- Aug 5, 2011
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Prospect Info: Charlie Stramel, C, 21st Overall, 2023 NHL Draft
- Thread starter Minnesota
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USHL is the league the where USDT plays in a lot of games. He'd already spent 2 years playing there and had 7g/8a in 16 games the prior season. Full ride to play college hockey was the right choice for him imo.
A confluence of things imo:
1.) Billy likes big boys
2.) Wild are the shortest team in the league and theyve been that or around that the entire time Billy's been GM - which im sure he doesnt like
3.) Billy loves USNTDP guys
4.) Billy likes guys that fight and play physical
5.) Billy likes high confidence guys and Stramel seems to fit that too
6.) Billy loves to draft guys who were ranked higher and then fell lower as the draft came. Theyve done it a lot - like every 1st round pick he's made fits that criteria: Rossi, Wallstedt, Yurov, Lambos, even Ohgren i think fell a bit from where people had him projected.
If I was going to list the reasons for Stramel cope (which idk that I believe) it'd be :
1.) He probably shouldnt gone to college so soon (established cope from draft day)
2.) Wisconsin was a mess his first year (again established cope)
3.) Big guys maybe take longer to adjust to NCAA (this was new cope Billy offered over the summer)
4.) He got injured to start this season (new cope)
5.) His new coach brought a bunch of mankato guys over with him and they found success without him. So maybe he's kind of a bit on the outside, looking-in as far as the role and icetime he has (me inventing new cope now)
- Dec 10, 2012
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By all accounts, Guerin has been very hands off at the draft until 2023 (which is probably at least partially why that's the one bright spot, but I digress), and has left it to Brackett and team to find the BPA. This year, we practically have evidence that Guerin instructed them to go against that philosophy to take size and/or position.
So I don't think point 6 is necessarily a trend from Guerin, I think it's just the scouting staff seeing the value in those specific players.
- Dec 10, 2012
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It was an interview with Brackett where he said something to the effect of "sometimes you need to draft position instead", not totally sure of the phrasing, I'm trying to find it again
- Dec 10, 2012
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Here it is
Doesn't take all that long to get into the stuff you don't really wanna hear as a fan
"No we were pretty confident he was gonna be there [at 21]"
I don't really want to pick a player that you know is going to be there because no one else wants him that high
"We talked all week about the need, it's so hard to find a center with his size, the skating ability, the grit, the jam, he fits a lot of our identity, and sometimes need trumps a little bit more than the skill value"
Reporter: is that what made him the target, the position but also the way he plays the position
"It's the position but it's also...[word salad but the gist is they've watched him for a long time now and he's struggled, but he isn't the first and he owned it and they're still believers in his upside]...but he's a big body, skates well, likes to play a heavy hard physical game with some power and grit."
He basically said everything except for explicitly phrasing it as "we took him because of his position and because he's gritty, not because he was the best player available".
I don't really doubt that he was somewhere on the list, I think they liked him to a degree, I'm really not trying to eternally shit on the kid and I want him to succeed, but he was not the BPA on their list, and Judd and his team have given no reason for us to believe that they would diverge from their BPA strategy they've employed since he got here, unless there was outside influence.
- Dec 10, 2012
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That I don't know, but I also didn't look for one, so it may exist and I just haven't seen it.
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I hope one day we find out who he would have taken instead. Selfishly, and I know I just said I'm cheering for the kid, but if there was some degree of outcome that Brackett could use to say "see? we're never doing that shit again, get out of my office" when Bill comes knocking next summer, I wouldn't be upset about it
What has Brackett done to get any type of sway like that? Nobody he's picked has been a winner so far. Rossi is having a decent year, but I'd have him behind several guys drafted after him in a mock re-draft. I split the credit 50/50 for draft guy and GM for Wallstedt because it did involve trading up.
TBH if he tired something like that with GMBG he'd be escorted out of the building within the hour.
