Thorner

2 left shots on the right side would be *mandatory* to get the proper value out of said pick. Not only is that asking for trouble, the data broke down quite clearly that not only was Adams aware it was harder to play your off hand (thus sheltering the younger players from having to do it), Dahlin, who is a unicorn in being able to handle it, had his numbers *suffer* relative to his output on the left. They are going to be willfully handcuffing 2 (exceptionally important) players, as a rule, if they take Simashev

Don’t worry, I won’t argue with you about it. I’ll just give up lol Again, it sorta leaves handedness “concerns” in the rear view mirror. It’s the inverse of committing to handedness: we’d be committing to NOT adhering to handedness. Just as hard line and absolute as the other way

At this point I think my biggest thing is I hope they don’t draft Simashev at 13. There’s BPA, there’s drafting guys who have flexibility in playing both sides, and then there’s using your highest value selection on a LHD when when your probably two best future players are LHD and we also have Samuelsson, all of which are very young. Which mitigates the need to replenish the “system” at left D. Again, positional flexibility is one thing, but investing such an extreme amount of capital in LHD essentially pigeonholes us into *necessarily* needing to play two players on their offhand in the top 4. It wouldn’t be an option, it would be strictly necessary to maximize the value of those selections BPA is fine in concept but the Sabres seeking to be the extreme outlier there, as they so often seem to do, in other ways, would be a mistake imo. You start to hedge the value of your own guys if you just keep stocking the same position.

I know but I’m saying he should have been 4-5th regardless Had he not slowed down at all he was easily 2nd

8th too low

A victory for points! - - - Dahlin finished 8th lmao

This show is so odd lol They basically put McDavid into a position on camera where he had to either commit to doing a bit on live tv, or donate 10 000 to charity lol

Power finished 3rd

I agree but we know the highest he can finish now is 4th

So if we get a guy capable of playing right D it’s a happy coincidence, I guess, given system strength

What’s the difference between “best fit” and “best Sabre” No regard for position in the latter?

It’s kinda odd. The poll results have Kulich as only the third most likely to become a star, but ranks two players as less likely to become stars in the following question Anyway I had Quinn Kulich and Östlund

Ahh good old Jocelyn Hecht I liked him

Do you think Adams will draft based on a BPA philosophy or do you think position will factor in significantly? (Yes, there’s the semantic “best is subjective and can include position” @GA but let’s just go with a more strict definition of “best” for the sake of argument )

What I would do? Something like this probably

Here’s one of the many articles that sorta gets into it, if you find this kind of stuff interesting https://theleafsnation.com/news/amp/is-it-worth-it-to-trade-up-in-the-nhl-draft “This is exactly why it usually makes more sense to trade down than up: it isn’t so much that GMs overvalue high draft picks, but that they undervalue low ones. Thus, it may not even be that you’re giving yourself more kicks at the can that makes trading down a smart decision, but that you’re in many cases unknowingly increasing the overall value of your original draft pick the more times you trade down, the more picks you acquire. For what it’s worth, my understanding is that Kyle Dubas is a big fan of trading down in the draft. In the OHL you actually can’t trade your first round pick, which was apparently much to his chagrin. That’s both good news and unsurprising given his interest in analytics.“ - - - this one is ok too https://hockeyandstuff.weebly.com/chaces-blog/how-bad-has-trading-up-been

You misunderstand, I’m not talking about trading out of rounds and trading out of tiers. I’m talking about trading back a few spots and picking up an extra pick in the process. Moving from 43rd to 48th isn’t going to alter your odds, the likelihood the pick is going to “hit” there is relatively poor to begin with. Acknowledging that and giving yourself 2 kicks at the can for the cost of a few spots is the right play in most cases. Of course, there are times a GM is super dialled in on a guy, but even in those cases it’s often hubris

Kinda interested to see where Dahlin falls in Norris voting. Hoping for 4th, but probably shouldn’t get my hopes up

Your clarification of Spunk was the real mvp - - - Cozens is a two-way force for sure, i staunchly advocated before last season for Dylan (as opposed to Casey) to remain at C exactly for this reason: I’m glad the staff felt the same way so far

I’ve read a lot of data that suggests the opposite, trading down in the NFL makes less sense because of the higher certainty of scouting whereas in the NHL it pays to pick up extra picks because much of it is crap shoot anyways the historical data on the difference in value between pick i dunno 13 and pick say 20 is a significantly less affecting variable than the quality of GM doing the pick. I’d be fine moving down a few spots in fact id advocate for it outright

I’m a big big ole proponent of trading down, just in general as a concept

Respectfully, this reads like a pre-written straw man for the inevitable “what could Adams have even done?” line of thinking. It doesn’t really stand to reason to think that, for some reason, Adams is across the board being lowballed by GMs. There’s also a staggering degree of “because Buffalo” included in this line of thinking. Plenty of teams have good prospect pools, plenty that have gotten ranked 1st over the years have found a way to make trades. It goes both ways: teams might think we have some wiggle room but they are also then aware the pool itself is deep: demanding better prospects from us only works if they actually consummate a trade: contrary to popular belief the goal of the rest of the league isn’t to ensure Buffalo stays at the bottom. At the end of the day a GM wouldn’t take a lesser prospect from another team, literally cut off their nose to spite their face, to spite Buffalo simply because they “feel” we can handle giving up more. “Ah, we couldn’t get Buffalo’s 4th ranked prospect, but we got a guy who, while worse, is relatively higher in the Yotes pool!” Not much logic to it

This is a big reason it’s easy for me to trade 13 for Hellebuyck. We have prospect/asset liquidity and having what likely (imo) amounts to a pretty great season with him between the pipes is a worthy pursuit to me