2021 Calgary Flames NHL Draft

[jjgallow]

4 minutes ago, travel_dude said:

 

If you want to be critical, read the attached breakdown by Todd:

 

https://flamesnation.ca/2021/07/24/tod-button-breaks-down-the-flames-2021-draft-class/

 

Sorry and thank you.   Basically the picks that upset me the most (other than Wallstedt) were the many many times he mentioned "area scouts".    

 

Translation:   We ignored central scouting and the general consensus among most professional scouts and picked players because we happened to have one of our scouts nearby and that was just a lot less work than actually having a read on most of the players in the draft.   Because taking a guy twice as talented who had dropped from an upper round or hadn't been seen by "our guys" was far too risky.

 

Some classic lines from the breakdown, the kind you would expect from a team relying on "area scouts":

 

"skilled right winger"    - Tod on Coronato.  Who's going to break it to him?

 

"he can skate in straight lines"

 

"he's a guy that we were able to track early"

 

"He's a kid."

 

"Again, trust in Terry"

 

'what he's going to do is go to the net, create space for the skill guys"             (who our competitors drafted)

 

 

[cross16]

1 hour ago, MP5029 said:

I’m a retired cop here is the fact, he’s 100% correct.

so honest question then. Why does the criminal code say age of consent is 16?

[travel_dude]

1 hour ago, jjgallow said:

 

Sorry and thank you.   Basically the picks that upset me the most (other than Wallstedt) were the many many times he mentioned "area scouts".    

 

Translation:   We ignored central scouting and the general consensus among most professional scouts and picked players because we happened to have one of our scouts nearby and that was just a lot less work than actually having a read on most of the players in the draft.   Because taking a guy twice as talented who had dropped from an upper round or hadn't been seen by "our guys" was far too risky.

 

Some classic lines from the breakdown, the kind you would expect from a team relying on "area scouts":

 

"skilled right winger"    - Tod on Coronato.  Who's going to break it to him?

 

"he can skate in straight lines"

 

"he's a guy that we were able to track early"

 

"He's a kid."

 

"Again, trust in Terry"

 

'what he's going to do is go to the net, create space for the skill guys"             (who our competitors drafted)

 

 

 

What was the consensus?

If you look at the Elite Prospects rating for each of our players drafted, you might find one out of touch with the ranges.

Is Cragg Button good or bad at rankings?

If he's bad then he made mistakes on Cossa, Wlalstedt and Sskarov.

 

Seems to me that very teams take central scouting with anything more than a grain of salt.

If these guys are safe picks, then we added to our prospects.

If they are home run swings, then we stand as much chance of hitting as a lot of teams.

 

 

By the way, the Flames don't draft (anymore) based on one guy's opinion.  They go over the lists, look at the players, argue about them, and come up with a list that they can agree on.  The only thing that normally diverges is whether we trade down or up depending on the way the board is filling up.

[cross16]

2 hours ago, jjgallow said:

 

 

@cross16 claims he was happy, but has claimed that in every Flames draft ever and that leaves one with a very undesireable track record on being happy as well as inevitably butting heads with some like me lol.   I know some think it's the "right" thing to do (being positive), but in the end he may have accidentally summed up the draft for us with one desperate but classic polite observation:

 

''not much upside but lots of good things"

 

I get your thing is to be the contrarian, be negative and think you hold people in check but if you are going to do that at least be factual. I’ve been critical of multiple draft classes under multiple GMs. Yes I like most of them recently but I happen to think the Flames amateur team is very good, and lately they have been. 
So be nice if before you question someone’s integrity or insult them you could actually use  facts and not completely make up an opinion for someone. 
 

being negative just to be negative is exactly why this place is not very enjoyable these days. 

[jjgallow]

17 minutes ago, cross16 said:

so honest question then. Why does the criminal code say age of consent is 16?

 

The consentual video, I would imagine.   Legally he is not allowed to consent to a sex tape at the age of 17, and her agreeing to this with him is legally viewed as exploitative.

 

No sex tapes for 17 year olds, basically, as I understand it.   So yeah it's a fair point I hadn't really thought about.

[jjgallow]

3 minutes ago, cross16 said:

 

I get your thing is to be the contrarian, be negative and think you hold people in check but if you are going to do that at least be factual. I’ve been critical of multiple draft classes under multiple GMs. Yes I like most of them recently but I happen to think the Flames amateur team is very good, and lately they have been. 
So be nice if before you question someone’s integrity or insult them you could actually use  facts and not completely make up an opinion for someone. 
 

being negative just to be negative is exactly why this place is not very enjoyable these days. 

