Steals of RHL17 Draft
Yellowknife (CP) The Entry Draft, the most important date on a GM’s calendar. Do I use my pick, or do I trade it away? Do I pick for need or best available? Do I trade up, down or stay put? The bottom line is there is no right answer and sometimes it would take years to know whether the choice you made was a good one or not. Sometimes even the consensus picks can turn out to be a bust (Bonsignore ’94). While there was no doubt which 5 players would be selected first, the order was definitely up for debate. Instead of boring you with volumes of analysis, I’ll just leave you with some picks I felt were steals in this draft.
· 500s – Semen Varlamov (60th pick)
· AVI – Nigel Williams (86th pick)
· CAP – Ian White (45th pick)
· COU – Jordan Staal (3rd pick)
· CRY – Yuri Alexandrov (44th pick)
· EAG – Daniel Girardi (78th pick)
· GAR – Jiri Tlusty (16th pick)
· GPS – Shane O’Brien (47th pick)
· MIM – Chris Summers (87th pick)
· MOU – Artem Anisimov (65th pick)
· ROV – James Sheppard (10th pick)
· TME – Michael Grabner (33rd pick)
· VAM – Ivan Vishnevskiy (71st pick)
Ima Dumass (CP)
posted by Howard | 11:49 PM
5 Comments:
Good list. Don't agree with all of them (just most), but it looks like you put some time into it, and it's at a minimum a good thought provoker.
I suppose I have a little trouble seeing Summers, Sheppard, Grabner and Vishnevskiy as big steals. They're steals relative to their NHL draft position, but relative to where they stand now, with one more year of observation?
Staal was a great get for Daniel. He seems thankful. I don't know how/why he fell to three.
I compared it against the NHL draft and various draft rankings. I tried to find one from each team to stimulate a debate. And yes Staal was the biggest steal in the draft. You could make a case for whoever landed in that #3 spot between Erik Johnson, Staal and Toews.
For me, it was definitely up a toss up between Staal and Johnson. In the end, I don't think that you could lose on either.
As for Summers... leave me alone ;)
I can't disagree with Victor picking up Johnson at number one. Potential franchise defensemans are very rare. Staal may be the best two way centerman in this draft, and he came charging out of the gate last year, but I think his offense is limited (ceiling at 80pts). He's probably going to be a good number 2 centerman in the future.
You can't say that any of the top 10 were steals given their draft positions. Toews, Johnson, and Backstrom haven't even played their first game yet for pete's sake (not to mention the later players that were drafted). Give this a few years, then we'll talk about the steals of the draft.
I hate it when people say that you can't judge a draft for X years. The knowledge we had of the last draft exists in a point of time, after which it becomes subject to insights and developments to which we had no access at the time selections were made. You have to just things in the appropriate context, and adding information to that which was used to make a draft pick distorts that context.
For example, Johnson over Staal. At this time, Johnson becoming a franchise defensemen represents a probability, the actualization of that probability manifests into a value added for his team. Same with Staal, though the difference is that the probabilities of his performance are more certain. People (Scouts) can say Johnson is a sure thing, or he's close to a sure thing, blah, blah. That's crap. There is inherent uncertainty in these players, but less so with Staal.
Is it clear that Staal, just because of that certainty, is the better pick? Obviously not. But it seems like people may be ignoring that just because he is highly regarded now Johnson is not without significant risk.
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