I did just get a $1,200 check.....
Speculation: Roster Building Thread: Part XL
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I did just get a $1,200 check.....
charliemurphy
Registered User
I thought Howden was the next Lindberg. Him or someone like Hajek if given enough games should be up for grabs when Seattle comes around.
egelband
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- Sep 6, 2008
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I actually think Lemieux will age a bit better than many are forecasting. He’s smart, doesn’t really lose his cool. And though he takes a beating, he just appears to me to take it very well. To put it bluntly, I think he has a hard head.
Amazing Kreiderman
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- Apr 11, 2011
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Only an expansion draft claim and move to Switzerland away
Seriously, they have a lot in common.
Top 5 prospects.... how about 10-15 of the top active players? Nobody knows who Connor McDavid is, and it's the entire fault of the NHL.
Amazing Kreiderman
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- Apr 11, 2011
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I had someone ask about 5 years ago if Wayne Gretzky is still playing.
I personally agree with you entirely. I only phrased my post as I did to err on the optimistic side. Frankly, I agree entirely and that’s why I feel the NHL thinking they can “cash in” on a live draft in June right now is absolutely naive and absurd.
Sure, as another poster pointed out, holding the draft before European leagues get back in action (If they get back in action) makes sense. But shoe horning the draft in now it when they haven’t decided if they’ll play the remaining games, if they’ll have a post season, what the post season format would be, etc. is nothing more than a cash grab that won’t grab much cash, IMO.
Amazing Kreiderman
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Whoever gets the top-pick in the draft, will have the most fans watching. No 2 and 3, maybe. Last year, Ranger fans had their highest pick in 53 years so naturally there was hype in NYC, but nowhere near to the extent a 2nd overall pick would generate for the Knicks, Giants or Yankees to name some teams. Hockey fans don't care about the draft.
No one cares about the baseball draft, either. I mean of course people do, but not many. It wasn't long ago where the first/second round had a two-hour thing only broadcast on MLB network and then the rest of it was listening to a bunch of guys you couldn't see read off names into a phone conference call. It was nothing. It's more now than it was, but still generally not much, outside of really die-hard MLB fans. Still, outside of the top two rounds, the vast majority of people just watch names roll in on a draft tracker, knowing that Jim Bob Smith from Bumblescum CC has a live arm but probably won't make it past AA.
UnSandvich
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- Sep 7, 2017
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Yeah, maybe it's different for baseball fans, but the MLB draft is the one I hear about by far the least among the Big 4 leagues in the US (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL)
East Coast Bias
Registered User
There's definitely a positive correlation with interest in drafts and the average time to the pros for the guys drafted.
NFL and NBA are most popular b/c you're looking at guys who will play for your team, or at least compete for a spot.
MLB and NHL - outside of the hard core fans, most people aren't investing 3-5 years in the personal journey of a prospect.
Amazing Kreiderman
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I don't follow the MLB at all. So I don't know to what degree that draft is popular. But the NBA and NFL draft even make the news in the Netherlands, when there is never even a peep on who wins the Stanley Cup. So those 2 drafts are definitely much more popular in general.
Either way, the NHL draft doesn't generate enough hype to, in my opinion, push for it as a cash grab. A mid-season draft is crazy
Oscar Lindberg
Registered User
The NHL is easily the least popular of the 4 major sports. I can understand the logic of trying to force a draft when no other sports are on, but I don't believe it's going to have the massive effect the league hopes.
There are many other things the league can do to make itself more accessible and gain more fans, they just choose not to do those things
There are many other things the league can do to make itself more accessible and gain more fans, they just choose not to do those things
Amazing Kreiderman
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Yeah, but the difference is staggering.
Over the years, NFL used guys like Kurt Warner, Deion Sanders, Terry Bradshaw, Michael Irvin, Warren Sapp and other former NFL stars on their broadcasts. NBC tries to somewhat go that route but you can't really say Keith Jones, Patrick Sharp and Mike Shoebury are on the same level.
I really fail the see the NHL draft being anything close to a cash grab. 90% of Americans would rather tune in for a re-run of the NFL draft than watch the NHL draft live.
Shesterkybomb
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- Dec 30, 2016
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There is likely pressure from the broadcasters to provide some sort of content. I know in Canada the draft would be a huge draw for Sportsnet. I don't like the idea, not having the flexibility to trade picks for players at the draft may cause some serious cap issues for teams that felt that was the route they were gonna go to get some relief or to help in a rebuild. Also I agree that the NHL and its broadcasters need to ditch some old donkeys like Jones and Milbury and replace them with guys like Luongo, Whitney, Bissonette etc. The league really needs to do a better job of providing analysts that people wanna listen to and that might make the draft more watchable for casual fans. It's obvious they aren't listening to the fans, I don't know one single person that wants to hear Milbury or Pierre McGuire so what are they doing there?
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HatTrick Swayze
Just Be Nice
My dream is a 3 on 3 summer tourney. That would get way more fans than a draft.
