Your Rebuild Opinion? Next Move Coming?

[Frk It]

That's not how drafting works. When your scouts suck, it's gonna be much higher likelihood.

At this point there aren't many people here hoping Wallinder, Neiderbach or Hanas will wind up being anything significant. Peterka, Evangelista, and Faber all had some hype pre-draft, but Stevie/Draper/Hakan went for the "safe" picks. Not really sure what the point of a "safe" pick is, especially past the first round because that just means AHL/SHL fodder.

Wallinder and Hanas were definitely picks where we were chasing upside. I thought Wallinder deserved to go in round 1. Go back and read a scouting report on Hanas, he was very much considered a skilled forward.

I’ll say it again, there is way more luck involved with your picks from rounds 2-7 hitting than people on here want to acknowledge.

 

[RabidBadger]

Agreed. Building a team of safe picks doesn’t really give you high end players. Outside of the top 3, you need to take some swings. At least mix it up with swings and safe picks.

Off the top of my head, Seider was the swing of swings. I was at that draft party in the LCA and that pick stopped everyone in their tracks. Tuomisto and Wallinder were known "project" players. Trading up for Cossa and picking him over Wallstedt was a big swing for that draft. Taking Danielson before ASP would blow most people's minds today, let alone taking either of them when Gabe Perrault was still on the board.

I'd say it been mostly predictable with the draft choices. You have to be comfortable that sometimes when you swing you get a Brady Cleveland.

 

[Run the Jewels]

Wallinder and Hanas were definitely picks where we were chasing upside. I thought Wallinder deserved to go in round 1. Go back and read a scouting report on Hanas, he was very much considered a skilled forward.

I’ll say it again, there is way more luck involved with your picks from rounds 2-7 hitting than people on here want to acknowledge.

You seem to have a problem acknowledging how bad our NA scouting and drafting has been.

Rd2 Draft Picks between 2016 and 2020

North America
Hits (100+ NHL games)

1. Givani Smith (168 games)

Misses

1. Cross Hanas
2. Robert Mastrosimone
3. Jared McIsaac

North American hit rate: 25%

Europe
Hits (100+ NHL games)

1. Albert Johansson (will hit 100 this season)
2. Jonatan Berggren
3. Gustav Lindstrom (174 games)
4. Fillip Hronek

Misses

1. William Wallinder
2. Theodor Niederbach
3. Antti Tuomisto

European hit rate: 57%

Calling Givani Smith a hit is embarrassing, yet here we are. Hronek is a first pairing defenseman, Berggren is a middle six winger capable of putting up 10-15 goals, and Johansson and Wallinder still have some upside. Lindstrom is basically Givani Smith and Tuomisto was a Tyler Wright special.

You've yet to find a way to slice the data to create a compelling case that suggests our North American scouting isn't garbage. 30 years, Tyler Wright era, Early Yzerman era, etc, etc, etc. It'a all bad.

I do hope it improves as we aren't wining a Cup with our s**tty drafting out of the US and Canada, but I'm simply not willing to bury my head in the sand and waive away that long track record of ineptitude.

 

[Frk It]

You seem to have a problem acknowledging how bad our NA scouting and drafting has been.

Rd2 Draft Picks between 2016 and 2020

North America
Hits (100+ NHL games)

1. Givani Smith (168 games)

Misses

1. Cross Hanas
2. Robert Mastrosimone
3. Jared McIsaac

North American hit rate: 25%

Europe
Hits (100+ NHL games)

1. Albert Johansson (will hit 100 this season)
2. Jonatan Berggren
3. Gustav Lindstrom (174 games)
4. Fillip Hronek

Misses

1. William Wallinder
2. Theodor Niederbach
3. Antti Tuomisto

European hit rate: 57%

Calling Givani Smith a hit is embarrassing, yet here we are. Hronek is a first pairing defenseman, Berggren is a middle six winger capable of putting up 10-15 goals, and Johansson and Wallinder still have some upside. Lindstrom is basically Givani Smith and Tuomisto was a Tyler Wright special.

