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The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds

A lot of these guys don't like admitting that once you get to pick ~20 you're making bets with marginally different profiles but similar expected values. You can chase upside with a low floor vs chase high floor, low ceiling, or something in between.

But I do get that having a super strong opinion about picking a guy at 74 vs the guy that was picked at 73 sells newspapers. I'm not mad at you, Scott.
 
BG said:
Oh my god, I've been reading Draft Day, the Doug MacLean led "book" on the history of the draft as well as his experiences around them as a GM.

Just to be clear, I'm reading it out of morbid curiosity.

How often the development piece is left out of "draft results" is amazing. Complaining about "lottery luck", complaining about 1st round busts as if the player or "luck" is to blame, and at the same time complimenting his scouting staff (who were his buddies), and citing the NHLers picked after their picks as "more luck". It's painful, but I do it so you don't have to.
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I always loved how much MacLean would brag about drafting Rick Nash. As if picking the guy who was far and away the consensus #1 with the first overall pick was a genuine accomplishment as an NHL executive.
 
No one has a crystal ball, but I always feel like if you're really good at your job, and breathing/living scouting every waking moment with a passion, it makes a huge difference if you've got 28th or 44th. That's why I don't love trading down. And I think it cost us a few times when Dubie did it.
 
Ya I just meant having Wheeler level certainty with each individual pick. Give a good scout 20 picks at #28 or 44 and he'll have a hit rate that far exceeds an average scout.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
What happened those times that Dubie traded down?

I'm pretty sure one of the times he passed on Konecny to do it.
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None of them worked out, as I recall. In that specific instance, we traded the pick that turned into Konecny for the picks Dubie used for Dermott, Bracco & Dzierkals, all of whom busted.

The funny thing is, Dubie still could’ve turned that into a home run if he just selected the guy Carolina drafted with the next pick after Dermott—Sebastien Aho.
 
I think that one was for dermott and bracco. Bracco couldn't skate and loved cocaine and dermott loves corn rows and the gays. Hard to predict those things when they're 17.

I think the point of doing that at the time was that it gives you the best odds to get excess value. But yeah, better odds doesn't = guarantee. Obviously if you draft a star with the earlier pick, that trade is probably gonna suck. But I don't think Philly felt they drafted a star either at the time.
 
LeafGm said:
None of them worked out, as I recall. In that specific instance, we traded the pick that turned into Konecny for the picks Dubie used for Dermott, Bracco & Dzierkals, all of whom busted.

The funny thing is, Dubie still could’ve turned that into a home run if he just selected the guy Carolina drafted with the next pick after Dermott—Sebastien Aho.
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Ugh. I hate trading out of the first round. If the first round is bad enough to want to trade out of, then the second round must be shit. If you think you're a genius and you have two guys in the second round that will be there when you pick, then I guess once in a while you can pull the trigger and gamble, but in most cases you'll end up striking out. Use the first rounder to take the best possible player left.

The fact that we passed on Konecny and Aho is tragic.
 
Preston said:
I think that one was for dermott and bracco. Bracco couldn't skate and loved cocaine and dermott loves corn rows and the gays. Hard to predict those things when they're 17.

I think the point of doing that at the time was that it gives you the best odds to get excess value. But yeah, better odds doesn't = guarantee. Obviously if you draft a star with the earlier pick, that trade is probably gonna suck. But I don't think Philly felt they drafted a star either at the time.
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I always am pretty invested in the draft when we have a pick, and I recall that time on the telecast they were raving about some of the guys that had dropped or were still around, and saying things like I can't believe they're still there. I mean, they do it most years, but when you're sitting there and your team has the pick and they give it to another team to use, it's such a feeling of fuck this shit. Trading down is fine and makes sense, but I think I'd have a hard rule of no trading down out of the 1st round, unless you're moving back only a couple of picks and know for sure the guy you wanted will still be there.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
I always am pretty invested in the draft when we have a pick, and I recall that time on the telecast they were raving about some of the guys that had dropped or were still around, and saying things like I can't believe they're still there. I mean, they do it most years, but when you're sitting there and your team has the pick and they give it to another team to use, it's such a feeling of fuck this shit. Trading down is fine and makes sense, but I think I'd have a hard rule of no trading down out of the 1st round, unless you're moving back only a couple of picks and know for sure the guy you wanted will still be there.
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Bracco was one of those players tho. Hell, the legendary Scott Wheeler himself had him ranked 20 that year. At the time it looked like the Leafs got real value out of that trade. It's the way she goes sometimes.
 
Yeah, that's why you can't blame the decision to make the gamble once in a while if the situation really calls for it, but then it also goes back to your scouts. What the fuck are they getting paid for if they didn't know Konecny or Aho would be miles better than the guys they pegged in the second round? The eye test is more than half the battle in scouting. If you can't see the differences in quality and potential, then you gotta go.
 
