Official 2025 NHL DRAFT Thread

[scumpup]

its almost like if we just drafted bpa we'd have 3 more cups

 

[Gregor Samsa]

I don't honestly believe that Martin is going to end up in top 5, nor that we are going to take him in that vicinity.

But i do think there is a chance someone drops a lot further than we think and someone rises a lot further than we think.

If my memory is fine, not saying it is, Simashev, Slaf and Sennecke shot up on draft day. So who has a name that starts with S?

Jackson Smith

I think Cootes will be a pipe dream for teams in the 20’s and he goes top 15

I think the wildcards for this draft that could go much higher than people expect, even in the top 6:

Mrtka
Smith
O’Brien
McQueen
And apparently Martin though I’m doubtful as well. I think this is just a source close to a team in the top 5 telling Button(?) they like him which doesn’t mean he’s the actual pick

 

[Strawberry Fields]

The funniest (and saddest) part of all this is that if the Flyers had just let AI spit out a consensus draft board every year and blindly picked the top name available, they'd be in a much better spot right now.

I asked ChatGPT to compare the Flyers' actual first-round picks over the last 15 years to the consensus best available at each pick. Here's how it went:

2011 – Took Couturier. Consensus was Couturier.
2012 – Took Laughton. Consensus was Vasilevskiy.
2013 – Took Morin. Consensus was Morrissey.
2014 – Took Sanheim. Consensus was Pastrnak. (Kill me.)
2015 – Took Provorov. Consensus was Rantanen.
2015 – Took Konecny. Consensus was Konecny.
2016 – Took Rubtsov. Consensus was Tage Thompson. (Disaster.)
2017 – Took Patrick. Consensus (by draft day) was Makar. (LOL.)
2018 – Took Farabee. Consensus was Farabee.
2019 – Took York. Consensus was Caufield. (everyone knew this was gonna be an issue)
2020 – Took Foerster. Consensus was Foerster/Perreault.
2021 – No first-round pick.
2022 – Took Cutter. Consensus was Cutter.
2023 – Took Michkov. Consensus was Michkov.
2024 - Took Jett. Consensus was Zeev.

Summary:
Every time the Flyers followed the consensus? Pretty good.
Every time they thought they were smarter? Catastrophe.
Not once did we outsmart the board.
The few times we got it right were just because consensus fell into our laps.

So yeah — you could have locked a laptop in a broom closet with a list of Bob McKenzie's rankings each year, and that laptop would have done a better job running the Flyers draft table.

Wasn't Vasilevskiy already off the board by the time the Flyers picked in 2012?

 

[StoneColdAnimal]

Wasn't Vasilevskiy already off the board by the time the Flyers picked in 2012?

No idea. I didn’t fact check it. Maybe I should have…

 

[Magua]

2011 – Took Couturier. Consensus was Couturier.
2012 – Took Laughton. Consensus was Vasilevskiy.
2013 – Took Morin. Consensus was Morrissey.
2014 – Took Sanheim. Consensus was Pastrnak. (Kill me.)
2015 – Took Provorov. Consensus was Rantanen.
2015 – Took Konecny. Consensus was Konecny.
2016 – Took Rubtsov. Consensus was Tage Thompson. (Disaster.)
2017 – Took Patrick. Consensus (by draft day) was Makar. (LOL.)
2018 – Took Farabee. Consensus was Farabee.
2019 – Took York. Consensus was Caufield. (everyone knew this was gonna be an issue)
2020 – Took Foerster. Consensus was Foerster/Perreault.
2021 – No first-round pick.
2022 – Took Cutter. Consensus was Cutter.
2023 – Took Michkov. Consensus was Michkov.
2024 - Took Jett. Consensus was Zeev.

Many of those aren’t true. Chat GPT is probably factoring in re-draft results.

2014: Pastrnak and Sanheim were neck and neck in McKenzie’s poll. Actually, consensus was Kapanen and McCann (2014 NHL Draft Prospect Rankings)

2015: Provorov was the consensus pick. Hell, based on McKenzie it was Crouse (2015 NHL Draft Prospect Rankings)

2016: Rubtsov was absolutely ranked higher by consensus than Tage (2016 NHL Draft Rankings)

2017: Forget Makar, Patrick was still in the mix for consensus #1 (2017 NHL Draft Rankings)

2022: Gauthier was on average 8th — it was McKenzie’s scouts that had him 5th
(The 2022 NHL Draft composite big board)

******

Don’t really need to go into each one. Some are correct. I’m not going to argue against the Flyers almost comically being wrong against consensus since Fletcher/Flahr. But if you pick by consensus, you’ll still miss out on most of these guys; you’d just be aping their mistakes and bad analysis. Picking blind only using stats would actually yield better results.

