Erie Otters 2022-23 Off-Season Thread (Part 2)
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Might be a little dangerous what they’re doing .. almost like they’re trying to obtain older / bigger stronger guys in the present time frame - than draft younger players who will take years and years of time to develop for the future …
Could be due to the fact that we’ve sucked so much for 6-7 years and “ now is get to the playoffs and win a rnd or so time “ but I do like the pick and player
This could be the “ EURO LINE “
Given Stan's MO, it's what we should expect, bigger guys. Given DB's desperation to save his job...
The continuation of selling our souls to just make the playoffs is a real scary possibility, but totally believable given the drought.
That’s my issue with the pick. It’s desperate. It’s likely Misiak is only here for 1 season. So the team just used a 1st overall pick on a player who will be here for 1 year and is probably just a middle 6 guy? That is yet again another incredible waste of resources. Right up there with making trades for guys like Sopa and Gilmartin, DB continues to “rebuild” but only focuses on the here and now and never the future despite the roster and team never being ready for any meaning playoff run. This might be the worst rebuild in OHL history because there is zero vision. We were better off adding another Molnar who at least could play here 2-3 years along with Terrance/Molnar/Spence and Schaefer. But DB made this pick as if we were the Saginaw Spirit, hosting the MC, and ready to make a championship run. Complete waste of a pick for the team to just be bottom half of the league. Delusional, short sighted, desperate, and another reason why DB needed to be fired months ago. JW unfortunately doesn’t have the ability to make tough decisions.
To everybody ripping this pick: who would you have taken and why? And how sure are you your selection would report?
If the current roster sucks so much, why would Misiak only be a middle-six guy? Easily a 2C at the very least, and a very good one at that.
I’m not the GM, it’s not my job to make a pick or tell you who I would take but how about someone younger who might be able to play here for 2/3 years and can develop with your rebuilding roster? Just one idea
And I’m also tired of hearing “you at least need the player to report.” Ok, obviously. Thanks for the deep analysis. That still doesn’t make it a good pick. How about they do a better job at scouting, building relationships, and pursuing players so they can get better players to report. That’s our standard now, just have the player report no matter who? And are we just then assuming Misiak was the only guy who would report? Did they even look in any other direction? Sounds more like they just honed in on him and never looked left or right.
If you have $10 to your name, you are poor. Adding $5 doesn’t make you rich.
Just because he joined a struggling team, doesn’t all the sudden make him really good. Whether he players 1st or 2nd line, his talent at this level screams middle 6 forward. Pretty simple
And I completely disagree. The only way he's not a top-six forward in the OHL is if Erie already has two high-end centers ahead of him. But even then, he's probably more likely to be moved to the wing and still play in the top-six than be buried on the third line. He's an excellent player with very clear top-six upside in the OHL. It just sounds like you've never seen him play.
Do you know what a middle 6 player is? It’s literally the 2nd or 3rd line. And even if he players first line, it doesn’t make him that type of player - just makes Erie a bad team. So that doesn’t make the pick good. I don’t even understand the debate here
Furthermore, my issue isn’t necessarily the talent - it’s primarily the age. Even if he puts up 60-70 points, if he’s a one and done player then it’s not a smart pick when the team is not ready to contend. They should be drafting younger players and building towards something. Not being impatient, especially for a player who underwhelmed in the USHL last year.
It sounds like you work for the team or have close relationships with those that do
I think he was a guarantee to report which, as of recent, is a huge win given our track record of imports for going on 7 years now. Regardless of 1 or 2 years, the franchise has struggled heavily since 2017.
In the ideal world we would have gone after one of the top 3 - 4 rated players, but our inability to get results might have limited our chances for them to report.
If he comes and performs well we will have 2 options:
1. Keep him and push for playoffs
2. Trade him for picks if we are looking at missing
Worst case scenario he is here for an entire year and moves on. He will likely be higher rated than other 04s on the roster who are either on the fringe to be traded/cut or unlikely to be kept as OA players.
He did lead Youngstown in points during the playoffs. His regular season stats are a bit underwhelming and that’s in the USHL, not the OHL. As a Blackhawk’s fan I sure hope there’s more to him than that and that he’s a regular on the Otters top line pretty early in the season. I agree with you completely though. This probably isn’t gonna be the year they’re in the MC Finals so…..as a 2004 that was selected with the 1st Overall pick you’d better hope he comes in and tears it up then gets traded for a haul or else the pick doesn’t really make much sense to me. As far as being asked who YOU would have picked? Well, half the game is building a stable franchise, a proven track record of development, quality billets, establishing connections and RECRUITING. As a Flint fan I complain about that too. It’s not just about the X’s and O’s of who they chose. It’s about how big the talent pool they’re choosing from because they got the first half of the equation right.
Without having a stable program for 7+ years, our options are probably limited more than most OHL teams. If Misiak was the most talented import that would report to Erie, then given the current roster I can't see in any way it's a bad pick. Maybe not the most ideal, but it will hopefully give the organization options, stepping stones if you will, to rebuild a very tarnished reputation over the last few seasons.
