After a period of little motivation spanning nearly two years, I have decided to start back up with the blog! I've been considering it for a while, but with the draft yesterday, and the uncertainty of the buyout and upcoming free agent period in the face of the lowering salary cap, I figured now would be as good a time as any to fire the old keyboard back up for some post-draft reaction.
SETH JONES FALLS TO NO. 4
One of the biggest stories leading up to and following the draft was Seth Jones. Highly-touted as one of the best all-around defensive prospects in years, many scouts had Jones ranked as the top player available, and certainly a top-two pick. It was originally expected that the Colorado Avalanche, who have several talented young forwards and plenty of centermen, but no truly outstanding blueliners, would be taking Jones first overall, but then words came around that they would instead be taking center Nathan MacKinnon. On draft day, the Avs made good on their word, taking MacKinnon, and then it seemed obvious that Florida would take Jone with the next pick. To the surprise of many, Florida jumped down to the number four ranked player to take Aleksander Barkov. Tampa as expected initially stayed with their pick up forward Jonathan Drouin, which left Jones for Nashville.
Many may look at this as a case of teams having reservations about Jones. While this could be the case, I don't really think it was as much of a knock against Jones as it was teams choosing to fill needs over taking the best player available. Florida is starved for goals, so they took a talented and potentially NHL-ready forward. Tampa was likely to take Drouin all along and have a lot of high-potential or solid D-men already. In fact, I wouldn't have been all that surprised if Jones had slipped one more spot and gone to Carolina, because Nashville has always been a team that struggles to score goals, and needed a forward more than another defenseman. Still, David Poile loves building from the back end and has now added another great blueliner to an already solid defensive corps. And as it was, I don't think any of the remaining forwards would have been the type of scorer that would have been worth taking over Jones, outside of maybe Valeri Nichushkin, who slipped down to Dallas at tenth overall.
FLAMES PASS ON FUCALE
There have been a lot of instances this year when Flames GM Jay Feaster has left me shaking my head. To his credit, he made the smart move of keeping all three of his first round picks for the rebuild. On the other hand, I could not believe that he did not use one of those three picks to take Zachary Fucale. Right now, the Flames top goalie for next year would be Joey MacDonald, a career backup and journeyman, and behind him there are several decent but not outstanding goaltending prospects. Craig Button said that he has never seen a goalie at the ages of 16 and 17 dominate a league like Fucale has, and many scouts said of him "all he does is win." With three chances to pick in the first round and a serious goaltending need, it seemed like a no-brainer that Calgary would have taken Fucale. After making the obvious choice of Sean Monahan at number six, Feaster instead jumped way off the board to take Emile Poirier, and then after took Morgan Klimchuk, leaving Fucale to be snatched up by the Canadiens in the second round. While Calgary needed forwards, I have a hard time believing using all three picks on forwards and not taking Fucale was a smart move.
TYLER SEGUIN AND NATHAN HORTON
There have been a surprising number of rumors about Tyler Seguin being on the trading block. I believe this to be more of an attempt at sending a message to Seguin that he needs to be better for the Bruins than it is about dumping him. While they could certainly bring in a large number of assets while clearing a decent amount of cap space, I don't believe it would be in the Bruins best interests to give up on Seguin so early. He has had some pretty bad stretches, but has also shown that he can be an outstanding player when he is hot, and maybe this will help give him some extra motivation next season.
Supposedly, the talks about Seguin cooled after Nathan Horton said that he would not re-sign with the Bruins. While I will be sad to see Horton go, I was actually kind of hoping they would not bring him back. Horton has great character and is a fan favorite, but I do have a few knocks against him. He is going to be overpaid, and it is not merited thanks to his production and his injury history. While he has scored some big goals for the Bruins and puts up some decent numbers, he is extremely streaky. I often don't notice him on the ice unless he is the one who scored a goal, which I guess means he doesn't do anything that bad, but it also means he isn't making many plays. He has been valuable in the playoffs, but so has David Krejci, and I would be interested to see what the playmaking Krejci can do if a sniper is added on his line, rather than two power forwards. The Bruins also have many promising forward prospects, like Jared Knight, Ryan Spooner, Alex Khokhlachev, and Seth Griffith, and the loss of Horton will help give them a chance to step in and contribute.
