2025 NHL Draft Thread

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

Could be a look at our future as well if we don't lean into a rebuild.

But I wouldn't trade a 1st with Andersson, just do a 1 for 1 would be fine.

no one is trading a top half first rounder for Andersson 1 for 1 today.

IMO this is the only way we could extract that type of value out of him.

The florida first is probably 25+.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Canada 02

Nothing to do with anything, just an observation

Detroit has had 7 top 10 picks in the last 8 drafts; Yzerman was GM for 5 of them

The Flames have had 10 in their 45 year history

Drafting with 20/20 is easy but taking Zadina one spot over Hughes is a tough one to look back on. Zadina slipped and I think Detroit thought they were getting a steal, but now it seems the reason for the slippage were spot on.

The entire franchise has a different look if you add Hughes

[TheIronMaiden]

If the draft was today we would Pick 19 and 22. Honestly I don't hate it.

[Canada 02]

If you are ever going to tank next year is the year.

Gavin Mckenna has scored 14 points in 4 playoff games!

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Canada 02

If you are ever going to tank next year is the year.

Gavin Mckenna has scored 14 points in 4 playoff games!

And the year after (Landon DuPont)

[dammage79]

Position is 100 percent apart of the BPA equation. People seem to think BPA is Best player overall. But reality is it's best player for the selecting team.

This draft, I think it's pretty evident that the tie breaker goes to player position for the Calgary Flames. But I'm of the belief that player position is going to likely have a greater assigned value in the overall rankings for the Flames master draft list. It's a weak draft, it's one where you risk taking positional need over incremental upgrades elsewhere.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by dammage79

Position is 100 percent apart of the BPA equation. People seem to think BPA is Best player overall. But reality is it's best player for the selecting team.

This draft, I think it's pretty evident that the tie breaker goes to player position for the Calgary Flames. But I'm of the belief that player position is going to likely have a greater assigned value in the overall rankings for the Flames master draft list. It's a weak draft, it's one where you risk taking positional need over incremental upgrades elsewhere.

I am going to agree, unless some insane drop, the Flames need to pick centremen with both picks.

[stemit14]

Draft-wise, the flames pick is likely to end up somewhere between 16th and 12th overall (transferring to Montreal in that case). If the flames won the draft lottery (highly unlikely), they would get to keep their pick and could end up picking between 6th and 2nd overall. Would be such a huge boost to this team to get some lottery luck especially in a year where they over-achieved. 2nd overall gets you either Misa or Schaefer - either would be so perfect for this team but obviously Misa is the preference based on positional need.

[Samonadreau]

If we could win the lottery this season and jump from 14-16 to 4-6, and then give away Florida's.... that would be a gift from the hockey heavens.

[Tbull8]

Obviously it'd be a crazy long shot but an O'Brien, Desnoyers, Frondell pick would be massive

[stemit14]

I wonder if Chicago or San Jose would lean more towards Misa or Schaefer at first overall. I think Schaefer is the perfect fit for San Jose given the skill they already have up front. Chicago is a tougher call. They picked the defenceman at 2nd overall last year and have received some criticism for not taking Demidov to play with Bedard. I wonder if that makes them feel the pressure to take the forwards with the highest upside (Misa).

[Jiri Hrdina]

Yeah I think they go Schaefer as well.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

no one is trading a top half first rounder for Andersson 1 for 1 today.

IMO this is the only way we could extract that type of value out of him.

The florida first is probably 25+.

If we offered up Andersson to Detroit at the TDL for their 1st do you think they take it?

The pick would probably remain in the same range, because he wouldn't push them over the top into a divisional playoff spot. Either wildcard or just out like right now.

[dammage79]

Outside of Misa, Frondells been "My" pick all year long even through the injury worries.

He's already a good 200ft center and his offense is just starting to blossom. Barkov lite ppl have been saying. Id take a Knock off Barkov at this point so lite is a good omen.

[Tbull8]

I think Chicago would go Misa at 1
SJ - Schaefer
NSH - 80% Schaefer
BOS - 50/50
SEA - Schaefer

[Calgary4LIfe]

I don't disagree with the prioritize centers thing, but this is exactly why the Flames should bottom-out rather than REACH.



Look at last year's draft - there was a run on centers, and it allowed the Flames to draft Parekh. Should the Flames have skipped Parekh to draft the following centers left: Luchanko (13th), Helenius (14th), Boisvert (18th), Hage (21), Surin (22), Beaudoin (24) Letorneau (25).. or someone else? Which C prospect would you trade Parekh for 1-for-1 with?


The problem for the Flames isn't that they haven't prioritized centers before, it is simply because they often finish too high and teams often reach for centers to start with, leaving 'star' wingers and good top 4 defencemen left over to pick from. Sure, there is an odd center that gets passed over and ends up being an awesome player (like Point).


Flames drafted Monahan and Bennett when they picked high. They took Tkachuk over Jost (10th), McLeod (12th), Kunin (15th)... sure, maybe they should have reached for Tage Thompson (26th), but I feel Tkachuk was the right pick and I wouldn't trade him 1-for-1 versus any center drafted after him either.


Flames did prioritize center in 2012 - they aimed at Jankowski. Sure, they could have picked Teravainen, Laughton, Girgensons - and you could say they definitely missed out on Hertl, even if he never was a real #1 C, but you can attribute that to other factors rather than prioritizing the position. The best picks they missed out on (non-Cs) were goalie and wing - Vesilevski and Wilson (assuming the original draft position of 14). There were other good picks of course, but we are talking about prioritizing centers. For reference, Galchenyuk is the 3rd highest scoring C from that draft class, and he hasn't played in the NHL since 2022-23.


