Quote:
Originally Posted by Caged Great
That was the strange thing with last years draft, there was a lot of 2nd round calibre players, that you could get those calibre prospects in the 4th round and beyond. Look at the Avs, they got Rutkowski in the 5th and the Stars I believe got Kevin Lind in the 6th and they were both supposed to be 40-50 overall picks. Tons of depth. It doesn't surprise me that all the players we took last year are doing good.
Hopefully Feaster, Goulet and Button can find another handful of good players in this years draft as well. Easier said than done though.
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That's correct. They all have successful blueprints and pedigree, this last draft shows their offensive mid to late round recoginition skills with the kids from last year. I have a feeling that this draft will be quite deep throughout the first round. I think the flames go offense. The flames could potentially trade down and still get some quality even into the middle second round as it looks. Sure, you won't have a shot at the top but it could payoff as far as quantity is concerned.
However, you could go the other way and see who's there when we pick then target one of the chl centremen: Macneil, Scheifele, Cattenacci, Jensen, or a couple wingers peumpel, Rattie, even jurco, or kokhlachev. Or see who falls.
There is that czech kid Jaskin who looks real good. There are some american options that might fall to us as well in Shore, I might even consider Rocco Grimaldi. He may be a boom or bust due to his size but if he hits he could be pretty valuable in this new nhl.
These kids could all be there when we pick and they all look promising. Anyway, CG, you probably didn't want to read all that but, hey it's the draft and that's how the good teams stay competitive.
PS. I also think the present feature HF article about NCAA free agents is a good read if any of the descriptions hold up. There seems to be a handful of useful centremen and a couple defense options that could be appealing in the aforementioned "New NHL". I like the NCAA, it has produced many quality NHL options and stars, the 4 year developmental option always intrigues me as well.