2023 NHL Entry Draft

[Angry Goose]

22 minutes ago, eeeeergh said:

Sutter was also very skilled- he was a monster in shootouts

 

My big concern with Danielson is still his production in the WHL

 

Its a HUGE jump from the WHL to NHL, so if your numbers in your draft year are "decent", I have my doubts. 

 

Danielson is 6'2 185lbs, and put up 1.14 points per game

 

Benson is 5'9 and 165lbs and put up 1.63 points per game

 

For context, Danielson's numbers are on par with Dragicevic who is a 6'2 defenseman the same age. 

 

I really really don't want our management to be the ones trying to play it safe, and ending up with a 3C from their 1st round pick in a historically deep draft, when there's so many potential gamebreakers available. 

 

Allvin needs to put on his big boy pants, do it the way Vegas did, step up to the roulette table, and start gambling. High risk, high return. Boom, bust. All or nothing. We either get a 1st line calibre player from our 1st round pick, or a guy who doesnt play at all. 

PA drafted JL last year who is definitely more of a high ceiling/offensive talent type of player.

 

If you read through this thread/research what scouts have said, Danielson’s production has as much to do with the team he was on/his commitment to playing the right way.  That’s context.

 

Personally I will always take solid play drivers any day of the week.  Some scouts have stated there is untapped offensive upside to his game. If the Canucks scouting staff have a good read on him I would be happy adding him to the org. 2 way RH C’s are pretty valuable on a team.  

 

But this is also ignoring what the Canuck’s list is and how the draft plays out too.  Could be someone rated higher on the Canucks list drops to #11.  Its a fascinating draft and I wish the Canucks could snag 2-3 players in the 1st round.

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Angry Goose
words

[Warhippy]

27 minutes ago, eeeeergh said:

I really really don't want our management to be the ones trying to play it safe, and ending up with a 3C from their 1st round pick in a historically deep draft, when there's so many potential gamebreakers available.

It's always a "historically deep draft" every other year.

 

Let's put this in to perspective.  1998 had one of the deepest drafts ever recorded outside of 2003.

 

The 7th overall pick produced a left shooting centre that had he been healthy might have helped us win a cup in 2011.  But by todays standards his pedestrian numbers for a 7th overall pick would have made him a bust.  Poor Manny Malhotra.

 

Lecavlier, Legwand, Stuart, Malhotra, Antropov, Tanguay, Regehr, Gagne, Gomez, Cheechoo, Fisher, Ribeiro, Richards, Ruutu, Cole, Beachemain, Gionta, Ponikarovsky, Vasichek, Horcoff, Spacek, Samuelsson, Hunter, Neil, Kotalik, Dastyuk, Arnason, Datsyuk, Ryder.

 

All of these players taken in every single round of 1998 had more than 200 games and 200 points and even Skrastins in the 9th round played almost 1000 games with over 130 points.  THAT is a deep draft as I have not included players outside of Skrastins who recorded more than 100 points.  But there is an additional 22 more players that played the "success metric" of 100+ NHL games not listed there.

 

If we draft a player at 11 who becomes a 3rd line centre, we have saved a minimum of 44+ million immediately, because we are not signing a free agent for that price or more.  If we draft Danielson and that's all he becomes is a quality 3rd line C; we won the draft because we got a player who will play a decade in vancouver as a serviceable player on an ELC, then bridge and then moderate contract throughout their career, ensuring we don't have a hole to plug in free agency or through the trade minefield for an RHC

[Smashian Kassian]

Watching some of Danielson here now, there's some Virtanen in his offensive game. Bigger+Fast than everyone right now, likes the drive wide & stick to the perimeter, not necessarily try to stop up for options or go hard to the net unless he's got seperation. He's kinda got 1 speed with the puck.

 

His vision seems pretty good when he has his head up, he can identify the options in his purview, but he's not very creative & again kinda just 1 speed with the puck. When he gets a chance to shoot he does have a pretty good shot, not a Matthews/Laine type cannon but when he gets looks he'll be able to bury some. And of course his speed is excellent, he's can really build up speed & he's long+rangey. 

