NHL 2022 Draft

[BigTed3]

My updated Top 20, with Wright rising up again and Slafkovsky's standout performance at the Olympics, proving that his game translates to playing against better competition and that he's not just dominating lesser players...

1. Wright

2. Savoie

3. Slafkovsky

4. Nemec

5. Cooley

6. Kemell

7. Yurov

8. Jiricek

9. Nazar

10. Miroshnichenko

11. McGroarty

12. Mintyukov

13. Gauthier

14. Lambert

15. Salomonsson

16. Lekkerimaki

17. Casey

18. Luneau

19. Trikozov

20. Mesar

[electron58]

On 2/19/2022 at 9:01 PM, BigTed3 said:

My updated Top 20, with Wright rising up again and Slafkovsky's standout performance at the Olympics, proving that his game translates to playing against better competition and that he's not just dominating lesser players...

1. Wright

2. Savoie 

3. Slafkovsky

4. Nemec

5. Cooley

6. Kemell

7. Yurov

8. Jiricek

9. Nazar

10. Miroshnichenko

11. McGroarty

12. Mintyukov

13. Gauthier

14. Lambert

15. Salomonsson

16. Lekkerimaki

17. Casey

18. Luneau

19. Trikozov

20. Mesar

Finland may be the Olympic gold medalists, but the 2022 Winter Olympics will likely be best remembered as the coming out party for a 17-year-old Slovakian who etched his name in the Olympic record books, skated off with tournament MVP honors and helped his country to its first Olympic hockey medal.  His name is Jraj Slafkovsky, and hockey fans won’t soon forget it after he led all players with seven points, all goals, in the Beijing Olympics.  A lot more about him stood out besides the gaudy goal total and the cage IIHF rules required him to wear since he’s not yet 18. The 6-foot-4 forward, who will turn 18 next month, worked his way from the fourth line to the first line and will go down as an Olympic hero in a country that had not yet experienced such success on the biggest stage in international sport.

A very dominating performance by Jraj Slafkovsky.  Certainly complicates things. If we keep winning, we may "lose the fight for Wright".  Any way you look at it, we have to take the BPA!  So, depending where we pick? I hope they've done their homework. 

[BigTed3]

Russian news reporting Miroschnichenko has a "serious health condition" and will be out for the remainder of the season and longer... his draft stock will plummet between this and being Russian. I wonder if he'll be available at the top of the 2nd round.

[BigTed3]

40 minutes ago, BigTed3 said:

Russian news reporting Miroschnichenko has a "serious health condition" and will be out for the remainder of the season and longer... his draft stock will plummet between this and being Russian. I wonder if he'll be available at the top of the 2nd round.

Now rumored that he has lymphoma and will miss all of next season as well.

[claremont]

5 minutes ago, BigTed3 said:

Now rumored that he has lymphoma and will miss all of next season as well.

That's a shame - don't wish ill will on anyone let alone an upcoming youngster. With the Russian Oligarchs who own many of the KHL teams in trouble, I wonder if NHL teams will gamble on the top rated russian youth players (not playing here), and move them up into the 2nd or 3rd rounds, You would think that the problems in extracting Russians from KHL contracts may now be easier?  Alternatively, I could see some NHL teams boycotting some Russian draft picks for public relations reasons

[jennifer_rocket]

17 minutes ago, BigTed3 said:

Now rumored that he has lymphoma and will miss all of next season as well.

Yikes. Very serious condition indeed. Must be pretty devastating as the kid is on the cusp of realizing his dream.

[ramcharger440]

5 hours ago, jennifer_rocket said:

Yikes. Very serious condition indeed. Must be pretty devastating as the kid is on the cusp of realizing his dream.

Yeah no matter what is going on right now he is a young man and this is a crap thing to happen to anyone.

[maas_art]

I note that Ken Hughes' son Jack is ranked in the second half of the first round. Im curious if we take a flyer on him, especially if we end up getting a couple more 1st rounders... 

[electron58]

2 hours ago, maas_art said:

I note that Ken Hughes' son Jack is ranked in the second half of the first round. Im curious if we take a flyer on him, especially if we end up getting a couple more 1st rounders... 

Jack Hughes

Player Profile
D.O.B – November  2, 2003
Nationality – Canada/USA
Draft Eligibility – 2022
Height –6’0″
Weight –165 lbs
Position – Center
Handedness – Left

Team -- Northeastern University  -  Freshman year

Ranked anywhere between #23 & #62.

Projection
If he can work on shot and passing mechanics, his production will go up and we could be looking at a solid two-way center that you could place on your second line.

