Nick Spaling
 

Anyone else really excitted about drafting this guy? I think he is a steal in the second round. He is a great defensive player, who can put the puck in the net and win faceoffs.

We have had notoriously bad luck with 2nd round forwards. Keeping that in mind, I am keeping my expectations firmly in place.

Outside of Weber and Klein, although we've only had 5 years that we had a 2nd round pick.

Since when did Weber and Klein become forwards?


Jonas Andersson
Adam Hall
Daniel Widing
Timofei Shishkinov
Konstantin Glavachev
Blake Geoffrion
Nick Spaling

Enoch....I agree...certainly not an impressive bunch.

Here is an article on Spaling from 3/07, for anyone that may be interested.

http://www.hockeysfuture.com/article..._nick_spaling/

Even knowing how bad our 2nd round forwards have been.... looking at that list makes me want to throw up. That group just reeks of wasted potential and disappointment (barring the recent two selections in Geoffrion and Spaling). Is it any wonder why we continue to take defensemen? We simply suck at drafting forwards.

On Spaling (and the article you provided Handtrick) - I really do not know what to make of him. A jack of all trades that isn't exceptionally good at anything? Um....okay...... can there be a more vague description of a player available?

Is any team really good at drafting good forwards in the second round? Just looking at the drafts from 98 until now, hell Adam Hall looks like a pretty good 2nd roudnd pick. I didn't see any team that had more than one decent forward picked in the 2nd round.

Frolov comes to mind out of LA. Its not just second round forwards for us though...........Its any forward beyond the first round....

Erat?

He was a 7th rounder.

Edit: If you are answering Enoch above, then NM.

Patrice Bergeron was drafted in the second round back in 2004 when the draft was here in Nashville.

Predators forwards outside of the first round to make it to the NHL thus far:

Denis Arkhipov - 1998 3rd Round - 352 games played
Jonas Andersson - 1999 2nd Round - 5 games played
Adam Hall - 1999 2nd Round - 306 games played
Martin Erat - 1999 7th Round - 331 games played
Darren Haydar - 1999 9th Round - 6 games played
Libor Pivko - 2000 3rd Round - 1 game played
Matt Koalska - 2000 5th Round - 3 games played
Timofei Shishkanov - 2001 2nd Round - 24 games played
Jordin Tootoo - 2001 4th round - 169 games played

Only 4 have played over 100 games and somewhat contributed at the NHL level.

Other Stats:

(Note, this isn't counting the last draft!)
Number of players drafted overall by position:
Forward - 43
Defense - 33
Goaltenders - 12
Overall - 88

Number of players to play at least 1 game in the NHL by position:
Forward - 13
Defense - 9
Goaltenders - 3
Overall - 25

Percent of positions drafted have played at least 1 game in the NHL:
Forward - 30.2%
Defense - 27.2%
Goaltenders - 25%
Overall - 28.4%

Number of players drafted outside the 1st round overall by position:
Forward - 39
Defense - 30
Goaltenders - 11
Overall - 80

Number of players drafted outside the first round to play at least 1 game in the NHL by position:
Forward - 9
Defense - 7
Goaltenders - 2
Overall - 18

Percent of positions drafted outside the first round to have played at least 1 game in the NHL:
Forward - 23%
Defense - 23.3%
Goaltenders - 18.1%
Overall - 22.5%