You've yet to find a way to slice the data to create a compelling case that suggests our North American scouting isn't garbage. 30 years, Tyler Wright era, Early Yzerman era, etc, etc, etc. It'a all bad.

I do hope it improves as we aren't wining a Cup with our s**tty drafting out of the US and Canada, but I'm simply not willing to bury my head in the sand and waive away that long track record of ineptitude

How many times can you re-hash this same argument?

We get your point. This is why Holland is gone. This is why Tyler Wright is out of the league. And as others have pointed out, it’s just pretty early to judge Yzerman’s drafting… Although we have seen some promise with Lombardi, Mazur, Danielson, Plante, Augustine, Cossa, etc. - As you yourself have acknowledged.

I will again say I don’t think you understand how opportunity cost works. Multiple first round picks used on Euro’s means our team is going to have more Euro’s than NA players. It doesn’t matter if NA typically produces better talent as a whole if we aren’t picking NA players with premium picks. And our scouts have been making the right call as far as that goes with Seider, Raymond, Edvinsson. Hell probably with Kasper too.

You guys can point to other teams hitting on NA players in rounds 2, 3, 4 but that doesn’t make it any easier to hit on picks in that range. Feel free to tell us what players we should draft in that range if you think it’s easy to do. (This goes for anyone, not just you)

 

[Frk It]

And just in case you need to hear me say it out loud for whatever reason….

Not only do I think our NA scouting was bad under Holland/Wright, I think our amateur scouting in general was bad during those years and it set the franchise back considerably.

The first top 10 pick of this re-build was Michael Rasmussen and I would have never f***ing done that.

 

[deca guard]

goes to show how important 1st rd pix are . ide like to trade for another 1st this draft since everybody rates draft group so weak making pix cheaper to aquire because yzerman will still dig another top prospect up in a weak draft

 

[Voodoo Glow Skulls]

And just in case you need to hear me say it out loud for whatever reason….

Not only do I think our NA scouting was bad under Holland/Wright, I think our amateur scouting in general was bad during those years and it set the franchise back considerably.

The first top 10 pick of this re-build was Michael Rasmussen and I would have never f***ing done that.

I remember exactly where I was at when I saw the pick.

 

[Winger98]

goes to show how important 1st rd pix are . ide like to trade for another 1st this draft since everybody rates draft group so weak making pix cheaper to aquire because yzerman will still dig another top prospect up in a weak draft

I do have to wonder how cheap it would be to get another pick in the top20. Would someone like NYR deal 12OA to dump a contract? (they still have it as far as I can tell because it was top13 protected).

 

[deca guard]

I do have to wonder how cheap it would be to get another pick in the top20. Would someone like NYR deal 12OA to dump a contract? (they still have it as far as I can tell because it was top13 protected).

yzermans proving to be a drafting EDGE = utilize this edge

 

[better Red than Dead]

You seem to have a problem acknowledging how bad our NA scouting and drafting has been.

Rd2 Draft Picks between 2016 and 2020

North America
Hits (100+ NHL games)

1. Givani Smith (168 games)

Misses

1. Cross Hanas
2. Robert Mastrosimone
3. Jared McIsaac

North American hit rate: 25%

Europe
Hits (100+ NHL games)

1. Albert Johansson (will hit 100 this season)
2. Jonatan Berggren
3. Gustav Lindstrom (174 games)
4. Fillip Hronek

Misses

1. William Wallinder
2. Theodor Niederbach
3. Antti Tuomisto

European hit rate: 57%

Calling Givani Smith a hit is embarrassing, yet here we are. Hronek is a first pairing defenseman, Berggren is a middle six winger capable of putting up 10-15 goals, and Johansson and Wallinder still have some upside. Lindstrom is basically Givani Smith and Tuomisto was a Tyler Wright special.

You've yet to find a way to slice the data to create a compelling case that suggests our North American scouting isn't garbage. 30 years, Tyler Wright era, Early Yzerman era, etc, etc, etc. It'a all bad.