 

I just question how he's going to create offense, as - like Jake - his speed & size alone won't allow him to be as dominant in the NHL. I think Samuel Honzek is a better offensive player, not the speed Danielson has but more offensive talent. 

 

He's definitely committed in the defensive zone, he backchecks. He's not very gritty or physical, and I do question his overall awareness, but I think he'll be a pretty good defensive player that'll PK. Not sure I see Selke trophies or anything but he should be a responsible north/south C. 

 

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Smashian Kassian

[eeeeergh]

11 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

It's always a "historically deep draft" every other year.

 

Let's put this in to perspective.  1998 had one of the deepest drafts ever recorded outside of 2003.

 

The 7th overall pick produced a left shooting centre that had he been healthy might have helped us win a cup in 2011.  But by todays standards his pedestrian numbers for a 7th overall pick would have made him a bust.  Poor Manny Malhotra.

 

Lecavlier, Legwand, Stuart, Malhotra, Antropov, Tanguay, Regehr, Gagne, Gomez, Cheechoo, Fisher, Ribeiro, Richards, Ruutu, Cole, Beachemain, Gionta, Ponikarovsky, Vasichek, Horcoff, Spacek, Samuelsson, Hunter, Neil, Kotalik, Dastyuk, Arnason, Datsyuk, Ryder.

 

All of these players taken in every single round of 1998 had more than 200 games and 200 points and even Skrastins in the 9th round played almost 1000 games with over 130 points.  THAT is a deep draft as I have not included players outside of Skrastins who recorded more than 100 points.  But there is an additional 22 more players that played the "success metric" of 100+ NHL games not listed there.

 

If we draft a player at 11 who becomes a 3rd line centre, we have saved a minimum of 44+ million immediately, because we are not signing a free agent for that price or more.  If we draft Danielson and that's all he becomes is a quality 3rd line C; we won the draft because we got a player who will play a decade in vancouver as a serviceable player on an ELC, then bridge and then moderate contract throughout their career, ensuring we don't have a hole to plug in free agency or through the trade minefield for an RHC

Idk how it saves us 44 million+ because:

 

He probably isn't going to be giving us true 3C caliber performance in his first year or two of his ELC. if he does, that would be an insane success, but not something that we should expect. If we want a good 3C that can run our penalty kill, win more than 50% of faceoffs, take hard matchups, thats probably a few years in. So that might be during his bridge deal. I think hometown discounts are largely a myth, from what ive seen, we've basically had to pay market rate for anyone we draft. Maybe a million dollars off on 5m+ deals?

 

Its an opportunity cost thing. There are quality 3Cs in this years UFA pool - Kampf, Kerfoot, Compher. And some reclamation projects too if we want to take a bit of a risk for some extra value (Monohan). Sure we might pay a bit of a premium picking up a guy like that in UFA, but think of it this way - what would we have to give up if we ever wanted to acquire a Brayden Point? Probably equivalent of 4x 1st round assets. Theres decent 3Cs available every single year. 

 

If you take a guy that has 1st line star player ceiling, the upside there both in play AND in asset value is so much higher. If Benson pans out, and if hes too small for us, he would fetch us such an absurdly big haul that the 1mil + savings on our 3C from a Danielson pales by comparison. 

 

If there's a player thats a bigger risk but has true 1st line potential we'd be stupid to draft a guy with mediocre WHL production numbers because he's a "safe bet" to be a warm body in our lineup one day. 

 

[Nucker 67]

Every year (?) at least one player drops out of the Top 10 on Draft Day, like these players did:

 

2022 - Nazar, Lekkerimaki, Kemell

2021 - Wallstedt

2020 - Lundell

2019 - Caufield, Boldy

2018 - Wahlstrom, Dobson

 

2023 - Moore, Reinbacher ?  (with Wood and Sandin Pellikka replacing them)

[smithers joe]

18 minutes ago, Smashian Kassian said:

Watching some of Danielson here now, there's some Virtanen in his offensive game. Bigger+Fast than everyone right now, likes the drive wide & stick to the perimeter, not necessarily try to stop up for options or go hard to the net unless he's got seperation. He's kinda got 1 speed with the puck.

