2018 NHL Draft Preliminary Thread

Habsy said:

McKenzie | Hurricanes open to dealing everybody but Aho

https://frshockey.com/nhl/hurricanes/mckenzie-hurricanes-open-to-dealing-everybody-but-aho/

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It would be interesting to see what Skinner would fetch on the open market...would a team give up a solid, top offensive center for Skinner straight up? As for Faulk, I would love to see him moved, but only if you are going to back fill his roster spot with a minute munching defenseman that can play in the top four on D for the Canes. The Canes defense is simply not deep enough or experienced enough to trade Faulk and not get something back for him that fills the hole on defense, even with as bad as Faulk was last season.

Best value for trade opportunities probably lies in O-for-D trades instead of O-for-O or D-for-D.

Find a trading partner for each that is rich in what you need and needs what you got.

So Skinner for the right-shot veteran D that backfills Faulk's power play slot and steadies our young D.

And Faulk for the missing top-6 forward, be it winger or center...and for Faulk, most likely a winger. He's not nearly enough to snag a center other than the many 2C's and 3C's we already have.

I'm personally beginning to become more comfortable with a solid bunch of 2C's and spending the 1C money on complementary wingers and really good C's. Roll four lines and just try and defend against us.

Bonus points if a strong two-way 2C like ROR is added making road match-ups by the home host team difficult to exploit.

I would hope that the staff has some insight into the issues with Faulk this past season and with Skinner.

Faulk was never a superstar but he was virtually unplayable this season. Why? There has to be a reason - you don't go from solid to completely lost for no reason. Before I try to trade him for basically what he has been prior to this past season I'd like to know why his game fell apart. If it's something Brindy and coaches are comfortable will be better this coming season, I'd rather keep him instead of moving him now at what I would expect to be a low value for him. That being said, if someone is willing to give him legitimate value for him, I'm not against trading him. I can't think we'd get a top 6 forward for him based on last season's play though.

Skinner - unless there was a reason he was not put on a reasonable line that is due to his preparedness or attitude, I think they ought to know the reason he was ineffective was due to his linemates. The mix at forward needs to be fixed, so if the issue was impossible line combinations given our roster last season, I think the coaches know that. I'd expect Jeff to have a career year if put with a legit #1 center and another top 6 forward.

Bottom line I think they are both near the bottom of their trade value. I would rather keep them than move either of them at much of a discount unless the coaches feel that last year is likely to be repeated for them.

I'm not necessarily advocating trading them...well, okay, I probably am. :sarcasm

Just using them as examples as to how I think pieces will be changed out, if that's the direction they want to go.

As for last-season statistics, other orgs (at least their fan bases) think our player's struggles are all just us...and, hey, maybe they are. Between the coaching and general lack of high-end talent, kind of hard to score on this team.

Nonetheless, the value is still there (even for Rask) and, after all, we'd be getting someone back that they've lost faith in themselves...or can no longer afford. Changes in latitude, changes in attitude.

Sometimes it's not just about maximizing value. It's about making a needed change.

As for Faulk, I think he's never yet recovered from the injury that prematurely ended his last season before this one. Whole lot of pushing off with one leg as he went down the ice this season that I don't ever think I saw in his bag of tricks before.

Skinner, yeah lack of compatible talent around him. But, also, he has just got to play a team defense position if he's staying here. We can't just keep building lines just for him and keeping him in the bottom-six because he's an automatic turnover against skilled defenders.

The challenge with Skinner, and frankly many talented scorers is they tend to instinctively think offense first. They want to be on the offensive side of the play etc. They want to pick the puck and go because they have that kind of confidence and because they're puck hogs and glory hogs that want to score. You can't take that out of him and you really don't want to - that's why he can do what he does offensively.

We need to be able to work that kind of talent into our roster in a way that makes other teams think defense first because we have a line that will make them pay if they don't. If we're going to expect him to grind out a season as a defense first forward on a defense first focused system then we ought to let him go for what we can get.

Pretty sure if we trade him he blows up wherever he goes and we'll be kicking ourselves.

