Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
From some quick hunting around it looks like there's about a 45% chance a pick in this range plays a significant amount of games (still not a star but makes it)
Even if the Habs draft a guy that plays 150 games the Flames still get more value out of Toffoli than a tweener at the end of the first round.
Then there's the Montreal would have picked a different player than Calgary would have noise that makes the loop endless.
Bottom line pointless to call it a lost trade, or a likely lost trade, when the math actually suggests it's more than likely that's not the case.
The odds are pretty good that the Flames do just fine in this one ... especially if they move Toffoli at the end of his contract and recoup some assets.
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45% is about right for sake of arguement.
However, please keep in mind, if you regularly give up your first round picks, it doesn't take long before there's about a 70% chance of losing an impact player and the 12 years that come with him.
The Flames regularly do this. So whether that's this pick, or the previous one, they do it often enough that odds are they have lost at least one impact player recently and possibly more.
Now consider the cap. Toffoli will be eating cap space in his years of decline. We already seen what he does in high tempo playoffs....basically if the playoffs matter then he really can't do much for you there. Meanwhile a younger guy on the rise, even if he does only pay 150 games, is going to do just fine in high tempo, at just a fraction of the cap space.
So less prospects means less cap space, it also means having guys that can't keep up at high tempo.
You have to really narrow it down and say maybe this pick doesn't work out, and maybe Toffoli is serviceable in the regular season (let's be honest he's not leading us anywhere in the playoffs anymore).
Assuming we actually care about the regular season (I'm more interested int he playoffs, where Toffoli is a wash)... and assuming this first round pick is very average, you still get a huge break on the cap out of it. Or, this guy could be our next MVP. whereas the chances of that happening with Toffoli are negligible.
The pick is your insurance policy, your cap relief, and your lotto ticket. A very, very good lotto ticket, way better odds than any 649.
Dismissing the value of draft picks is a huge mistake that can only be justified with a narrow short term lens.