pronman has "top of the lineup player" starting at 9 parekh, Lindstrom, Dickinson. The other 4 top D are higher, and pushing everyone Else down in the number rankings.

Meanwhile "bubble top and middle of lineup" goes 12 Solberg, Iginla, Helenius, Jiricek, Eiserman, MBN, Chernyshov.

So comparing the two years, he's ranking Solberg/Jiricek just below Reinbacher and Simashev and he's ranking them with MBN, iginla, Helenius, Eiserman, and Chernyshov in the same tier as Leonard, Perreault, Edstrom, Benson.

Which is basically to say that an equivalent D to solberg/jiricek is being taken 10-15 last year. They're not the 7-8 ranked D in a regular year. I feel like a broken record with trying to break people out of this BPA or "I'm not excited about any of these players at 14" thing. MBN is like Leonard, at least according to Pronman, and these D are pretty solid but not quite at the same tier as Simashev or Reinbacher.

I'm just trying to get ahead of everyone melting down if we pick D at 14.

 

[Star Platinum]

This study found that it is actually the most useful.

Functional Performance Tests, On-Ice Testing and Game Performance in Elite Junior Ice Hockey Players - PMC

This study aimed to explore relationships between fitness, on-ice physical abilities and game performance among elite junior male ice hockey players. Twenty-one major junior ice hockey players (18.9 ± 1.4 years old) participated in the study. ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Performance in the vertical jump corresponds to number of checks? Color me skeptical. If I'm looking at a prospect and I want to know if he gives a lot of good checks, I'll watch him play hockey.

But then, I'm highly skeptical of analytics in sports in general. I think GM's and scouts that put too much faith in them often fail to see the forest for the trees and it's led to a lot of faulty bullshit measures in a number of sports (the mythical arbitrary 100 pitch limit for starting pitchers in baseball, excessive rest games in basketball that theoretically are supposed to lessen injury risk, but injuries haven't declined, etc.). I think all of these things can be complementary to what your scouts observe from a prospect, but nothing should ever take precedence over a guy's performance in the actual sport. All that other stuff should either be reinforcing your confidence in a guy you like or maybe it makes you take a second look at a guy if something doesn't measure quite as high. But observation of the player actually playing his sport should always be the strongest factor in any prospect evaluation.

 

[CupfortheSharks]

Centers that are developing well can always be traded for similar defensemen. The same can’t be said for wingers. If the scouts believe a center has the best chance to develop into an impactful NHL player he should be selected regardless of our pipeline of defenseman.

 

[coooldude]

Centers that are developing well can always be traded for similar defensemen. The same can’t be said for wingers. If the scouts believe a center has the best chance to develop into an impactful NHL player he should be selected regardless of our pipeline of defenseman.

I think this is incorrect. It's also very hard to trade for, or sign in UFA, a top 2 or even top 4 defenseman.

 

[CupfortheSharks]

I think this is incorrect. It's also very hard to trade for, or sign in UFA, a top 2 or even top 4 defenseman.

It’s just as hard to sign or trade for a top 6 center. Maybe harder.

 

[coooldude]

It’s just as hard to sign or trade for a top 6 center. Maybe harder.

Yes, both top D and C are hard to trade for or find in UFA. I was just reacting to you saying that it's always possible to trade a C for a top of lineup D.

 

[Mattb124]

Performance in the vertical jump corresponds to number of checks? Color me skeptical. If I'm looking at a prospect and I want to know if he gives a lot of good checks, I'll watch him play hockey.

Yeah, who would positively correlate leg strength and explosiveness with the on-ice performance potential of hockey players?

At least you didn’t call into question using pull-up’s as a criterion, I would have come unhinged.

 

[CupfortheSharks]

Yes, both top D and C are hard to trade for or find in UFA. I was just reacting to you saying that it's always possible to trade a C for a top of lineup D.

I said similar defenseman. So, a top of the lineup C for a top of the lineup D. I was thinking more of developing top 6 C for developing top 4 D. Good centers have a ton of value and are always a great pick if they work out. Move them to the wing or flip them for D.