- Dec 10, 2012
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I don't really feel like I need some type of Brackett success to point at to prefer them picking BPA over picking a guy because he plays center and is big.
I'm just saying the way they've been doing it hasn't yielded any results. So doing something different isn't a bad thing per say. I'm saying this as someone who don't like the GM and didn't like the pick.
I don't have a problem with the GM overriding the draft guy (who has a little to no success wit picks outside of the top-10). I think all 1st round picks (maybe top-45ish) the GM needs to be very hands on with. They really only need to have in-depth knowledge of 10-12 prospects for each pick. These are where most of the NHL players come from, and he's the one building the team to be what he wants it to be. After that it should be mostly the draft/scouting guy making the picks finding the guys that could/should have a chance to be NHL players.
BPA is also a very arbitrary thing with very little consensus, even from the experts (let alone all of us armchair QBs), after the first couple of picks each year.
Saga of the Elk
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Nobody? Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes are pretty good, if you manage to stay up that late (I usually don't). Easy to say maybe Jim Benning overrode his advice in other years (as some Canucks fans suggest re: Juolevi), but Brackett has looked pretty good for the most part, including his early returns in Minnesota.
How can you judge a guy as having little success when he’s only been here for around 3 years and you took away any credit for a top 10 pick he had in his first year. Prospects take time to develop if they are not top 10 picks.
Dr Jan Itor
Registered User
You're all really misremembering. We took Heidt with our 1st rounder and Stramel at the end of the 2nd.
I just know that everyone was surprised, if not Filip Johansson shocked, that we took Stramel over some of the other players available. There were some C's with decent or better size available, most of whom had impressive showings in their draft year(unlike Stramel).
Edstrom, Wahlberg, and Ritchie were all 6'2"+ C's that went after Stramel. Two are playing better than Stramel in a better league- Ritchie was injured, but is now back.
the Kumpu and Heidt picks look solid.
Edstrom, Wahlberg, and Ritchie were all 6'2"+ C's that went after Stramel. Two are playing better than Stramel in a better league- Ritchie was injured, but is now back.
the Kumpu and Heidt picks look solid.
I feel like there is a pretty gripping reaction to him as a player. I like the way he’s been playing of late. More assertive. Actually carries the puck and tries to make a play. He’s setup a number of scoring chances the last few games that if it was Lucius or DSP getting the puck they would have scored. Power forwards take longer to develop than skill players. I could absolutely see him explode if he puts it together. The potential is there.
Would I have preferred Edstrom? Yes. Is it worth talking about anymore? No. I’d rather focus on the positives of him as a player and monitor his progress.
Would I have preferred Edstrom? Yes. Is it worth talking about anymore? No. I’d rather focus on the positives of him as a player and monitor his progress.
BagHead
Registered User
My main surprise was that they didn't take Edstrom after Guerin had gushed praise for Swedes two months earlier. He was also the guy I wanted at that time. I was not overly surprised with the Stramel pick, though I was a underwhelmed by it. I love the Heidt pick, but once he moves up to the pro level we'll see if he fell for good reason. I hope not.
The rest of the Nuks drafts were pretty terrible, FFS do I really need to put an outside of the top-5 or top-10 qualifier on everything. On the flip side what if it was Benning that overrode his advice and took Hughes and EP on his own? The later round picks are what makes a good scouting/draft department.
His early returns for MN are pretty much nil for NHL players.
Saga of the Elk
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Might want to be patient.
Picking the top scorer (so far) of the draft 5th overall is amazing work. What Hughes has done being picked 7th overall is ... also good. Plenty of teams make the wrong choices in the top 10 and also later in the 1st. People love Dallas's drafting, for example, but Miro Heiskanen wasn't born last time they won the Cup.
If there was a scouting department that consistently found NHL players late in the draft, they wouldn't be in the hockey world, they'd be in the finance world making real money based on their ability to see the future.
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