Derrico

Still have Smith as my #1 option but I would be good with Keefe.

24 year old centre who can score 25-35 goals consistently and we can 'shelter' him on our second line? Ummmmm yes. Would cost an absolute fortune tho. Don't think 7OA and Risto would come close. What would you be willing to give up for him?

Ya none of those names draw much excitement.

I'm still all aboard the DJ Smith train!!

Yes, to me Dubas is a different animal. There was legit interest in him becoming the next GM in short order (Lamarello was like 90). For coaching, Babcock has like 6 years left on his deal. Noway I could imagine the leafs barring him from trying to find a head coaching job in the NHL. It's not like there will likely be an opportunity in T.O. for the forseeable future.

Nice. Had a leaf fan ragging on my today about how long it's been since the Sabres made the playoffs. Not cool hearing it from him but no problems with a fellow Sabres fan!

Good lord. It’s difficult enough figuring the number for the sabres. No chance I know Americans numbers.

Wish he did that here.....

My apologies. Yes, I did read that wrong. I thought you were making two separate points there.

My guess is because he eventually wants to be a head coach in the NHL and this is the logical stepping stone.

How did I take it out of context? What's the context I'm missing? You said we can't miss on Pick 7 and I'm saying we absolutely can and I'll almost guarantee you one of the consensus top 7-8 guys will not live up to expectations. Just like Strome in 15, Dale Colle in 14, Nurse in 13 (I would still argue this), Yakupov in 12, Larrson in 11 (don't care what he was traded for), Gudbranson in 10, Glennie in 09, Filatov in 08, Hickey in 07.......

My guess is this means we had generally higher picks in each round and also had multiple extra picks.

Yep. Especially when he had multiple extra picks. Three high second round picks and he misses on all of them? I thought drafting was suppose to be his strength. Time will tell but JBott picks have much more promise imo.

This is just not true.

Yep. Talking heads are going to taking head. Show me some real examples to back it up.

I’m not expecting UPL to be a regular in buffalo for at least two full season but damn it would be amazing if he turns into a top end goalie in the bigs. I still have hope for Ullmark but this team needs a good, undesputed number one badly.

Sheary is also 56th in points per game for left wingers. We have to be better than that.

Yep. If sheary is in our top 6 again we’re in trouble.

Nice little article in the Sudbury newspaper on him today. https://www.sudbury.com/sports/triple-overtime-luukkonen-and-the-wolves-refuse-to-go-down-without-a-fight-1371054

Another one bites the dust....and another one gone another one gone another one bites the dust.....

He had a heck of a year in the OHL. Goalies usually take forever to develop but he has to be a top 5 goalie prospect right now I would think.

I really wouldn’t hate this idea either. He did some nice things with some rather mediocre zona teams.

There you go @Die Hard

Absolutely.

This is all very true. But it's so much easier said 'draft well' than actually doing. I'm sure XGMTM thought Nylander was going to be a better player than he is. I'm sure he was hoping one of our million 2nd rounders during that time would work out. The issue is drafting is not an exact science. Several players will not live up to their draft spot (including the guys being mentioned for 7th overall). So the alternative is not having the big upside but you've traded that pick for an established player who you know much more about. I see you cherry picked Kutcherov with the 26th pick. Sure. But who went 25th? Who went 27th? It's easy to say draft well but it's so much more difficult to know how a 17/18 year old kid will develop.