Bracco was fat, lazy, addicted to cocaine & rape and never really worked on his skating, strength or muffin shot; the three things that ultimately held him back from being anything.

To this day I don't mind them taking the swing because they aimed high by selecting a smaller, softer player that teams shied away from at the time. There was a legit market inefficiency there. Maybe he would have never been good even if he worked on himself, but I don't think he ever really committed himself fully to being a gudpro.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Yeah, that's why you can't blame the decision to make the gamble once in a while if the situation really calls for it, but then it also goes back to your scouts. What the fuck are they getting paid for if they didn't know Konecny or Aho would be miles better than the guys they pegged in the second round? The eye test is more than half the battle in scouting. If you can't see the differences in quality and potential, then you gotta go.
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I think the eye test was what caused Aho to drop. His skating didn’t jump out. Ironically Pronman got it right. Almost everyone else had him outside of the first round
 
LeafGm said:
None of them worked out, as I recall. In that specific instance, we traded the pick that turned into Konecny for the picks Dubie used for Dermott, Bracco & Dzierkals, all of whom busted.

The funny thing is, Dubie still could’ve turned that into a home run if he just selected the guy Carolina drafted with the next pick after Dermott—Sebastien Aho.
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Shit, even if they were fixated on 2 way defenders currently in the OHL, the next PMD's selected were: Vince Dunn, Lauzon, & Rasmus Andersson (who played his junior in the OHL, not sweden). Of the next 9 defenders taken in the 2nd round, 5 of them were: Carlo, Cernak, Dunn, Andersson, Siegenthaler.

The theoretical trade down value was there, we just didn't take it.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Ugh. I hate trading out of the first round. If the first round is bad enough to want to trade out of, then the second round must be shit. If you think you're a genius and you have two guys in the second round that will be there when you pick, then I guess once in a while you can pull the trigger and gamble, but in most cases you'll end up striking out. Use the first rounder to take the best possible player left.

The fact that we passed on Konecny and Aho is tragic.
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Yeah, it’s a bummer. You definitely have to wonder if it would’ve pushed us over the top if we’d managed to pull even one more impact player out of the draft while Matthews, Marner & Nylander were still young.

Konecny and Aho were a couple of lost opportunities to do that. Patrick Marleau as well—both the fact that he was a complete waste of the extra cap space we still had while the “Big-3” were still on their rookie contracts, and because we traded our first rounder to dump the final year of his deal and that pick turned into Seth Jarvis.

Really, that’s two major pieces of their most recent Cup win (Aho & Jarvis) that Carolina essentially has Dubas to thank for.
 
Rick Nash Draft

1. #1 Nash 1060gms, 437gls, 805pts (.41/.76)
2. #54 Keith 1256gms , 106gls, 646pts (.08/.51)
3. #24 Steen 1018gms, 245gls, 622pts (.24/.61)
4. #95 Filppula 1056gms, 197gls, 530pts (.19/.50)
5. #13 Semin 650gms, 239gls, 517pts (.37/.80)
6. #87 Nielsen 925gms, 167gls, 473pts (.18/.51)
7. #58 Hudler 708gms, 164gls, 428pts (.23/.61)
8. #3 Bouwmeester 1240gms, 88gls, 424pts (.07/.34)
9. #7 Lupul 701gms, 205gls, 420pts (.29/.60)
10. #57 Stajan 1003gms, 146gls, 413pts (.15/.41)
(15. #14 Higgins 711gms, 165gls, 333pts (.23/.47))
 
Wait what was it at the time?

Steen --- Plekanec
Boyes --- Kostitsyn
Wellwood --- Perezhogin
Stajan --- Higgins
--- Lapierre

Colaiacovo --- Komisarek
White --- Hainsey
Harrison --- O'Byrne
Pilar ---


Tellqvist --- Halak​
 
38--- (1): 1G Bobrovsky 38
33-37 (5): 2C Tavares 36, 2D McCabe 33, 4D OEL 35, 5D Tanev 37, 4C Sissons 33
28-32 (12): 1C Matthews 29, 1W Nylander 30, 1D Raddysh 30, 3D Rielly 32, 3C Paul 31, 2G Stolarz 32, 5W Roslovic 29, 6W Joshua 30, 7W Blueger 32, 8W Duhaime 29, 7D Stecher 32, 9W Lorentz 30
23-27 (2): 2W Knies 24, 6D Andrae 24, (3G Akhtyamov 25, D Villeneuve 24, F Groulx 26, F Quillan 23)
18-22 (2): 3W McKenna 19, 4W Cowan 21, (D Danford 20, D Chadwick 21, F Koblar 19, D MacKenzie 20, F Haymes 22)
 
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