 

It was the whiskey I am sorry.

 

But to be fair, my negativity gets drowned out by the negativity on other flames forums.   I was just genuinely disappointed today.  But I'll move on.

[jjgallow]

8 minutes ago, travel_dude said:

 

What was the consensus?

If you look at the Elite Prospects rating for each of our players drafted, you might find one out of touch with the ranges.

Is Cragg Button good or bad at rankings?

If he's bad then he made mistakes on Cossa, Wlalstedt and Sskarov.

 

Seems to me that very teams take central scouting with anything more than a grain of salt.

If these guys are safe picks, then we added to our prospects.

If they are home run swings, then we stand as much chance of hitting as a lot of teams.

 

 

By the way, the Flames don't draft (anymore) based on one guy's opinion.  They go over the lists, look at the players, argue about them, and come up with a list that they can agree on.  The only thing that normally diverges is whether we trade down or up depending on the way the board is filling up.

 

Yeah they didn't go off the board.   And, for the most part, I admit that is a good improvement.

 

But we can't pretend it was BPA, or even remotely close to BPA, and I don't think they would claim that either.

 

It was one of those drafts where crazy talent sometimes dropped quite far, and I don't think it was because of knowledge, more likely lack of knowledge that caused this.   Some teams, like Minnesota and Winnipeg, capitalized on this.     Other teams refused to take risks which were clearly good risks to take.

 

He said "Trust in Terri" or similar a lot, btw....and there are entire leagues they just refuse to touch.   Looking at the results of this draft, and Tod's comments, I don't believe they had all the players ranked.   They had a small subset picklist, only of players that worked through their scouting process.  You do that, and you fail.  Unless you just happen to have scouts in the right city at the right time.   They literally admitted to picking low skill guys strictly out of trust for one scout.   They passed over guys with franchise-altering potential to adhere to that process.    Changes are needed.

[travel_dude]

7 minutes ago, jjgallow said:

 

It was the whiskey I am sorry.

 

But to be fair, my negativity gets drowned out by the negativity on other flames forums.   I was just genuinely disappointed today.  But I'll move on.

 

If FN is any indication of popular opinion, then you would love it there.

There's one guy that has crapped on every single pick from last year.

Ws Okay with Zary, but that's about it.

Hates Backlund.

 

[jjgallow]

6 minutes ago, travel_dude said:

 

If FN is any indication of popular opinion, then you would love it there.

There's one guy that has crapped on every single pick from last year.

Ws Okay with Zary, but that's about it.

Hates Backlund.

 

Lol how can you hate Backlund.     I do actually hate how he was developed.  

 

I absolutely do prefer this forum and find most of the others quite honestly full of drivel.  Mostly negative drivel but the positive stuff is usually drivel too.

 

When we rebuild, when we actually start drafting good prospects and planning for the future, I will defend them to the death.    I've done it before and I'll do it again lol.  Just at the rate we're going it could be death due to old age.

[conundrumed]

12 hours ago, jjgallow said:

 

Yeah they didn't go off the board.   And, for the most part, I admit that is a good improvement.

 

But we can't pretend it was BPA, or even remotely close to BPA, and I don't think they would claim that either.

 

It was one of those drafts where crazy talent sometimes dropped quite far, and I don't think it was because of knowledge, more likely lack of knowledge that caused this.   Some teams, like Minnesota and Winnipeg, capitalized on this.     Other teams refused to take risks which were clearly good risks to take.

 

He said "Trust in Terri" or similar a lot, btw....and there are entire leagues they just refuse to touch.   Looking at the results of this draft, and Tod's comments, I don't believe they had all the players ranked.   They had a small subset picklist, only of players that worked through their scouting process.  You do that, and you fail.  Unless you just happen to have scouts in the right city at the right time.   They literally admitted to picking low skill guys strictly out of trust for one scout.   They passed over guys with franchise-altering potential to adhere to that process.    Changes are needed.

Terry Doran is their scout here. From Sarnia and managed the Sting and asst on the Spits.

He’s a good talent assessor(Zacha, Chychrun, Kyrou Sting picks).

But most scouting this year was video review and some players didn’t play at all.

There are so many unavoidable black holes in this draft that all teams really aren’t sure exactly what they have, or they’re kidding themselves.

Kind of a bad year to draft when the OHL didn’t play.

