2018 UFA Thread

[Triumph]

43 minutes ago, Daniel said:

Maybe when you stop throwing out the word "luck" the way journalists these days throw out words like "collusion" or "meddling."  Using the word "luck" as a euphemism for "when things don't turn out the way my models say they should" is much more exhausting to everyone here.[/quote]

Ah the goalpost shift.  If you don't think picking which 18-20 year olds are going to be NHLers in 3-5 years involves luck, I don't know what to tell you.  Nobody has the ability to pick future NHLers every time, or else we would see that manifest itself - we don't.  Teams miss all the time, and it's not just some teams missing - everyone misses, constantly.  I defy anyone to demonstrate that any team has skill relative to the others in the NHL draft.  It appears like some teams are better than others, maybe, over the short-term, but is that skill?  Will we see that continue?  

43 minutes ago, Daniel said:

This all started when I suggested that it was plausible that the Devils ability to find talent in the draft really took a nosedive because a certain person in the scouting department left.  You say it's completely implausible because luck has more to do with it than anything else and one guy couldn't make a difference.  Then you say well it's obviously not just luck it's that the scouts have to look for the right things, in other words, they need to be good scouts?   Well what is it?

I say it's completely implausible because it is completely implausible.  The idea that the Devils went from superb drafters - and indeed, between 87 and 95 their drafts are incredible - to mediocre to bad, which they pretty much were after 1998, because of one person leaving, is ridiculous.  It's throwing a dart and drawing a bullseye around that dart.  The fact that no one can even name this person makes it even more obvious - wouldn't we all know who this superscout is?  He must be crushing it for another organization, pulling out NHLers all the time.

But I realize you have a point here.  There is clearly SOME skill in drafting, the problem is that the agglomeration of such skill doesn't look much different from luck.  Take a sport like golf where (and I may be wrong, I don't really follow golf) it seems like there's a lot of different golfers winning major tournaments these days.  There's no one like Tiger Woods consistently winning them anymore.  Most of these tournaments are won by a few strokes over the course of 4 rounds - it takes an incredible amount of golfing skill to win a tournament, but in looking at it from a bird's-eye view where guy A beats guy B because he sank a few putts that the other guy missed, and a month later, guy C does the same to guy D, the difference between these players over that short span looks like luck even though it takes a ton of skill to actually make it to this level.  I don't think the NHL draft takes the amount of skill that professional golf does, but yeah, I do think there's value to getting eyeballs on a player versus just picking off a spreadsheet.  Since no one picks off a spreadsheet, we don't have a test case here.  I think spreadsheet drafting could've straight up beaten older NHL drafts, but man some of those look ugly - we also know now about certain rules changes that made some players better at the expense of others.  

My point about 'scouts looking for the right things' is that I think NHL teams have in the past looked for attributes that to me, do not help NHL teams win games, but these scouts and GMs were convinced that they do.  So when your scouting staff is looking for things that don't help your team win games, it's more likely that they pick players who don't help your team win games.  But sometimes they do anyway, because they're not entirely focused on that side stuff and everyone knows you've got to score goals and stop them in order to win games, so they're also looking for players who do that.  

[Daniel]

29 minutes ago, vadvlfan said:

Not sure who (scout)  it was, but someone said Tedenby, Josefson,  can't think of the D-mans name (starts w/ U) the next coming. None panned out even close. Therefore whoever was the Euro scout that lobbied for these guys,  sucked. 

The d-man you're thinking of is Urbom, but he was a third round pick.  But their ability to pick anyone from any country was horrible from 2005 through 2015.  Even if you take out Nico, there's a pretty good chance that two drafts under Castron and his group will produce more quality NHL players than Conte's last ten, and two of his involved top six picks.

[aclc79]

17 hours ago, Daniel said:

The d-man you're thinking of is Urbom, but he was a third round pick.  But their ability to pick anyone from any country was horrible from 2005 through 2015.  Even if you take out Nico, there's a pretty good chance that two drafts under Castron and his group will produce more quality NHL players than Conte's last ten, and two of his involved top six picks.

There is anew administration in place with a whole different outlook.  And they actually have a team concept!

[Derlique]

21 hours ago, Daniel said:

The d-man you're thinking of is Urbom, but he was a third round pick.  But their ability to pick anyone from any country was horrible from 2005 through 2015.  Even if you take out Nico, there's a pretty good chance that two drafts under Castron and his group will produce more quality NHL players than Conte's last ten, and two of his involved top six picks.

The Devils have had a ton of picks during Castron's reign, whereas they didn't when Conte was in charge because Lou was trying to patch this team together with duct tape. 

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

11 minutes ago, Derlique said:

The Devils have had a ton of picks during Castron's reign, whereas they didn't when Conte was in charge because Lou was trying to patch this team together with duct tape. 

He's definitely had a number of picks, but it's not like he's had tons of high picks.  Three firsts and two seconds to work with the past three drafts.  Fair amount of mid to lows though (4 thirds, 4 fourths, 5 fifths, 3 sixths, 5 sevenths). 