He's been misused by coaches for a while. He and Peters obviously didn't see eye to eye. Not every player needs to be great on both ends of the rink.

Peters lost Skinner within the first 20 games and Jeff coasted through the rest of the season. His give a crap got up and went.

KTown11 said:

Peters lost Skinner within the first 20 games and Jeff coasted through the rest of the season. His give a crap got up and went.

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He wasn't the only player. And there's a reason Bill was not present at player exit interviews. Also plays into why he's no longer here.

Bob McKenzie on his podcast says he doesn't think teams are going to offer enough for a trade to move up to #2.

Svechnikov talks Carolina ... briefly ... and talks about other stuff that will make you like him even more.

bagopux said:

Svechnikov talks Carolina ... briefly ... and talks about other stuff that will make you like him even more.

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I didn't know he had an older brother in the AHL. Hopefully he can fill out to his brother's size too. And hopefully, he doesn't have a sophomore slump like his brother. Evegeny went from 20g, 31a in 74 games last year in Grand Rapids to 7 g. 16a in 57 games this year. He also played 14 games with Detroit with 2g, 2a.

Love as in this part? "I think my game is a bear on the smaller rink; I like this game because that means more action, more contact and more chances to score."

Paulie Walnuts said:

Bob McKenzie on his podcast says he doesn't think teams are going to offer enough for a trade to move up to #2.

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That seems to be the general consensus at this point among draft gurus. Makes sense. The Canes have soften their rhetoric regarding trading that pick as well ... going from fairly aggressive sounding openness to the idea of trading down to more of the "anything can happen" you normally hear from teams not expecting to do anything other than just take the pick.

I think what we're seeing is Carolina's front office settling in to fairly traditional operations mode after the understandable churning back when Dundon was in hiring mode and the division of labors in the offices hadn't really been established. Since that 2 week or so period, we haven't really seen anything other than the usual bland early spring stuff out of the front office. That's good. It's an indication of stability.

andyt said:

I didn't know he had an older brother in the AHL. Hopefully he can fill out to his brother's size too. And hopefully, he doesn't have a sophomore slump like his brother. Evegeny went from 20g, 31a in 74 games last year in Grand Rapids to 7 g. 16a in 57 games this year. He also played 14 games with Detroit with 2g, 2a.

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Seemed that Detroit had kind of an organization wide sifting this season, as they trundled a bunch of guys between the NHL and AHL looking for answers. I'm sure that had a unsettling effect on a lot of their prospects. A quick look at Grand Rapid's stat sheet shows that a LOT of their scoring came from AHL vets on the wrong side of 25 years old. That's something we've seen with Carolina's farm team when the Canes have had seasons when they ended up with a ton of callups and back you goes.

I think the biggest thing about Svechnikov as a draft prospect is that, unlike his brother, he decided to tough it out in the OHL for two years. Evgeny went the QMHL route, and it's just not as physical a league. I like it better when the Czech and Russian kids who come over for major junior decide to stick their noses in the meat grinder of the OHL or the WHL. I think it's just better prep for the NHL for kids used to playing on the big ice surface. Full immersion therapy, more or less.

jeffbear said:

That seems to be the general consensus at this point among draft gurus. Makes sense. The Canes have soften their rhetoric regarding trading that pick as well ... going from fairly aggressive sounding openness to the idea of trading down to more of the "anything can happen" you normally hear from teams not expecting to do anything other than just take the pick.

I think what we're seeing is Carolina's front office settling in to fairly traditional operations mode after the understandable churning back when Dundon was in hiring mode and the division of labors in the offices hadn't really been established. Since that 2 week or so period, we haven't really seen anything other than the usual bland early spring stuff out of the front office. That's good. It's an indication of stability.

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Bergevin in Montreal just said the same thing about the third overall pick. It's going to take a king's ransom to move the pick, so basically were keeping it!

https://www.tsn.ca/off-season-watch-bergevin-not-expecting-to-deal-no-3-pick-1.1098591

The one side plot with the Canes selecting Svechnikov and likely giving Zykov a shot with the big club is the Russian influx...could Waddell give Kovalchuk a ring and see if he wanted to come mentor the two young Russians for a couple of years. As much as some bang on Kovalchuk, by all accounts he is a pretty solid team guy that wants to win and competes hard.