The point I'm making is quite simple. We have drafted a lot of forwards outside of the first round. Only one of them is a top 6 winger in Martin Erat, and he has definite flaws to his offensive game. Arkhipov is not a good player. Adam Hall is a 4th liner on most teams, and he has rightfully lost his role on this team once we evolved a bit. Yeah, we have a decent amount of forwards that have played a game, but who have made an impact even as an accomplished role player? Really only Martin Erat and to a lesser extent Hall and Tootoo. Three forwards out of all the rounds beyond the first? This is a horrible ratio, IMO, no matter how you slice it. Since we are so bad at drafting forwards, we are forced to ice role-players that have either come up through the system as hanger-ons or have been cast off by someone else (see the Fiddlers, Nichols, and Smithsons of the world). When building a third and fourth line, you need to have an identity you want to establish - something the organization develops and inserts players in as needed. We do not have that, and we really never have since we have become a "cup-contender". I really think this is a key problem that has largely went ignored the past couple of years, especially by the coaching staff. The unstable and undefined roles of our bottom 6 have, IMO, been the key reason to our big game losses and playoff failures. We are simply too easy to game plan for in some regards......half our forwards have typically been ineffective at even strength or iced with undefined or conflicting roles. We have had the puck-moving defense, the above average goaltending, and quick moving top 6...but our bottom pairing has burned us time and time again. Which year did we truly have a great playoff series? The series against Detroit! Why did we play so well? Our third line played a shutdown role and were able to score big goals. In fact, our third line of Hall - Johnson - Hartnell made up our best line in that playoff run. Were they the most talented? No.....Hartnell was the only good thing on that line. Johnson was a speedy guy who was on the downswing of his career.....Hall just seemed out of place. That said, they came in with defensive assignments, knew what their role was, and they accomplished it. How Trotz has allowed his system-based team to focus around a non-puck moving goalie and an undefined 3rd/4th these past few past seasons is inexplicable, and ultimately, I believe the reason we have continued to get beaten in the playoffs (and yeah I know the reffing was horrendous and likely cost us a game and a few pp goals for/against).

I'm looking forward to responses on this....

I agree. I was just posting those stats for something to view, not necessarily trying to prove a point about how 'well' our drafting has been.

In fact, I was being very, very generous. I could go and adjust the number of games played to 20. That list would look even worse.

I think our inability to draft forwards has hurt us all around, forcing us to rely on players like Fiddler, Nichol, etc. Next year when we likely lose Legwand and Dumont, we have almost no one to replace them.

I know I am not able to analyze like you do Enoch but just at first blush you seem to be picking and choosing facts that appear to support your hypothesis rather than forming the hypothesis based on analysis of the facts.

First, I do not know the answer for sure but my gut tells me that not many of the good teams in the last 10 years have had more than one or two top 6 forwards that they drafted for themselves below the 1st round.

And you dramatically overstate the difference in the playoff performances. Our performance against detroit only seems a lot better in retrospect than against San Jose because we were such big underdogs, and the losses to the Sharks were so bitterly disappointing, especially this year. But the fact is we only won one more game against detroit than we did against SJ either time and we were truthfully not even competitive once Detroit woke up and took us seriously in games 5 and 6, whereas we can look back and say that with a break or two we could have won any of the SJ games this year.

For comparison,

Chicago has drafted 11 players outside the first round that have played at least one game.

Columbus has drafted 7 forwards outside the first round that have played at least one game (since 2000).

Detroit has drafted 9 forwards outside the first round that have played at least one game.

St. Louis has drafted 9 forwards outside the first round that have played at least one game.

San Jose has drafted 12 forwards outside the first round that have played at least one game.

However, quantity does not equal quality. Just using this to compare. And again, this is just one game played.

thanks for the legwork Stranger. By comparison, we had 9, 4 of whom you can fairly say actually have(or had) an actual NHL career, and one who was a legit top 6 forward for on a good team... I suspect the ratios are similar on the other clubs.

Well, actually in Chicago's case, only 1; Arnason with more then 300. Columbus hasn't done that much better, although they've had less time, they've really only have Fritsche. Detroit has had Zetterberg, Datysuk, and a bunch of promising prospects. San Jose has Cheechoo, Samuelsson, Pavelski, Clowe and Dimitrakos among their top ones. St. Louis has had one over 250 games in Cajanek. I'd have to look back at the numbers again to get a full break down.

But we're not doing that terrible compared to those teams, but we could improve, especially with the team likely to be a salary floor team for the foreseeable future.

It's always been the knock on Poile, he can find good hard working players that can contribute but lacks the eye for the top end skilled forward.

He did well with a few (Bondra, Erat, Radulov) but for the most part he struggles finding pure scorers.

I think that is a rap I would pin more on the scouting staff than Poile. I think he probably has more influence over the 1st round pick with better known players than further down the chain, where the scouts become more important.

