2004
5: Blake Wheeler
6: Al Montoya
11-16: Drew Stafford, Alexander Radulov
In 2006, 2007, and 2009, the best player out of those groupings was drafted at 5 or 6. Every other year, I'd rather take one of the guys drafted in the 11-16 range.
If Bobrovsky goes for that maybe Neuvirth could get a late 1st. Then we could move into the top 5 and still have 16 to play with.
At 5 and 6 you have better players available, all it takes is not having dumb as **** GMs passing on Kopitars, Couturiers, Fowlers and Grigorienkos because they think they've outsmarted everybody.
I have a feeling we come out with Yak or Grigs... Call me crazy... But apparently Columbus is trying to trade down if Edmonton picks Murray. 11th+ would be a pretty solid deal as they'd still get a top prospect.
If I had to pick the perfect draft from my perspective Grigs falling to 11 and getting Lindholm at 16.
Still like Faksa/Girgensons. Maata's skating just seems slow and this is a skating league these days. Admittedly don't have a feel for his gap control which can mitigate this.
Wouldn't mind moving up to the 8th or 9th spot from 11 to try and grab Grigorenko. 11th + mid-round pick should hopefully be enough there. Worst case scenario would be giving up pick 54.
Quote:
Originally Posted by amjay13
If Girgensons is there and the Caps pass on him, I suspect this will end up as just another failure of GMGM on draft day.
God forbid that GMGM pass on taking a 3rd or 4th line center at 11th overall.
Wouldn't mind moving up to the 8th or 9th spot from 11 to try and grab Grigorenko. 11th + mid-round pick should hopefully be enough there. Worst case scenario would be giving up pick 54.
God forbid that GMGM pass on taking a 3rd or 4th line center at 11th overall.
I wonder if Tampa or WIN would even take Grink if he falls to them. I feel like both are ready to get some high-end D prospects again, given where they've been going recently (Namestnikov/Connolly and Scheifle/Burmistrov/Kane).
Maata's skating just seems slow and this is a skating league these days. Admittedly don't have a feel for his gap control which can mitigate this.
He seems to use a pretty long stick. That and his wingspan allow him to gap up pretty well. Some scouts seem to believe he may be NHL-ready but I'm not sure he has the overall strength to hold his own in the corners.
Grigorenko & Gaunce seems possible. A yin/yang center combo. Right around 16 is where it seems to really open up and it'll be interesting to see if it even opens up before that.
Agree on trading up to 7-9 with the 54 if Grigorenko tumbles and he's their guy. A recently Russian-friendly drafting team in Tampa Bay could pass on a D for him and still get a fairly decent D at 19. (Or just move that pick...) I'm not sure Grigorenko is a prospect a team is going to fall for but at some point the reward outweighs the risk. His raw ability and offensive awareness are pretty special but there's quite a bit for him to learn to be a successful two-way 2C.
I wonder if Tampa or WIN would even take Grink if he falls to them. I feel like both are ready to get some high-end D prospects again, given where they've been going recently (Namestnikov/Connolly and Scheifle/Burmistrov/Kane).
I feel both will take the guy they like, regardless of position. We saw that last year with the Scheifele pick from Winnipeg. If they like Grigorenko, they probably go with him.
That being said, because of their decent system depth at forward, both might be willing to move down from that pick knowing that one of the better defensemen is probably still going to be available at 11 (depending on how the first handful of picks go).
My ideal first round scenario would be to trade one pick for a player that helps the Caps next season (Ribeiro, Perron/Oshie, Wilson, Ott, etc.) and take a center with the other.
My order of preference for centers would be:
Faksa
Gaunce
Grigorenko
Laughton
Girgensons
Hertl
Samuelsson
Matteau
I wouldn't be disappointed at all if they traded down, picked one of the guys on that list, and picked up an extra pick.
I really, really hope they don't package both to move up.
Honestly, 2 50-60 pt calibre players(or 1 and a 2nd pairing D...) are worth more than a 70-80 pt player/top pairing Dman.
Quantity is RARELY better than Quality.
__________________
George McPhee....The Teflon GM. 15 years of failure and counting....
6 - Number of playoff series the Capitals have won since George McPhee took over as General Manager in 1997 (which makes him the third-longest-tenured GM in the League), three of which came in McPhee's first season on the job.
