Who will the Flames select with their first pick?

[CaramonLS]

Whatever the Flames do, I hope they aren't overly eager to inject the player into the lineup as an 18 year old. Most of the time it is good for players to spend that extra year or two in junior and not burn those contract years.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Whatever the Flames do, I hope they aren't overly eager to inject the player into the lineup as an 18 year old. Most of the time it is good for players to spend that extra year or two in junior and not burn those contract years.

Then the best approach would be to draft a Euro league guy. They usually stay a year or so longer to finish out their contract with their Euro league club + by virtue of playing in an adult league they won't be outclassing the competition by an extreme amount. That or a college bound guy... that's one of the things I like about Feaster's recent affection for drafting NCAA bound guys, they don't end up stuck playing in a youth league for two years, they get to go play against men.

Not that I'd skip over the BPA if he's in Major Junior but if we end up drafting high the only real way we'd get to keep them out of the NHL and happy at the same time is if it's a European.

Ideally I think I'd like to see Feaster and Co. go with a Euro league/NCAA heavy draft (all things being equal with respect to players... get the BPA but if it's effectively an equal choice between guys that we can reasonably keep out of the NHL right away without eating a ELC year and without stunting development and a guy we can't then I'd go with that guy) again this year and then switch to Major Junior next. Set up the Flames to have a sweet spot where we'll get a mass of graduations close together and we can take advantage of the artificially low ELC contracts to make a power house team.

Is there going to be a combine this year?

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I just found this:

http://www.tsn.ca/chl/story/?id=407200

In October, Craig Button thought Barkov as 1st overall could be a possibility.

It's been speculated in the past that Craig Button sometimes gets scouting info from his brother, so maybe this also matches what the Flames think.

More recently Button has been all about Seth Jones, I listen to his podcast (well not his but TSN's draft focused podcast) and the last three months he's been Jones, Jones, Jones... that's not to say that he doesn't like McKinnon or Druoin but I think he's locked in on Jones as the #1 talent available in the draft. One of the things they were musing about recently was whether the Blue Jackets might attempt to use their two other 1st round picks to get both MacKinnon AND Drouin like Burke did to get both of the Sedins.

[H2SO4(aq)]

I really hope Flames shock their fans and trade up and snag Barkov. Would be one hell of an exciting day!

[Cheerio]

I don't want anything to do with Shinkaruk unless it's 15th overall or later. Don't know too much about Nikita Zadorov but sounds like a big smooth skating dman, anyone watch him that could give a scouting report?

[Split98]

Flames getting another 1st round from somewhere and walking out of the draft with 2 of Monahan/Lindholm/Shinkaruk/Domi will solve our C problems for YEARS to come

Lindholm
Domi
Backlund
Jankowski

Is a fantastic logjam to have at Center.

As great as the other Cs are above him, I will be absolutely ecstatic if Domi is wearing Calgary threads (I see a lot of Max). Hopefully it's with someone else's pick and we're landing one of the other big name Cs as I see us drafting pretty high.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I just found this:

http://www.tsn.ca/chl/story/?id=407200

In October, Craig Button thought Barkov as 1st overall could be a possibility.

It's been speculated in the past that Craig Button sometimes gets scouting info from his brother, so maybe this also matches what the Flames think.

If that is the case (and not unreasonable, siblings not named Sutter often talk) then the Flames must be thrilled when Craig publishes their scouting. Kidding.