 

[The Nemesis]

More like neglecting defense. During that era of them picking high they were continually in the bottom 5 in goals against and rarely addressed the position. Even after the year they drafted Connor (which had made it 8 forwards in a span of 9 years), they still continued to address forward by drafting Puuljarvi at 4 and then the next year they STILL continued going F-heavy drafting Yamamoto. It's not as if they ever went out and addressed the position in FA uness you want to include the ghost of Duncan Keith or trading for Larrsson.

It's no surprise that position still continues to plague them

I feel like that kind of ignores the context of those years.

So 14 and 15 they took Draisaitl and McDavid. There's their core.

2016 - Drafted Puljujarvi 4th. Obviously he hasn't worked out but he was considered to be in that top tier of players from that draft. But from that spot the next D taken was Olli Juolevi at 5th, who was a massive failure. Sergachev was 8th and would've been a reach at that point and then you're looking at them having to gamble on trading back into the early teens and have the foresight to take McAvoy or Chychrun instead of ending up with Logan Stanley, Dante Fabbro, or Dennis Cholowski. The logic of Pulujarvi was sound if you believed the hype at the time that he was a potential power forward to go with the skill games of their two centers and that you should take the possibly elite player offered to you rather than trading down for a lesser tier.

2017 - Drafted Yamamoto 22nd. What was left for them in terms of D at that point? P-O Joseph, Jokiharju, Nic Hague, Gustav Lindstrom. Depth guys. Looking at the draft around that area I'm not sure what they would've done better unless they were prescient enough to see Jason Robertson coming.

2018 - Drafted Evan Bouchard 10th. There's their D, and it's working for them

2019 - Drafted Philip Broberg 8th. Another D. But this one hasn't worked out. There were some better players picked after that but if we're looking for them to round out their prospect pool it's not like they weren't trying. I'd have to get one of my old draft magazines but IIRC Broberg was decently rated.

2020 - Drafted Dylan Holloway, who's struggling to figure things out. And ok, here there's a case that they could've had Guhle, Braden Schneider, or even Mukhamadullin (who wouldn't be helping them yet, but still). This is probably the first instance of me saying that maybe they screwed things up, but I also don't recall what the discourse was around those players at the time and whether Holloway was reasonably estimated to be superior as a prospect to the others.

2021 - Drafted Xavier Borgeault 22nd. We're into the realm of it being too early to make any significant judgments as most players from that pick range onward haven't even had anything remotely resembling an NHL career yet. Borgeault appears to be underwhelming as a prospect in 2 seasons in the AHL but there's not a staring-you-in-the-face blueliner in that range unless you really liked Logan Mailloux and were willing to weather the firestorm that came with his selection. Sure they would've been better with Wyatt Johnson, but we're not here to arbitrate other forward selections, just that they should've done more on the blueline.

Look, I do think the Oilers are a flawed team and they've struggled to assemble a competent blueline and stable goaltending. But I think that has less to do with them failing to properly address the d-corps in the draft and more to do with them not getting a ton out of their picks in general and not having a lot of picks in areas where there were valuable potential defenders available to them. In the 6 years since the McDavid draft they took 2 defenders with top 10 picks with a 50% success rate, used a top 5 pick on a guy said to have cornerstone potential who didn't pan out, drafted a solid depth forward at a point where they probably would've only walked away with a bottom pairing/depth d-man had they gone that route instead, and appear to have blown it twice on mid/late round selections of forwards where only one of them might've come at the expense of a useful blueliner.

Edmonton's problem hasn't been that they ignored drafting D. It's that they've been scattershot at drafting and whiffed on a couple of top 10 picks in the last 6 years (and that's after whiffing on Yakupov at 1/1 and coming away with Nurse right before Draisaitl and he looked very intriguing right until he didn't.) I'm sure if they were drafting in times where there was a Hedman or Makar (with the benefit of hindsight on what Makar became) waiting for them they could've gone that route. But really the only time they could've probably find a cornerstone blueliner was one year where they could've traded back and walked away with Hanafin, Provorov, Werenski, or even further still and gotten Chabot. But that was the McDavid year and obviously that was never a consideration for obvious reasons.

