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Originally Posted by Itse
sIn short the question is:
Is drafting for need now more important than drafting BPA?
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Nope. The point of the draft is to acquire the best possible assets. The point of trading is to convert them into the best possible team.
I'm sure it's already been mentioned but Seth Jones for Ryan Johansen is the best example. They traded from a position of strength to build up a position of weakness.
The Capitals took Ilya Samsonov in last year's first round. This despite their #1G is likely to win the Vezina. Samsonov may never play for them but if they feel he's going to be good, they are going to trade him for whatever team need arises 3 years from now.
All that said, "BPA" is a fuzzy concept because it's subjective. That's why a team's scouts should and do have intensive meetings to get their list right before draft day. When draft day comes the only board that matters is the team's internal one.
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For example;
I think most agree we have a pretty decent defensive trio in Brodie, Giordano and Hamilton. It's not all of a contending teams defense, but it's a pretty good start. Our forward group on the other hand is desperately short on both size and skill.
Let's say the Flames are drafting 6th. Matthews, Laine, Puljujärvi, Tkachuk and Nylander are all gone. Now I know "there's no board", but for the sake of argument the clear BPA at this point is the defenseman Chychrun, followed by a couple of other defensemen and smallish centers.
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Well, there's also center Dubois on the board there, who is a pretty big and HIGHLY skilled center.
But that's besides the point. Yes Chychrun plays a position we've got covered now. But does he play a position we've got covered five years from now? What if an otherwise productive Giordano's cap hit is preventing us from re-signing Brodie? Will we have players on roster and in the system where we can stomach trading away Gio for cap relief?
Look at it another way. How excited were we about Bouwmeester/Phaneuf/Regehr? Well it didn't take long for that entire trio to be on the out. Having a talent as elite as Brodie in the system, kept there from being a hole there when we moved out J-Bo.
So no matter what position you need right now, you have to draft the player with the most talent, however you want to assess that. If it's Chychrun, then maybe, just maybe we'll stomp our way to a cup with the best top 4D in the league Brodie-Giordano / Chychrun-Hamilton. If it's Dubois, and we get prospects to pan out, then maybe we have to convert some centers to wing and our top 6 is (don't worry about
who's playing center or how you feel about player x or y):
Gaudreau-Dubois-Monahan
Bennett-Jankowski-Backlund
Let's assume all six of these players pan out. What you have, is six guys that have skillsets that allow them to be
valued as top 6 forwards. That's a lot more useful than, say, if Gauthier is a RW but
doesn't pan out as a top 6 forward. Let's also assume Jankowski doesn't pan out as a top 6 forward and was just a pick-for-need instead of a BPA:
Gaudreau-Monahan-Frolik
Backlund-Bennett-Poirier?
x-Jankowski-Gauthier
Well then, Gauthier is now worth less than Dubois earlier. You still haven't filled your
need for a top line winger. In fact I bet you'd rather have filled it with Sean Monahan sniping like he did against the Sens a couple games ago.
Five of the Sharks' top 6 is all natural centers. Couture, Thornton, Pavelski, Hertl, Marleau. The value the skill those players bring ahead of the "position" they play.
When you're drafting as high as we are though, in my opinion the BPA will probably be a forward just because they are much easier to project. And yeah, position might be a tiebreaker. Key word being "tie".