[89Again]

Weird draft for all, I kind of like the way the Flames went as goalies are a gamble and we have Wolf and Parsons.  Just disappointed that we didn’t pull off something like the the Reinhart deal.  I remain very worried about the future of Johnny H.

[Thebrewcrew]

I like a lot of what the Flames did in the draft.

 

Only thing I'd have liked to see would have been more RHS. Only 1 of 8 selections shoots right.

 

The reason the Flames have had to pay a premium for Hamilton and Hamonic is because they just haven't drafted enough RHD in the past decade. It also leads to the team having to pay big money to Tanev. Right now the RHD depth beyond the NHL roster is Kinnvall and a project in Jake Boltmann. 

 

It's not quite as dire in the forward ranks, but far from ideal. Gawdin/Phillips/Tuulola/Philp/Zavgorodny as well as the newly signed Duehr in Stockton. Coronato and another project in Josh Nodler playing college hockey. Ryan Francis in the Q.

 

Again, I do like how the Flames have drafted under BT and I totally get that the reality is more players shoot left than right, but when you hardly draft righties, you end up having to pay a premium to acquire them. 

[The_Tribal Chief]

I love the one payer we got Cameron Whynot well Whynot

[jjgallow]

On 7/25/2021 at 9:01 AM, conundrumed said:

Terry Doran is their scout here. From Sarnia and managed the Sting and asst on the Spits.

He’s a good talent assessor(Zacha, Chychrun, Kyrou Sting picks).

But most scouting this year was video review and some players didn’t play at all.

There are so many unavoidable black holes in this draft that all teams really aren’t sure exactly what they have, or they’re kidding themselves.

Kind of a bad year to draft when the OHL didn’t play.

 

After a few days for things to settle in I'm going to make what I will Attempt to be me final and more level headed comments on what was a disappointing draft to me, and why.

 

I have no issues with Terry and his assessment.    

 

What I have issues with, is when Terry says "this is not a skill guy", and the Flames are like "well we're only trusting players evaluated by Terry so let's take him"

 

Which is literally what happened.

 

I will also do my best to support said players as a fan, and I have no issues with them.  I didn't dislike anyone they drafted, and that's good.    They also didn't draft off the board, and that's good.   But, they didn't draft BPA, not anywhere close and this will hurt them. 

 

It was clear from who they picked, that they did not have an entire list of the draft.     Which imho, you need in 2021, because things Never go as planned.      They drafted in a way that suggests they had a small short-list of players ranked roughly around each their picks.    Which means they can never upgrade, because they don't have rankings above those picks.  They can only downgrade, when enough players on their short list remain available.      That would all be fine, if drafts went like the book.   They don't.   Multiple times, Highly talented players dropped below their rankings to the Flames.  Every single time (except in the 7th round), the Flames passed on said players.   Because they never ranked them, I believe.     The 7th round is the Only round where they just went by national rankings and took the BPA.  And Button said as much after the draft, that they only considered national rankings in the 7th round.

 

Again I have no issues with these scouts, but I do have an issue that the Flames draft as if it were 1980 and elite NHL compatible hockey players could only be found from a few select locations in the world.  Canada, Sweden, and...well, that's it outside of the first round.  And preferably specific areas in Canada and Sweden.    It's unfortunate because after the international experience of the Calgary Olympics the Flames were really ground breakers in taking players from other parts of the world.   But it was an unfinished experiment that they abandoned.   Anyway, in 2021 it is hurting them in a bad bad way and also how I see the world it's not very Canadian of us.    We lost on some incredible talent because we did not have a network of scouts capable of reporting on them.    And Button's comments confirm this, half they players they drafted they did so because one way or another they happened to see the player a couple times.   Multiple teams (such as Tampa, and before them the Red Wings) have evolved past this kind of drafting.    Teams that can't, are being hurt.

 

19 hours ago, 89Again said:

Weird draft for all, I kind of like the way the Flames went as goalies are a gamble and we have Wolf and Parsons.  Just disappointed that we didn’t pull off something like the the Reinhart deal.  I remain very worried about the future of Johnny H.

 

I was happy with their 7th round pick, but the draft is by definition a gamble.    When you pick safe players with low ceilings, you are the first to lose that gamble.   This is not a consolation prize based sport.  Goaltending is the most important position in the game, and at the draft we treat it like the least important.    The results are evident in our goaltending on the Flames.     Anyway, more of my thoughts on positional drafting below:

 

19 hours ago, Thebrewcrew said:

I like a lot of what the Flames did in the draft.