 

His vision seems pretty good when he has his head up, he can identify the options in his purview, but he's not very creative & again kinda just 1 speed with the puck. When he gets a chance to shoot he does have a pretty good shot, not a Matthews/Laine type cannon but when he gets looks he'll be able to bury some. And of course his speed is excellent, he's can really build up speed & he's long+rangey. 

 

I just question how he's going to create offense, as - like Jake - his speed & size alone won't allow him to be as dominant in the NHL. I think Samuel Honzek is a better offensive player, not the speed Danielson has but more offensive talent. 

 

He's definitely committed in the defensive zone, he backchecks. He's not very gritty or physical, and I do question his overall awareness, but I think he'll be a pretty good defensive player that'll PK. Not sure I see Selke trophies or anything but he should be a responsible north/south C. 

 

 

so your saying we should take honzek at 11. okay, now we can follow his career and see if your a better scout than all others?

[eeeeergh]

18 minutes ago, Smashian Kassian said:

Watching some of Danielson here now, there's some Virtanen in his offensive game. Bigger+Fast than everyone right now, likes the drive wide & stick to the perimeter, not necessarily try to stop up for options or go hard to the net unless he's got seperation. He's kinda got 1 speed with the puck.

 

His vision seems pretty good when he has his head up, he can identify the options in his purview, but he's not very creative & again kinda just 1 speed with the puck. When he gets a chance to shoot he does have a pretty good shot, not a Matthews/Laine type cannon but when he gets looks he'll be able to bury some. And of course his speed is excellent, he's can really build up speed & he's long+rangey. 

 

I just question how he's going to create offense, as - like Jake - his speed & size alone won't allow him to be as dominant in the NHL. I think Samuel Honzek is a better offensive player, not the speed Danielson has but more offensive talent. 

 

He's definitely committed in the defensive zone, he backchecks. He's not very gritty or physical, and I do question his overall awareness, but I think he'll be a pretty good defensive player that'll PK. Not sure I see Selke trophies or anything but he should be a responsible north/south C. 

 

 

thats what concerns me too. I watched some of his play and he doesnt seem to have a lot of tools beyond his speed and some decent stickhandling. 

A ton of his assists came from nice passes right through the crease, passes that absolutely would not connect most of the time in the NHL. 

 

Im very concerned that despite his size, his WHL numbers are just.. decent. For a top-10 pick in this draft, youd expect far more offensive dominance. Especially given the fact that hes 6'2 and hes playing against 5'8/4'9 guys like Benson. He should be physically overpowering them. 

[Smashian Kassian]

1 minute ago, smithers joe said:

so your saying we should take honzek at 11. okay, now we can follow his career and see if your a better scout than all others?

 

That's not even close to what I was saying.

 

1 minute ago, eeeeergh said:

thats what concerns me too. I watched some of his play and he doesnt seem to have a lot of tools beyond his speed and some decent stickhandling. 

A ton of his assists came from nice passes right through the crease, passes that absolutely would not connect most of the time in the NHL. 

 

Im very concerned that despite his size, his WHL numbers are just.. decent. For a top-10 pick in this draft, youd expect far more offensive dominance. Especially given the fact that hes 6'2 and hes playing against 5'8/4'9 guys like Benson. He should be physically overpowering them. 

 

It just seems like he's reliant on his speed & range to excel in junior hockey where it won't as much of an advantage in the NHL.

 

He does have decent vision & a good shot; so when looks come he'll score some goals, when an option is there he'll make the pass, but I think he'll be a pretty north/south player in the NHL. The way he can pickup the puck & barge down the ice kinda reminds me of Nicolas Roy - though again he's got a better shot/vision. 

 

[NuckLuck19]

1 hour ago, eeeeergh said:

Sutter was also very skilled- he was a monster in shootouts

 

My big concern with Danielson is still his production in the WHL

 

Its a HUGE jump from the WHL to NHL, so if your numbers in your draft year are "decent", I have my doubts. 