CanadaCanes said:

Bergevin in Montreal just said the same thing about the third overall pick. It's going to take a king's ransom to move the pick, so basically were keeping it!

https://www.tsn.ca/off-season-watch-bergevin-not-expecting-to-deal-no-3-pick-1.1098591

The one side plot with the Canes selecting Svechnikov and likely giving Zykov a shot with the big club is the Russian influx...could Waddell give Kovalchuk a ring and see if he wanted to come mentor the two young Russians for a couple of years. As much as some bang on Kovalchuk, by all accounts he is a pretty solid team guy that wants to win and competes hard.

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Honestly, I wouldn't be opposed to it. If nothing else, Kovalchuk would add some serious zing to any team's power play. That said, IIRC I don't think it ended particularly well between Waddell and Kovalchuk in Atlanta so that connection might be less helpful than it appears on the surface.

jeffbear said:

I think the biggest thing about Svechnikov as a draft prospect is that, unlike his brother, he decided to tough it out in the OHL for two years. Evgeny went the QMHL route, and it's just not as physical a league. I like it better when the Czech and Russian kids who come over for major junior decide to stick their noses in the meat grinder of the OHL or the WHL. I think it's just better prep for the NHL for kids used to playing on the big ice surface. Full immersion therapy, more or less.

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I don't know if big brother had a choice. He must have come through the CHL Import Draft where all teams in the CHL can participate, in inverse order of the standings. Andrei played a year in the USHL so he ended up in the OHL based on the location of his OHL team and that he apparently lived with his brother in Michigan. For US players, the Q gets New England, the OHL gets everything east of the Mississippi River and Missouri, the WHL gets everythng west of the Mississippi except Missouri.

andyt said:

I don't know if big brother had a choice. He must have come through the CHL Import Draft where all teams in the CHL can participate, in inverse order of the standings. Andrei played a year in the USHL so he ended up in the OHL based on the location of his OHL team and that he apparently lived with his brother in Michigan. For US players, the Q gets New England, the OHL gets everything east of the Mississippi River and Missouri, the WHL gets everythng west of the Mississippi except Missouri.

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Yeah ... either way, I like the two rough and ready leagues for the Euro guys a lot better than the Q.

Like to hear this for myself, but thank you John Forslund (and @brettfinger) for sharing.

Forslund (summarizing): “the people I talk to (both internal and external) think Svechnikov is special and should be the 2nd overall pick. Pretty close to a slam dunk as the Canes pick.”

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After being asked what the pick will be, he brought up only Svechnikov and no one else. Said that the Canes will do their due diligence in the trade realm, but Svechnikov is pretty much the slam dunk pick.

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My blood pressure just dropped 10 points.

Elsker said:

Like to hear this for myself, but thank you John Forslund (and @brettfinger) for sharing.

My blood pressure just dropped 10 points.

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Yeah ... that jibes with what everybody else seems to be saying. Without a big change of heart from the scouting staff, Svechnikiov looks to be the pick at 2. No real shock there and I really don't know why Canes fans would feel unsettled about this other than all this change of regime stuff has everybody unsettled in general. Again, worth reminding people ... since Dundon got his management team assembled, the Canes have been VERY traditional in their public facing actions. There's no reason to assume we're going to do something rash or unwise with that pick just because the hockey media taste blood in the water when it comes to Dundon. He's unconventional and could perhaps be misguided in some of his management strategies, but that doesn't mean he's an idiot.

And hey ... some of us have low blood pressure to begin with. A 10 point drop would have me passed out on the floor.

Elsker said:

Like to hear this for myself, but thank you John Forslund (and @brettfinger) for sharing.

My blood pressure just dropped 10 points.

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The NHL Network Guys on Sirius have really started leaning heavily on a slam dunk, more definitive 1-2 punch with Dahlin and Svechnikov and then grouping the next 3 to 5 guys in an anyone's guess after the first two picks go down. That makes me feel a lot better as well about what the Canes do!!!