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Originally Posted by Enoch Root
lol
1) If anything, I am a stats guy (though I a able to look beyond stats and don't follow them blindly)
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I don't think you know how to follow stats. You can't pick and choose which stats you believe in in a player when you allow yourself to look beyond them at your convenience. You've yet to provide any substantive argument outside of the stats as to why Yakupov is not a good player besides some hand waving that he has character problems.
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2) That doesn't stop me, however, from watching players and making a personal assessment of them
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Absolute, go ahead. That's where I get to bring in rival talk though because I detect your personal assessment is very much coloured by this.
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3) with respect to risk, I would argue that drafting a Russian 1st overall, especially when it does not address team needs is a pretty risky way to manage the team.
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The Oilers didn't have a need for a 40 goal guy? Which other players on that team are front line goal scorers?
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4) your final argument, that you can get more for him now than on draft day flies in the face of your 'risk' argument (it was a risky proposition to assume that if he isn't right for the team, you can trade him later for more than you could trade him for on draft day - which I still don't agree with)
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Well that's up in the air and I point I concede. I just happen to think that the Oil will do better in a trade trading a two year NHL forward if he continues scoring like he did last year. And my basic point on risk is that Yakupov was by far the surest thing in that draft which made it the least risky move. Your point is that he's Russian and therefore more risky. I don't buy into that too much. He came through the OHL and has always said his goal is to play in the NHL. I'm sure that the interview process would have more than addressed that perceived risk.
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Time will tell of course. But a team that is long on small talented forwards, and short on pretty much everything else, drafting a Russian first overall is not what I would call good risk management.
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And I guess this is the fundamental difference. I believe in BPA with first round picks always, organizational need is addressed the 364 days that aren't the draft.