 

Danielson is 6'2 185lbs, and put up 1.14 points per game

 

Benson is 5'9 and 165lbs and put up 1.63 points per game

 

For context, Danielson's numbers are on par with Dragicevic who is a 6'2 defenseman the same age. 

 

I really really don't want our management to be the ones trying to play it safe, and ending up with a 3C from their 1st round pick in a historically deep draft, when there's so many potential gamebreakers available. 

 

Allvin needs to put on his big boy pants, do it the way Vegas did, step up to the roulette table, and start gambling. High risk, high return. Boom, bust. All or nothing. We either get a 1st line calibre player from our 1st round pick, or a guy who doesnt play at all. 

I think you should look at the following 

 

How many goals for did Benson’s team score? They were the highest scoring team in the WHL. Then look at his points as a percentage of GF, that tells you how many goals he was involved in. It was 30%
 

Then look at Danielson’s team who was a bottom feeder with I believe 5th or 6th lowest goals for. he was in on 37% of the teams goals

 

looking a points only can often not tell the whole story 

[Warhippy]

43 minutes ago, eeeeergh said:

Idk how it saves us 44 million+ because:

 

He probably isn't going to be giving us true 3C caliber performance in his first year or two of his ELC. if he does, that would be an insane success, but not something that we should expect. If we want a good 3C that can run our penalty kill, win more than 50% of faceoffs, take hard matchups, thats probably a few years in. So that might be during his bridge deal. I think hometown discounts are largely a myth, from what ive seen, we've basically had to pay market rate for anyone we draft. Maybe a million dollars off on 5m+ deals?

 

Its an opportunity cost thing. There are quality 3Cs in this years UFA pool - Kampf, Kerfoot, Compher. And some reclamation projects too if we want to take a bit of a risk for some extra value (Monohan). Sure we might pay a bit of a premium picking up a guy like that in UFA, but think of it this way - what would we have to give up if we ever wanted to acquire a Brayden Point? Probably equivalent of 4x 1st round assets. Theres decent 3Cs available every single year. 

 

If you take a guy that has 1st line star player ceiling, the upside there both in play AND in asset value is so much higher. If Benson pans out, and if hes too small for us, he would fetch us such an absurdly big haul that the 1mil + savings on our 3C from a Danielson pales by comparison. 

 

If there's a player thats a bigger risk but has true 1st line potential we'd be stupid to draft a guy with mediocre WHL production numbers because he's a "safe bet" to be a warm body in our lineup one day. 

 

That is supposed to be $4 million

4-4 see the $ sign being the number 4+shift button.

 

it saves us $$ million because the going rate for a quality 3rd line centre is or starts around $4 million.  

 

Now here's the thing.  we don't hav the cap space to afford the team we have let alone adding a bidding war plethora of $4+ million 3rd line centers.  We can not afford it period.  That is why drafting one is never a bad thing.  We need to hit on every possible pick we have and I can not stress enough how badly we need to.  After a decade of gd failure and being one of the worst like absolute WORST teams in the league over a decade while also being one of the highest spending, we also have one of the worst prospect pools in the league and as such have no wiggle room period to add a kerfoot kompher or even a gd wellwood if we wanted.

 

If we draft a guy that turns in a 3rd line C at his best.  Cool.  We need a 3rd line C like nobodies business.  But you're again suggesting Benson who if he hits.  Great.  cool.  if he doesn't.  Then we wasted a pick and STILL need a 3rd line centre and STILL have no cap space for one.  A safe pick that becomes a 3rd or 4th line player is still a player.  A boom bust pick that is top 6 or bust and busts is a cascade of wasted assets and asset management.  

 

We've drafted BPA and hoped for home run picks for about a decade.  our safest picks have been Horvat and Podkolzin in that time.  Those were designated "safe picks" that can't miss.  Hard to argue we don't need more of that 

 

Edit*. This does not mean I am advocating for Danielson.  I am just stating that a safe pick is a good thing for this team that just needs picks to hit.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Warhippy

[Alflives]

Which guy this draft will be the Kent Hughes bust? Slafkovsky, Kakko, Lafreniere, Krapsoft, Anderson and this year who is the Kent Hughes bustaroo bonsai? 

