Niagara Icedogs 2024-25 Season, Part II
- Thread starter SoupNazi
- Start date
knowescape
Made you look
Would you agree the usual denomination for high ranked players is a number of 2nd picks? No one makes a trade for a boat load of 4ths. That's like paying with pennies.
Anything beyond a 4th (maybe 5th) round pick is an insignificant surplus. They don’t acquire elite players.
Unfortunately, that is what DD meant, when he told fans in the concourse, “we have lots of picks”. Not to be overly mean to DD (who does not look well) but he honestly doesn’t get it.
16 spots - 17 picks. One unconfirmed conditional 3rd. Missing 2nd 2025. Not good, nor a surplus for IceDog fans to brag about.
The way I see it; Chromiak, Eliasson, Loshko, Molnar, Uronen are all one year imports that were not going to play for their respective teams and were not going to return value equal to their talent.
Fastpace
The Devil's Advocate in Person
I would firmly assert that the higher the selections, the greater the likelihood of success. Fortunately, the teaching at the minor level has greatly improved in recent times. Many late developers will fall down the draft lane somewhat, with a good team of scouts, teams find them and develop them very well. If you have the extra 3rd, 4th or even 5th picks they are still very valuable, but in general, yes, 2nd picks are easier to trade in order to improve and get the player that is needed
NB ‘25-3rd & (KIT 5th already used in trade) is for Zito playing as an OA for Windsor. Niagara, NB, and Windsor all get their *pick(s) in that circle trade. PBO ‘28-3rd is unconfirmed but can be counted I think.
The person responsible for the most recent Niagara off-season does get it imo.
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No one has confirmed it. Makes me believe it is not linked to Reid otherwise they would have been the first to get that out to all media outlets. Recent words spoken by DD, “we don’t want any negative press, only positive”
IceDogs employ a league low 5 scouts. The league average is just under 10 scouts per team and there are teams that have scouting staffs counting in the mid teens. It’s a pathetic situation here and he was been told numerous times by disgruntled STHs to do something about it.
Fastpace
The Devil's Advocate in Person
Understand the situation here, the pressure is definitely on, not much room for the skeleton scouting team to make errors here, I am they must be in contact with the league central scouting as well, but that don't beat the eyes on the players
knowescape
Made you look
Unfortunately, Niagara does not have the best record for player development or scouting. I can't think of the last time someone came to the IceDogs and was polished to shine brightly. To the contrary, I've seen players get worse or get much better when they are traded.
Good coaches, assistant coaches, and scouts all cost money that the current team owner doesn't want to invest in enough.
knowescape
Made you look
Having eyes on the players is only one part of the equation. You can watch video, read reviews and trust someone else's assessment in many cases. What you can't do, is foster those relationships with the player, his family, or his agent. That face to face, or even phone to phone contact during a draft year is crucial. So too those late round flyers that you take a chance on. Who knows what makes a guy forego one plan for another? The human factor is a big determinant, and unfortunately Niagara's is missing.
Fastpace
The Devil's Advocate in Person
It may be so, or it may appear to be so, most of us are on the outside looking in, we don't really know for a definite fact what is going on in their doors, we can be very good at the guessing game, thought, or even at assuming, but I do read you
But if you look at rounds 1 - 5, they only have 21 picks, which is a surplus of just one pick. For a team that hasn’t made the playoffs for 4 seasons, they should have a huge surplus but they don’t. The IceDogs asset management is terrible.
Cheynowski is not an OHL level defender. We’ve seen him get burned so many times this year. I want to like him but I can’t, he’s just not good, in fact he sucks.
