Calgary Flames Draft 15th Overall in the 2015 Draft

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Fire of the Phoenix

I doubt the Oilers try to move up. They will use the picks (16+33) to improve their current roster if anything.

I agree.
Those picks, possibly even packaged with a player, could result in a big return for next season. I don't know what, if any, stud defenseman are ever available though. Funny part is Petry may be the most sought after free agent of the summer. He was really strong for the Habs

[Red Menace]

Similar to my post in Jankowski thread I did a little analysis on results from the middle of round 1. I looked at picks 11 to 20 only from drafts 2000-2010.
Forwards
68 drafted
Elite - 4 (6%) - Getzlaf, Kopitar, Parise, Tarasenko
Star Top 6 Fwds - 6 (9%, 15% cumulative) - J.Carter, Schwartz, Little, Radulov, Semin, Hemsky
Solid 2nd-3rd liners - 16 (23%, 38% cumulative) - includes Zajac, D.Brown, B.Sutter, Hanzal, Kreider, Bjugstad, Stafford, Tlusty, etc....
The rest (62%) includes lots more solid 3rd-4th liners than outright busts (unlike the 21-30 range), it includes guys like Kobasew(!), Colborne, Fehr, Goc, B.Gordon, Z.Kassian

Defenceman
36 players
Elite - 3 (8%) - E.Karlsson, Shattenkirk, Burns
Top Pairing Stars - 3 (8%, 16% cumulative) - Seabrook, McDonagh, Fowler
Solid 2nd Pairing - 9 (25%, 41% cumulative) - M.Staal, Hamhuis, Leddy, Myers, Orpik, Gardiner, Kulikov, D.Ellis, Del Zotto
The Rest (59%) includes a number of solid pros like Hainsey, Ballard, Sbisa, de Haan, Kindl

Goalies
6 taken
Elite - None
Solid Starters - 2 (33%) - Bernier, Dubnyk (not enough evidence to consider him elite yet)
Rest - (67%) - J.Campbell, Helenius, Pickard and Schwarz show the dangers of drafting goalies too high.

From this sample it is still rather difficult to find a solid, impactful player for your roster (something like 40% will become players on the top half of your roster).
It looks like it is easier to find elite defencemen in this range than it is elite forwards...no doubt because of the prolonged development for that position.
Let's hope the Flames find a winner.

[handgroen]

Originally Posted by Red Menace

Similar to my post in Jankowski thread I did a little analysis on results from the middle of round 1. I looked at picks 11 to 20 only from drafts 2000-2010.
Forwards
68 drafted
Elite - 4 (6%) - Getzlaf, Kopitar, Parise, Tarasenko
Star Top 6 Fwds - 6 (9%, 15% cumulative) - J.Carter, Schwartz, Little, Radulov, Semin, Hemsky
Solid 2nd-3rd liners - 16 (23%, 38% cumulative) - includes Zajac, D.Brown, B.Sutter, Hanzal, Kreider, Bjugstad, Stafford, Tlusty, etc....
The rest (62%) includes lots more solid 3rd-4th liners than outright busts (unlike the 21-30 range), it includes guys like Kobasew(!), Colborne, Fehr, Goc, B.Gordon, Z.Kassian

Defenceman
36 players
Elite - 3 (8%) - E.Karlsson, Shattenkirk, Burns
Top Pairing Stars - 3 (8%, 16% cumulative) - Seabrook, McDonagh, Fowler
Solid 2nd Pairing - 9 (25%, 41% cumulative) - M.Staal, Hamhuis, Leddy, Myers, Orpik, Gardiner, Kulikov, D.Ellis, Del Zotto
The Rest (59%) includes a number of solid pros like Hainsey, Ballard, Sbisa, de Haan, Kindl

Goalies
6 taken
Elite - None
Solid Starters - 2 (33%) - Bernier, Dubnyk (not enough evidence to consider him elite yet)
Rest - (67%) - J.Campbell, Helenius, Pickard and Schwarz show the dangers of drafting goalies too high.