I do hope it improves as we aren't wining a Cup with our s**tty drafting out of the US and Canada, but I'm simply not willing to bury my head in the sand and waive away that long track record of ineptitude.

To further belabor your point, the US National Team Development Program is like 30 minutes from LCA offices? And the area has how many OHL teams? And how many major D1 hockey teams? We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to having indie knowledge and scouting and yet we can’t seem to get it totally right there

 

[RedHawkDown]

Oh also St Louis got Fowler for a 2nd and an AHLer. Another core player and would have solved the Seider partner problem. Playing insane hockey in STL.

 

[RedHawkDown]

Wallinder and Hanas were definitely picks where we were chasing upside. I thought Wallinder deserved to go in round 1. Go back and read a scouting report on Hanas, he was very much considered a skilled forward.

I’ll say it again, there is way more luck involved with your picks from rounds 2-7 hitting than people on here want to acknowledge.

And I'll say it again, the likelihood of all three of your 2nd round picks in a draft like 2020 failing like they have is 1 in 500.

 

[RedHawkDown]

How many times can you re-hash this same argument?

We get your point. This is why Holland is gone. This is why Tyler Wright is out of the league. And as others have pointed out, it’s just pretty early to judge Yzerman’s drafting… Although we have seen some promise with Lombardi, Mazur, Danielson, Plante, Augustine, Cossa, etc. - As you yourself have acknowledged.

I will again say I don’t think you understand how opportunity cost works. Multiple first round picks used on Euro’s means our team is going to have more Euro’s than NA players. It doesn’t matter if NA typically produces better talent as a whole if we aren’t picking NA players with premium picks. And our scouts have been making the right call as far as that goes with Seider, Raymond, Edvinsson. Hell probably with Kasper too.

You guys can point to other teams hitting on NA players in rounds 2, 3, 4 but that doesn’t make it any easier to hit on picks in that range. Feel free to tell us what players we should draft in that range if you think it’s easy to do. (This goes for anyone, not just you)

This argument is always infuriating. We dont have full-time jobs scouting players and aren't being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by an NHL team to do it. The fact that other teams can regularly hit on players in rounds 2/3/4 is precisely evidence that it can be done. It shows that our scouts f***ing suck after the 1st round. The comparison should be between our scouts and other scouts, not our scouts and random people online that just have YouTube videos and online resources to read lol.

And for the record, tons of us in 2020 wanted Peterka, just as one example.

 

[Winger98]

Plugged in 30% for a cahnce at success, and three tries at that percentage, I guess we'd still have a 34% chance of total failure. Though I just used a probability calculator.

and that lack of faith in Cross Hanas is disturbing.

 

[Frk It]

And I'll say it again, the likelihood of all three of your 2nd round picks in a draft like 2020 failing like they have is 1 in 500.

I don’t think you understand how statistics work.

This argument is always infuriating. We dont have full-time jobs scouting players and aren't being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by an NHL team to do it. The fact that other teams can regularly hit on players in rounds 2/3/4 is precisely evidence that it can be done. It shows that our scouts f***ing suck after the 1st round. The comparison should be between our scouts and other scouts, not our scouts and random people online that just have YouTube videos and online resources to read lol.

And for the record, tons of us in 2020 wanted Peterka, just as one example.

Being possible doesn’t make something realistic or doable.

If it’s not luck then how come these teams aren’t hitting on their 2nd rounders every year?

Maybe because there is a lot of guesswork and luck involved?

Curious to know which teams are “regularly” hitting on players in rounds 2, 3, 4.

We also have a few 2nd rounders tending extremely well at the moment between Buch, Augustine, and Plante.

 

[RedHawkDown]

I don’t think you understand how statistics work.

Being possible doesn’t make something realistic or doable.

If it’s not luck then how come these teams aren’t hitting on their 2nd rounders every year?

Maybe because there is a lot of guesswork and luck involved?

