Oneiro
Registered User
- Mar 28, 2013
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If it’s about luck, then you should be careful about looking for “role players” on principle. Especially because what do we demand from role players? A fairly responsible game with some level of offense. I think both of those traits, for lesser NHL players, are experience driven. Most cup teams buy their Cirelli or Hintz. I think the lack of offensive upside is too obvious with our recent picks. I don’t know how many of them could project favorably. From the outside, the process seems a bit too democratic as well.I’m not generally against what you’re saying but I think it’s also overstated.
The last statement makes it seem like it’s easy to find valuable scoring wingers late in the draft, rather than the Devils got lucky a few times. You can get lucky and surprised with types of players other than scoring wingers too.
Maybe they got lucky with Cam Squires or Orlov? Who knows yet.
Even if the Devils only ended up with Filmon and Vilen becoming more just a guy then that would be pretty awesome late round drafting over the last 4 years.
I also think there’s a difference between many of the forwards we have picked recently and say Joey Anderson and certainly Boqvist. Now both of those guys are nothing players at the NHL level but they’ve stuck around long enough to suggest that their toolset was at least attractive to a number of NHL teams. As Triumph mentioned, I don’t know if there’s even anyone with the same persistent upward trajectory as Zetterlund in our system. We haven’t seen any surprises since Filmon’s big year.