If we can rebuild and make playoffs consistently, then we should be able to get back to the hope and a prayer players. They would hopefully want to come to help progress, build their draft image, get used to NA hockey among other things.
Misiak may not be the best, most talented, and will likely be a one and done, but if it fits the need to help turn the program around, it's not a bad thing.
In other words, you have no idea if there are/were better options than Misiak.
And you’re saying that one year of Martin Misiak was the best pick in this years CHL import draft? Ok. I’ll take that bet.
There were certainly younger options…
It’s about the age, folks. They took a player 1st overall who is 19. You have to go back to AT LEAST the 2006 draft to find another team that did such a thing. People trying to defend the pick are hilarious. It’s a bad pick, sorry. Misiak will have to put up 90-100 points for me to change my mind he won’t because nothing suggests he’s that player, the coach doesn’t even have an offensive scheme to allow for it, and the team around him is not good enough to support that. He will be a 50-70 point guy and gone after a year. What a pick!
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He may not be the "best pick" overall in the import draft, but he might have been the "best pick" Erie could get to report and try to make an impact.
It's a better option than swinging at the fence and missing completely, again and again and again.
Perhaps he can help Molnar, who's been a disappointment so far, improve to reach his potential. Then the pick becomes that more valuable.
I am not saying that. I am saying I have no idea either way. So far, I think I’m the only one willing to admit that.
For what it’s worth… I think Pekarcik might’ve been a better option. A player who could have a similar impact to Misiak in the OHL while being a year younger and therefore able to return for another season.
However, Pekarcik’s agency has a couple teams they want to send their top players to every year. They have Lysell, Honzek, Lekkerimäki, Vikman and Titlbach, who all went to Vancouver. They have De Luca and Kral, who went to Spokane. They also have Adam Sykora, who was drafted 1st overall last year and just stayed home, because Medicine Hat isn’t among the teams his agency sends players to.
So yes, Pekarcik might’ve been a better option. But if he doesn’t report, wouldn’t you rather have Misiak instead?
And after that, there really aren’t many players at the same level who are also likely to report.
However, Pekarcik’s agency has a couple teams they want to send their top players to every year. They have Lysell, Honzek, Lekkerimäki, Vikman and Titlbach, who all went to Vancouver. They have De Luca and Kral, who went to Spokane. They also have Adam Sykora, who was drafted 1st overall last year and just stayed home, because Medicine Hat isn’t among the teams his agency sends players to.
So yes, Pekarcik might’ve been a better option. But if he doesn’t report, wouldn’t you rather have Misiak instead?
And after that, there really aren’t many players at the same level who are also likely to report.
Misiak will be the best player on Erie sans maybe Spence and people are calling it a bad pick. At absolute worst third best player on the roster. What a world we live in. At worst flip him at the deadline to a contender for picks.
The issue isn’t the talent, it’s age… how many times does this have to be said? Please find me the last 19 year old selected 1st overall in this draft because I’m curious. It’s probably never happened. For a team that’s rebuilding and for the first time in a long time has some promising young players, it’s both natural and reasonable to get upset about them using one of their better assets, a 1st overall import pick, on a 1 year rental when the team is still 2/3 years away. It’s like 1 step forward, 2 steps back with this team. It’s counterintuitive to current roster and outlook. Can’t even use Misiak to project the team for 2024-2025, which is the roster many are trying to project and look ahead to in order to see the potential/direction of the team
Imports also don’t hold a lot of value or certainly not as much as non-import skaters. He would need to put him big numbers to get a good return but that’s hard to fathom if you say he’s the best or second best player on the roster so he won’t have a lot of support and will have a coach who isn’t an offensive guru to put him in the best position to rack up the numbers. Even in a world where he does put up numbers, it probably means players around him contributed and as such, Erie would conceivably be a better team than recent years and if that’s the case then why would they trade him when they are so desperate for wins? This is the same franchise who has been on the bottom, missing the playoffs, but still traded real assets for deadline acquisitions like Sopa. Easy to try to say “at worst flip him for picks at the deadline,” but nothing in recent history suggests that would be the case or would net a worthy return
There is not a lot of room, at least not if we are being realistic, for this to be a successful pick given the asset used. If the team was hosting the MC or competing for a title run - sure, it makes sense. But likely in that scenario, they aren’t picking 1st overall. They were better off going younger, sacrific a little on talent now in favor of youth, in order to build around Spence/Schaefer. But the facts are DB is in the hot seat and has shown time and time again in recent years that he has zero patience. With the track record of DB, it’s more likely than not Erie bungled the approach than it is that they had sound reasoning…
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Thanks. And finally, a post with actual insight and not just 500 words that boil down to “Brown bad.”
Sorry your feelings got hurt on a team thread that isn’t a scouting service
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