Don't get me wrong - there definitely are good centers that come outside of the top end of the draft, but getting one that turns into a #1 center is extremely rare. Point is such a rare example. That's probably the year in which taking centers only would have led to a better outcome than I can see from the last few drafts, but grabbing point wasn't a given. More likely the Flames would have drafted MacInnis over MacDonald (no change in outcome), and Ryan Donato (or Dvorak) over Smith (huge upgrade) - though maybe they would have went with Justin Kirkland (he probably would have left he organization with no games for the Flames anyway). Things really become interesting in the third round using this 'model', however, as instead of Brandon Hickey (who looked like an absolute steal of a pick for a few seasons after, but wouldn't sign and demanded a trade-out, and never made the NHL anyway) the next center taken was indeed Brayden Point. However - it was 15 picks later. Would Calgary - under Burke - really have taken Point (5'11" - maybe 5'10" at the draft?)? Maybe.. maybe they would have just reached past him at one of the next couple of centers - Iverson or Wallmark? It is tough to say.



It is an interesting exercise. On paper, and given Calgary's hole organizationally, I would agree with the change in draft philosophy in theory. When actually going through the drafts, and seeing how in many cases you end up worse off, it seems to be a worse approach. Teams miss in the draft - the best drafting organizations miss way more than they hit. However, it seems to me that by focusing only on one position for the first 3-4 picks of a draft, the likelihood of either downgrading the player or missing altogether increases.



BPA, and if it is close, take the premium position - Cs===>Ds===>Ws/Gs (since goalies are so wild to predict and usually take longer to develop than a team holds their rights for). Calgary ends up drafting more good wingers than centers simply because there are usually much better wingers left over than centers at the time they pick. It appears the best way to grab a better center is to either:


1) bottom-out and draft higher
2) trade-up - even if it is cost prohibitive


So, perhaps the answer isn't to draft 3-4 centers exclusively. Maybe the Flames would be better served to trade their highest 3 picks either together, or in a series of trades, and get as far up the draft as possible and simply make a single selection? Maybe that would result in an actual greater chance of drafting a #1 center in the long run year over year, though I do think the rest of your prospect base will probably take a large hit if you continue for a few years.

Edit: Forgot to make this point - 2012 was such an awful year to prioritize centers. Imagine if the Flames drafted Vasilevski in that round. Now remember how awful goaltending was in the playoffs year-over-year with the Gaudreau-Monahan-Lindholm-Tkachuk era. I bet the Flames would have likely experienced a much higher success level in the playoffs had they added Vasiliveski - and I myself dislike a 1st being used on a goaltender. Just goes to show that any hard and fast 'rules' shoot you in the foot - take the best player available, period, and you are more likely to have success long-term.

[1qqaaz]

Excellent post, fully agree.

[Sylvanfan]

The Flames have just sucked at drafting centers. It's not like every center in the NHL was a first round pick and a top 6 one. Outside of Jankowski, Monahan, Bennett, Zary, and Backlund who have the Flames drafted in the last 20 years who's played 200 games in the NHL at that position?

Yeah top 2...not top 5...top 2 is usually needed to get an elite one. But eff me in 20 years you couldn't draft one in round 3 that could play 3 seasons as a 4th liner?

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

Edit: Forgot to make this point - 2012 was such an awful year to prioritize centers. Imagine if the Flames drafted Vasilevski in that round. Now remember how awful goaltending was in the playoffs year-over-year with the Gaudreau-Monahan-Lindholm-Tkachuk era. I bet the Flames would have likely experienced a much higher success level in the playoffs had they added Vasiliveski - and I myself dislike a 1st being used on a goaltender. Just goes to show that any hard and fast 'rules' shoot you in the foot - take the best player available, period, and you are more likely to have success long-term.

The Flames probably aren't picking early enough to get Monahan and Tkachuk if they had picked Vasilevski. We're going to see that hypothetical scenario play out with Wolf, though.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

The Flames have just sucked at drafting centers. It's not like every center in the NHL was a first round pick and a top 6 one. Outside of Jankowski, Monahan, Bennett, Zary, and Backlund who have the Flames drafted in the last 20 years who's played 200 games in the NHL at that position?

Yeah top 2...not top 5...top 2 is usually needed to get an elite one. But eff me in 20 years you couldn't draft one in round 3 that could play 3 seasons as a 4th liner?

possibly fair. I can't tell how their batting average in that regard compares to other teams. if you look at their ihdb draft page, there are several Center-ish or Center- adjacent picks (presumably part of that large group that always exists that played C either entirely or partially in Jr but were never destined to be NHL Cs- Dube, Granlund, Pospisil, Ruzicka and Kerins I suppose all listed as Cs- probably 3 of the 5 will hit 200 games


then there are the misses but I would guess most teams would have a list like this (and a few have asterisks of different types attached to them) Armstrong, Marvin, Carpentier (ok Flames were at a low point in drafting circa 2006 not gonna lie), Renaud (*), Nemisz (ugh), Grantham, Reinhart, Arnold, Lindstrom, Mattson, Joly, Roman, Petterson, Nikolaev, Francis, Ronni (*/ugh), Littler, Lipinski


ok that's an ugly lineup but less of them as time goes on and most of them are from the late round dregs


other than Ronni they haven't 'missed' (<200g) on a first or 2nd round C since Nemisz. they just haven't drafted enough of them, or drafted high enough. IMO anyways