Calgary Flames Drafting and Development: Your Analysis

[MAC331]

12 hours ago, Cowtownguy said:

I feel confident about Valamaki. I would be surprised if he does not pan out as a top 4. I think Andersson will make it. I am just not sure if he is top 4. Foo should make the team if only because he is a RS and has speed/moves. I do not know about the others. The guy who really bakes my noodle is Dube. I could see him projecting as a middle forward and going either way.

I don't think any of these players are simply automatics for making the team's upper levels or staying around other than Valimaki. I can see Andersson, Foo and Dube being incremental parts in 2 or 3 years for us.

[Flyerfan52]

On 8/7/2018 at 11:19 PM, DirtyDeeds said:

Also most of our top prospects have graduated, at least the ones who were destined for NHL. Only a few of our most promising recent picks are still on the farm.

They have the Jets ranked 28 for probably the same reason even the Wpg. has AHL Rookie of the Year Niku.

I take these rankings as a few peoples opinion based largely on stats as I'm sure they only watch small doses or high light clips of those hundreds or thousands of AHLers & prospects playing around the world in many leagues.

[420since1974]

Over the next few drafts, I feel that the Flame's will as usual go for the BPA.

All else being equal though, I think that they will concentrate on defense-men and goalies before forwards.

I don't see enough Top prospects at either position in the current cupboard.

[robrob74]

14 hours ago, 420since1974 said:

Over the next few drafts, I feel that the Flame's will as usual go for the BPA.

All else being equal though, I think that they will concentrate on defense-men and goalies before forwards.

I don't see enough Top prospects at either position in the current cupboard.

 

Inwas listening to a radio show on TSN1040 and they were talking about the recent tourney and how deep the next draft will be. So I say go all out on the best in the first round, depending on what positions seem to be the strongest that is. 

 

I would love a hihh end anything really. We could use some dynamics in the top6 still. I think we have good pieces there though. But one more game breaker as someone on their ELC. 

 

But it like you say, we also need a stud D. We have good pieces, but so far Gio is the only stud and how old is he? Old. 

 

But will Hanifin, Hamonic or Valamaki take his place? And how soon? Gio worked at it harder than any probably to get to his level. 

[travel_dude]

1 hour ago, robrob74 said:

 

Inwas listening to a radio show on TSN1040 and they were talking about the recent tourney and how deep the next draft will be. So I say go all out on the best in the first round, depending on what positions seem to be the strongest that is. 

 

I would love a hihh end anything really. We could use some dynamics in the top6 still. I think we have good pieces there though. But one more game breaker as someone on their ELC. 

 

But it like you say, we also need a stud D. We have good pieces, but so far Gio is the only stud and how old is he? Old. 

 

But will Hanifin, Hamonic or Valamaki take his place? And how soon? Gio worked at it harder than any probably to get to his level. 

 

Many people discount what Kylington is and is becoming.

That's a shame.  He's worked on his defensive game, which was really his only struggle.  He's ripped.

If he adds a bit of snarl to his game, he could be as all-round a better player than Andersson.

Skates as good as Brodie.

Offensive.

 

I think the only thing he needs to work on is making smarter decisions quicker.

[MAC331]

2 hours ago, robrob74 said:

 

Inwas listening to a radio show on TSN1040 and they were talking about the recent tourney and how deep the next draft will be. So I say go all out on the best in the first round, depending on what positions seem to be the strongest that is. 

 

I would love a hihh end anything really. We could use some dynamics in the top6 still. I think we have good pieces there though. But one more game breaker as someone on their ELC. 

 

But it like you say, we also need a stud D. We have good pieces, but so far Gio is the only stud and how old is he? Old. 

 

But will Hanifin, Hamonic or Valamaki take his place? And how soon? Gio worked at it harder than any probably to get to his level. 

I have to think Hanifin and Valimaki are the start towards replacing Giordano eventually. Our RSD depth is where we need help and soon. Depending on their play this coming season should decide where they go with Brodie and Hamonic.

[conundrumed]

3 hours ago, travel_dude said:

 

Many people discount what Kylington is and is becoming.

That's a shame.  He's worked on his defensive game, which was really his only struggle.  He's ripped.

If he adds a bit of snarl to his game, he could be as all-round a better player than Andersson.

Skates as good as Brodie.

Offensive.

 

I think the only thing he needs to work on is making smarter decisions quicker.

He also needs to build his mass. He's gets knocked off the puck too easily. Outside of that, you are absolutely right. He's an excellent prospect.

[travel_dude]

2 hours ago, conundrumed said:

He also needs to build his mass. He's gets knocked off the puck too easily. Outside of that, you are absolutely right. He's an excellent prospect.

 

I don't know if he's focused on core strength, but he's looking like a lean, mean, fighting machine.

