Thoughts on expansion draft

[yave1964]

Some clear and obvious picks (Fleury, Neal, Perron) some trades (Reilly Smith, Grabovski) some wierd picks (Connor Brickley, Thorburn) made for an interesting night.

 

  First the awards show, man I wish the NHL did not try to go all hipster every year and play like Joe Cool, just think they could do better than that. Not saying it needs to be all serious but the campy badly scripted banter was awful. I did get goose bumps watching Bickell on the stage with his wife choking up, I thought that was wonderful. 

 

  As for the awards, I woulda went Babs over torts but either way you cannot go wrong, I woulda went Karlsson over anyone in the world but Burns was amazing last year and his defense was good, not as good as his offense but good. I just think that Karlsson may be the most complete player in the world at any position not named Crosby and you can make a case for him being the best in the game.

 

  Now to the draft.

 

Picks that puzzled me include, Thorburn who is awful and done. I know they basically threw the pick away to not draft Enstrom and they are getting picks out of it but they could have held out for someone who was useful, maybe a Dano.

 

Connor Brickley??????? WTF was my first thought but then I read this morning that trevor Van Riemsdyk is getting traded today to the Hurricanes for a pick and possibly a prospect so that was likely part of another side deal. If they wanted Brickley they could have waited until late September and claimed him on waivers.

 

Teemu Pulkinnen 4th organization in a little over a year, best shot in the AHL has not translated to the NHL but man he looks good on film. Looking over the Coyotes options there werent many so sure, why not.

 

It looks as if Marc Methot is almost certainly being dealt to the Stars today and Colin Miller, late of the Bruins is likely gone to the Leafs. The strategy was to draft as many defenseman as possible to move to other clubs for prospects/picks which is smart. They arent going to win with that crew anyway.

 

  Fleury looks like he is gonna stick around, the face of the franchise and all that whereas Neal will probably be dealt in the next few days in the same manner as the defense. 

 

 Shea Theodore and Nate Schmidt will likely make up their top pair on defense and is solid. Beyond those two if they do indeed deal Miller, Methot and TVR they will be a bunch of aging slow guys with eroding skill. 

 

  Absolutely no center depth at all. None. Grabovski could be their 1C which is beyond awful but teams left nothing out there to take. Nosek from the Wings/Griffins had a brilliant playoff run and is a responsible in his own zone with a small window to have a career because of his age but may be a smart pick to play middle six center. As for the Wings, I was REALLY hoping they would take one of our bloated contracts off our hands but no such luck.

 

  Finally the death march for the Habs continues, losing Sergachev, Beaulieu and now emelin off the blueline and replacing them with nothing so far is awful and the rumor is that Markov who is an UFA is thinking of playing in Russia next year. If they lose Radulov to free agency the fact that Carey Price is an UFA at years end next season may be more poignant that some thought. 

[hf101]

@yave1964

 

I'm really not impressed at all with what McPhee did in this draft. I'm not sure why he thought these side deals were a better choice than selecting players Teams chose to give up.  On the other hand, most of the other GM's planned out quite well so they wouldn't lose key players. 

 

And I don't understand why he didn't draft more goalies?  Vegas needs a franchise center and I'll bet they were counting on getting one of the top two picks in the draft.  Then if you look at next years team....  what team?  most of the roster will be FA and could walk away.    

[OccamsRazor]

16 minutes ago, hf101 said:

@yave1964

 

I'm really not impressed at all with what McPhee did in this draft. I'm not sure why he thought these side deals were a better choice than selecting players Teams chose to give up.  On the other hand, most of the other GM's planned out quite well so they wouldn't lose key players. 

 

And I don't understand why he didn't draft more goalies?  Vegas needs a franchise center and I'll bet they were counting on getting one of the top two picks in the draft.  Then if you look at next years team....  what team?  most of the roster will be FA and could walk away.    

 

MAF is going to get lit up like a Christmas tree i guess good thing he already has 3 Cups.