Drafting in the salary cap age.

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Larry Goodenough
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Drafting in the salary cap age.

Post by Larry Goodenough »

I had this conversation this weekend with some friends.

With the salary cap now in effect - I would argue teams should lean heavily towards forwards when drafting.

If the adage that defencemen take longer to mature is true, then why would you chose a d-man?

Generally, you could say forwards can meet their potential between 21-24 yrs old while d-men meet their potential, on average, between 24 - 27 yrs old. Again, I said generally.

Now, if free agency can begin for some players at age 25, it makes sense that you can get more productive years out of a forward than a defenceman, before you risk losing him.

Therefore, I would argue teams would be best served building a team by drafting forwards and signing defenceman as free agents.

Now, if you look at Buffalo and Carolina, Edm and Anaheim, the top 4 teams in last year's playoffs. They all had young forwards that were mostly assembled thru the draft with more seasoned d-men that had been aquired in trade or free agency.

So, did Nonis make the right move dafting Bourdon over Kopitar? Compared to Bourdon - Kopitar appears like he will make a more significant impact on his team this season and next. Yes, Bourdon may have a better long term future, but what good is long term future if he chooses to leave as a free agent in 7 years.

Kopitar will make a significant contribution to the Kings for the next 7 years before they risk losing him, while Bourdon appears like he might make significant contributions for maybe 4 of the next 7 years before Nonis might lose him.

We'll see how the next number of drats go to see if this is a theory that holds weight.
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tantalum
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Post by tantalum »

But on the flipside, because D-men take longer to develop and hit their prime later in their career it may be easier and cheaper to sign a D-man to a longer term deal that avoids having him become a UFA. That may be impossible to do for a forward who has put together a couple of very good seasons. Or atleast you'd be paying as much as you might on the UFA market for a suitable replacement.
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Post by MarkMM »

I really think it comes down to a case-by-case basis; if you have a chance to get a guy with tremendous upside that might take a year or two longer than another guy who is a "safe" but unspectacular pick, I think it's clear you go with the upside. Yes, development time should be taken into account, but that won't always be cleanly divided between forwards and defensemen, if Bieksa wasn't up right now, we'd be paying a lot more than his $500k-ish to fill that slot, so it worked out fine there.
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Post by Fred »

You know generally you hear scouts say the same thing again and again. We take the best avaiable. Frankly that makes sense, because your actually drafting assets rather than players for your team.

Being an 18 year old draft I think has made the art of drafting more of a crap shoot but none the less some teams/scouts do consistently better than others. No one knows when a players skill pack will level off and stall. So drafting comes down to 33% hard slogging & leaving no stone unturned, 33% luck and 33% fore sight.

In years gone by Quinn influensed Penney by insisting he find big players and in particular a big centre. It was a bad rational and the team suffere because of it. Now we seeme to be on the right track and following the prescibed route, best avaiable and I think it shows.

The scouting staff has been really solidified, and I think we'll benefit in the long run. The only aspect is the Pro scouting has not been given a lot of time so far, they've been fifty fifty, Chouniard and Satala have yet to show they were what DN was looking for but Pyatt and Krajeck look like good pick ups.

The new drafting rules re free agency does effect different players and different positions in different manners, but at the end of the day it's a nice problem to have if you have players that even just make the grade
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Harold
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Re: Drafting in the salary cap age.

Post by Harold »

Larry Goodenough wrote:I had this conversation this weekend with some friends.

With the salary cap now in effect - I would argue teams should lean heavily towards forwards when drafting.

If the adage that defencemen take longer to mature is true, then why would you chose a d-man?

Generally, you could say forwards can meet their potential between 21-24 yrs old while d-men meet their potential, on average, between 24 - 27 yrs old. Again, I said generally.

Now, if free agency can begin for some players at age 25, it makes sense that you can get more productive years out of a forward than a defenceman, before you risk losing him.

Therefore, I would argue teams would be best served building a team by drafting forwards and signing defenceman as free agents.

Now, if you look at Buffalo and Carolina, Edm and Anaheim, the top 4 teams in last year's playoffs. They all had young forwards that were mostly assembled thru the draft with more seasoned d-men that had been aquired in trade or free agency.

So, did Nonis make the right move dafting Bourdon over Kopitar? Compared to Bourdon - Kopitar appears like he will make a more significant impact on his team this season and next. Yes, Bourdon may have a better long term future, but what good is long term future if he chooses to leave as a free agent in 7 years.

Kopitar will make a significant contribution to the Kings for the next 7 years before they risk losing him, while Bourdon appears like he might make significant contributions for maybe 4 of the next 7 years before Nonis might lose him.

We'll see how the next number of drats go to see if this is a theory that holds weight.
Well if a team has a player for 7 years before he is eligible for UFA, then the easy solution is to keep the defenceman in juniors and then the minors before you graduate him to the NHL. That way he is older, and you stand a better chance of getting those 7 years while he is in his prime, or close to it.
Which points out the folly of keeping Bourdon around this year at the age of 19. Nonis is keeping him around so that AV can play Bourdon 5-8 minutes a game (in those games he isn't scratched), and is not helping the team (some would say he is a detriment). For all of this we are losing a year of Bourdon on the back end, when he will be in or nearing his prime. Wouldn't it have been much more prudent to sign a Sean Brown type for league minimum or trade a mid-level pick for a Steve Montador type and let Bourdon play in the Q?
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