Not the John Candy, Stripes type either.

If it translates to strength, then that's part of the battle.

[Flyerfan52]

Tim Berhardt has left his position as Director of Amateur Scouting with the Coyotes.

Go get him BT! He wants to slow down a bit from that life on the road but even if he just does the WHL as a part-timer ge's a good 1.

 

[travel_dude]

3 hours ago, Flyerfan52 said:

Tim Berhardt has left his position as Director of Amateur Scouting with the Coyotes.

Go get him BT! He wants to slow down a bit from that life on the road but even if he just does the WHL as a part-timer ge's a good 1.

 

 

You would have to think BT knows guys like that, and would talk to him.  

[conundrumed]

21 hours ago, Flyerfan52 said:

Tim Berhardt has left his position as Director of Amateur Scouting with the Coyotes.

Go get him BT! He wants to slow down a bit from that life on the road but even if he just does the WHL as a part-timer ge's a good 1.

 

Ummm, yeah...

That's one of my old goalie coaches

The nicest and biggest confidence builder I ever had.

Also the best drills and angles coach.

He'd always have an old-skooler with him to be the bad cop.

Tim Bernhardt is exceptional in my books.

[rickross]

Was just mentioning BT's impact on our drafting and player development in another thread. The highlight being how currently the majority of our defensive starters are Flames draft grads. Pretty impressive to have 2 starting D men both drafted in the same 2nd round in Rasmus and Kylington. Quite a rare feat IMO, these players have progressed at a rate where a player like Stone is now an expendable piece. 

 

Our forwards have have seen some success with guys like Janko, Mangiapane and Dube. The Flames have produced greater balance and depth however, with all the recent graduations we already need to reup on more blue chip prospects. We have a lot of good solid depth players but we still lack impactful players. Lots of players that can fill in but no real game changers in the cupboards. As much as I like what we have, the gap in top end talent is still a work in progress. We don't have another Monny, JH in the ranks yet and hopefully 1 or more of our recent late round picks will pan out. 

 

With the Flames trending up for the next few years it's hard to see them drafting high for the foreseeable future. It will be interesting to see how they go about remaining competitive while still acquiring future assets. 

[Meatpuppet42]

So the general consensus is that the first pick should be a future top 6 forward then the next 3 picks D men to fill up the D cupboard?

[cross16]

I don't think there is, nor should there be, any consensus on how the Flames should pick. Should always just pick BPA anyway but with them having needs all over it should really just be BPA. 

[robrob74]

12 minutes ago, Meatpuppet42 said:

So the general consensus is that the first pick should be a future top 6 forward then the next 3 picks D men to fill up the D cupboard?

 

9 minutes ago, cross16 said:

I don't think there is, nor should there be, any consensus on how the Flames should pick. Should always just pick BPA anyway but with them having needs all over it should really just be BPA. 

 

Along with Rick and you both, something I am happy with is the “possibilities” the Flames have drafted in later rounds. They’re finding players that can possibly make it and have made it. I now like the chances of drafting later in the draft than I did a few years ago. Itd be great to find a “Pastrnak” or “Kuznetsov” or others like that. 

[conundrumed]

2 hours ago, cross16 said:

I don't think there is, nor should there be, any consensus on how the Flames should pick. Should always just pick BPA anyway but with them having needs all over it should really just be BPA. 

I agree with that at this point.

Then I think the issue becomes how you rank specific skills and foresighting exactly what kind of team you envision.

I realize hindsight is 20/20 in revisiting old drafts by almost every team, but I don't understand why historical data seems basically ignored.Rather than learn from it.

The draft is virtually the same, every year. A lot of consensus, a lot of promotion, a lot of attack.

Something is wrong imho. We stat the crap out of minutiae, but imho we talk about old drafts revisited. No one seems to trend why the surprises are NHLers and the commonalities of play styles.

BPA has to meet the GM's vision of what he's building. A big shot, good finish, heavy game decent skater RW might be right there alongside of a fast, skilled, smaller, extreme vision and set ups LW. Who do you take? The scouts HAVE to work to the GM's vision, there has to be one. A light to follow.

IMHO, that's not a decision to make on the draft floor.

The vision has to be in place.

Then it's BPA to the vision.

The era of building a team around Lemieux doesn't work in a cap world, as we're seeing quite clearly recently. Draft to a vision, and be hard on your scouts to drive home the vision.

Give everyone the plan and a voice, adjust the plan accordingly, everyone sticks with it.

Hire Russians with guns to keep your scouts scared. j/k

But I hope our scouts take anonymity to the rinks. That "scouts" section is a bunch of back-slapping, keg-tapping "oracles of hockey" that would do better treating it as hard work.So here we are, we can trend the most important thing, drafting, with a ton of more reliable historical data.

