DownUndaCanuck

2nd pairing RD in Abby behind Johannson, nothing more please

I think Klingberg will get it, just hope it's not us who dishes it out. I predict Dumba and Klingberg will be on the move but Mayfield surely stays. I think we sign Soucy for like 3.5M and that's it. We go into next year with two top 4 guys and four bottom 2 guys.

Dumba was pretty average last year. Wonder if he takes a 4M deal, maybe even a bridge-type? Soucy deserves a good 2.5-3M. Neither are fantastic but when paired with our top guys, they could complement them nicely. Dumba may be the next Myers but he is physical and plays with a mean streak and can skate well so could pair with Hughes in a weird sort of way. Obviously I'd rather throw 4-5M at Mayfield - perfect man for the job - but doubt he signs here. Hughes - Mayfield/Dumba Soucy - Hronek Hirose - Myers Rathbone Could be a lot worse...

If he was then he would have gone top-10 for sure. Leonard and Dvorsky weren't projected to beat Benson a while ago but they're relatively safe bets - bigger bodies, better defensively, seems to be the way teams want their top line centers to be in the future. Benson is small and skilled and that's about it. That skill could take him to Pat Kane / Point levels but also if his defence is average at the NHL level he may not pan out. I think the offence will surely be there though. I'm glad we went with Willander over Benson but it's a close call. If Dvorsky or Leonard was available at 11OA...boy that'd be tricky but again we'd have to go the RD.

Exactly, I think Allvin realised how much it costs and how hard it is to get an RD these days and drafting certainly is the way forward for centers and defencemen. You're bang on though - we need to start thinking who is going to complement who. Hughes needs a shutdown RD who can skate well. Hronek you could argue needs the same thing on the left side. When Willander breaks into the league in a couple of years time, he's going to need a solid LD to mentor and protect him to a degree. A veteran RD say in his 30s would be ideal right now - Mayfield fits the bill so well. Give him a 4 or even 5 year deal and then we have a nice transition in age of Mayfield -> Hronek > Willander who can gradually share the load on the right side.

Solid defensive defenceman, something we need and lack. Would have liked us to go hunting for a bit more size on the blueline but maybe these kids can still grow a bit. I know we're getting so excited about RDs but soon we'll be thin at LD so Mynio is a good pick up.

Small, over-ager, bad skater, waste of a pick really but I know why we wanted to stock up on playmaking centers - we don't have any down the pipeline. If he's lucky he'll crack into the AHL one day.

Nice pick probably for the BC connection but also to have someone playing with Willander. I think we know Aiden will probably never play in the NHL but nice to have him in the organization.

I think Allvin did a good job scouting his personality, he seems like a solid kid and you can just see a future leader in him. I see the Heiskanen comparisons, boy would we be lucky if he pans out like that. Willander was always going to be our pick IMO no matter who was on the board, even if it was a toss up between him and Reinbacher I think Allvin goes with the Swede now. Looks like a great fit. Whether this is BPA or best positional need or best character, it ticks all our boxes. He'll surely be a consistent top-4 defenceman for us for a long time. Maybe not flashy, may never score 60-80 points a year (although he might...) but it'll be nice to see him gain some muscle, get a bit bigger and play against some older kids in the NCAA. Willander really was a fairly safe pick, I think he's got such a low risk of being a bust.

Seems like a good pick but I'll stay cautious - older guy, smaller frame but smart offensive puck mover is nice. High ceiling but could easily never play an NHL game. Worth a shot.

The UFA pool is shrinking, I worry if we trade Myers we won't have anyone to replace him just yet. We already need 1 top-4 defenceman, ideally two, let's not make it 3 unless we can make some savvy trades. Mayfield is surely re-signing with NYI. Graves doesn't want to play in Canada. That leaves Dumba, Klinberg, Dumoulin, Soucy, Holl and Clifton (and some old guys I won't bother mentioning). I worry we're going to throw 6x6 at Klinberg or a bit less at Dumba and end up with the same problem we have with Myers down the line. If there's any world in which we can get Graves and Mayfield for 10M I'd do it but I doubt they're coming here. Even one would turn this team into a playoff team. Neither, and we're struggling with just 2 proper NHL top-4 defencemen.

Seems like a strange move, wonder what Chicago is planning here...loading up on castaways and veterans. They still have 25M in cap space, how have they not taken Myers or Garland off our hands?

If Foote is getting let go then we should avoid him too - there's a good reason he's getting bounced around sadly. Can't just get sucked in by the fact that he's a young, big physical RD. The last thing we want is a big slow anchor for Hughes.

They have done a good job but I will say - how many of them are elite? Hirose looked so smooth but not many NCAA guys become elite as such. D-Petey might be a solid defensive guy for us, let's hope a physical Tanev type. Willander was a high pick and our best shot at a future top defenceman to be honest so happy with him. Johannson looked really solid so far in the few AHL games he played and could be a wild-card for a NHL spot in the future. I'm really happy Allvin has addressed our needs but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Look at the Devil's defensive prospect group. Look at the young guys in Detroit. Look at what Columbus has just done to their defence. Luke Hughes, Nemec, Jiricek, Edvinsson, Seider, Werenski. These teams have such top-end young guys. We're slowly getting into that conversation with Hughes, Hronek and Willander but I'm not getting my hopes up with a bunch of the mid to late round picks. If they can be serviceable bottom-4 defencemen for us then great but we've got to focus on getting our big 3 now to the top of their game and surround them by quality complementary defencemen.

