I'm more to drinking the kool aid. I don't follow the minors much, so I have no firm opinion on these kids. But I like what I see. Hopefully they pan out.
Detroit Redwings - LGRW!
A place to discuss all things Hockeytown. Trust the Yzerplan and LGRW!
I liked our first round picks, but I think our drafting... Or maybe scouting strategy is pretty bad overall. And it's not a unique feeling to this draft.
Yzerman and Draper have reiterated they go with their board, which means these big, not offensively talented D apparently are highly valued to them, which confuses me, since everything about them sounds like bottom pairing.
We are taking these safe, boring players who aren't going to score goals, when both the Wings and farm system are devoid of goal scorers. I think we should be swinging for the fences more and taking players, that while they themselves have flaws, puck skills and goal scoring not being one of them. There are tons of highly skilled risky players in the 2nd and 3rd, and we took goalies and big D. It feels like they want to win a championship by bunting.
I loved the NDN and Bicker picks, but out of 9 day two picks, we spent wayyy too many ignoring our organizations biggest need. Goals.
Please let's not become the Carey Price era Canadians. Eventually we need to stop getting out shot every game and start controlling the game like the good ole days, but when our scouts are looking for the next great bottom pairing d... It makes me lose confidence.
I think Draper has spent too much time with Hollands scouting staff over the years, and their bad habits have been ingrained in him.
I agree with your thoughts on the drafting strategy. I would like to see a few more swing for the fence boom or bust picks. Especially with the 3 second round picks. More towering defencemen can only do so much when we can't score goals.
Edit: I will say I like the goalie pick in the second round
While I don't hate the goalie pick, I'm in general not a fan of filling the goalie needs in our farm system by using high picks, if even using picks at all given 1) our general lack of success in finding a good goalie since Howard, and 2) the never ending stream of young third string goalies that get waived all year long. Some of whom are good enough to win the cup.
Goalies are voodoo, and they would be the last thing I worry about at the draft.
Even the Cossa pick I was not a fan of. He looks good, but we gave up what could have been two legit scorers.
While I agree that I'd like to see us take more high-upside scoring picks in the draft, I think Yzerman has essentially resigned that they could almost come from anywhere at this point but they want to make sure our high picks are solid to build NHL depth.
I feel as though these past two years of not hitting in the lottery has left us realizing that we probably are going to free agency for top talent, or possibly a trade longer term. It's simply a lot more difficult than people think to just snag elite scoring in a draft. If the plan is to build a base around solid NHL centers and defense, and then acquire elite scoring wings, I'm okay with that. I'm guessing free agency next off-season will be huge for us, depending on how this year goes and how long term contracts shake out for seider and Raymond.
I was hoping for more spicy trades and general chaos, but realistically the first round went how I expected it. Danielson was a bit of a surprise, but I'll trust Steve on that one. Very excited for Sandin-Pellikka, I liked what I heard about him a lot.
I expected us to try for more pure goal-scoring forwards, a little bummed that it feels like we almost exclusively drafted defensemen in the first few rounds, but defense wins championships so I'm not too worried.
Curious to see how they all pan out, I imagine it'll be a few years before we see them in the show.
I’m interested in the draft, but it’s tough to get too high or low at this point…I mean I think they’re improving, but I still don’t really know what to expect.
I have never watched any of the players drafted so I have no idea if these guys are going to be the next Larkin/Seider or Svetchnikov/Cholowski. I was hoping for a trade to bring in some scoring since I have no idea how the young players will fill the Bert/Vrana/Hronek voids. So I'm more in between, I'm hoping these picks turn out, but I'm sick of trading away players for draft picks 7 years in a row and really want Yzerman to spend money /draft capital/prospects to get the team competitive again.