Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyTitan
OK. I know I'm offering no real new information or opinion here, but I just want to get it off my chest.
What we know: The Flames "Big 3" D-Men are under contract for minimum 4 more years. Assuming Gio keeps his level of play up for four more years we're all going to be very very happy with this group.
Corollary: In the short and medium term we have only these spots to fill on our back-end: one 3-4 pairing D-Man, two 5-6 pairing D-Men
(For argument's sake I'm going to say you can always get a Diaz / Schlemko for under $1M for the #7 spot, so really we need 3 D-men over the next four years.)
Here's our list of prospects in a very loose tiered ranking:
Ready (or almost ready) Now:
Nakladal - 28 yrs old
Jokipakka - 24 yrs old
Wotherspoon - 23 yrs old
Culkin - 22 yrs
Kulak - 22 yrs
Huge medium-term upside:
Andersson - 19 yrs
Kylington - 19 yrs
Hickey - 20 yrs
Others I can't place:
Sieloff - 22 yrs
Morrison - 24 yrs
Kanzig - 21 yrs
Conclusion: When I look above, I see multiple options for our #4 D-Man and multiple (cheap) options for our 5-6 pairing. ** I do not want to invest our first round pick in a defenseman! **
Please pick a forward Flames. I love the depth we've already built a "D" and have no problems adding two more during this draft, just not at #6 (or higher or lower)
/vent
|
I pretty much agree with this. Make no mistake whoever drafts the first defenseman in this draft is going to get a fantastic player, possibly even a top 2 D-man for years to come. For a long time I thought the Flames might draft Juolevi, but with the defensive prospects in the system and considering we gave up our first rounder last year for a defenseman, and our first 2 picks in the draft were defensemen I find it really difficult to believe we will draft a defenseman at #6. So, I'm predicting we will draft a forward.
Also, it took me a long time to come around to Nylander. But I've finally been convinced because you can't really have enough high-end skill on your team, and we have highly skilled players on our team, some bruisers and bashers but ultimately not enough skill in my view. If we draft him, I'll be fine with that.
However, I don't think he's the forward we're going to draft. I just have a gut feeling that someone is going to go off the board and Dubois might fall to us. And I'd be ecstatic with that.