We would have had some real options if we had the 17th and 2nd rounder. I'd go all in on 3 defencemen, something silly like this: 1st - Willander 1st - ASP 2nd - Strbak Three solid top-4 RDs, surely at least two of them pan out, develop them all, trade the 3rd best guy the way Yzerman traded us Hronek - a young RD is the hottest commodity in the league right now. More realistically we could have rebuilt our team with something more balanced like this: 1st - Benson 1st - Willander or ASP 2nd - Strbak Obviously Benson has high bust potential but also, would have pretty much lead the league in scoring if Bedard wasn't there. Moore fell a fair bit too so could have been a nice two-way center pick up. I'm all for Hronek and understand why we made that deal but boy, there were some good players available with those picks. ASP may eclipse Hronek alone in 2-3 years time.

To be honest I think Allvin would have tried everything before buying out OEL and I bet the price was just too rich to move out Garland. I wonder about Beauvillier to be honest - younger, maybe more up-side and just 4M but honestly I'd move him next if Garland is too hard to move. Boeser at 6.6M is another hard pill to swallow but I'd be keen to see if he can re-start his career next year alongside Miller. At the end of the day, when OEL was bought out I had a feeling that we'd start next season with all of these expensive wingers still on board. Guess we'll be riding them out and just hoping that their play improves and live and die by them sadly.

This is the way to do it, take bad contracts for pick and tank even harder. Dynasty up coming in as soon as 5 years. Probably means Garland would cost us a 2nd which is a bit rich for me.

Don't think any of these 3rd or 4th rounders will see the light of the NHL. Brisebois was a 3rd rounder and I doubt even he or Woo will ever be a consistent NHLer. Problem is we threw away a 1st and 2nd, that's where the gold is. There should be some long hard comparisons between ASP and Hronek going forward, not to mention we could have maybe snagged Strbak with the 2nd.

Yeah huge ceiling but huge bust potential, no thanks, we've had our fair shares. The safe pick was the right pick, especially without a 2nd rounder to back it up this year. I hope we get a stop gap to play with Hughes then until Willander is ready. He's probably 2-3 years away from the NHL but could be 4 years away from top-4 20+ minutes. Wouldn't mind signing a veteran RD for that time. Boy Mayfield would fit the bill nicely there.

Solid 2 way guy, we need a guy like Willander, probably since Edler left us. You just know Allvin had Reinbacher and maybe even Simashev higher and then probably ASP and Lindstein lower. Going to Boston in the NCAA is huge next year for him too. Get used to North American hockey, hopefully get into the AHL in the following year and bottom pairing NHL minutes the next year when the OEL big cap hit hits on an ELC. Hope he does well in Boston, would like to see at least 0.5PPG, hopefully he can end up being a solid Hampus Lindholm/mini-Heiskanen type guy for us. If he can be a 40-50 pt 15+ defenceman I'd be happy with the pick.

Surprised to see Danielson and Simashev go so high, Benson and ASP fall. Button ranked ASP 3rd overall lol. I think Willander is the safe option, happy with him, you know Allvin wanted Reinbacher but of course he was snapped up quickly, and to be honest he has a little bit of bust potential. Shame we didn't get Dvorsky, one pick away, and I'm not mad we missed on Benson or ASP. They have the highest ceilings but also, we desperately need some size and defensive ability and Willander fits all of our needs so props to Allvin for sticking with the plan. Really hurts to see ASP taken with the Detroit pick, and Strbak still on the board in the 2nd. Without Hronek we could have literally built an entire top-4 defensive group for the future in two rounds. Also I think Leo Carlsson deservedly goes 2nd overall, he's my pick over Fantilli all day and makes Anaheim's center group scary, gives them a different edge. No surprise Michkov drops and you know Montreal fans will be livid about this, especially if Reinbacher doesn't pan out. In the end a couple of surprises but nothing crazy.

Yeah I think this is playing a lot more into things now than it ever has. It'll be insane to think that some people say Michkov might be better than Bedard and he could drop to 5-6th overall, but then again you never really know if he'll commit to the NHL long-term down the line

Apparently 3 scouts saying Simashev is the 2nd best player in the draft. Would be absolutely classic if ASP, Reinbacher and Willander go in the first 20 picks, Simashev gets taken in the late first and then he ends up being the best defenceman. Will be interesting to see how good our European scouts are

If that's the case (and I do believe you), then how much does it cost to move these guys? Surely a 3rd or 4th rounder would be enough to move Garland, and we have a boat-load of them. I honestly would have rather done that than the OEL buyout first and see how OEL goes next year with new coaches, but maybe even that wasn't enough? Watching Hayes and Hall going for nothing means that yeah, I think we'd have to pay to move Garland, but surely nothing more than a mid round pick? If it was a 2nd or higher then of course - no chance, but he's not that bad... Now we've bought out OEL though we have the cap space to leave these expensive wingers on our team but if there's any way we can move them or swap them for another floating player on another team (for a change of scenery, or better yet, position), then we should try.

Geekie is young, big frame, right handed and was basically Seattle's 4C last year and didn't do great, but not terribly, he's got a long way to develop. Doubt they give up on him yet. Borgen is a big bottom pairing RD, again nothing flashy, could improve but probably doesn't have a super high ceiling either. They have some cap space but lots of guys to sign, I doubt they give up on these guys unless we give them Beauvillier + another young player back (Rathbone?). I wouldn't do that to be honest. I know they fit some positional needs but I doubt Geekie or Borgen will ever really be that good - good for depth but not much more than that.