 

Only thing I'd have liked to see would have been more RHS. Only 1 of 8 selections shoots right.

 

The reason the Flames have had to pay a premium for Hamilton and Hamonic is because they just haven't drafted enough RHD in the past decade. It also leads to the team having to pay big money to Tanev. Right now the RHD depth beyond the NHL roster is Kinnvall and a project in Jake Boltmann. 

 

It's not quite as dire in the forward ranks, but far from ideal. Gawdin/Phillips/Tuulola/Philp/Zavgorodny as well as the newly signed Duehr in Stockton. Coronato and another project in Josh Nodler playing college hockey. Ryan Francis in the Q.

 

Again, I do like how the Flames have drafted under BT and I totally get that the reality is more players shoot left than right, but when you hardly draft righties, you end up having to pay a premium to acquire them. 

 

I need to learn my manners like you lol.   Start off with a compliment.   End with a compliment.

 

Facts...in the middle.  lol.     I'll need some practice but I'll get there.

 

So, Goaltending is a part of this too.   Defence is a part of it.   RHS is a part of it.      Let's just call it positional value.       The Flames drafted almost entirely at the lowest positional value in hockey (LW).    Yes, part of it is that there are more of them, but if you have your valuations adjusted appropriately, then there shouldn't be.

The Flames have not adjusted appropriately.

 

This is a contentious issue for me because I am a huge believer in BPA.    Which means if you think a LW is even slightly more valuable than a RW or RHS D, technically, you take the LW.     But, this ONLY works if you have some adjustment factor in there.   A RW is always going to be ~25% more valuable than an equivalent LW.    As an example.   A RHSD, maybe 30%.    A goalie, maybe 35%, but also maybe 20% more risk.

 

The Flames aren't doing any of that.    They came into this draft with box-like thinking and drafts aren't kind to box thinkers.    They had no intentions of drafting a goalie until the 7th round.    This is a really bad idea because drafting by position makes BPA impossible.   And sure enough we missed out on Wallstedt and Cossa and others.  Is it because we didn't like Wallstedt?  I highly doubt it.   My guess is we decided he wasn't available and never even interviewed him.   Ok, so we're not the only team with this issue.  I've come to terms with that.  But that doesn't change my expectations for the Flames.    I don't think they intended to draft LHS and LW as much as they did.    IMHO that goes back to two issues:

 

1.   Highly limited regional drafting, as discussed above

2.   Incorrectly adjusted positional valuations

 

Simply put, if you watched how the Flames drafted it would seem like LHS and LW was the most valuable in the game.   This is a direct function of them drafting from an artificially limited sample size, and then not adjusting properly for positional values.    Had they put the effort into ranking all the players, and sure maybe with a Very small reject list, then they would always have the ability to choose between very similarly skilled LHS and RHS players, D, etc.    But we limited ourselves to the shallow end and we got the leftovers of that small pool.

 

 

[travel_dude]

^^^

I find it hard to imagine what BPA was at each pick the Flames made.

Should we have grabbed Raty when he dropped to us?

Sure, there are players that I would have liked to take, but I don't consider this draft a fail.

You got exactly zero of your preferred players, so no doubt you are sour.

Even Coronato was a miss in your mind over Wallstedt (more so) and Cossa (less so). 

 

In 5 years we can go back and look at all the hits and misses of the draft.

It's not like we drafted Mason MacDonald, Kanzig and Hunter Smith which were easy to argue with.

Consensus doesn't exist, nor was this year a great one to look at the varying ratings by scouting services.

We drafted the 8th best NA goalie according to Central Scouting.

What does that even prove?

I saw one goalie outside of the 1st round that I would even look twice at.

[jjgallow]

21 hours ago, travel_dude said:

^^^

I find it hard to imagine what BPA was at each pick the Flames made.

Should we have grabbed Raty when he dropped to us?

Sure, there are players that I would have liked to take, but I don't consider this draft a fail.

You got exactly zero of your preferred players, so no doubt you are sour.

Even Coronato was a miss in your mind over Wallstedt (more so) and Cossa (less so). 

 

In 5 years we can go back and look at all the hits and misses of the draft.

It's not like we drafted Mason MacDonald, Kanzig and Hunter Smith which were easy to argue with.

Consensus doesn't exist, nor was this year a great one to look at the varying ratings by scouting services.