Now, do HFFlyers Consensus picks. That’s the ticket.

 

[StoneColdAnimal]

Many of those aren’t true. Chat GPT is probably factoring in re-draft results.

2014: Pastrnak and Sanheim were neck and neck in McKenzie’s poll. Actually, consensus was Kapanen and McCann (2014 NHL Draft Prospect Rankings)

2015: Provorov was the consensus pick. Hell, based on McKenzie it was Crouse (2015 NHL Draft Prospect Rankings)

2016: Rubtsov was absolutely ranked higher by consensus than Tage (2016 NHL Draft Rankings)

2017: Patrick was still ranked consensus #1 by plenty of people (2017 NHL Draft Rankings)

2022: Gauthier was on average 8th — it was McKenzie’s scouts that had him 5th
(The 2022 NHL Draft composite big board)

******

Don’t really need to go into each one. Some are correct. I’m not going to argue against the Flyers almost comically being wrong against consensus since Fletcher/Flahr. But if you pick by consensus, you’ll still miss out on most of these guys. Picking blind only using stats would yield better results.

Now, do HFFlyers Consensus picks.

Way to let the facts get in the way of a good story.

 

[Magua]

Wasn't Vasilevskiy already off the board by the time the Flyers picked in 2012?

Yes! 1 pick before. Forget consensus, this is a lesson in using AI.

 

[Gregor Samsa]

I think the hardest thing about scouting, which you can’t necessarily see in highlights or stats but only by watching games is how much a player improved. A player like Sennecke took off in the second half last year. You are trying to project a 17-18 year old kid years from his draft year. An 60-70 pt player who’s shown improvement consistently is probably more intriguing than an 80 pt player who’s plateaued.

 

[Magua]

I think the hardest thing about scouting, which you can’t necessarily see in highlights or stats but only by watching games is how much a player improved. A player like Sennecke took off in the second half last year. You are trying to project a 17-18 year old kid years from his draft year. An 60-70 pt player who’s shown improvement consistently is probably more intriguing than an 80 pt player who’s plateaued.

But then you can also make the mistake of recency bias. Sennecke doesn’t go 3rd overall if his team doesn’t make the playoffs. Overweighing the last sample can lead to mistakes too. I thought Sennecke was a fine 10-15 prospect, but I also didn’t have the strongest read on his raw skill. Looking at his D+1, it was good, but I feel like he didn’t grossly exceed expectations for a “home run” pick over noteworthy names. He slowed down hard his last ~20 games at a point/game. Is that regression after progression? Now, he’s having a good playoffs.

I’ve talked about this before but development isn’t always linear. A great 1st half/slow 2nd half can have as much predictive power as a slow 1st half/great 2nd half for the average prospect. Now, if a player is very young or a rookie or whatever, the latter should mean more.

I’d rather watch a late season sample, but it’s a slight preference at best. I also don’t put any extra weight into playoffs. I put little weight into tournament samples (unless I just don’t have other tape). That’s MY methodology. I like how it works for me.

 

[FLYguy3911]

Most stars in the league have loooong track records of success. They don’t come out of nowhere.

 

[Hockeypete49]

Big Jack Murtagh fan late in round one.

 

[Sombastate]

Jaxson Smith

I think Cootes will be a pipe dream for teams in the 20’s and he goes top 15

I think the wildcards for this draft that could go much higher than people expect, even in the top 6:

Mrtka
Smith
O’Brien
McQueen
And apparently Martin though I’m doubtful as well. I think this is just a source close to a team in the top 5 telling Button(?) they like him which doesn’t mean he’s the actual pick

I think Mrtka is a no brainer top 10 pick. Not necessarily because he's better than anyone, but he appears to be the second best D in the draft and someone is going to need him. O'brien probably as well.

I think McQueen plummets, and i think he should, honestly.

I currently have:

Schaefer
Misa
Frondell
Hagens
Martone
Desnoyers
Eklund
Mrtka
O'brien
Lakovic

I'm sure some people will disagree, but i wouldn't be surprised at all if Mrtka goes up a lot higher than people think

 

[Larry44]

its almost like if we just drafted bpa we'd have 3 more cups

Well, we'd be closer...

 

[Larry44]

Big Jack Murtagh fan late in round one.

Big Jack was born to be a Flyer!

