Shero time in the Devils organization.

[Triumph]

Speaking of prospects, I feel like their development was another strike against the Shero regime. The only success story was Coleman and he was a late bloomer. I feel like they deserve part of the blame for Zacha’s lack of development. McLeod, Bastian, Yegor, and especially Bratt only took the next step after he was gone. You can argue lumping Hischier under that, and even though I wouldn’t agree with it I wouldn’t hold it against you. The AHL teams were dire.

These players also happened to have gotten older after he was gone too.

 

[hidek91]

But we were never in a million years taking a defenseman at #6 with the 2015 pick...

We had Severson, Merrill, Larsson, Santini, Gelinas, Jacobs just drafted the year before and bunch of guys in the AHL like Helgeson, McPherson, Hrabarenka, Scarlett and Burlon who looked like they could be at least emergency call ups

We really had no forwards anywhere in system.

You fix that by picks in later rounds, there's no way you draft for "a need" when you have a #6 pick in your hands.

 

[Triumph]

You fix that by picks in later rounds, there's no way you draft for "a need" when you have a #6 pick in your hands.

What? You don't fix that with picks in the lower rounds, especially when there's only 6 D spots and 12 forward spots. Drafting for need is fine in rare spots, and the Devils were in a rare spot.

That said, it's very very funny to see who is saying the Devils 'had nothing' in 2015.

 

[hidek91]

What? You don't fix that with picks in the lower rounds, especially when there's only 6 D spots and 12 forward spots. Drafting for need is fine in rare spots, and the Devils were in a rare spot.

That said, it's very very funny to see who is saying the Devils 'had nothing' in 2015.

I completely disagree. You don't give up on BPA at the top of the draft because you have Hrabarenka and McPherson in the prospect pipeline, that's not how it works. If you want to build a contender, your goal is to find at least star players in the top 10 and ideally a franchise player.

If you believe that the Player A has 20% chance of becoming a franchise player and the Player B has 10% chance of becoming one, you go with the Player A ten times out of ten and worry about fixing your "needs" by using other routes and not by using the most valuable asset that your team has.

IMO, there's no way competent GMs draft for a need if it doesn't align with BPA.

 

[JimEIV]

What? You don't fix that with picks in the lower rounds, especially when there's only 6 D spots and 12 forward spots. Drafting for need is fine in rare spots, and the Devils were in a rare spot.

That said, it's very very funny to see who is saying the Devils 'had nothing' in 2015.

I didn't say they had nothing...I said they had no forwards....

I actually said quite the opposite of "had nothing"...I implied that they were stacked on defense. Which they pretty much were.

And that is really some bullshit using quotes like I actually used those words when 'had nothing' was nowhere in my post at all.

 

[Triumph]

I completely disagree. You don't give up on BPA at the top of the draft because you have Hrabarenka and McPherson in the prospect pipeline, that's not how it works. If you want to build a contender, your goal is to find at least star players in the top 10 and ideally a franchise player.

Nobody said anything about Hrabernka and McPherson. The Devils were considerably stronger on D among their young players and prospects. In 2015, they had Larsson, Severson, Merrill, and Gelinas getting regular ice time on the Devils. All 4 of those guys would also play on the 2015-16 team. Throw in Santini and compare it to Boucher, Quenneville, Matteau, and Wood, and it's no contest. The Devils did something in 2015 I've almost never seen a team do before or since, they signed an overage player playing in junior and let his contract run one year - he was immediately one of the best forward prospects, if not the best, in the organization.

If you believe that the Player A has 20% chance of becoming a franchise player and the Player B has 10% chance of becoming one, you go with the Player A ten times out of ten and worry about fixing your "needs" by using other routes and not by using the most valuable asset that your team has.

When you invent a bunch of percentages, you can justify anything.

IMO, there's no way competent GMs draft for a need if it doesn't align with BPA.

And I disagree, there's just no way that you can compare players across 6 positions (we can call it 5, C, W, LD, RD, G) at varying ages in different leagues like 'BPA' is a real thing. An organization can pretend it's real, but if they did, they would almost certainly run into a spot where they were wildly short on one or more of those things. Now if you ask, should a competent GM get into the place where they should think about drafting for need, I would say absolutely not, and I don't like that Shero put himself in that spot by 2019 too, but if you do draft BPA all the time, there is a not-insigificant chance that you will run into that spot by default - that you just won't be picking goalies, or some other position will get totally neglected. There's some thought that both Walsh and Rykov were 'need' picks and that Popugaev and Bratt were higher on the team's list, I don't remember where I read that. Still, given that the Devils have drafted a goalie every year since 2015, I think goalie has always been a need pick for them, and that they are resolved to in every draft, pick a goalie.

That said, I think teams should almost never draft for need in the 1st round. The only time they should is when they are in a rare spot like the 2015 Devils were, and good organizations never get themselves there.

I didn't say they had nothing...I said they had no forwards....

I actually said quite the opposite of "had nothing"...I implied that they were stacked on defense. Which they pretty much were.

And that is really some bullshit using quotes like I actually used those words when 'had nothing' was nowhere in my post at all.

My apologies, misremembered, should've gone back to check. Had no forwards, okay. Do we want to go back to 2015 where this was argued about constantly, and you said they did have forwards and I said they didn't?

 

[JimEIV]

Nobody said anything about Hrabernka and McPherson. The Devils were considerably stronger on D among their young players and prospects. In 2015, they had Larsson, Severson, Merrill, and Gelinas getting regular ice time on the Devils. All 4 of those guys would also play on the 2015-16 team. Throw in Santini and compare it to Boucher, Quenneville, Matteau, and Wood, and it's no contest. The Devils did something in 2015 I've almost never seen a team do before or since, they signed an overage player playing in junior and let his contract run one year - he was immediately one of the best forward prospects, if not the best, in the organization.



When you invent a bunch of percentages, you can justify anything.



And I disagree, there's just no way that you can compare players across 6 positions (we can call it 5, C, W, LD, RD, G) at varying ages in different leagues like 'BPA' is a real thing. An organization can pretend it's real, but if they did, they would almost certainly run into a spot where they were wildly short on one or more of those things. Now if you ask, should a competent GM get into the place where they should think about drafting for need, I would say absolutely not, and I don't like that Shero put himself in that spot by 2019 too, but if you do draft BPA all the time, there is a not-insigificant chance that you will run into that spot by default - that you just won't be picking goalies, or some other position will get totally neglected. There's some thought that both Walsh and Rykov were 'need' picks and that Popugaev and Bratt were higher on the team's list, I don't remember where I read that. Still, given that the Devils have drafted a goalie every year since 2015, I think goalie has always been a need pick for them, and that they are resolved to in every draft, pick a goalie.



My apologies, misremembered, should've gone back to check. Had no forwards, okay. Do we want to go back to 2015 where this was argued about constantly, and you said they did have forwards and I said they didn't?

Apologies accepted.

Perhaps I am remembering it wrong but I always remember those arguments being about the prospect pool.

Severson, Santini, Gelinas, Jacobs, Quenneville, Boucher, Blandisi, Coleman and Wood +6 overall + picks from Jagr and picks from Zidlicky coming up that summer in a draft that was touted as deep as 2003. I'll always contend that was a good enough pool to start over.