If anything, this whole exercise reinforces the idea of BPA for me. If they had gone hunting for defenders they wouldn't have come away much better than they did except in trading Holloway for Guhle, which would've come at the expense of sacrificing Yamamoto for Jokiharju or something.

 

[Lebanezer]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1799906927511576584

Seen a few people saying Demidov is going to slide.

 

[Jargon]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1799906927511576584

Seen a few people saying Demidov is going to slide.

Ok ok I’ll take him at 14

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Yes, both top D and C are hard to trade for or find in UFA. I was just reacting to you saying that it's always possible to trade a C for a top of lineup D.

I suppose it depends on the context. I don't think you're going to find a developing center for a developing defenseman trade of the elite caliber. Those just don't happen.

I said similar defenseman. So, a top of the lineup C for a top of the lineup D. I was thinking more of developing top 6 C for developing top 4 D. Good centers have a ton of value and are always a great pick if they work out. Move them to the wing or flip them for D.

That kind of trade doesn't seem likely to me. Developing for developing isn't really a move made unless both teams think they have busts on their hands. Plus, a look at our prospect pool as it relates to our way to competing sooner rather than later, we don't even have a full complement of top nine forwards in our system. It's not like we're bursting at the seams here if we add MBN or Helenius to our organization. The sort of trade it'll end up being is a prospect developing as part of a package for an established defenseman since we have a need for that if we're trying to be more competitive next year. I'm feeling confident in Grier's ability to make the best use of this pick.

 

[Lebanezer]

Ok ok I’ll take him at 14

That would really be something.

 

[TheBeard]

I feel like that kind of ignores the context of those years.

So 14 and 15 they took Draisaitl and McDavid. There's their core.

2016 - Drafted Puljujarvi 4th. Obviously he hasn't worked out but he was considered to be in that top tier of players from that draft. But from that spot the next D taken was Olli Juolevi at 5th, who was a massive failure. Sergachev was 8th and would've been a reach at that point and then you're looking at them having to gamble on trading back into the early teens and have the foresight to take McAvoy or Chychrun instead of ending up with Logan Stanley, Dante Fabbro, or Dennis Cholowski. The logic of Pulujarvi was sound if you believed the hype at the time that he was a potential power forward to go with the skill games of their two centers and that you should take the possibly elite player offered to you rather than trading down for a lesser tier.

2017 - Drafted Yamamoto 22nd. What was left for them in terms of D at that point? P-O Joseph, Jokiharju, Nic Hague, Gustav Lindstrom. Depth guys. Looking at the draft around that area I'm not sure what they would've done better unless they were prescient enough to see Jason Robertson coming.

2018 - Drafted Evan Bouchard 10th. There's their D, and it's working for them

2019 - Drafted Philip Broberg 8th. Another D. But this one hasn't worked out. There were some better players picked after that but if we're looking for them to round out their prospect pool it's not like they weren't trying. I'd have to get one of my old draft magazines but IIRC Broberg was decently rated.

2020 - Drafted Dylan Holloway, who's struggling to figure things out. And ok, here there's a case that they could've had Guhle, Braden Schneider, or even Mukhamadullin (who wouldn't be helping them yet, but still). This is probably the first instance of me saying that maybe they screwed things up, but I also don't recall what the discourse was around those players at the time and whether Holloway was reasonably estimated to be superior as a prospect to the others.

2021 - Drafted Xavier Borgeault 22nd. We're into the realm of it being too early to make any significant judgments as most players from that pick range onward haven't even had anything remotely resembling an NHL career yet. Borgeault appears to be underwhelming as a prospect in 2 seasons in the AHL but there's not a staring-you-in-the-face blueliner in that range unless you really liked Logan Mailloux and were willing to weather the firestorm that came with his selection. Sure they would've been better with Wyatt Johnson, but we're not here to arbitrate other forward selections, just that they should've done more on the blueline.

