What are your thoughts post draft? Are you a doomer and denier of the Yzerplan, or have you drank the Kool aid? Maybe somewhere in between?
What are your thoughts post draft? Are you a doomer and denier of the Yzerplan, or have you drank the Kool aid? Maybe somewhere in between?
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.