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Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
That is very debatable. The most interesting thing to me is that neither Benning nor Chiarelli has ever brought up Nylander in an interview as a guy that they think is in their pick range. Chiarelli brought up Tkachuk, Dubois, Brown (brought up Brown unprompted) and 3-4 defensemen as being in the 4-9 range. Benning has talked about Tkachuk, Dubois, Brown and 2 defensemen. And I don't think they didn't bring Nylander up because they're hoping to nab him at #4 or #5, I think they were being honest and they just don't see him as in that range. If he's nowhere near their range then I doubt he would be for the Flames either.
Nylander scores high on these consensus lists but I'm not convinced teams see him as BPA at #6. I think he's right in the mix there with some of the defensemen but teams often break these ties with organizational philosophy.
It has to do with BPA and the Flames philosophy that defensemen are more valuable than forwards in general and thus in a tie between the defensemen and Nylander, the winger would lose.
You don't draft to fill your immediate needs although its great if it works out that way. Flames management has already said that outside the top 3 the players aren't likely to step in. Treliving can easily address RW through trade or UFAs instead since he needs to address that issue before next season. If we traded Andersson, Hickey or Kylington before the draft for a RW would you suddenly be wanting us to draft a d-man? Immediate needs can change in an instant. Treliving could bring in 3 RWers this offseason (Pribyl, a UFA and a trade) and suddenly RW could no longer be a glaring weakness.
All that said Nylander could be our pick. I'm just not convinced we'll turn down a potential top pairing d-man for a finesse winger. Flames will be thinking long term on this pick. You seem to be focusing on short term needs. Short term needs are almost never filled through the draft even though we want them to be. I mean part of why I like Tkachuk/Dubois a lot is because they'd fill a short term and long term need. But its dangerous to focus too much on short term needs.
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RW isn't just an immediate need. It's like needing immediate surgery on your arm to save it but you opt to have surgery on your perfectly fine legs. Makes no sense.
And Treliving can address any position in UFA or trades, does that make any other prospect not worthy of being drafted? You draft to fill weaknesses in your organization too. It's utter nonsense to think otherwise.
What do the Flames have more of in their prospect base? LW? C? D? Or RW? Better yet, out of the prospect pool how many players in each position have potential to be top six?
There's only 1 in the RW department....1!! And hasnt even come close to proving he close to that yet. Top end RW depth is beyond terrible. It's the worst in the league. But hey let's not address that problem in the draft, let's try to get some older UFAs or try to make a trade when a perfectly free asset is sitting right there at our pick that has top line potential.
Edit: and who cares what EDM or VAN think. They suck. Benning is beyond terrible. And Chiarelli and the Oilers have yet to make a tough draft decision. And they still manage to eff it up. Yeah let's build a case for the Flames list using information from not only our closest rivals but also the two franchises who cannot do anything right. Derp