 

[Gregor Samsa]

I think Mrtka is a no brainer top 10 pick. Not necessarily because he's better than anyone, but he appears to be the second best D in the draft and someone is going to need him. O'brien probably as well.

I think McQueen plummets, and i think he should, honestly.

I currently have:

Schaefer
Misa
Frondell
Hagens
Martone
Desnoyers
Eklund
Mrtka
O'brien
Lakovic

I'm sure some people will disagree, but i wouldn't be surprised at all if Mrtka goes up a lot higher than people think

A Mrtka type is a much sought after piece so wouldn’t surprise me if he’s top 5, especially if teams don’t like the upside of the other guys. Maybe Trotz and Nashville get back to their MO and Mrtka/Smith is their pick. Less likely but still possible is if SJ moves back to 2 or 3 and Schaefer is off the board. SJ is looking for dmen, Chicago is looking for forwards

SJ- Schaefer (no brainer)
Chicago- Frondell (great shot and decent frame to play with Bedard)
Nashville- Mrtka/Smith (building from the back end like their good days)
Philly- Hagens (high end playmaker to play with Michkov, and with a chance of sticking at C)/ or Misa (too good to pass him over if he’s there)
Boston- Desnoyers (seems like a Boston type of center that is vanilla but successful)/ or Hagens (Boston native)/ or Misa (can’t pass him over if he’s there)
Seattle- The leftover of Mrtka/Smith

 

[Flyerfan4life]

I'm mentally prepared for 5th overall, which is the highest likelihood.

If the top 5 are Schaefer, Misa, Hagens, Frondell, and Martone? Just go with whichever one is left, right?

Or do you think they would go Desnoyers over one of the wingers?

its 6th and then DB trades back for extra picks in the 12-17 range..

cuz snot n balls..

 

[scumpup]

I think when considering positional need specifically in the instance of Michkov, I think you could play Michkov at center if you pair him with a responsible left winger. Michkov expressed interest in playing center, and I wouldn't really be in the business of telling the likes of Matvei Michkov "no"

 

[Gregor Samsa]

I think when considering positional need specifically in the instance of Michkov, I think you could play Michkov at center if you pair him with a responsible left winger. Michkov expressed interest in playing center, and I wouldn't really be in the business of telling the likes of Matvei Michkov "no"

I would definitely like to try him out there at some point next season. Also if Michkov becomes the player we are hoping for, good chance his center becomes a de facto 1C

 

[RANKKA]

I think when considering positional need specifically in the instance of Michkov, I think you could play Michkov at center if you pair him with a responsible left winger. Michkov expressed interest in playing center, and I wouldn't really be in the business of telling the likes of Matvei Michkov "no"

eh, McKenna - Hagens - Michkov

 

[scumpup]

eh, McKenna - Hagens - Michkov

sure taking BPA can net you that, but Martone is a winger, what if you took Martone and played Michkov in the middle?

 

[Gregor Samsa]

McKenna-x-Michkov

Schaefer-x

Or

x-Roobroeck-Michkov

Schaefer-x

 

[RANKKA]

sure taking BPA can net you that, but Martone is a winger, what if you took Martone and played Michkov in the middle?

cause he is going 3rd

 

[JojoTheWhale]

I feel as if the biggest thing history has taught is that the 60-70 Point guy who improved being better than the 80 Point guy who plateaued is how bad franchises pick. You're assigning arbitrary weights to data and cherry picking sample sizes.

Drafting is already impossible. No need to make it even harder.

 

[Strawberry Fields]

Yes! 1 pick before. Forget consensus, this is a lesson in using AI.

I find GPT useful for some things but it's pretty bad with anything sports related in my experience, lol. I also don't remember Pastrnak or Thompson being "consensus" where Sanheim and Rubtsov were taken in their respective drafts... especially Thompson, who I'm pretty sure was viewed as a late-first project at best. Kapanen and Julien "Sniper" Gauthier are the popular names I remember.

 

[Gregor Samsa]

I find GPT useful for some things but it's pretty bad with anything sports related in my experience, lol. I also don't remember Pastrnak or Thompson being "consensus" where Sanheim and Rubtsov were taken in their respective drafts... especially Thompson, who I'm pretty sure was viewed as a late-first project at best. Kapanen and Julien "Sniper" Gauthier are the popular names I remember.

Also the 2017 draft was a pretty firm top 2 consensus. An AJHL player is risky as hell in the top 3 and only hindsight makes it not so. It’s always easy to say who should have been drafted where years later when you know what the players became