We drafted the 8th best NA goalie according to Central Scouting.

What does that even prove?

I saw one goalie outside of the 1st round that I would even look twice at.

 

I actually like Coronato, I think you're aware but just for clarity.   I expect him to be the single positive of this draft actually.    I liked him, and I thought our 7th round pick was good.

 

How we got him, and what we could have had, is a different story.    I will point out that those players who were easy to argue against, led to very heated debates even at that time, which is why I'm not going to compare them to Jack Beck, or Lucas Ciona for instance....players that the Flames knew were ultra low-ceiling that they drafted anyway.   Now maybe one of them makes the NHL.  Is that a success?    IMHO not unless they are better than what's freely available on the market each year.

 

Anyway...

 

It wasn't the worst draft I've ever seen for the Flames, I will give you that.

[The_People1]

How does Coronato compare to last year's 13th overall Seth Jarvis?

[Thebrewcrew]

12 minutes ago, The_People1 said:

How does Coronato compare to last year's 13th overall Seth Jarvis?

That's a great question. I'm a big fan of both.

 

I'd say they are fairly similar in the sense that they are both high end NHL prospects. Jarvis probably plays a more skill oriented game and is more a setup man, in my opinion. Coronato is a finisher that will make a living in the hard areas. Reminds me a bit of TJ Oshie. 

 

Both are really solid prospects though.

[MP5029]

16 hours ago, jjgallow said:

 

I actually like Coronato, I think you're aware but just for clarity.   I expect him to be the single positive of this draft actually.    I liked him, and I thought our 7th round pick was good.

 

How we got him, and what we could have had, is a different story.    I will point out that those players who were easy to argue againdt, led to very heated debates even at that time, which is why I'm not going to compare them to Jack Beck, or Lucas Ciona for instance....players that the Flames knew were ultra low-ceiling that they drafted anyway.   Now maybe one of them makes the NHL.  Is that a success?    IMHO not unless they are better than what's freely available on the market each year.

 

Anyway...

 

It wasn't the worst draft I've ever seen for the Flames, I will give you that.

This 100%

[jjgallow]

10 hours ago, The_People1 said:

How does Coronato compare to last year's 13th overall Seth Jarvis?

 

Agreed, that is a really great question as they share a lot of qualities.   Especially for a stats fiend like myself.   It's likely too early to say what position they will end up in.

[travel_dude]

On 7/23/2021 at 7:31 PM, jjgallow said:

Coronato.  

 

Great player, but I'm drinking.   We F'd Up.  that said, I will support Coronato.

 

He will have an amazing NHL career.  Only problem is the Flames just don't have a plan.

 

[cross16]

11 hours ago, The_People1 said:

How does Coronato compare to last year's 13th overall Seth Jarvis?

 

I like both but I think Jarvis is better. Equally as skilled shooting the puck but distributes the puck much better than Coronato. Jarvis is a true dual threat. 

 

But i'll admit I really, really like Jarvis and I thought the 2020 draft was quite a bit stronger than this one. 

[The_Tribal Chief]

yeah but be didnt have a whynot last draft that is the diamond right there

[travel_dude]

11 hours ago, Thebrewcrew said:

That's a great question. I'm a big fan of both.

 

I'd say they are fairly similar in the sense that they are both high end NHL prospects. Jarvis probably plays a more skill oriented game and is more a setup man, in my opinion. Coronato is a finisher that will make a living in the hard areas. Reminds me a bit of TJ Oshie. 

 

Both are really solid prospects though.

 

I think we will be really happy with Potato in 2-3 years.

Just hope we still have the C's at that point and a really good setup guy.

Remember how deadly Monahan can be and Lindholm on RW?

 

[jjgallow]

1 hour ago, travel_dude said:

 

I think we will be really happy with Potato in 2-3 years.

Just hope we still have the C's at that point and a really good setup guy.

Remember how deadly Monahan can be and Lindholm on RW?

 

 

Is Potato the new name?   I think we should be more worried about G and D, a lot of teams have centers and proceed to be aweful teams.   But yes we need C too.

 

I will concede, if there is a statistical tie-breaker between Jarvis and Coronato, it's that Coronato was drafted 10 months older.   But I wouldn't call this or anything else definitive, they both have incredibly high ceilings.    I don't know that the goalie debate is over yet though.   Wallstedt really dropped, Cossa didn't exactly rank out-rank either.   At least one of those two I feel may be the highlight of this draft a few years from now.   For a later discussion.