From this sample it is still rather difficult to find a solid, impactful player for your roster (something like 40% will become players on the top half of your roster).
It looks like it is easier to find elite defencemen in this range than it is elite forwards...no doubt because of the prolonged development for that position.
Let's hope the Flames find a winner.

i think that the draft year has a lot to do with it as well, and by all accounts this is a very deep draft. fingers crossed

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

My bold prediction is they pick Zboril

I don't know enough to distinguish between Zboril, Chabot, or Roy but any of these defencemen would make me happy. They keep saying "best player available" but from what I understand they have them ranked in tiers so there should be some leeway for making a positional pick, if needed.

[N26]

An update on my Mock Draft tracking (see post 156).

The mocks are starting to come fast and furious now and it has seen some changes in the leaderboard.

May12 leaderboard (a top10)
1 Jeremy Roy
2 Evegeni Svechnikov
3 Nick Merkely
4 Thomas Chabot
5 Oliver Kylington
6 Travis Konecny
7t Kyle Connor
7t Paul Bittner
9t Timo Meier
9t Mikko Rantanen

May 27 leaderboard incl.% of the vote (a top 12)
Evgeni Svechnikov 13.64%
Thomas Chabot 11.18%
Nick Merkely 10.01%
Jérémy Roy 9.43%
Oliver Kylington 7.69%
Travis Konecny 6.82%
Jansen Harkins 5.52%
Timo Meier 5.22%
Colin White 4.50%
Mikko Rantanen 4.21%
Kyle Connor 3.92%
Jakub Zbořil 3.20%

Long-time leader Jérémy Roy stagnated and now sits 4th. Svechnikov, Chabot, White and to a lesser extent Harkins have had surges in votes. Bittner and Crouse are the big droppers. Rantanen is the one deemed most likely of the usually-higher-ranked prospects that people see falling to 15.

There are now 33 players who have received at least 1 vote as a possible Flames pick. Denis Guryanov has joined the group and somewhat quickly moved up into 20th place. He needs a lot of action to get into the top 12 though.

The positional split is now:
Defense 37%
Left Wing 25%
Right Wing 24% (I just noticed I have Merkely in the RW category)
Centre 13%
Goal >0.3%

Another update in about a week.

[Pierre "Monster" McGuire]

Are Travis Konecny and Max Domi the same player? I feel like I'm reading identical scouting reports.

[GreenLantern]

Originally Posted by Red Menace

Similar to my post in Jankowski thread I did a little analysis on results from the middle of round 1. I looked at picks 11 to 20 only from drafts 2000-2010.
Forwards
68 drafted
Elite - 4 (6%) - Getzlaf, Kopitar, Parise, Tarasenko
Star Top 6 Fwds - 6 (9%, 15% cumulative) - J.Carter, Schwartz, Little, Radulov, Semin, Hemsky
Solid 2nd-3rd liners - 16 (23%, 38% cumulative) - includes Zajac, D.Brown, B.Sutter, Hanzal, Kreider, Bjugstad, Stafford, Tlusty, etc....
The rest (62%) includes lots more solid 3rd-4th liners than outright busts (unlike the 21-30 range), it includes guys like Kobasew(!), Colborne, Fehr, Goc, B.Gordon, Z.Kassian

Defenceman
36 players
Elite - 3 (8%) - E.Karlsson, Shattenkirk, Burns
Top Pairing Stars - 3 (8%, 16% cumulative) - Seabrook, McDonagh, Fowler
Solid 2nd Pairing - 9 (25%, 41% cumulative) - M.Staal, Hamhuis, Leddy, Myers, Orpik, Gardiner, Kulikov, D.Ellis, Del Zotto
The Rest (59%) includes a number of solid pros like Hainsey, Ballard, Sbisa, de Haan, Kindl

Goalies
6 taken
Elite - None
Solid Starters - 2 (33%) - Bernier, Dubnyk (not enough evidence to consider him elite yet)
Rest - (67%) - J.Campbell, Helenius, Pickard and Schwarz show the dangers of drafting goalies too high.