It seems clear that our original head scout failed us with second round picks that were very low caliber. My sense is our forward drafting has been a bit better but next year seems like a particularly crucial one to the franchise. On the bright side, great drafting of D-men still gives you bargaining chips to fix other problems and we seem to continue to be very good at that.

I don't think it's a major flaw. It's not like there are just tons of 2nd round scorers around the league. In fact, if you look at last year's top 60 point producers, only 6 players make the list of players who 1) where drafted outside the 1st round, and 2) where drafted since we enterted the leauge. The players are Datzuk, Bergeron, Chechoo, Statsny, Camerelli, Zetterberg.

Poile's major flaw is trading and asset management. A month of Witt for a 1st. Vokoun for a 1st. A month of Forsberg for a whole slew of players. Sitting on Arkhipov and watching his value go from high to nothing. Sitting on Hartnell knowing he likely wasn't going to resign. Walker for a puff-ball. etc, etc.

Witt was a mistake, but was a player that Poile and Trotz had a history with and they thought they needed a big defenseman for the playoff drive. Unfortunately, it didn't work out and it turned out that we got hosed, but it was a mistake worth taking at the time IMO.

Vokoun is 100% a budget move. Now, personally I didn't think his performance last season warranted the money he is due to get in his new contract kicking in this winter, but he is a franchise netminder and a fan favorite when healthy and you don't grow those on trees. Poile made the smart decision to save the money on Vokoun by trading him and using the cap flexibility to retool the roster this season with a very limited budget and prepare himself nicely in the future by stockpiling early round draft picks in what is considered to be a very deep draft. Only time will tell on this move. Will Mason be enough to hold the fort? Will Vokoun stay healthy and mystify Eastern Conference opponents enough to propel Florida into the playoffs for the first time in a long time? Will we keep the picks? Will we use any of those picks to make trades? Will any of those picks turn out to be bonafide NHL'ers? So many questions left to be answered here.

Forsberg was a trade that was made on two fronts. First, by adding Peter Forsberg you gave Nashville a bonafide superstar, albeit one on the downslope of a brillant career, and propelled the Predators arguably to the top of the Stanley Cup contenders list. Second, by acquiring Forsberg when we did...we prevented him from going to one of our rivals. Did it work out? On the ice...I would say it's a toss-up. He didn't lead us out of the first round, but he did elevate Radulov to levels not seen since his junior career and arguably made everyone in that locker room a better player just by his presence alone. Results wise...it was a loss. But overall, I would never question why Poile made this trade. It was a high-rish, high-reward trade that didn't work out.

Arkiphov I wasn't around for so I won't even care to speculate on that and concede you might have something there.

Walker was an injured player playing at a position that we were overloaded at and he was traded for a player that filled a need (or was supposed to). It has also been mentioned several times on this board that Scott was not well liked within the locker room and again...it was a trade that moved a player coming off a major injury for one that had all the tools to fit a need we had at center (unfortunately, common sense and selflessness were either of those traits).

Lastly, you mentioned Hartnell. Again, Hartnell (much like Vokoun and Timonen) was a budget move...but not as much as Vokoun. Vokoun was already signed to a long-term deal...Scotty was not. Hartnell was heading to the open market and everyone knew that Nashville didn't stand a chance at matching some of the outrageous money that would be thrown at him. Therefore, Poile actually made a smart decision under the strict restraints of a limited budget and the impending sale of the franchise and got something (our 1st rounder back that was sent to Philadelphia as part of the package for Forsberg - turned into Jonathan Blum) for two players he was going to lose without any compensation in a matter of days.

These trades I cannot group together and draw the conclusion that Poile is poor at trading (Sullivan for two second-rounders, Vokoun in the expansion draft, Zidlicky for Dunham, etc), but rather that he has had some misses and some tight budget restraints during his entire tenure with the Predators. Overall, I think that David Poile is probably one of a few select group of general managers that could have done as good a job as he has done with the roadblocks that he has faced.

Well said.

Spaling had two goals in the Rangers Home Opener

I was really impressed with Spaling in training camp. He played very well and didn't have the usual "just drafted" look as he seemed calm and cool. From the little I saw, he looks like a very promising prospect.