Flames 2013 Draft Discussion

[drPepper1]

Very likely were not going to get 2 of the top 3. Of the 3 I would take Drouin. Hoping we can move up and get a second pick in the top 10, we should be able to snatch a top centre as well. If we manage to land two offensive studs, I would then shift my focus on defence for the remainder of the draft.

[StrykerSteve]

Originally Posted by Da_Chief

Wanted Mackinnon before but watched a few youtube vids.

From watching youtube vids:

Mackinnon
-Really good shot
-Goes to the net
-Good skater
-Decent stickhandling
-Finds that open area to be in, good instincts

Drouin
-Shifty
-Mad stickhandling, really good
-Relentless on the play
-Really good skater
-Great vision

Just from these videos, here how Id rank them.

Pure skill: Drouin
Shot: Mackinnon
Speed: Drouin
Hockey sense: Would call it even, Drouin finds the open men and Mack finds open slots
Playmaking: Drouin

If I was picking I'd go Drouin.

You need to realize Drouin has had ONE good season. Take a look back at draft predictions from last summer, Drouin will be nowhere to be found in the top 10.

Mackinnon has been playing at a high level all his life. The Flames can't be so short-sighted in a draft as important as this one.

Drouin and Jones have excelled this season, but Mackinnon is who you choose if he is available, from a Calgary perspective.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by StrykerSteve

You need to realize Drouin has had ONE good season. Take a look back at draft predictions from last summer, Drouin will be nowhere to be found in the top 10.

Mackinnon has been playing at a high level all his life. The Flames can't be so short-sighted in a draft as important as this one.

Drouin and Jones have excelled this season, but Mackinnon is who you choose if he is available, from a Calgary perspective.

Trajectory counts for a lot. None of these players are guaranteed NHLers and will still need to keep improving over the next few years to become key players in the NHL. My money is on the players that are showing that they have it in them to figure things out and keep improving right now and can manage through difficulty gradients (because junior to NHL is a massive difficulty gradient).

A lot of teams in the past have been suckered by picking players that peaked in junior. Don't get wrong, I am not saying that is the case with Mackinnon, but it is possible. He was at one time compared to Crosby before entering the Quebec league, but now he is pretty much just on par with his peers in the top 5. Is that the sign of a flat lining trajectory? Is Drouin's upward improvement the sign of a rising trajectory? I don't know the answer, but it is something that needs to be considered.

[drPepper1]

Originally Posted by StrykerSteve

You need to realize Drouin has had ONE good season. Take a look back at draft predictions from last summer, Drouin will be nowhere to be found in the top 10.

Mackinnon has been playing at a high level all his life. The Flames can't be so short-sighted in a draft as important as this one.

Drouin and Jones have excelled this season, but Mackinnon is who you choose if he is available, from a Calgary perspective.

Only really have two seasons to judge them both.

Drouin: slightly below ppg in first season/more than doubled his production in the second season

Mackinnon: slightly above ppg in first season/slightly above first seasons

Drouin improved drastically from his first season, and it doesn't look like a fluke when you see him dominate the play. Also seems more disciplined when it comes to taking penalties.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I was actually talking to one of my Oiler fan buddies as he was razzing me that we still weren't going to get a 1st overall talent and I pretty well said the same thing that Yakupov wouldn't be a top 5 prospect in this draft. Hall and RNH are really good players but I don't think they crack top 3 in this draft as well.

You could make a case for Hopkins or Yakupov not cracking the top 3 this season.

Not sure how you could put Hall behind Mackinnon or Drouin.

Hall crushed it at the WJC in his draft year.
12 points.
Mackinnon-1
Drouin-4

Hall won back to back memorial cup MVPs.

Much better resume.

[Lanny_McDonald]

The Flames have not had a true number one center since Nieuwendyk was traded away. If this club does not take this opportunity to grab two players in the first round with potential to be top line centers they are doomed to be a bottom feeder for a period of time that will make the Oilers struggles look like a walk in the park. Anything short of that is a failure. The two guys I expect the Flames to come away with are Nate McKinnon and Frederick Gauthier. If they don't grab both of these guys they are missing an opportunity of a life time! Can you imagine our center depth with McKinnon, Jankowski, Gauthier, Arnold and Reinhart? That is crazy!

I would be exceptionally happy if the Flames were set at center with that depth. They would have some flexibility to move some guys around to the wing and shore up then have some pretty decent depth all around.

Baertschi-McKinnon-Backlund
Gaudreau-Jankowski-Granlund
Agnostini-Gauthier-Hanowski
Ferland-Reinhart-Arnold

That whole line up can skate with the best of them, has great skill and size on every line. The center depth makes that work. I think this is the most important draft for the Flames since 1984. They need to hit it out of the park and these two centers set them up to do so.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

You could make a case for Hopkins or Yakupov not cracking the top 3 this season.

Not sure how you could put Hall behind Mackinnon or Drouin.

Hall crushed it at the WJC in his draft year.
12 points.
Mackinnon-1
Drouin-4

Hall won back to back memorial cup MVPs.

Much better resume.

WJC is not an indicator alone on how good a player is. It's a good snapshot but if scoring 12 point at the WJC was an indicator of greatness then the Flames should be thrilled about Marcus Granlund and his 12 points.

[Ashasx]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

You could make a case for Hopkins or Yakupov not cracking the top 3 this season.

Not sure how you could put Hall behind Mackinnon or Drouin.

Hall crushed it at the WJC in his draft year.
12 points.
Mackinnon-1
Drouin-4

Hall won back to back memorial cup MVPs.

Much better resume.

MacKinnon is much younger than Hall was during his draft year... still had to wear a full face mask at the WJCs.