If anyone is doing it, it's kept incredibly on the down-low in the media.

 

 

[Meatpuppet42]

5 hours ago, cross16 said:

I don't think there is, nor should there be, any consensus on how the Flames should pick. Should always just pick BPA anyway but with them having needs all over it should really just be BPA. 

BPA is not always a good thing.  What if every time they pick BPA is a goalie?  so the 2019 draft they walk away with 7 goalies.

This happened to us in the last 10 years no RW was picked so we had to go trade for one.

[sak22]

20 minutes ago, Meatpuppet42 said:

BPA is not always a good thing.  What if every time they pick BPA is a goalie?  so the 2019 draft they walk away with 7 goalies.

This happened to us in the last 10 years no RW was picked so we had to go trade for one.

Outside of going way off the board for Pastrnak in '14 I wouldn't pass up who we've picked in the first for the next best RW.  Go specifically for needs or physical attributes most times you wind up with Hunter Smith's, who happened to be a truculent RW.

[Khrox]

BPA is absolutely the right thing to do. Especially when combined with the GM's vision (as conundrumed pointed out). You're building your team a certain way, that means certain skills are more valued so outside of the top 3-5 players in the draft, BPA for teams changes a bit. But you have to stick to your method. Now filling for need is an option when you have 2 guys ranked roughly the same but play different positions (such as a LW and a RD who are both roughly the same skill-level and fit the vision, that your team has ranked roughly the same, that is where if you are full of LW and lacking RD, you can pick the need of RD since they both are roughly equal on the BPA for your team). 

But drafting for need over BPA is how Vancouver got Olli Juolevi instead of Matthew Tkachuk.

[cccsberg]

17 hours ago, rickross said:

Was just mentioning BT's impact on our drafting and player development in another thread. The highlight being how currently the majority of our defensive starters are Flames draft grads. Pretty impressive to have 2 starting D men both drafted in the same 2nd round in Rasmus and Kylington. Quite a rare feat IMO, these players have progressed at a rate where a player like Stone is now an expendable piece. 

 

Our forwards have have seen some success with guys like Janko, Mangiapane and Dube. The Flames have produced greater balance and depth however, with all the recent graduations we already need to reup on more blue chip prospects. We have a lot of good solid depth players but we still lack impactful players. Lots of players that can fill in but no real game changers in the cupboards. As much as I like what we have, the gap in top end talent is still a work in progress. We don't have another Monny, JH in the ranks yet and hopefully 1 or more of our recent late round picks will pan out. 

 

With the Flames trending up for the next few years it's hard to see them drafting high for the foreseeable future. It will be interesting to see how they go about remaining competitive while still acquiring future assets. 

Most of what you say is right on.  But when you say we don't have another Mony or JH in the ranks you make me laugh.  Neither one of those guys ever made the farm team, skipping right into the NHL.  If we had more they'd do the same.  Down the road, though we COULD have several Top6 forwards from guys we've already drafted, we'll have to wait and see how they develop.  

[MAC331]

1 hour ago, cccsberg said:

Most of what you say is right on.  But when you say we don't have another Mony or JH in the ranks you make me laugh.  Neither one of those guys ever made the farm team, skipping right into the NHL.  If we had more they'd do the same.  Down the road, though we COULD have several Top6 forwards from guys we've already drafted, we'll have to wait and see how they develop.  

Depth is building and this will bode well for us down the road. We need to have another great Draft so hopefully BT doesn't go giving picks away.

[cross16]

15 hours ago, conundrumed said:

I agree with that at this point.

Then I think the issue becomes how you rank specific skills and foresighting exactly what kind of team you envision.

I realize hindsight is 20/20 in revisiting old drafts by almost every team, but I don't understand why historical data seems basically ignored.Rather than learn from it.

The draft is virtually the same, every year. A lot of consensus, a lot of promotion, a lot of attack.

Something is wrong imho. We stat the crap out of minutiae, but imho we talk about old drafts revisited. No one seems to trend why the surprises are NHLers and the commonalities of play styles.

BPA has to meet the GM's vision of what he's building. A big shot, good finish, heavy game decent skater RW might be right there alongside of a fast, skilled, smaller, extreme vision and set ups LW. Who do you take? The scouts HAVE to work to the GM's vision, there has to be one. A light to follow.

IMHO, that's not a decision to make on the draft floor.

The vision has to be in place.

Then it's BPA to the vision.

The era of building a team around Lemieux doesn't work in a cap world, as we're seeing quite clearly recently. Draft to a vision, and be hard on your scouts to drive home the vision.

Give everyone the plan and a voice, adjust the plan accordingly, everyone sticks with it.

