OT - Red Wings Prospect Evaluations
I mentioned in another thread that I could make a write-up for Red Wings fans and a few of you seemed pretty excited about it, so here it is. I would like to point out that I am not an expert, I'm just giving you an insider view of these players based on various scouting reports, along with my own personal opinion. While I do know what I'm talking about, I doubt any GMs would care what I think at this point, so please take it with a grain of salt.
Tomas Jurco - Very surprising he fell this far, but there is always a reason. Amazing pure skill combined with excellent size gives him massive upside. Brilliant hands, can score, and uses his big body to his advantage. If he fills out, he will have the perfect physical makeup of a dominant power forward. The issue with him is his lack of consistency and spotty effort. When he goes hard, he's a top 20 talent, but he doesn't always go hard and this is likely why he dropped. He is a boom or bust type of guy IMO, but worth a shot in the 2nd round. Many GM's will automatically stay away from anyone with questions about effort, and this is what happened. Being with a top notch organization should increase the odds of him turning his effort up.
Xavier Oullet - Loved this pick. Offensive d-man with underrated skills in his own zone. Good on the powerplay. He isn't really amazing at anything, but he's good at everything. I believe he will become a low-end top 4 d-man for the wings down the road. Rumored to be a good character guy. He needs to improve his skating stride, as is often the case with draft prospects. This is easier said than done, so he needs to continue working on his skating.
Ryan Sproul - Hard to evaluate him because he wasn't really on the radar until recently. He grew a lot and became a very serviceable d-man in the OHL. Very raw but shows excellent potential. When you see him play you probably won't be overly impressed. But it is very hard to find big d-men with the skill potential he has. Very high upside, but he has tons of strides to make before he is anywhere near NHL ready. I don't think there is any doubt his body will be NHL ready in a few years, but it's his defensive awareness that needs to develop. That will determine the worth of this pick.
The theme of this draft for the wings was upside. They drafted players who have a ton of upside and could pay off big time. The safest pick was Oullet, but Jurco and Sproul have boom or bust potential. Both could end up as all-star caliber players, or below average.
Prospect from prior draft I like:
Brendan Smith - Smith is very smooth and good in all facets of the game. Excellent mobility and shows good offensive upside without sacrificing the defensive side of the game. Guys like him are hard to find. If he puts on weight, I have no doubt he will be a top 4 player for the wings very soon.
Prospect from prior draft I don't like:
Thomas McCollum - I have played against him many times, and while he was a good goalie, I was never overly impressed with him. He is a guy that is pretty good all around, but doesn't wow you. IMO, if you're taking a goalie in the first round, you should get one you think will definitely be a top tier starter, and I just don't see it with him. Furthermore, he has had some pretty shaky play lately, which has quite obviously damaged his confidence. It is very important that he bounces back this season wherever he plays because confidence is paramount for goalies.
Final Thoughts
Opinions on this vary, and I've had some good spirited discussions with wings fans about this, but I have been very confused about some of their moves. They have not had a high draft pick in a very long time, and that continues, obviously, because of their success. This year, they opted to trade out of the first round and stack lower draft picks. What you generally get in the second round and up are quality depth players to fill out a roster. You get your stars in the first round.
The Wings are blessed to have made two of the best draft selections ever with Datsyuk and Zetterberg. This has allowed them to fill the rest of the roster with quality depth players in the draft and free agency. However, at some point they're going to have to take a swing at a top young player that has star potential. Datysuk and Zetterberg were great picks by the Wings staff, but that will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. I can't stress that enough. Draft picks that lucky, especially when it happens twice, do not happen often. Soon enough, Lidstrom will be gone and Zetterberg and Datsyuk will soon find themselves on the other end of their primes. Who will replace them?
The wings are set to compete for a long time, and the fans hardly have anything to complain about. However, their top players are aging. I just don't see many players under 25 in the system who can become stars. Eventually, they are going to have to inject the organization with some top young talent, even if it means trading away some current top veterans within the next 2-3 seasons. One possibility is that the wings will continue drafting for quality depth players and hope to acquire their stars through free agency, but that can be expensive and isn't their M.O. Either way, the next few seasons should be interesting.
Thanks for reading, hopefully that was what you guys were looking for.
Also, I realize how long this is but I am under the impression that the Diary section is reserved for Michigan related items, thus I put it on the board.
So what do you think of Biggs?
Due to your career path you probably can't be a "fan" of any given team but is it safe to say a Canadian kid (as described in your documentary) were you a Leaf's fan growing up?
If yes, how excited were you about the Biggs pick? I think that kid was a steal at the 23rd pick.
Actually, I was a Wings fan growing up. It kind of wore off once I started playing hockey seriously. I don't really have a team now, but I generally cheer for the Canadian teams and the Wings. That is, the Canadian teams except the leafs because I have so many friends who are leafs fans. It is a lot of fun making fun of their team. I just love hockey, and so I admire watching great players like Crosby and Lidstrom. Lidstrom is the second best d-man of all time IMO, and if Crosby played 20 years ago his numbers would look something like Gretzky's did.
Thats who the Wings wanted in the first round. When the Leafs traded up and snagged him, thats when they traded down. They had a certain group of 15-20 players that they wanted, and then it was about quanity.
