[GT] 2024 NHL Draft - Round 1 - 5pm MT - SN, ESPN

[Tibnadian_tpd]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

Yeah and you can't really make a straight line comparison between Levshunov, Buium, Parekh, Dickinson etc because the AHL is a major step up in competition for a 19 year old.

You raise a valid point, but on pure talent/skill alone, Levshunov is a country mile behind those other players you listed. I know the "experts" were stating Levshunov had tons of skill as well, but just watch him, it's seriously mid tier stuff he has. Admittedly early in the overall development process, but it doesn't bode well for being the 2nd overall pick in the draft, perhaps expending a late first rounder on him would have been better, and he wouldn't be looked at so closely. Many fans on the Blackhawk boards as well that have seen him in Rockford, are not to keen on having used the 2nd overall pick on him either. There's so much to watch these days from the Rockford AHL games, or even highlights from back in the NCAA where he put up decent numbers, it truly seems like he masked his flaws well with aggressive play and his above average skating, and it worked out for that draft season. There were just too many better players available at that pick.

[Tibnadian_tpd]

Originally Posted by YyjFlames

This is a legitimate criticism, but I still like the pick over Demidov. When a team is still relatively early in a rebuild, pick the top defender in a defense heavy draft and the top forward in a forward heavy draft the next year.

They'll get their guy to play with Bedard in 2025, or they'll pick another centre and will have a crazy one-two punch with a super talented defender feeding them for the next decade -- similarly to the Penguins.

While I like and could agree with your strategy of choosing a super talented defender prior to a forward, I truly feel he was the wrong defender to choose, and said so on draft day in this forum. I just think the experts got it wrong, and there were actually 3-4 better dmen to have chosen out of.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Tibnadian_tpd

While I like and could agree with your strategy of choosing a super talented defender prior to a forward, I truly feel he was the wrong defender to choose, and said so on draft day in this forum. I just think the experts got it wrong, and there were actually 3-4 better dmen to have chosen out of.

Erik Karlsson was the seventh Defenseman drafted in 2008, a draft which doesn’t have six defensemen better than Erik Karlsson in it.

Teams overvalue guys for all sorts of reasons.

For some reason, Chicago didn’t approach the second overall pick with the goal of finding the best player to give the league nightmares with Conor Bedard for the next 12 years.

Whether that was Demidov, Parekh, Senneke, Lindstrom, it’s almost beside the point. You can probably find someone to be Levshunov good later. I might be wrong about that, but #2 overall is too high a pick to go that conservative IMO.

I’d so much rather miss big than miss small at that spot.

[Samonadreau]

^Its all moot because Bedard-Martone will be pretty good.

[devo22]

a dive into Ivan Demidovs KHL team is fun at least. Evegny Kuznetsov, Mikhail Grigorenko, Tony DeAngelo (until yesterday), former Oilers hopeful and PED fan Valentin Zykov, Nikita Zaitsev, former Flames draft pick Stepan Falkovsky (until recently) ... quite the blast from the past, in lots of different ways.

[YyjFlames]

Chicago hasn’t missed on anything yet. It’s been six months and prospects take time to develop, so it’s way too early to do a victory dance.

The fun thing about the 2024 draft was there were six high end defencemen available. One of them will end up being better than the rest, and hopefully that’ll be Parekh, but it’ll take a bit of time to actually find that out.