Top-six physical playmaking center

Skilled playmaker who plays a mature two-way game. His upside may be limited but his floor is relatively high and he should grow into an impactful third line NHL center at the very least.

Prospect has terrific speed & a long, productive, smooth stride. Can dangle through sticks or attack off the edge. Sees the whole ice and has a quick release. High ceiling. Late 03 earned A at U14 Nationals. 

Might be worth a look.

[campabee82]

40 minutes ago, electron58 said:

Jack Hughes

Player Profile
D.O.B – November  2, 2003
Nationality – Canada/USA
Draft Eligibility – 2022
Height –6’0″
Weight –165 lbs
Position – Center
Handedness – Left

Team -- Northeastern University  -  Freshman year

Ranked anywhere between #23 & #62.

Projection
If he can work on shot and passing mechanics, his production will go up and we could be looking at a solid two-way center that you could place on your second line.

Top-six physical playmaking center

Skilled playmaker who plays a mature two-way game. His upside may be limited but his floor is relatively high and he should grow into an impactful third line NHL center at the very least.

Prospect has terrific speed & a long, productive, smooth stride. Can dangle through sticks or attack off the edge. Sees the whole ice and has a quick release. High ceiling. Late 03 earned A at U14 Nationals. 

Might be worth a look.

I wouldn't mind, if he was the best player available at that spot. Hopefully we don't just draft him because of who his father is.

[jennifer_rocket]

8 hours ago, campabee82 said:

I wouldn't mind, if he was the best player available at that spot. Hopefully we don't just draft him because of who his father is.

I'm leaning towards not drafting him.

I just don't think it would be a great idea to have the son of the GM in your organization. I feel like their will be an unspoken pressure to advance his development, possibly at the expense of others.

[Manatee-X]

43 minutes ago, jennifer_rocket said:

I'm leaning towards not drafting him.

I just don't think it would be a great idea to have the son of the GM in your organization. I feel like their will be an unspoken pressure to advance his development, possibly at the expense of others.

Or the opposite (don't want to appear to "play favourites").  Either way, though, I agree that it would be a really tough line to walk and probably not worth it.

 

[campabee82]

2 hours ago, jennifer_rocket said:

I'm leaning towards not drafting him.

I just don't think it would be a great idea to have the son of the GM in your organization. I feel like their will be an unspoken pressure to advance his development, possibly at the expense of others.

 

1 hour ago, Manatee-X said:

Or the opposite (don't want to appear to "play favourites").  Either way, though, I agree that it would be a really tough line to walk and probably not worth it.

 

Agree with both of these

[BigTed3]

Lots of discussion about the value of draft picks in other threads, and I've done this before, but let's go and re-visit some of the drafts that are maturing now to see how valuable these picks ended up being. I'll start with 2016.

- 1st round: 26 of 30 players have played at least 50 NHL games. 8 of those have become veritable 1st line forwards/top pairing D, all of whom were drafted in the top 16.

- 2nd round: 18 of 30 have played at least 50 games; 2-3 are top-line quality.

- 3rd round: 4 of 30 have played 50 games; 1 top-line player

- 4th round: 8 of 30 have played 50 games; no top players

- 5th round: 1 of 30 has played 50 games; no top players

- 6th round: 3 of 30 have played 50 games: no top players

- 7th round: no players with 50 games or more.

So we can see here that there are 10-11 top-tier players to have come out of this draft, 3/4 of which came from the top 16. Of the 60 regular NHLers to come from the draft (note that's an average of 2 per team per draft), almost half came from the first round and most of the rest came from the 2nd.

Now let's look at 2017:

- 1st round: 27 of 31 have played at least 50 games; 8 have in my view become top-line players (including Oettinger as a starting-caliber goalie). 4 of those players came from the top 5 and the other 4 were drafted at 13, 19, 20, and 26, with a shot for Necas to move up that board as well, having been drafted at 12.

- 2nd round:10 of 31 have played 50 games; only 1 is top-line worthy so far (Robertson)

- 3rd round: 1 of 31 has played 50 games; no top players

- 4th round: 4 of 31 have played 50 games; no top players

- 5th-7th round: no players with 50 games or more yet

Here we are 5 years post-draft and we have only 42 regular NHLers, with 2/3 of them having come from the first round. If the 9 top-tier players, 8 were from round 1 and 4 of those were in the first 5 picks.

So I'll reiterate a few points I've made before here:

1. Teams that hit on 2 players per draft are doing well.

2. Good teams don't miss on their 1st round pick.

3. Finding top-tier players (1st line forwards, top-pairing D, starting goalie) really requires picking in the 1st round. Finding stars usually requires picking in the top 5-8. Can you find stars lower down? Absolutely. But the chances are significantly slimmer.

