Come on STI. There isn’t a realistic trade down where they would likely still get Nemec. He was clearly the guy they wanted.
You also can’t call it a need pick because you had Wright above or because most people did.
Lots of people had Nemec as a top 2 guy. The Devils and Fitz very possibly could’ve.
If you believe what Fitz is saying he saw there as being 4 guys with similar upside.
So if Slafkovsky went and he views Nemec, Wright, and Cooley as similar level prospects with similar upside as he’s suggested than it makes all the sense in the world for him to take Nemec. But that doesn’t mean it’s a need pick.
They were also obviously perfectly aware that Montreal could take Slafkovsky and very likely were extensively prepared for that situation. Suggesting otherwise is dumb. You know full well they went in with a plan and we’re prepared for the possibility of Slafkovsky being taken first. If Nemec was the guy there wanted it’s hard to picture any realistic trade back where they can still get him.
I was a starch supporter of trading down if Slaf was off the board. Two problems.
1- Realistically, if a team was going to trade to 2OA it would have been for Wright. Center is such a coveted position. Something happened…there was a sense that Wright himself had *perhaps* become a “white flag” prospect (before this gets nitpicked, it is not a commentary on my personal opinion as I simply would not know). When word starts to spread about a player’s compete level being questionable, that is a serious concern. The reality is we simply don’t know if there is more to his fall than we know. As a result, 2OA, which should have had far more value than it did, was possibly not the “power spot” we all imagined.
Seattle was interested in Nemec at 4 and I’d suspect they were confident he’d be there (or had another player they liked as much). If Cooley was Arizona’s guy, they surely knew he’d be there at 3. So who does Fitz make a trade with? Philly at 5? Hard to make a blockbuster with a division rival. The only viable possibility would have been Columbus with 6OA and 12OA but we don’t know what they thought about Wright.
I know a lot of my fellow Devils fans won’t want to hear this but who is to say the Devils didn’t have Nemec over Wright? Arizona had Cooley over Wright so this may not be as outrageous as one might think. Opinions are just speculation and pure conjecture. We simply do not know.
In regards to, if the Devils drafted “X” player last year or the year before, they’d have drafted “X” player here….admittedly, I am guilty in this line of thinking, as well….but it’s kind of silly if you think about it. We could say, “what if the Devils didn’t draft Zacha and took Barzal…maybe they win more games and are then not in the magical spot to win the draft lottery for Hughes.”
I agree Fitzgerald has not been good at managing assets in past drafts. With that said, I think he’s taking way too much unjustifiable heat here. I liked this pick (though I preferred Jiricek) and applaud him for having the conviction to bypass Wright. That took cojones.