From this sample it is still rather difficult to find a solid, impactful player for your roster (something like 40% will become players on the top half of your roster).
It looks like it is easier to find elite defencemen in this range than it is elite forwards...no doubt because of the prolonged development for that position.
Let's hope the Flames find a winner.

What was the ratio of busts vs. NHL players in those "rest" categories?

[Red Menace]

depends how you qualify a "bust"?
0 games played?
less than 20?
less than 50?

[Jay Random]

25 NHL games might be a good cutoff. As in, a bust is a player who never actually sticks in the NHL long enough to become ineligible for the Calder.

[codynw]

I think a player who never really earned a permanent roster spot is a "bust". Total number of games doesn't matter, if a guy bounced around between the AHL/NHL for a few years before signing in Europe, I'd consider that a bust. Especially if we're talking about a 1st rounder.

[ForeverFlameFan]

I would really like Roy, Konecny or Merkley.

Gaudreau on the top line and Merkley on the second line as elite play makers would make it tough for NHL teams to compete against. Konecny would also be a great 2nd line option, he plays a similar style of play to Bennett when it comes to grittiness.

For Roy, he's what we are looking for. A PMD who is an excellent 2-way player, would fit right in with the Flames. Imo, he's perfectly capable of turning into a #2 down the road behind Brodie when the time comes (assuming Giordano declines, but who knows if that happens).

[Red Menace]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

25 NHL games might be a good cutoff. As in, a bust is a player who never actually sticks in the NHL long enough to become ineligible for the Calder.

For Forwards, 16/68 are below 25 GP (24%)
And quite a few that are BETWEEN 26- 100 games would probably be considered busts too, like: L.Leblanc, O'Marra, McArdle, Klepis, Smirnov, Vorbiev, Nedorost, Mikhnov, J.Karlsson
And many over 100 GP are hardly the types of picks that would be called successful: Kolanos, C.Gillies, R.Nilsson, Nokelainen, Josefson, Boychuk
If you classify all these as busts too the failure rate is around 45%

For Defencemen by this definition:
7 have fewer than 25 GP, and Ty Wishart has 26 GP, but I'd call him a bust too.
That is 22%
Others over 25 GP, are probably busts too, like Ryan Parent. S.Morrisson, D.Grebeshkov, I.Cole, and even CP favourite B.Gormley (27 GP) might also be close to this label.

It is certainly no sure thing picking in this range.

[Red Menace]

So, very roughly I would say :
~40% you find an impact player
~20% you find a bottom roster NHLer
~40% you pick a bust

[azzarish]

A few questions to everyone on the board that I’m really interested to hear people’s viewpoints on:

1. The organizational need versus best player available always surfaces prior to the draft. If you’re in the BPA camp and Connor, Merkley or Konecny are all available at #15, would you draft one of them knowing that they’re all centers and we’re pretty deep down the middle for a good few years with Monahan, Bennett, Backlund, and Jankowski? Basically putting aside positional need for the BPA.

2. Would you still go ahead and pick Merkley and Konecny knowing what Burke has said about the team needing to get bigger, as both aren’t the biggest?

3. Do you think the defensive prospect pool is deep enough (Wotherspoon, Sieloff, Morrison, Kanzig, Hickey) to not draft a defenseman at #15?

4. If you’re answer to the above is yes, then do you believe that anyone from the prospect pool has elite potential/quality that would justify you not drafting that defenseman at #15?

5. And finally, do you think it is worth moving up in this draft in order to draft Provorov or Werenski and possibly obtain an elite quality defenseman? And if so, what would you give up to make it happen?

[Poe969]

BPA isn't always BPA.... It depends on how the management team have the players ranked because it's not always the same as central scouting reports and this year is a deep draft. Burke spoke about "ledges" that the players are on and how they're grouped together. They may have 3-4 players rated equally so if they have 3-4 players they can pick from, they have to go with their need.

We don't need any more small forwards.