4. Finding regular NHLers requires picking in the first two rounds. After that the odds drop off, and it's more of a crapshoot from round 3 onwards.

So think about this when we're assessing trades. It probably takes acquiring 7-8 mid-rounds picks to get the value you would get from acquiring one 1st round pick. Picks that are later than the early 3rd round don't hold a lot of value on their own, they only hold value by virtue of being one of many chances to hit. If we're applying this to some of the situations Hughes is facing now, consider

- Trading Lehkonen doesn't make much sense if you're getting just one mid-range asset back. If you're only getting a late 1st, it's not giving you much chance of finding a player who moves the needle and is clearly better than Lehkonen. If another team is throwing in a 3rd round pick or later, that asset is virtually worthless. So to me, you need two strong assets coming back to make the gamble worth it (that means two assets that are either 1st rounders or early 2nd's or prospects who were chosen in the 1st or early 2nd). A late 2nd doesn't cut it for me. A 3rd does nothing. If the offer is a late 1st and a 3rd, you're not getting much more than a 1st alone.

- Trading Kulak for a 3rd or 4th rounder also doesn't get you much return. It's getting you a player with a 10-15% chance of playing in the NHL ever, never mind whether they actually forge out a career as good as Kulak's. The rumored asking price for Kulak is a 2nd rounder, and that tells me Hughes and Gorton have done their homework about the value of draft picks. If you can't get that 2nd rounder and you think you can re-sign him to a reasonable deal, he's likely more valuable staying here.

- Drouin is a guy who I think will play much better under MSL. That said, I still don't believe he'll re-sign here after next season. Using the above, I think he's worth a 1st rounder, but because I think you'll lose him for nothing if you don't trade him in the next year, I'd be more likely to simply take a 1st for him without nitpicking about getting that 2nd asset. That could change if his value rises under MSL, but for now, I think you move him if you can get that 1st back at any point.

- Petry is team-controlled for 3 more years. He's still our best defenceman despite his struggles. If the return is a 2nd and 3rd, for example, you can see that doesn't move the needle much. The benefit here would only be getting out of the contract, but for the next year or two, I don't think we're a team that needs all its cap room to win a Cup, so does it matter much to get out from it? To me, it doesn't. I don't think the "next guy up" as a RHD is going to be any better than Petry, so I deal Petry if I get that 1st rounder back as part of the package, but I'm not just moving him to move the salary. I think he has more value to us playing here than getting a 2nd rounder or 4th rounder and playing Savard, Brook, Ouellet, or Fairbrother more.

[electron58]

CRAIG'S LIST

1  Shane Wright Kingston (OHL)          C    6'0    185
2  Logan Cooley    USA U-18 (USHL)   C    5'10    174 
3  Juraj Slafkovsky  TPS (SM Liiga Jr.)    C/LW    6'3 ½    218 
4   Simon Nemec    Nitra (SVK)            D    6'0    190 
5    Joakim Kemell    JYP (SM Liiga)    RW    5'11 ¾    171
6  Cutter Gauthier    USA U-18 (USHL)    LW    6'2    189
7  Pavel Mintyukov    Saginaw (OHL)    D    6'1 ½    192
8  David Jiricek    Plzen (CZE)  D    6'3    189    29    5    11
9  Jimmy Snuggerud USA U-18 (USHL)  RW    6'1 ¼    186
10 Jonathan Lakkerimaki    Djurgardens (SWE J-20) RW

[H_T_L]

Anybody watching the prospects game??

[kinot-2]

8 minutes ago, H_T_L said:

Anybody watching the prospects game??

Forgot it was on. 

[H_T_L]

4 minutes ago, kinot-2 said:

Forgot it was on. 

Messy play so far as can be expected with lines thrown together.

[kinot-2]

Just now, H_T_L said:

Messy play so far as can be expected with lines thrown together.

I like it because the players are trying to impress the scouts. 

[H_T_L]

2 minutes ago, kinot-2 said:

I like it because the players are trying to impress the scouts. 

Beats  watching the Leaf game and their shameless promotion of that ugly Beiber jersey 

[H_T_L]

Red team looks so much bigger then the white team. Must be the cameras.

[kinot-2]

2 minutes ago, H_T_L said:

Beats  watching the Leaf game and their shameless promotion of that ugly Beiber jersey 

Just turned on the laffs game for a bit, and Giordano cleary tripped a jersey player, he went to the box for the penalty, and after a confab, refs let him out. 

[H_T_L]

Pretty goal.

[H_T_L]

And again.

[kinot-2]

Tic-tac-toe.