If MacKinnon gets picked first, he'll be the youngest ever 1st overall pick.

[PeteLFan]

I have a feeling the Flames would have Drouin 1st on the list over MacKinnon.

Drouin blew up this season, but MacKinnon has be the sure bet for this draft for a long time. I don't think Seth Jones should be on our radar.

If Barkov is being compared to Jokinen then I would sure stay the heck away from him.

Is there a reason for MacKinnon and his low numbers in the Q compared to Drouin? I know injury played a role, but when you watch him play I don't see a player that his peaked at all.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by StrykerSteve

You need to realize Drouin has had ONE good season. Take a look back at draft predictions from last summer, Drouin will be nowhere to be found in the top 10.

Mackinnon has been playing at a high level all his life. The Flames can't be so short-sighted in a draft as important as this one.

Drouin and Jones have excelled this season, but Mackinnon is who you choose if he is available, from a Calgary perspective.

Patrick Kane was also not talked about much before the 2006-2007 season started, but he was a big riser.

[drPepper1]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

You could make a case for Hopkins or Yakupov not cracking the top 3 this season.

Not sure how you could put Hall behind Mackinnon or Drouin.

Hall crushed it at the WJC in his draft year.
12 points.
Mackinnon-1
Drouin-4

Hall won back to back memorial cup MVPs.

Much better resume.

If you we're to judge based on Wjrs alone, you could say Taylor Hall is just as good as Crosby. Also Crosby didn't win a memorial cup

[$ven27]

Mackinnon, Drouin, Jones > Hall, Yakupov, RNH.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

WJC is not an indicator alone on how good a player is. It's a good snapshot but if scoring 12 point at the WJC was an indicator of greatness then the Flames should be thrilled about Marcus Granlund and his 12 points.

He also was back to back Memorial Cup MVP, and had a better ppg in his draft year then Mackinnon. And he's bigger.

[Robbob]

at the start of the year, looking at the draft class, I honestly did not think we would be here with a realistic chance of grabbing MacKinnon. Very lucky to have things fall into place as they have because for a rebuild just being bad isn't enough, it is being bad at the right time. With the right draft class you can turn things around quite quickly.

going into last draft, bob McKenzie took a quick poll from from scouts and such and had MacKinnon been in that draft he would be the hands down first pick across the board.

the thought of being able to inject one of the big three into the prospect pool in itself is exciting, but thought the thought of a couple more first rounders this year is really making me excited about the possibilities.

[StrykerSteve]

Here's how the prospect pool stands today. You'll notice that it isn't pretty in a lot of key categories.



The good news is, for the upcoming draft, the Flames currently have two 1st round selections, which will jump to three if the St Louis Blues make the playoffs.

They also have one pick in each of the 3rd, 4th (will gain an additional pick if St Louis misses the playoffs), 5th (from Columbus), 6th, 7th (two in the final round, from Chicago and Anaheim).

With potentially 3 1st rounders, they have an opportunity to completely revamp their prospect depth chart through the 2013 draft.

Here are TSN's latest draft rankings.



I know there's plenty of discussion going around fantasizing that the Flames are going to magically figure out a way to trade up to select two of the top three, but let's be honest, that isn't happening.

Basing things on where the Flames picks would land today, personally, I'd be ecstatic if the Flames managed to come out of the first round with the following players.

1st round
Nathan Mackinnon C (6'0, 182)
Rasmus Ristolainen D (6'3, 203)
Valentin Zykov RW (6'0, 210)

Fills the top 3 positional weaknesses in their current pool with highly skilled players in their respective positions, and more importantly, adds some much-needed size.

[Francis's Hairpiece]

Old ratings, not indicative of what happened this year.

[StrykerSteve]

Originally Posted by Francis's Hairpiece

Old ratings, not indicative of what happened this year.

? They are from March.

Here's THN's rankings, from one week ago. My picks would still be viable selections at those spots, IMO.

1. Seth Jones
2. Nathan Mackinnon
3. Johnathan Drouin
4. Valery Nichushkin
5. Sasha Barkov
6. Sean Monahan
7. Elias Lindholm
8. Darnell Nurse
9. Hunter Shinkaruk
10. Robert Hagg
11. Curtis Lazar
12. Nikita Zadorov
13. Adam Erne
14. Rasmus Ristolainen
15. Anthony Mantha
16. Alexander Wennberg
17. Kerby Rychel
18. Ryan Pulock
19. Frederik Gauthier
20. Josh Morrissey
21. Bo Horvat
22. Valentin Zykov
23. Zach Fucale
24. Jacob De La Rose
25. Max Domi
26. Steve Santini
27. Andre Burakowsky
28. Morgan Klimchuk
29. Ian McCoshen
30. Eric Comrie

[Robbob]

Originally Posted by StrykerSteve

You need to realize Drouin has had ONE good season. Take a look back at draft predictions from last summer, Drouin will be nowhere to be found in the top 10.

Mackinnon has been playing at a high level all his life. The Flames can't be so short-sighted in a draft as important as this one.

Drouin and Jones have excelled this season, but Mackinnon is who you choose if he is available, from a Calgary perspective.

I think a big part of it is that Mackinnon has been on the radar for over two years so he is being scouted to the nth degree to the point where people may be looking for warts.

[FlamesAddiction]

I always wondered about TSN rankings and what they base them on. I seriously doubt that they have their own scouts and that anyone who works for them has seen most of those players play. Do they just take CS rankings and tweak them based on intuition?

Same goes with the HF projections. What are their qualifications?

[Rhettzky]

Originally Posted by StrykerSteve

Here's how the prospect pool stands today. You'll notice that it isn't pretty in a lot of key categories.

Where did you get this?