[Herberts Vasiljevs]

3 minutes ago, Alflives said:

Which guy this draft will be the Kent Hughes bust? Slafkovsky, Kakko, Lafreniere, Krapsoft, Anderson and this year who is the Kent Hughes bustaroo bonsai? 

Elite post (as always). 

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Herberts Vasiljevs said:

Elite post (as always). 

I love Alf's shade that he throws at other teams. 

[NuckLuck19]

21 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

That is supposed to be $4 million

4-4 see the $ sign being the number 4+shift button.

 

it saves us $$ million because the going rate for a quality 3rd line centre is or starts around $4 million.  

 

Now here's the thing.  we don't hav the cap space to afford the team we have let alone adding a bidding war plethora of $4+ million 3rd line centers.  We can not afford it period.  That is why drafting one is never a bad thing.  We need to hit on every possible pick we have and I can not stress enough how badly we need to.  After a decade of gd failure and being one of the worst like absolute WORST teams in the league over a decade while also being one of the highest spending, we also have one of the worst prospect pools in the league and as such have no wiggle room period to add a kerfoot kompher or even a gd wellwood if we wanted.

 

If we draft a guy that turns in a 3rd line C at his best.  Cool.  We need a 3rd line C like nobodies business.  But you're again suggesting Benson who if he hits.  Great.  cool.  if he doesn't.  Then we wasted a pick and STILL need a 3rd line centre and STILL have no cap space for one.  A safe pick that becomes a 3rd or 4th line player is still a player.  A boom bust pick that is top 6 or bust and busts is a cascade of wasted assets and asset management.  

 

We've drafted BPA and hoped for home run picks for about a decade.  our safest picks have been Horvat and Podkolzin in that time.  Those were designated "safe picks" that can't miss.  Hard to argue we don't need more of that 

 

Edit*. This does not mean I am advocating for Danielson.  I am just stating that a safe pick is a good thing for this team that just needs picks to hit.

Well it’s unlikely anyone we draft is stepping into the 3c position and given benson’s size he projects more as a winger in the nhl. And he certainly isn’t coming into the nhl at 160 lbs next year 

[eeeeergh]

12 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

That is supposed to be $4 million

4-4 see the $ sign being the number 4+shift button.

 

it saves us $$ million because the going rate for a quality 3rd line centre is or starts around $4 million.  

 

Now here's the thing.  we don't hav the cap space to afford the team we have let alone adding a bidding war plethora of $4+ million 3rd line centers.  We can not afford it period.  That is why drafting one is never a bad thing.  We need to hit on every possible pick we have and I can not stress enough how badly we need to.  After a decade of gd failure and being one of the worst like absolute WORST teams in the league over a decade while also being one of the highest spending, we also have one of the worst prospect pools in the league and as such have no wiggle room period to add a kerfoot kompher or even a gd wellwood if we wanted.

 

If we draft a guy that turns in a 3rd line C at his best.  Cool.  We need a 3rd line C like nobodies business.  But you're again suggesting Benson who if he hits.  Great.  cool.  if he doesn't.  Then we wasted a pick and STILL need a 3rd line centre and STILL have no cap space for one.  A safe pick that becomes a 3rd or 4th line player is still a player.  A boom bust pick that is top 6 or bust and busts is a cascade of wasted assets and asset management.  

 

We've drafted BPA and hoped for home run picks for about a decade.  our safest picks have been Horvat and Podkolzin in that time.  Those were designated "safe picks" that can't miss.  Hard to argue we don't need more of that 

 

Edit*. This does not mean I am advocating for Danielson.  I am just stating that a safe pick is a good thing for this team that just needs picks to hit.

Idk why so many people are so worried about cap space

 

We have a bit of a crunch this year but our roster is basically all filled out. As of next year, and continuing onwards, cap drops off our books very quickly. Beauviller, Myers, Pearson all drop off after this year - 14 million dollars. 3 to Petey and 3 to Hronek still leaves 8 million for a defenseman to replace Myers and a 3C. 

 

We don't have much inefficient money past 2024-2025. In fact, the inefficient money we do have is offset by nice discounts on Hughes & Demko

 

Horvat was a good pick, no disagreement from me there.