Look, I do think the Oilers are a flawed team and they've struggled to assemble a competent blueline and stable goaltending. But I think that has less to do with them failing to properly address the d-corps in the draft and more to do with them not getting a ton out of their picks in general and not having a lot of picks in areas where there were valuable potential defenders available to them. In the 6 years since the McDavid draft they took 2 defenders with top 10 picks with a 50% success rate, used a top 5 pick on a guy said to have cornerstone potential who didn't pan out, drafted a solid depth forward at a point where they probably would've only walked away with a bottom pairing/depth d-man had they gone that route instead, and appear to have blown it twice on mid/late round selections of forwards where only one of them might've come at the expense of a useful blueliner.

Edmonton's problem hasn't been that they ignored drafting D. It's that they've been scattershot at drafting and whiffed on a couple of top 10 picks in the last 6 years (and that's after whiffing on Yakupov at 1/1 and coming away with Nurse right before Draisaitl and he looked very intriguing right until he didn't.) I'm sure if they were drafting in times where there was a Hedman or Makar (with the benefit of hindsight on what Makar became) waiting for them they could've gone that route. But really the only time they could've probably find a cornerstone blueliner was one year where they could've traded back and walked away with Hanafin, Provorov, Werenski, or even further still and gotten Chabot. But that was the McDavid year and obviously that was never a consideration for obvious reasons.

If anything, this whole exercise reinforces the idea of BPA for me. If they had gone hunting for defenders they wouldn't have come away much better than they did except in trading Holloway for Guhle, which would've come at the expense of sacrificing Yamamoto for Jokiharju or something.

I won't go into a long detail rebuttal, but the reality is the kept going BPA instead of addressing their weaknesses. The idea of "reaching" is dumb to me because if a player works out a player works out. If Edmonton went Chychrun or Sergachev or McAvoy at 3 instead of Puuj then Chiarelli is hailed as a genius. GMs are afraid to go too off the board or even go D or G because of the amount of time it takes to develop. Forwards are always the easiest choice, but if you're McDavid and Leon and you see the choices your GM has made to build a contender include Cody Ceci then I'd be pissed. Saying they wouldn't have come away with anything better is foolish because you don't know where they would have gone.

 

[TheBeard]

Which is basically to say that an equivalent D to solberg/jiricek is being taken 10-15 last year. They're not the 7-8 ranked D in a regular year. I feel like a broken record with trying to break people out of this BPA or "I'm not excited about any of these players at 14" thing. MBN is like Leonard, at least according to Pronman, and these D are pretty solid but not quite at the same tier as Simashev or Reinbacher.

I'm just trying to get ahead of everyone melting down if we pick D at 14.

Honestly, if we only had 14 and we reached for D, I'd be annoyed, but we're literally drafting a franchise center at. 14 is found money and if we end up with say the next Pickles (in terms of defensive longevity) then no one's complaining.

 

[Jargon]

That would really be something.

It’s for sure not happening but my god can you imagine

 

[Zarzh]

I feel like that kind of ignores the context of those years.

So 14 and 15 they took Draisaitl and McDavid. There's their core.

2016 - Drafted Puljujarvi 4th. Obviously he hasn't worked out but he was considered to be in that top tier of players from that draft. But from that spot the next D taken was Olli Juolevi at 5th, who was a massive failure. Sergachev was 8th and would've been a reach at that point and then you're looking at them having to gamble on trading back into the early teens and have the foresight to take McAvoy or Chychrun instead of ending up with Logan Stanley, Dante Fabbro, or Dennis Cholowski. The logic of Pulujarvi was sound if you believed the hype at the time that he was a potential power forward to go with the skill games of their two centers and that you should take the possibly elite player offered to you rather than trading down for a lesser tier.

2017 - Drafted Yamamoto 22nd. What was left for them in terms of D at that point? P-O Joseph, Jokiharju, Nic Hague, Gustav Lindstrom. Depth guys. Looking at the draft around that area I'm not sure what they would've done better unless they were prescient enough to see Jason Robertson coming.