I'm all for getting a defenseman at 15 because there are some real good ones available and you're going to likely get one of the best defenders in the draft at that pick (likely one of the top 3-5 defensemen depending on who's picked ahead of us)

I don't see any of these guys as elite, I'd love to be wrong but I just don't see it.

I'd love to move up to grab one of those 2 guys and I think we have the assets to get it done. We have a lot of picks and I think they should all be on the table. We also have a lot of younger players that the team can part with if the right deal is available.

[username]

While looking at drafts in the last 10 years is great, you should only really evaluate this based off drafts that are considered deep. When you look at "deep" drafts I suspect the odds of getting a decent asset in 10-20 goes up quite a bit.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by azzarish

A few questions to everyone on the board that I’m really interested to hear people’s viewpoints on:

1. The organizational need versus best player available always surfaces prior to the draft. If you’re in the BPA camp and Connor, Merkley or Konecny are all available at #15, would you draft one of them knowing that they’re all centers and we’re pretty deep down the middle for a good few years with Monahan, Bennett, Backlund, and Jankowski? Basically putting aside positional need for the BPA.

IMO the farther you get down the draft the less relevant BPA is because it becomes so murky as to who exactly that is, and you will have a bunch of guys who are tied in that respect. Even within the scouting staff there will be differences as to who it is.

In your example, as much as I want to avoid a Jankowski debate, I doubt he's any kind of lock for the roster, plus a guy like Backlund may well be traded one day for say, a defenceman, so I wouldn't let their presence stop a really good centre from being drafted.

[ForeverFlameFan]

Originally Posted by azzarish

A few questions to everyone on the board that I’m really interested to hear people’s viewpoints on:

1. The organizational need versus best player available always surfaces prior to the draft. If you’re in the BPA camp and Connor, Merkley or Konecny are all available at #15, would you draft one of them knowing that they’re all centers and we’re pretty deep down the middle for a good few years with Monahan, Bennett, Backlund, and Jankowski? Basically putting aside positional need for the BPA.

Merkley and Konecny are both players that I think are going to be RW's when all is said and done. I am unsure on Connor, I think he'd be a great center behind Monahan, but he'd also be a good second line LW as well. Probably depends on if Bennett is better at playing LW or C.

You always go for BPA, and when your team is eventually contending, you start trading for positional needs.

2. Would you still go ahead and pick Merkley and Konecny knowing what Burke has said about the team needing to get bigger, as both aren’t the biggest?

They stated that they'd draft by skill before size, so I think we'd find size a different way (via trade, later round drafting).

3. Do you think the defensive prospect pool is deep enough (Wotherspoon, Sieloff, Morrison, Kanzig, Hickey) to not draft a defenseman at #15?

It's not deep enough, but we still need secondary scoring as as defense. I personally prefer a forward in the 1st round and defensemen in the 2nd, but I wouldn't hate picking a defenseman first.

4. If you’re answer to the above is yes, then do you believe that anyone from the prospect pool has elite potential/quality that would justify you not drafting that defenseman at #15?

Hickey is actually probably the one that comes out of nowhere, much like TJ.

5. And finally, do you think it is worth moving up in this draft in order to draft Provorov or Werenski and possibly obtain an elite quality defenseman? And if so, what would you give up to make it happen?


Absolutely. If Treliving magically finds a way to move into the top 10 and picks up Provorov or Werenski, all Flames' fans should be cheering in the streets.

Pretty good questions.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by azzarish

1. The organizational need versus best player available always surfaces prior to the draft. If you’re in the BPA camp and Connor, Merkley or Konecny are all available at #15, would you draft one of them knowing that they’re all centers and we’re pretty deep down the middle for a good few years with Monahan, Bennett, Backlund, and Jankowski? Basically putting aside positional need for the BPA.

I see organizational need as a tie-breaker. Also, a guy like Merkley could easily settle into a role as a RW. Don't forget on our own squad, Hudler, Byron, Colborne were all a few "natural" centers who settled in as wingers.