 

But boy would it have been nice to have got Caufield (ultimate boom/bust) instead of the safe Podkolzin. 

I made this comment earlier as well, but the top teams in the NHL are not made up of a majority of drafted talent. A byproduct of the cap era is that teams are forced to let serviceable players go, often for free (see us giving up Tanev, Toffoli, Markstrom, and more) in order to make the cap work. So the best strategy for the draft is to acquire players that you think are likely to be very hard to get down the road through trade and UFA. What kinds of players are those? 30-40 goal scorers, 1st line players, top pair defensemen, etc. Petey was a major boom/bust pick. I seem to recall a lot of people wanting Glass instead (right hand center, big, etc etc.) Thank god we went for Petey instead. 

 

[Devron]

2 minutes ago, eeeeergh said:

Idk why so many people are so worried about cap space

To win the cup next year obviously 

 

Joke aside. I agree I would love to see us ride out with what we have. Give more opportunities for the younger guys. That will give us a really good idea of how to keep or move at next year deadline and into summer 

[eeeeergh]

29 minutes ago, NuckLuck19 said:

I think you should look at the following 

 

How many goals for did Benson’s team score? They were the highest scoring team in the WHL. Then look at his points as a percentage of GF, that tells you how many goals he was involved in. It was 30%
 

Then look at Danielson’s team who was a bottom feeder with I believe 5th or 6th lowest goals for. he was in on 37% of the teams goals

 

looking a points only can often not tell the whole story 

Idk if i buy that argument though

 

So what if Bensons team was better? Sure maybe he had some better linemates, but its very clear that he was the play driver. Im not blaming Danielson for his team losing games, or having a sucky +/-. 

 

Id be interested in comparing how many minutes each of them got - i suspect as top liners for each team, their minutes played was somewhat comparable. 

 

But if Danielson is that good he should be producing a lot more. His numbers are not reflective of a 1st round pick. Given his size especially. 

[R3aL]

4 minutes ago, NuckLuck19 said:

Well it’s unlikely anyone we draft is stepping into the 3c position and given benson’s size he projects more as a winger in the nhl. And he certainly isn’t coming into the nhl at 160 lbs next year 

Ya he even said in His interview he’s more comfortable on the wing and sees that where he will be playing going forward too

 

but he is a style winger that although he lines up on the wing he ends up covering C ice responsibilities so I’m curious how this will develop for him

[Alflives]

1 minute ago, R3aL said:

Ya he even said in His interview he’s more comfortable on the wing and sees that where he will be playing going forward too

 

but he is a style winger that although he lines up on the wing he ends up covering C ice responsibilities so I’m curious how this will develop for him

Any club that drafts Benson will try to move him, as he develops, to centre. Too much value in having him play centre. He’s definitely going to fall out of the top ten though. Might even out of the top 15. Saying he sees himself as a winger isn’t going to help his draft position, that’s for certain, 

[eeeeergh]

Just now, Devron said:

To win the cup next year obviously 

 

Joke aside. I agree I would love to see us ride out with what we have. Give more opportunities for the younger guys. That will give us a really good idea of how to keep or move at next year deadline and into summer 

ive been very happy with how GMPA has been managing the roster

 

Sold the absolute pico top on Horvat and got us a top pair RD and a great prospect in Raty. We'll probably even be able to turn Beauvillier into a 3rd round pick at the deadline. 

 

Bought low on Bear - got him for next to nothing. A serviceable top-4 RD for us. 

 

Got Filip Johansson for free. Got Kuzmenko (40 goal scorer) for free. Got  a top-6 forward in Mikheyev in UFA instead of giving up assets for wingers like JB did. 

 

Got us picks in exchange for Schenn and Lazar. Picked up our 4c (nils aman) for free.

 

Even turned one of their busts (stillman) into a decent B prospect (Bloom). 

 

These guys are very stingy and clearly adept at buying low/selling high. 

 

Not to mention - they had the foresight to re-sign the right player (Miller instead of Horvat) despite all of us howling at them for being morons. 

 

A+ for GMPA and the hairless compadres.