Summer shinny hockey eliminates the injury risk associated w jumping back into the Stanley Cup playoffs after 4 months off. Can be done in < a month to minimize amount of time players are away from families. Could be an actual ratings win as 3 on 3 is fun to watch.
cc: Gary Bettman
I think I saw that this past NFL draft had the highest ratings ever.
Of course, the NFL has 20x the fans that the NHL does, but I do think an NHL draft could be really good for the NHL. Some more casual fans that don't normally watch the draft would probably tune in, just because there's nothing else new going on. The revenue generated would be a pittance compared to the NFL, obviously, but could still be a decent boost to the NHL overall.
Of course, the NFL has 20x the fans that the NHL does, but I do think an NHL draft could be really good for the NHL. Some more casual fans that don't normally watch the draft would probably tune in, just because there's nothing else new going on. The revenue generated would be a pittance compared to the NFL, obviously, but could still be a decent boost to the NHL overall.
Most Americans would rather watch 90 day fiancé or my 600lb life. Frankly, the NHL draft, under ANY circumstances will never be a genuine cash grab and it certainly won’t be in a year where it’s not done in person and there are no trades. If no one whose name you already know (as a casual-ish fan) is being traded around the league and you’re not even watching your GM or coach or players up on stage handing the jersey to the kid, do you really think a sport like hockey is going to generate a ton of people tuning in to essentially watch a kid named Yaroslav Askarov find out he was drafted over FaceTime? I don’t. I think this draft will have less viewership than a traditional draft despite the lack of other sports options.
The difference I think, is that there are a lot more people like me who watch football here and there, socially, playoffs, occasional Sundays but don’t really follow it who will still tune in for the NFL draft when I have nothing else to do because I can discuss it with my buddies who ARE big football fans and know what they’re talking about next year with the new guys on their team. It’s very likely for me to hop on a conference call and hear “Hey, did you see that huge kid from Missouri that Baltimore took 8th overall?” I also watched stuff like the national championship so I knew a bit more about some of the guys in the draft despite not following college ball.
Hockey doesn’t have a lot of people who aren’t really fans but watch it socially because their friends love it. We don’t have virtually any non-hardcore fans who watch things like SHL playoffs or the memorial cup, so no casuals know who the prospects are. They’re not going to go (or call) into work tomorrow and hear “Did you see that 5’11 kid from Moscow that Minnesota drafted?”
There’s just a lot less allure to tuning into the NHL draft as a casual than there is to tuning into the NFL draft as a casual. I feel like this is a year where the NFL getting more viewership than normal makes sense. I can’t see the same effect carrying over for the NHL, even though that’s what they seem to be banking on.
Oscar Lindberg
Registered User
The league is very set in it's ways, and it has legitimate problems understanding how to market itself. But you're right for sure
That seems to be what they're banking on. I'd be curious to know what the league expectations are though in terms of what success looks like for this.
I think you're largely correct--the "casual fan" effect would be minimal--but you'd also have people like me who don't always watch the draft. I'm a die-hard fan for sure, but many years we have a late pick or no first round pick or whatever and I just follow along online. I would 100% watch the draft this year, no doubt. I watched the NFL draft when I normally turn it off after the Jets make their pick. Just something to watch. So you're getting some amount of casual fans who are just starved for content, you'll guarantee people like me who have a high interest level but "watch" through alternate means, and then your usual base that always watch. I just can't fathom a scenario where it wouldn't pull in an extra 10%-20% of viewers, while also having a lower overhead and direct expenses (since you probably have it like the NFL did where GMs are sitting at a computer in their basement or on their deck or whatever).
There's also a group of people who really love hockey but pay no attention to the draft that would watch. The guy that lives across the court from me is a huge Caps fan, but he doesn't really follow prospects or the AHL or anything beyond anyone mentioned on a Caps broadcast. He already told me when they do the draft, he wants me and a few other guys (all Caps fans) to come to his garage to watch. I won't, because that's crazy right now, but what he's proposing is something that I think would be fairly common thing. People that love hockey, don't care about the draft, who would watch anyway just because they want to listen to people talking about hockey while hockey highlights play.
The reality, though, is that if they come up with some half-baked thing with weird trade rules and all that, f*** it, I'm not interested. If it's a mostly normal draft, I think it's a good thing.
I'll be honest -- I'm a long-time hockey fan and I don't watch the draft....hell, I don't watch any sports' draft.
Well just for example, I have zero interest this year but I usually watch. I watch for the trades and I enjoy watching the kids go up on stage and put the jersey on for the first time. I have no interest in watching a remote draft with no trades. So count me as a watches every year but won’t watch this year, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. So even if it’s a 10-20% increase, there’s probably an offsetting 10% decrease of folks like me. I just imagine it will be absolutely negligible and certainly not worth sacrificing the ability to make meaningful trades and a proper draft lottery over.
I think that the team needs more players like Lemieux , rather than less. Gorton targeted him in a deal and I do not see him moving.
The issue with Buchnevich's next contract is that it comes after next year. Gorton has not shown that he likes to allow pending UFAs like him go for nothing. Which is why I believe that he gets dealt sooner rather than later.
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