Wright, Slafkovsky, Cooley : Time to make that final decision

[MD thaivuN]

5 Professional scouts out of 10 choose him over Wright I refuse to believe it.

I believe it because if there's something NHL scouts and execs loves, it's Ooga Booga size.

 

[sampollock]

I honestly think Hughes will acquire the 2nd overall pick. We draft both.

Petry to Dallas or Pitt for their first. Then that pick plus Anderson and 26 for 2

what I hope you are Wright..lol

that would make that building go nuts in MTL

 

[Vachon23]

 

[Canadienna]

Wonder if Nick's team Shane or team Slaf

 

[Richard Bolton]

Wonder if Nick's team Shane or team Slaf

It's a coded message - his opinion doesn't matter so much on his scouting for these 2 players because they're drafting... neither!

 

[salbutera]

Wonder if Nick's team Shane or team Slaf

That response was Captaincy worthy..

 

[Kaladin]

Looks like Bob's ranking turn the voting % from 87% to $84%.

If we made this thread after bobs ranking you’d see a much tighter result. Most people just voted Wright because they thought he was consensus 1st overall. Clearly, mostly everyone knows now that isn’t the case thanks to Bob Mac.

 

[WeThreeKings]

 

[Natey]

I get the feeling he has a Shane Wright dart board.

He's going off again today...

I'd rather forfeit the pick than have to read posts by him.

 

[BergevinBurner]

He's going off again today...

Why would I take the guy that puts up no points "busting his ass" over the guy that lights up the opponent while "loafing"
All that tells me is that if the right coach/environment can light a fire under him then he's going to be an absolute monster.

 

[Kennerback]

I watched Slav's olympic goals, I wouldn't make too much of those stats for bragging rights.. not one NHL goalie in that 5 goal output, really hard to get a read off of that performance. He has a nice little snapper, but.. who on earth are these goalies?

Little public track record. Scary for sure… What I did like is he stands where he wants in the slot completely disregarding grown men around him. Also his last goal is his signature move. He’ll come out of the corner and shoots when reaching the middle of the slot. He does that often…. Can he replicate that in the NHL? Beyond my pay grade

 

[SlafySZN]

Wonder if Nick's team Shane or team Slaf

He’s team Cooley.

 

[Kennerback]

He’s team Cooley.

Slaf and Wright have had their fair share of bashing, here’s question marks about Cooley. Two-way centers that size are few and far between. His speed and stick handling are impressive, but unlike the two-others, he’s never had big scoring seasons when he was 14,15,16. If he’s not much of a finisher at the NHL level what‘s left?

 

[Colezuki]

Cough, wrights been talking with lecavalier and St. Louis

 

[NORiculous]

So MSL and Lecavalier talked with Wright recently. This gives me the feeling that the Habs aren’t sure who they are taking #1 yet.

Obviously if the issue with Wright is his drive/compete level then MSL can have a direct effect on this, or at least he can help evaluate it, same with Lecavalier.

I know Hughes wants to know what the causes were and I’d guess that these conversations will be a factor in the final choice.

There is a huge gap between generational (pre-COVID) and how scouts now see Wright. Why did a bunch of kids progress and he didn’t.

Has Wright hit a plateau or will he eventually resume his initial projections. That gap is huge so Hughes probably trying multiple things to get answers.

 

[SlafySZN]

So MSL and Lecavalier talked with Wright recently. This gives me the feeling that the Habs aren’t sure who they are taking #1 yet.

Obviously if the issue with Wright is his drive/compete level then MSL can have a direct effect on this, or at least he can help evaluate it, same with Lecavalier.

I know Hughes wants to know what the causes were and I’d guess that these conversations will be a factor in the final choice.

There is a huge gap between generational (pre-COVID) and how scouts now see Wright. Why did a bunch of kids progress and he didn’t.

Has Wright hit a plateau or will he eventually resume his initial projections. That gap is huge so Hughes probably trying multiple things to get answers.

Maybe MSL and Lecavalier had the same kinda talk with the other players they are considered? So they can have a feeling on each of the players so they can discuss better with the scouting teams and Hughes, Gorton.

