Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
What happens if you don't believe Matthews is the BPA? Believe it or not, not everyone's draft list looks like Bob McKenzie's or Central Scouting's. This is one of things that the Internet blogosphere echo-chamber has established; the belief that there is some master list that all teams draft from. This isn't the case. There is a great deal of variation in lists. It isn't as bad as baseball or football, but the variation is enough that a clear consensus in a close draft year like this one is probably unlikely.
Also, a move like the one suggested is not out of the realm of possibilities. Depending on what the Flames wanted in return the Coyotes could easily address that need and make it worth while to trade away the first pick. Seriously, if you were given the opportunity to have Matthews or have Laine and your pick of one or two players from the Coyotes prospect pool, you take Laine and the player(s). You talk about building blocks but ignore the obvious of grabbing two major building blocks at positions of weakness over one at a position of strength. I'll take a good distribution of quality players through out the lineup than a bunch of assets at the same position. That is how you build a winner.
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I know not every list is the same but it seems like the only lists out there that don't have Matthews at the top are the ones trying to be different. I mean I've seen a list with Pulljajarvi at 8 or something. From what I've seen Matthews is by far the best player out there and he plays the most important forward position, you can move a center to the wing but you can't always move a winger to center.
Another issue with all of this is that there's the assumption that the coyotes would give up a lot just to get Matthews. Arizona has started to improve their team and maybe they really like all the players that they have. They may also be some of the people you mentioned that don't see that big of a difference between 1-3 and if they do see a difference it may only be a 3rd round pick to move up kind of difference.
As I said, I think Matthews is head and shoulders above the other 2 (who are still pretty amazing) and IMO you have to take the quality over the quantity. The teams the Flames have put together in the past had more of a quantity feel to them with all the 20 goal scorers and depth at every position. The team seemed like it was a bunch of ok players with 2 or 3 stars and really only 1 forward who was a star. I don't think that's how you build a winner, I actually think that's how you build teams we've had in the past. If you look at the teams who've won a cup recently, they've all drafted first overall or very close and that's because they took the BPA. I spoke of building blocks but and picked quality because in order to build something properly, you need a good foundation and Matthews has the makings of great player who could actually be the best player on the team, he's a guy you build around. The next guys are amazing guys and could be guys like that too but I think it's better to have more guys you build around then guys that you use to build around others (if that makes sense).
So unless Arizona is willing to over pay (and it would have to be more than just their first rounder and 1 player, I'm talkingi a huge over payment) I think you take Matthews. I guess I did make it sound like there was no way to do it but again the whole "anything's possible" comes into play.