themightyall Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 Your argument is an argument from authority - the problem is that the draft doesn't get to have that authority. Teams are simply not that great at drafting - if you draft based on numbers that are context-adjusted, you do better than these teams who draft on all sorts of other information. Yes, teams get to have a 20 minute interview which they think determines a lot, which to me is ridiculous, but hey, it's their world. Barzal may not be a great player and he may not even be an NHLer, but I've lost the ability to respect most teams' ability to see through the bullsh!t. You can't teach size is one of the stupidest cliches in hockey, and your justification being that for Parise dropping is silly. Shorter players have succeeded plenty in the NHL and they will continue to do so - you can't teach the kind of puck skills Barzal has, either. I can't help but think you'd be a great accountant but a horrible CFO. Past performance can be used to predict future returns but there is so much more than goes into stocks, people, assets, everything. I don't discount the importance of looking into anything and everything. If we are drafting based on numbers, we should hate this Zacha pick (I'm a little leery about it to be honest). But not everything is numbers. If you draft a player by looking at a box score, then there's something wrong with that organization. And interviews do matter. Not just the player's but their coaches and everyone surrounding them. You have to see how the kid responds to pressure and criticism and everything else to see if your organizational structure fits the player. Teams like the Devils and Bruins are much more tough minded than a team like the Oilers or the Sharks. Not to say one is better than the other but you need to get a prospect that can handle that environment. I should've been more clear, I wasn't proposing that I believe that "you can't teach size" but rather that is what a GM might be thinking and thought that Carter would've more likely made the NHL than Parise because of it. I already have said that with my elementary knowledge of the draft, I didn't understand why Shero didn't trade back. He said he didn't want to risk losing Zacha so he must've thought he's the best prospect left. I would've loved to trade back to 8 for Rychel or 10 involving ROR but I'm not going to pretend that I know more than dozens of people that do this for a living. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triumph Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 (edited) I can't help but think you'd be a great accountant but a horrible CFO. Past performance can be used to predict future returns but there is so much more than goes into stocks, people, assets, everything. I don't discount the importance of looking into anything and everything. If we are drafting based on numbers, we should hate this Zacha pick (I'm a little leery about it to be honest). But not everything is numbers. If you draft a player by looking at a box score, then there's something wrong with that organization. And interviews do matter. Not just the player's but their coaches and everyone surrounding them. You have to see how the kid responds to pressure and criticism and everything else to see if your organizational structure fits the player. Teams like the Devils and Bruins are much more tough minded than a team like the Oilers or the Sharks. Not to say one is better than the other but you need to get a prospect that can handle that environment. I should've been more clear, I wasn't proposing that I believe that "you can't teach size" but rather that is what a GM might be thinking and thought that Carter would've more likely made the NHL than Parise because of it. I already have said that with my elementary knowledge of the draft, I didn't understand why Shero didn't trade back. He said he didn't want to risk losing Zacha so he must've thought he's the best prospect left. I would've loved to trade back to 8 for Rychel or 10 involving ROR but I'm not going to pretend that I know more than dozens of people that do this for a living. Teams like the Devils and the Bruins are going to spend years in the toilet thanks in part to their philosophies. It's great to have a code and everything but it's very silly to draft based on an organizational philosophy when A: that philosophy is way overhyped as an idea that transcends what other teams are trying to do and B: the most important thing about a player is whether or not he is talented enough to make the NHL, period. 'We like to do things differently here' is how everyone likes to think about themselves because it's fun to believe you have a secret idea that makes you better than 29 other organizations trying to do the same thing. Maybe the Devils did have that once upon a time, who knows, but certainly every team that has won anything in sports has believed that they are doing so for a special reason that is beyond 'we are better/more talented than other teams'. It's human nature to believe this - the problem is when you start applying it to places where it shouldn't go and rejecting talented players based on an idea. You build your organization around talented players, not the other way around. I feel like NJ understood this even though they'd claim the opposite - Tedenby was as un-Devils a pick as you can get. I would make a bad CFO because I can't pretend that my ideas are eo ipso good in the absence of evidence. People in higher positions make all sorts of decisions on instinct and some of those work out and some of those don't. They have too many decisions to make to parse out the evidence on each of them, and even if they could, there's enormous gaps in their knowledge/predictive ability that couldn't be bridged. The problem is that the NHL draft is made up of CFO types - do teams ever go back and review how they were thinking 5 years ago and wonder why certain things did or didn't work out? Or do they just plod forward making tiny adjustments to how they do things without ever examining e.g. the success rates of defensemen taken in the first round and whether or not that should influence