Curious to know which teams are “regularly” hitting on players in rounds 2, 3, 4.

We also have a few 2nd rounders tending extremely well at the moment between Buch, Augustine, and Plante.

Please tell me how statistics work then? Because that number is precisely how statistics work lol.

And many of these teams have been doing it multiple years, not just once. I gave plenty of examples a few pages back. Does luck play a role? Of course. Is it all luck? Not even close.

Our late round drafting has been trash for almost two decades.

EDIT: To your point about teams regularly hitting on players in later rounds. I'll leave out the elite drafting teams like CBJ and Washington which already prove my point anyways. But just for fun, here's a few. I went back to 2014, so just one decade.

Anaheim: Luneau, Zellweger, Colangelo, Moore, Dostal, LaCombe, Thrun, Troy Terry, Pettersson, Montour, Steel, Mahura, Kase

Canes: Sebastian Aho, Brett Pesce, Jackson Blake, Foegele, Nedjelkovic, Nicolas Roy, Steven Lorentz, Kotchetkov, Drury, Morgan Geekie, Luostarinen..

Boston: Lohrei, Poitras, Swayman, Studnicka, Carlo, Lauzon, Donato, Heinen, Frederic, Lindgren.

We have been one of the worst drafting teams in the NHL lol. First round under Yzerman has been lights out, and probably the best in the NHL, I'd say, which has saved us. But even average 2nd and later drafting would have us in the playoffs by now easily.

 

[stillwater]

Please tell me how statistics work then? Because that number is precisely how statistics work lol.

And many of these teams have been doing it multiple years, not just once. I gave plenty of examples a few pages back. Does luck play a role? Of course. Is it all luck? Not even close.

Our late round drafting has been trash for almost two decades.

You mentioned the Blues. I challenged you to show us all the great 2nd round Blues picks.

You haven't.

 

[RedHawkDown]

You mentioned the Blues. I challenged you to show us all the great 2nd round Blues picks.

You haven't.

Because they have found a different way to be successful. The point isn't that our second round drafting has to get us a Protas or Aho. Or that our pro scouting has to be St. Louis level.

But something other than 1st round drafting has to be far above NHL average for us ever to have a chance at being a contender. It can be pro scouting through free agency, it can be trades, it can be late round drafting, it can be any combination of these, or just a really good version of one of them. But it has to be SOMETHING other than just drafting top 10. As it stands now, literally everything is C tier or below in this front office other than 1st round picks.

There's many ways to build a great team. The only way to do it solely through the draft is getting a MacKinnon/Matthews/McDavid/Crosby/Ovechkin/Malkin etc level talent, or multiple of them. We weren't lucky enough to get that.

And, anyways, since you brought it up - the Blues have had a total of one (1) second round pick from 2019-2023 (in 2019). In that time, we have had 12 2nd round picks. Not really a fair comparison regardless. And funny enough, we've had a hit rate of 2/12 (17%) making the NHL so far (Johansson and Soderblom), and their 1 pick (Alexandrov) also has had NHL games, so their rate is technically 100%. And then if you go back further, it's evne more hilarious. Here are ALL of the Blues 2nd round draft picks since 2014:
Barbashev (hit), Letunov, Dunn (hit), Kyrou (massive hit), Kostin (hit), Perunovich (hit), Alexandrov (hit, if you're going to count Johansson/Soder). They've had 8 of their last 9 2nd round picks make the NHL, a crazy 87.5% hit rate.

St Louis hasn't had enough picks to really see if they're really good or just average at drafting, but they've recently weaponized those picks to pick up fantastic talent and set themselves up super well. And they've made the playoffs almost every single year while doing it. They've got a core of Thomas, Kyrou, Snuggerud, Holloway, and Parayko complemented by great players in Buchnevich, Fowler, Broberg, and Faulk, and then have Dvorsky and Jiricek coming, with young guys like Neighbours and Bolduc also looking to improve.

So, your point falls completely flat, no matter how you try to slice it.