He was never going to make it to the Red Wings at that spot. Pittsburgh was set to take him had the Leafs not moved up.
on JimLahey's posts grows the likelyhood that someone will subtly (or not so much) attempt to get a piece of identifying information on him approaches 1.
There were many people trying to guess who I was on my diary posts. If they couldn't extract my identity from a 3-part autobiography about my hockey career then I doubt they will do it from my other posts, most of which contain jokes about liquor and dope. If someone actually were to peg my name, that would really suck because I would have to stop posting on this site, and I don't want to do that. My mgoblog account isn't even under my name or email address, so I think I'm covered for now.
in all honesty, as a long time hockey fan and frequenter of OHL games, I found the Hockey diaries to be super awesome.
I know the euro twins are one of a kind, but maybe we will see the Slovakian twins (Tatar and Jurco) do some special things in the future.
Thanks so much for doing this, I was definitely looking forward to it. It's very helpful, and I hold your opinion in very high regard. Picking Datsyuk and Zetterberg really spoiled us, though, you're right about that.
In your opinion, is there anyone who will play in the NHL next year? You said Smith should contribute soon, but is that next year, or three years? We might have a need on Defense depending on who we pick up, and he won't have too much longer to learn from/play with Lidstrom.
Waggles, I truly believe that Smith would be in the NHL next season with any other organization, but the Wings have a method of doing things and it involves leaving kids in the minors for a long time. You raise a great point, that it would be beneficial for him to play with Lidstrom for at least one season so he can learn from a legend. At this point, I think the Wings give Smith a chance to crack the lineup, and it will depend how he performs.
Thanks, I appreciate it. I've played hockey my whole life (nowhere near you - my claim to fame is High school second team all state, ha) but I'm never any good at scouting.
I'm very optimistic about Smith, and I'm hoping he'll be one of our top defensemen soon.
I'm also curious about your claim that Detroit is too old without any youth. How do you feel they could best address this? Making trades for lower picks in future drafts, or trading for young talent?
Tomas Jurco looks like a guy that could really contribute down the road. The Red Wings have a great system in place to develop talent like his.
Great stuff, thanks for sharing it.
Do you have any insight on the Russian defenseman the Wings took in the 7th round? Is he likely to make his way to North America? I'm not really up to speed on the (lack of a?) transfer agreement, but it seems that teams are really staying away from Russian players of late.
on his contract with CSKA in the KHL. After that he should come to North America and play in the AHL, assuming he makes it that far.
I also worry that the Wings are using an unsustanaible draft strategy. One of the reasons the Wings were able to bank on drafting the under-the-radar players (Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen) was because they put a lot of money into scouting Europe. That worked 10-20 years ago... but the draft has since changed. The internet and increased availability of game film has pretty much leveled the playing field for European scouting. You just don't see the unknown late-round superstars anymore.
Looking at the NHL drafts since 2000, 54 players have been selected to an All-Star game... of those 40 were 1st round picks. Of the 14 that weren't 1st rounders, only a handful are considered elite players. So I'm in agreement with you, they need to start holding on to their first round picks and even look at moving up into the top half of some drafts in the near future.
They were lucky to be in on Europe early on. I do agree that we could benefit from moving into the top 10 in a draft some year, but i don't really think that it is an urgent issue.
The plus side is we have stockpiled plenty of good prospects/players. A team in the top 5 could understand that it needs multiple solid players, not just one superstar, to step its game up a level. That is the kind of team we could trade with. Giving up some of our solid prospects to get one elite one would be fine with me in three years.
Like you said, when you take a goalie in the 1st round you expect starpower, however the 30th pick in the 1st round is pretty much the 2nd round so the standards change. They definitely have a different draft strategy than most other teams, but i trust Ken Holland to do a damn good job of what he does.
The Wings were the first in Europe, then significantly into college. Now....
They're taking players who lost significant amounts of time to major injury and lost the year before the draft. They did it with Pulkkinen, now another 2 in this draft. Marchenko, and Tvrdon. They were rated higher than where they were taken by a significant margin, due to exposure and injury, and fell to the wings. They are both probably boom or bust type of players, but they may both be boom.
As for JimLahey's assertion that picks like Dats or Z will never happen again, stars are found in late rounds with some regularity. Joe Pavelski was a 7th rounder and appears to be pretty damn good. But I will agree with him that it's not going to happen again due to the fact the Wings are the only team seriously scouting Europe. If it happen for the Wings, it's going to be because someone explodes once they reach the NHL.
If I remember correctly, Cory Emerton is out of lower level options also. So the Wings either have to bring him up or trade/release him.
Vancouver just traded Ehrhoff's negotiating right to the Islanders. I certainly don't expect him to sign there, so I think the Wings would have a good shot.
I pretty much agree on the global view of the wings' future. Since they don't have high draft picks, they have to take huge chances and hope that the system helps to develop them down the line. There are no more players to be stowed away out of the soviet union to defect to America and sign with the wings. With an even playing field our best hope is that Kenny holland is smarter than the other general managers and that the scouting staff can find that one hidden gem.
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I think this pick has potential to have a huge payoff for the Wings. Jurco fits the Wings puck possession style and can learn from Pavel Datsyuk who is a similar player entering into NHL. If Jurco can answer effort question and can learn how to play two ways which is pretty much a requirement from the Wings, he'll be a steal in 2nd round.