taking one? Certainly by the way David Conte has spoken about the draft, he basically says, we move on from the 2015 draft the day it's over and we start working on the 2016 draft. We don't look back. And I agree that looking back can really fvck you up if you don't approach it in the right way - you don't look back at 2007 and ask why did we take Mike Hoeffel instead of Wayne Simmonds? That's totally counterproductive - it's like shooting an arrow and then painting a target around it. No, you look back at trends in past drafts and try to look for edges that you can use in future drafts. I don't know if teams other than the Leafs do this, because I'm not even sure they would think it's worthwhile. The Leafs clearly drafted according to this sort of a philosophy the last two days and let's see where it gets them. Shero already explained why a trade back did not happen. Getting this back on Zacha, I don't love the Zacha pick because of the numbers, but he had a shortened season, he had an injury that some have claimed he did not fully recover from, he has some upsides with his numbers that aren't easily apparent (his 5 on 5 numbers were quite good), and he didn't play on a great team. He's really got to tear it up this year though. Edited June 28, 2015 by Triumph Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devils731 Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 Tri, Obviously last years numbers matter, but his numbers the 2 years prior look good. Doesn't that lend some credibility to his "issues" this past season? The most recent season should get the most weight but we shouldn't forget those other recent seasons too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshall Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 Tri, Obviously last years numbers matter, but his numbers the 2 years prior look good. Doesn't that lend some credibility to his "issues" this past season? The most recent season should get the most weight but we shouldn't forget those other recent seasons too. They look good on the surface, but I'm really wondering how good the Czech U20 leagues are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triumph Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 They look good on the surface, but I'm really wondering how good the Czech U20 leagues are. Yeah, I have no idea how to evaluate that sort of thing, and NHLE will provide no help because no one goes from that to the NHL - I imagine those leagues are not good at all. Pastrnak crushed his U18 league at age 15 for a goal a game. Frolik basically did the same as a 14/15 year old. So yeah, Zacha playing in a U20 league and beating it for a point a game at age 15 is also pretty impressive, not sure I'd hang my hat on it though. At least from watching Zacha in that 'every shift' video that I imagine fiesty posted upthread (it's also on ILWT), it appears like he might see plays others on his line aren't seeing, but one wonders how much that will do for him in the NHL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William D'Aquila Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 I can't help but think you'd be a great accountant but a horrible CFO. Past performance can be used to predict future returns but there is so much more than goes into stocks, people, assets, everything. I don't discount the importance of looking into anything and everything. If we are drafting based on numbers, we should hate this Zacha pick (I'm a little leery about it to be honest). But not everything is numbers. If you draft a player by looking at a box score, then there's something wrong with that organization. And interviews do matter. Not just the player's but their coaches and everyone surrounding them. You have to see how the kid responds to pressure and criticism and everything else to see if your organizational structure fits the player. Teams like the Devils and Bruins are much more tough minded than a team like the Oilers or the Sharks. Not to say one is better than the other but you need to get a prospect that can handle that environment. I should've been more clear, I wasn't proposing that I believe that "you can't teach size" but rather that is what a GM might be thinking and thought that Carter would've more likely made the NHL than Parise because of it. I already have said that with my elementary knowledge of the draft, I didn't understand why Shero didn't trade back. He said he didn't want to risk losing Zacha so he must've thought he's the best prospect left. I would've loved to trade back to 8 for Rychel or 10 involving ROR but I'm not going to pretend that I know more than dozens of people that do this for a living. All swans were white until they found a black one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SterioDesign Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 Zacha is a big fan of Dumb and Dumber... watched it over and over for over a year with subtitles to learn english hahaha amazing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lazer Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 big ice...he skates wiiide Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themightyall Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 Perfect semantics: Hynes on Zacha: “The most important thing is to get him indoctrinated into being a Devil.” I just wish the guy that's been a Devil for a whole month to hold off on the brain washing imagery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RizzMB30 Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 Perfect semantics: Hynes on Zacha: “The most important thing is to get him indoctrinated into being a Devil.” I just wish the guy that's been a Devil for a whole month to hold off on the brain washing imagery. This is Hynes appealing to us fans when he says this. What in the literal fvck do you think "Devils brain-washing imagery" is? *clicks projector to next slide* "This is Scott Stevens and he understands how to hurt people, and PLAY DEFENSE" "DO YOU DEFENSE?" "DO YOU?" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redruM Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 Love this Pick, donot understand all the love for Barzal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfitz804 Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 Perfect semantics: Hynes on Zacha: “The most important thing is to get him indoctrinated into being a Devil.” I just wish the guy that's been a Devil for a whole month to hold off on the brain washing imagery. Yeah, one could argue Hynes has not yet been so indoctrinated... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derlique Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 You guys are taking this too literally. The new Devils culture is "fast, attacking, supportive". I think that's what Hynes is talking about, if anything Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfitz804 Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 They have a long way to go to being fast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triumph Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 (edited) They have a long way to go to being fast. Well - Jagr, Clowe, Ryder, Bernier, Havlat, and Gomez won't be back from last year's team, all of whom were probably below-average (or at best average) skaters. I won't hear any bunk about Gomez being fast last year, he wasn't. That leaves Zubrus, Elias, and Zajac as the resident slow guys. Edited June 30, 2015 by Triumph Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William D'Aquila Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 I'm not sure fast, attacking, and supportive hockey is really new in Devils land. That was the style they played under DeBoer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triumph Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 (edited) I'm not sure fast, attacking, and supportive hockey is really new in Devils land. That was the style they played under DeBoer. Look obviously we don't know what kind of style this new coach is going to be playing until we see it, and even then the first 20 games will be a trial period. But DeBoer hockey was not this - yes, the Devils were 'attacking' in the offensive zone when they didn't have the puck, in order to retrieve it. The defensemen would also pinch aggressively in order to keep the puck in the zone. The Devils were also aggressive in the neutral zone - their D would step up and take away passing options instead of letting the play come to them with a free zone entry. Aggression definitely happened there. And in the D zone, the concept of the swarm - also aggressive. When the Devils were not aggressive was when they were bringing the puck up the ice - they moved Kovalchuk off the LW and basically got him to stop using his bread and butter play (gain zone, either challenge the D or attempt a cross-ice pass to a streaking winger or defender) because that's not how the Devils played in offensive transition - I don't think they wanted to have 4 guys headed towards the opponent's net in case the opponent got the puck. They would rather dump the puck in unless they had a huge advantage. They relied on dump-ins quite a bit because they were pretty good at getting them back, but that was not really attacking hockey either. That style of hockey that DeBoer had NJ playing isn't what this team should be doing - this team's strength is in its D's ability to read the play going up the ice and to lead the play going up the ice. If the D aren't jumping into the play in the neutral zone - and in Deboer hockey, they really didn't all that much - the Devils are toast, because their forwards suck and they don't have a dominant board guy like Jagr or Parise, or even a pretty good guy like Zubrus of 2012 or Clowe was supposed to be. It's got to be different. Edited June 30, 2015 by Triumph Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshall Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 "Fast" is such a vague term. What's important is that they move the puck quickly and precisely and get up ice that way, rather than having amazing wheels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ Eco Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 (edited) Yeah, one could argue Hynes has not yet been so indoctrinated... There are intangible things Hynes and Shero could've liked that Lou/the Devils did all these years, looking from the outside in. The team-first, always-hard-working, militaristic and structured mentality isn't something every organization employs or is able to employ. Shero definitely couldn't have employed that mindset with the Penguins, having two of the best players in the world on his team. The average age on our team is going to be an unprecedented 26-27 in a couple years so I'm sure there are elements of Lamoriello's blueprint that they want to continue, and will need to continue to be successful; the little things, and accountability on and off the ice. You can be a fast-paced uptempo team while also having it drilled into your head to never give up on a defensive play, which is what the core of our doctrine is. I don't think their plan is to emulate Tampa Bay's defense, for example. Edited June 30, 2015 by DJ Eco Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RizzMB30 Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 There are intangible things Hynes and Shero could've liked that Lou/the Devils did all these years, looking from the outside in. The team-first, always-hard-working, militaristic and structured mentality isn't something every organization employs or is able to employ. Shero definitely couldn't have employed that mindset with the Penguins, having two of the best players in the world on his team. The average age on our team is going to be an unprecedented 26-27 in a couple years so I'm sure there are elements of Lamoriello's blueprint that they want to continue, and will need to continue to be successful; the little things, and accountability on and off the ice. You can be a fast-paced uptempo team while also having it drilled into your head to never give up on a defensive play, which is what the core of our doctrine is. I don't think their plan is to emulate Tampa Bay's defense, for example. Very true. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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