SCHNEIDER TO NEW JERSEY
In the most surprising move of the day, Vancouver ended their long goaltending debate by trading the goalie who was supposed to be their number one goalie. Roberto Luongo, much to his probable chagrin, will once again be the guy in goal for the Canucks while Cory Schneider will be suiting up for the New Jersey Devils. This was an outstanding move for New Jersey and a little bit of a head-scratcher for Vancouver.
New Jersey is getting a guy who is a potential elite goaltender who will be able to take the reigns of the most consistently-filled net in the NHL once Martin Brodeur retires, and Schneider will get at least one year of platooning with arguably the best goalie to ever play the game. For the first time, it appears the Devils have a long-term plan for the post-Brodeur era.
Meanwhile, Vancouver will now be utilizing a goalie who has been waiting to leave for over a year and has been very unhappy in Vancouver. Perhaps the new coach John Tortorella can motivate him. A lot of pressure will be on new Canuck prospect Bo Horvat. Schneider brought the Canucks a surprisingly low return, just one first round pick, and that pick was used immediately on Horvat, so the trade was essentially Schneider for Horvat straight-up. So it'll likely be a few years before we see whether or not this was a trade worth it for the Canucks. Horvat is a strong-tow way player with tons of promise. He is underappreciated in a now famous clip of London Knights teammate Max Domi making a between-the-legs pass. TO many it goes unnoticed that Horvat scores on the play, one-timing the slick pass out of the air into the roof of the net. That is unbelievable hand-eye coordination and a real good sign for a scout. Coast to coast flash in a junior league can be hard to project to the NHL because the competition is at such a higher-level, but that kind of pinpoint hand skill is something translatable to any league.
OVERACHIEVERS
Here are my picks for two players that teams will wish they had picked earlier.
Jonathan Drouin. Drouin was picked number three overall by Tampa Bay. While saying the Panthers and Avalanche will wished they had picked him could be a stretch because Barkov and MacKinnon will be such players, I personally thought Drouin was the best player in this draft. He was MacKinnon's teammate and scored many more goals and many more assists than him, and was also the MVP of the CHL. From the clips I saw of Drouin, I thought he was far more impressive. The biggest knock on him is his size, but he is now going to a team with the king of all underachieving small forwards in Martin St. Louis.
Hunter Shinkaruk. Shinkaruk is a similar story to Drouin. He is a goal-scorer who put up a boat load of points, though he played for an underachieving Medicine Hat team, while Drouin played for the Memorial Cup-winning Halifax Mooseheads with Nathan Mackinnon and Zachary Fucale. He's not a big kid, but he looks to have a lot of skill and energy, and should be a very promising scoring prospect for the Canucks, He was projected to go anywhere between about 8th and 16th overall, but fell to 24th.
CHICAGO SALARY DUMP
Just days after winning the Cup, the Blackhawks have begun their salary sump. Dave Bolland, who scored the Cup winning goal was sent to Toronto for picks, and well-like penalty-killer Michal Frolik was sent to Winnipeg. While it is hard to see good character guys go from a championship team, it is a necessary part of the business that is professional hockey, and the Hawks will survive. They still have an outstanding core of players, and they have already survived this once. After winning the Stanley Cup in 2010, the Hawks were in a cap crunch and lost three important players in Antti Niemi, Dustin Byfuglien, and Andrew Ladd. But they kept the strongest parts of their core together in Patrick Kane, Patrick Sharp, Marian Hossa, Jonathan Toews, Brent Seabrook, Duncan Keith, and Niklas Hjalmarsson, and won the Cup again only a few seasons later. All of those players are still on the team, for now at least, and the Hawks should continue to be a real threat to win the Cup for years to come.
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