2018 - Drafted Evan Bouchard 10th. There's their D, and it's working for them

2019 - Drafted Philip Broberg 8th. Another D. But this one hasn't worked out. There were some better players picked after that but if we're looking for them to round out their prospect pool it's not like they weren't trying. I'd have to get one of my old draft magazines but IIRC Broberg was decently rated.

2020 - Drafted Dylan Holloway, who's struggling to figure things out. And ok, here there's a case that they could've had Guhle, Braden Schneider, or even Mukhamadullin (who wouldn't be helping them yet, but still). This is probably the first instance of me saying that maybe they screwed things up, but I also don't recall what the discourse was around those players at the time and whether Holloway was reasonably estimated to be superior as a prospect to the others.

2021 - Drafted Xavier Borgeault 22nd. We're into the realm of it being too early to make any significant judgments as most players from that pick range onward haven't even had anything remotely resembling an NHL career yet. Borgeault appears to be underwhelming as a prospect in 2 seasons in the AHL but there's not a staring-you-in-the-face blueliner in that range unless you really liked Logan Mailloux and were willing to weather the firestorm that came with his selection. Sure they would've been better with Wyatt Johnson, but we're not here to arbitrate other forward selections, just that they should've done more on the blueline.

Look, I do think the Oilers are a flawed team and they've struggled to assemble a competent blueline and stable goaltending. But I think that has less to do with them failing to properly address the d-corps in the draft and more to do with them not getting a ton out of their picks in general and not having a lot of picks in areas where there were valuable potential defenders available to them. In the 6 years since the McDavid draft they took 2 defenders with top 10 picks with a 50% success rate, used a top 5 pick on a guy said to have cornerstone potential who didn't pan out, drafted a solid depth forward at a point where they probably would've only walked away with a bottom pairing/depth d-man had they gone that route instead, and appear to have blown it twice on mid/late round selections of forwards where only one of them might've come at the expense of a useful blueliner.

Edmonton's problem hasn't been that they ignored drafting D. It's that they've been scattershot at drafting and whiffed on a couple of top 10 picks in the last 6 years (and that's after whiffing on Yakupov at 1/1 and coming away with Nurse right before Draisaitl and he looked very intriguing right until he didn't.) I'm sure if they were drafting in times where there was a Hedman or Makar (with the benefit of hindsight on what Makar became) waiting for them they could've gone that route. But really the only time they could've probably find a cornerstone blueliner was one year where they could've traded back and walked away with Hanafin, Provorov, Werenski, or even further still and gotten Chabot. But that was the McDavid year and obviously that was never a consideration for obvious reasons.

If anything, this whole exercise reinforces the idea of BPA for me. If they had gone hunting for defenders they wouldn't have come away much better than they did except in trading Holloway for Guhle, which would've come at the expense of sacrificing Yamamoto for Jokiharju or something.

Sergachev or Chychrun were realistic picks for Edmonton, along with Tkachuk at 4, it was just that Puljujarvi fell. McAvoy was just a case of teams not properly valuing his production and wanting to go "BPA", most notably the Sabres felt Nylander was better value for some reason.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Honestly, if we only had 14 and we reached for D, I'd be annoyed, but we're literally drafting a franchise center at. 14 is found money and if we end up with say the next Pickles (in terms of defensive longevity) then no one's complaining.

I agree. Philosophically, I don't think there's an absolute incorrect pick to make at 14. The team still needs everything to varying degrees and we can't assume everyone we've been trading for or picking in the first couple of rounds of Grier's drafts are going to pan out. If the idea is to reach for a D then trading back seems like what they should do. I don't think I would do that because I still very much like our options at 14 or more prefer our options if we managed to trade up to 10-12. But using 14 to pick Solberg or Emery seems inefficient. Those guys should be there at like 18 and I think they can swing a deal to get 18 and 50 from Chicago for 14. Then they can pick one of those two at 18, use 50 with something like 42 or 33 to move into the first round like you suggested before and get another solid draft pick.

I don't think that's a wrong route to take. I only see about 35-40 non-lotto ticket sort of picks in this draft. If we can secure four picks in that realm, that's my ideal draft this year.