Hire Russians with guns to keep your scouts scared. j/k

But I hope our scouts take anonymity to the rinks. That "scouts" section is a bunch of back-slapping, keg-tapping "oracles of hockey" that would do better treating it as hard work.So here we are, we can trend the most important thing, drafting, with a ton of more reliable historical data.

If anyone is doing it, it's kept incredibly on the down-low in the media.

 

 

100% agree

 

BPA is subjective not objective like some like to argue. I competely reject the idea that there should be  master scouting list or consensus among prospects. Your list and your BPA criteria should absolutely change and be adapted to fit the vision of your team and what style of game you want to play. 

 

14 hours ago, Meatpuppet42 said:

BPA is not always a good thing.  What if every time they pick BPA is a goalie?  so the 2019 draft they walk away with 7 goalies.

This happened to us in the last 10 years no RW was picked so we had to go trade for one.

 

The likelihood of this happening is pretty much zero so it's a pretty extreme example to counter the point. Most teams, and Flames are included in this, group in tiers so if you've already taken a goalie or two your list should be flexible so that you just pick another player with the same tier provided you have equal grades on both players. But if there is a goalie that is in a tier above everyone else, then I would fully support taking them even if another goalie has already been picked. 

 

The possibility or goal of drafting every element of your team is simply not realistic. You are going to have to make trades or sign free agents to fill holes and on top of that needs change all the time so if you draft for need what's to say that need will still be there in 2-3 years? Going into the Valamki draft the consensus was the Flames needed a forward but took Valamaki and how does that decision look now?

 

Pick good players and you always have assets that you can move in trade. Reach for needs or pick players for other reasons you wind up with prospects no one wants (see Darryl Sutter)

[Heartbreaker]

15 hours ago, sak22 said:

Outside of going way off the board for Pastrnak in '14 I wouldn't pass up who we've picked in the first for the next best RW.  Go specifically for needs or physical attributes most times you wind up with Hunter Smith's, who happened to be a truculent RW.

Yeah, I was looking at the '14 draft, and thinking the same thing. There's a lot of frustration with Bennett, but the top 3 were never available to us, and who would we take after that? The only names that popped out from the first round, at least to me, were Pastrnak and Larkin. Aside from that, I'd still take Bennett. 

 

Love. 

[travel_dude]

9 minutes ago, Heartbreaker said:

Yeah, I was looking at the '14 draft, and thinking the same thing. There's a lot of frustration with Bennett, but the top 3 were never available to us, and who would we take after that? The only names that popped out from the first round, at least to me, were Pastrnak and Larkin. Aside from that, I'd still take Bennett. 

 

Love. 

 

Well, it may not have been the best idea, but they should have taken a closer look at Ehlers.  104 points in his 1st year in the Q.  Sure he was playing with Druin, but 49 goals is nothing to sneer at.  Could have traded down by a slot or two, assuming VAN and NYI were interested in trading up.

 

I think this was a case of the #1 player on most lists dropping a bit at the combine.  As the best pick we have had in draffts, there probably wasn't a lot of chance we don't take him.

[bosn111]

I find this discussion interesting in general. The discussion of specific needs based on what we have in the, the thought about what future needs may be. Where we should go with drafting and even looking at what has been drafted.

 

Those people who say we do not currently have replacements for Gaudreau, Monahan, Tkachuk etc. in the system already are correct, though none of those 3 ever played in the AHL. They all jumped immediately to the NHL.  That being said, we do have similar players to some of them already drafted. DOn't forget, Johnny played multiple years in the NCAA before joining the Flames.

 

In Juniors still, we currently have 3 players (2 Cs and a LW) who are at least 1 PPG players as of a few days ago. Zavgorodniy, a LW who got a long look in pre-season, has 39 points in 31 games. This bodes well for the future. In the USHL, Pospisil is closer to 2 PPG with 32 in 19.  Pettersen (Centre) in NCAA is over 1 PPG. Both Quine and Mangiapane (both currently with the big club) are over 1ppg in the AHL this season. Dube is 1 PPG in 4 games with the Heat. 

 

Basically, the Flames do have some quality coming up in the pipeline. The prospects have potential, and they could very well add a lot to the team in the future. Not all will pan out, not all will make the NHL, some will play for other teams and maybe do well. The point is, the Flames have definitely improved drafting, I would say that development has improved (Andersson, Kylington, Mangiapane, Rittich, Lomberg, Ollas-Mattson etc.) and will hopefully continue.

 

Sometimes developing a player means letting other groups work more with them before bringing them to the system, such as letting stay in Junior longer, playing in Europe or NCAA etc. Sometimes it is simply choosing to put them somewhere to have success and grow, instead of trying to make them fit a particular style before they fully develop their own game. I feel the Flames have improved in this area greatly.

 

We will see what happens moving forward.