2. Would you still go ahead and pick Merkley and Konecny knowing what Burke has said about the team needing to get bigger, as both aren’t the biggest?

For sure. If one of those players puts up numbers, you can always trade for size.

3. Do you think the defensive prospect pool is deep enough (Wotherspoon, Sieloff, Morrison, Kanzig, Hickey) to not draft a defenseman at #15?

We've got good D, but we could look to bolster the right side in the draft, and a guy like Jeremy Roy could be that guy. However there's a whole slew of really interesting D prospects in the 40-55 range who could all develop into top 4 guys. I don't mind drafting a forward if we go for a quantity approach in the 2nd round.

4. If you’re answer to the above is yes, then do you believe that anyone from the prospect pool has elite potential/quality that would justify you not drafting that defenseman at #15?

He needs to cut down on rookie mistakes but I feel like Kulak can be that guy.

5. And finally, do you think it is worth moving up in this draft in order to draft Provorov or Werenski and possibly obtain an elite quality defenseman? And if so, what would you give up to make it happen?

Totally worth it, I'd also add Mitch Marner and Mathew Barzal to that list. I don't know what I'd give up.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by azzarish

A few questions to everyone on the board that I’m really interested to hear people’s viewpoints on:

1. The organizational need versus best player available always surfaces prior to the draft. If you’re in the BPA camp and Connor, Merkley or Konecny are all available at #15, would you draft one of them knowing that they’re all centers and we’re pretty deep down the middle for a good few years with Monahan, Bennett, Backlund, and Jankowski? Basically putting aside positional need for the BPA.

I would easily take about 18 different players at #15 and that's before guys like Kylington or Sprong. There simply is too much talent in this draft and it will be very difficult to go wrong. Logically, one of the top 13 players will fall to 15 because every year, strange picks happen. It will just depend who that player is.

2. Would you still go ahead and pick Merkley and Konecny knowing what Burke has said about the team needing to get bigger, as both aren’t the biggest?

Nope, only because there are more skilled players on the board who also happen to be bigger. I would take Connor, Svechnikov, or Chabot ahead of those two in the raw skill department, and they all happen to be 6-2 or taller.

3. Do you think the defensive prospect pool is deep enough (Wotherspoon, Sieloff, Morrison, Kanzig, Hickey) to not draft a defenseman at #15?

The prospect pool is crowded now. However, in 2 seasons when a player is going to leave juniors, all of the current crop except Hickey and Rafikov will either be in the NHL, traded, or on their way out of the organization. If the #1 player at 15 is a D-man, go for it. As long as 3 or 4 of the top 6 picks are used on Defense, then I'll be happy. There is a large quantity of quality defenders in this draft, especially in the 2nd and 3rd rounds. If they don't go with Chabot, Kylington or another guy in the first, it almost guarantees that the 2nd's will be used on D.

4. If your answer to the above is yes, then do you believe that anyone from the prospect pool has elite potential/quality that would justify you not drafting that defenseman at #15?

The only players with legitimate 1st pairing upside are Kenny Morrison and Brandon Hickey. However, as we have seen with forwards, you need a ton because some fail like Baertschi. Ideally we need 5 guys that have in the neighbourhood of top pairing potential in the system to hope that one or two pan out in that way. If that means drafting a guy at 15, so be it. If it means targetting a bunch of upside guys in round two, that works as well.

5. And finally, do you think it is worth moving up in this draft in order to draft Provorov or Werenski and possibly obtain an elite quality defenseman? And if so, what would you give up to make it happen?

Absolutely not. The step down from a guy like Provorov to a guy like Chabot is not worth the amount it would take to get him. If anything, I would like to head in the opposite direction because of the amount of quality prospects in order to pick up another 2nd because of the fact that the players that will be taken in the 50's this year are of a similar talent level to those that were take in the 30's last year. It would almost be like getting another late first just to trade down 5 or 6 spots. The players are at a level just a half notch below a guy like Klimchuk in the 50's. Tons of talent for the taking.