[mfitz804]

It's a good thing this thread exists so the team can be educated on how to draft. 

[EdgeControl]

Love that Shero has put speed up at the top as a scouted skill-set... that was a fundamental change in policy

[titans04]

29 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

It's a good thing this thread exists so the team can be educated on how to draft. 

[mfitz804]

29 minutes ago, titans04 said:

Josefson is the bullseye, right?

- Lou Lamoriello

[titans04]

4 hours ago, mfitz804 said:

Josefson is the bullseye, right?

- Lou Lamoriello

actually JJ was two feet off the board, that sh!t bounced of the wall and ended up on the ground.

Edited July 27, 2018 by titans04

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Just now, titans04 said:

actually JJ was two feet off the board

Back when I used to be a pretty good dart player, I had about a 2.5 to 7 beer window where I would be at my "peak" (for some reason I needed a couple to loosen up and hone in...never did as well "unassisted").  JJ would've been the equivalent of where my game was after the 13th or 14th beer. 

[vadvlfan]

4 hours ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

Back when I used to be a pretty good dart player, I had about a 2.5 to 7 beer window where I would be at my "peak" (for some reason I needed a couple to loosen up and hone in...never did as well "unassisted").  JJ would've been the equivalent of where my game was after the 13th or 14th beer. 

Sutter (Calgary)  traded up 2 spots so Lou could grab JJ. at 16 if I remember correctly.  Sutter felt "guilt" after poaching his brother away to coach Flames. Wink wink nudge.  '09 draft (1st round) had quite a few Swedes, all but Hedman fell a tad short (Runblad, Paajarvi, Erixon, Josefson)

[LittleBallofHate]

ETA: Sorry I should not have posted this in the UFA thread but in the off-season thread probably since he's a RFA. 

YIKES. 

@Capitals   NEWS | Capitals re-sign forward Tom Wilson to a six-year contract worth an average annual value of $5.17 million

 

Todd Cordell‏ @ToddCordell    Just for fun...

Miles Wood | 19 goals, 32 points, 76 games, 12:28 average TOI

Tom Wilson | 14 goals, 35 points, 78 games, 15:59 average TOI

 

Miles Wood: 2.02 5v5 points per 60, most frequent linemates were Pavel Zacha and Brian Boyle.

Tom Wilson: 1.78 5v5 points per 60, most frequent linemates were Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom.

 

Wilson is getting $5.17M per on a long-term deal. Wood is probably going to end up with a bridge deal in the ~$2M range. Craziness.

Edited July 28, 2018 by LittleBallofHate

[mfitz804]

That’s a lot of money for a guy who is more of a delinquent than a hockey player. 

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

As far as Wilson goes, maybe it's his 15 points in 21 playoff games this year.  Because damn that seems like a lot of money for someone who didn't have all that much leverage.  

[mfitz804]

7 hours ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

As far as Wilson goes, maybe it's his 15 points in 21 playoff games this year.  Because damn that seems like a lot of money for someone who didn't have all that much leverage.  

That was a pretty good performance. I just think the guy plays like a d!ck and we all hate him, so we think the price is too high. 

[Muevelos]

While everyone hate Tom Wilson. The dude can play hockey. He isn't the prototypical goon that can only hit and not play, he is skilled. While I think 5 is little much, it isn't a huge overpayment. Wouldn't doubt he brings alot to their locker room.

[EdgeControl]

23 hours ago, Colorado Rockies 1976 said:

Back when I used to be a pretty good dart player, I had about a 2.5 to 7 beer window where I would be at my "peak" (for some reason I needed a couple to loosen up and hone in...never did as well "unassisted").  JJ would've been the equivalent of where my game was after the 13th or 14th beer. 

Yup, that was about my bowling window also, yet if I had one beer my golf game went from poor to absolutely  horrible

[MadDog2020]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mfitz804]

Guy’s last name is a living, breathing typo. 

[aclc79]

On 7/27/2018 at 11:01 AM, EdgeControl said:

Love that Shero has put speed up at the top as a scouted skill-set... that was a fundamental change in policy

 That seems to be on the upswing  in the league.

[jagknife]

8 minutes ago, aclc79 said:

 That seems to be on the upswing  in the league.

It has been for a while, we just finally have a GM who doesn't have his arms crossed in front of him telling everyone around him the game hasn't changed, everyone is clearly wrong, shut up, color and drink the kool-aid

[aclc79]

13 hours ago, jagknife said:

It has been for a while, we just finally have a GM who doesn't have his arms crossed in front of him telling everyone around him the game hasn't changed, everyone is clearly wrong, shut up, color and drink the kool-aid

Couldn't agree more!

Yikes, there are some big deals being signed these days!  Where is this headed?

[moustic]

https://empirewritesback.com/2018/07/20/new-jersey-devils-consider-bringing-rick-nash/

Was it discus here already? Though? 

[vadvlfan]

Rick Nash is well past his prime, done, stick a fork in it. I hope ray doesn't bring in any PTO> Unless he trades for bread man. Was discussed on XM that Rag$ fans really want Panarin, but Jackets will want a couple players-Kreider/and a prospect.