 

[Nedved]

ya, he's the best and most complete player, of course he would be hard to pass up.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Has Wright hit a plateau or will he eventually resume his initial projections. That gap is huge so Hughes probably trying multiple things to get answers.

Hitting a plateau implies your game stays the same or the competition got too good and you can't use your skills anymore. None of the two can be true of Wright's 2022 season, which makes it all the more puzzling.

His game changed. More passive, playing like a turtle hidden in its shell, buried deep into a cerebral game. So strange.

And even if his own crop caught up with him, it doesn't make sense that the entire league would now be "tougher competition" for 17 years old Wright compared to when he was 15.

 

[Kennerback]

When did Slafkovsky have a big scoring season?

Cooley’s not a goal scorer, he’s a playmaker.

I would say 30 goals in 23 games as a U-16 shows a scoring touch. You might say, the league could be weak, well Cooley has never had anything close to that ratio. Can Cooley score 20 goals in the NHL? If you knew he wasn’t would you still draft him? And some people compare Cooley seriously or not to all undersized forwards that was successful in the NHL, the latest being Sakic. Sakic scored about 250 goals from 15 to 17. Has Cooley scored that many since he’s been in Novice?

 

[SlafySZN]

I would say 30 goals in 23 games as a U-16 shows a scoring touch. You might say, the league might be weak, well Cooley has never had anything close to that ratio. Can Cooley score 20 goals in the NHL? If you knew he wasn’t would you still draft him? And some people compare seriously or not to all undersized forwards that was successful in the NHL, the latest being Sakic. Sakic scored about 250 goals from 15 to 17. Has Cooley scored that many since he’s been in Novice?

Why are we arguing over Cooley and Joe Sakic and goals scoring.

All i did was making a joke about suzuki being team Cooley because all we hear about is Wright/Slafkovsky

 

[Sorinth]

So MSL and Lecavalier talked with Wright recently. This gives me the feeling that the Habs aren’t sure who they are taking #1 yet.

Obviously if the issue with Wright is his drive/compete level then MSL can have a direct effect on this, or at least he can help evaluate it, same with Lecavalier.

I know Hughes wants to know what the causes were and I’d guess that these conversations will be a factor in the final choice.

There is a huge gap between generational (pre-COVID) and how scouts now see Wright. Why did a bunch of kids progress and he didn’t.

Has Wright hit a plateau or will he eventually resume his initial projections. That gap is huge so Hughes probably trying multiple things to get answers.

Having conversations could mean anything really so I'm not sure we can read much of anything.

The good news for me is that it seems like Vinny and Marty will have a say on who gets drafted, it's important because in terms of actual scouts it's still mostly the team Bergevin assembled and I trust those two way more then the rest.

 

[Kennerback]

Why are we arguing over Cooley and Joe Sakic and goals scoring.

All i did was making a joke about suzuki being team Cooley because all we hear about is Wright/Slafkovsky

No foul. I might be team Cooley too, like Suzuki. I was just saying Cooley has his own question marks like the 2 others.

 

[JeffreyLFC]

Little public track record. Scary for sure… What I did like is he stands where he wants in the slot completely disregarding grown men around him. Also his last goal is his signature move. He’ll come out of the corner and shoots when reaching the middle of the slot. He does that often…. Can he replicate that in the NHL? Beyond my pay grade

He is definitely no Kotkaniemi. Way stronger on his skate and a better skater. My issue with him is clearly the hockey IQ. I think he forces too many passes and he has a tendency to try to much on his own, which is ironic because I feel Wright is the opposite, he should try to do a bit more on his own sometime.

 

[SlafySZN]

No foul. I might be team Cooley too, like Suzuki. I was just saying Cooley has his own question marks like the 2 others.

I never said he didn’t, but i really don’t understand why we’re talking about goal scoring, he’s a playmaker no one ever said that his best attribute would be scoring goals…

 

[Kennerback]

I never said he didn’t, but i really don’t understand why we’re talking about goal scoring, he’s a playmaker no one ever said that his best attribute would be scoring goals…

Sure he’s a playmaker. Do you have a comparable for a small 2 way center that you could justify drafting at number 1? No one will accept him scoring 15 goals. How many goals is sufficient?