Quoting: mytduxfan
Ok, you can be confident all you want, but that doesn't remove the big risk associated with that deal.
Wasn't 2015 a really strong draft too? Even so, Zacha and Strome went top 10, Crouse not far behind at #11. None of those guys are as good as Silf. I wouldn't even say Meier is that much better than Silfverberg. The point is that the return really has to warrant the risk and that deal really doesn't do that. You're assuming everything goes right i.e. BUF miss the playoffs, the pick doesn't get screwed by the lottery draft, the player you draft is good and reaches his potential, the draft turns out to be as good as everyone else says, etc. It's a huge gamble.
I am not saying that Silf isn't movable, but that deal is terrible for us.
The NHL disagrees, but you clearly know more than them, right?
Who has said this? It's considered to be good draft, but we won't know if that's true until many years later.
Lol... such terrible logic. Better go and buy a $500,000 worth of lottery tickets in case you hit and win a million, right?
P.S. Players need to earn their play time. Larsson is only blocking Guhle and Mahura because they aren't beating him out of his spot. If they want that spot, they need to step up and take it, not have it gifted so we can have a few low chance tickets in the draft lottery.
How many have been to the SC finals or even the CFs? I count 3 players and one is coming up to retirement. Half the team have very limited NHL experience, let alone playoff experience. No chance you even go deep with them, let alone win the whole thing. Every team that has ever won the cup has had a mix of vets, youth and prime players. You just need to accept that.
You have no depth and are relying on inexperienced kids. You may not view this team as a tanking team, but it most certainly would be at the bottom of league, and for a number of years. I mean, Lundestrom as our #1C. Come on!
Yea there's risk, but it's not a very big risk, and worth that the payoff.
Not really a big gamble the only thing is that Buffalo misses the playoffs and is around 20th which isn't that much of a stretch at all. Picks 1-16 would all be worth Silfverberg on his current deal. 2015 was a great draft and this draft is supposed to be better than that one. Strome is nearly a point per game player since going to Chicago so i don't think he can be counted out, just a late bloomer. Zacha and Crouse are outliers, you look at picks 1-35 and it's littered with superstars and top 6/top 4 D players:
McDavid, Eichel, Strom, Marner, Hanifin, Provorov, Werenski, Meier, Rantanen, Debrusk, Barzal, Connor, Chabot, Boeser, Konecny, Beauvillier, Dermott, Aho.
And then there's a bunch of players in-between that haven't fully developed yet and look like they're going to be studs in: Gurianov, Eriksson-Ek, White, Samsonov, Roslovic, etc. not to mention a bunch below them who were drafted lower i.e.: Cernak, Cirelli, Sprong, Terry, Bracco, Carlo, Andersson, Gaudette, Nutivarra etc.
The point is that almost all of the players mentioned either exceed, are equal or will likely exceed or be equal to Silfverberg in value in a few years. And this is from the 2015 draft which is supposed to be less deep than 2020. When you consider how good the Ducks are at drafting, especially in the middle/lower end of the draft, it's imperative that they get as many lottery tickets as possible. In the 1st round of the 2015 draft 51% of the 1st 35 selections were elite/1st line/Top 4 D players, with 14% of them looking like they'll develop into that, 11% who are serviceable NHLers and 24% who look like they're either busts or late bloomers. Those are great odds, especially considering that a lot of those star players were drafted after pick 15: Barzal, Connor, Chabot, Boeser, Aho, etc.
I've looked further into the Honka holdout. Apparently, there are a lot of GMs who have asked about him according to Elliotte Friedman's last 31 thoughts article. The problem is that Dallas seems to recognize he is valuable so they're asking for more than GMs are willing to give. I would have to change my Honka proposal to Larsson for Honka probably. Then trade off Rowney and MDZ somewhere for a 5th and a 6th.
Also, the whole point of Armchair-GM is because we think NHL GMs are dumb a lot of the time. The argument that "GMs know better because they have their jobs for a reason" is one of the dumbest arguments out there. Chiarelli was GM for how long? Garth Snow was GM for how long? Jim Benning is still GM. Paul Fenton? It's an appeal to authority argument and is a logical fallacy for a reason.
Sam Consentino, Jeff Marek, Craig Button, CBC Sports, etc., lots of people have compared it to the 2003 draft depth. This makes sense because kids are getting better, hockey players are getting better, programs are getting deeper, so on.
It's not so much a lottery ticket as an investment in your scouting staff's stock. It's called utilizing your assets before they become depreciated. Right now Larsson has less upside than Guhle and Mahura and having three prospects who all play generally the same role limits the ice-time for all three of them. Better to move one of them (the least likely to improve being Larsson) out for an asset that won't restrict your other assets while not wasting the asset you have in Larsson.
Uh, Vegas went to the Cup Final in 2018, the only players on that squad that made it past the 2nd round before were Neal, Fleury, and Theodore. So you don't need SCF or CF experience to go far. Plus, Rakell, Getzlaf, Fowler, Lindholm, Gibson, and Ehlers all have CF experience. The main roster of the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010 when they won the Cup had an average age of 26.6, the average age of LA is 2012 when they won was 26.7, the average age of Pittsburgh when they won in 2009 was 26.6, the three "near dynasties" of the last decade started winning with teams that had average ages around 26.6. If the Ducks used this roster next season their average age would be 25.3, assume the Ducks have some random 28-year-old vet scratches instead of Morand & Drew and it becomes 25.9. No one is expecting the Ducks to contend for a Cup next year, but wait another year and their average age is 26.8. So yea, age is not a restriction that would hamper this team from winning, elite talent is, which is why they need to trade to get better draft selections to acquire that talent. Holtz, Drysdale and Zegras are all elite talents that would propel this team to contender status again, other prospects the Ducks could get in this scenario that are elite (Lafreniere, Byfield, Stutzle, Rossi, Perfetti, Raymond, Lundell) there's a group of about 9 elite prospects the Ducks could get and then there's a tier below of near-elites in: Barron, Holloway, Lapierre, Poirier, Guhle & Amirov.
The lines can be manipulated and changed, this is just a generalization of what the lines could look like. You can't look at the individual players for the lines, it's more about the trios. Rakell-Lundestrom-Ehlers = Fast, skilled, dominant, responsible. Comtois-Steel-Kase = Skilled, energetic, lots of shots. Ritchie-Getzlaf-Terry = Always have the puck, poise, skilled. Jones-Zegras-Sprong = Fun, fun, fun. The 1st line is reminiscent of Montreal's first line of Tatar-Daneault-Gallagher one of the best 1st lines in hockey despite Daneault and Tatar not being top-tier talents. The 2nd and 3rd line will alternate between ice-time amounts and the 4th line has so much skill and speed on it that it should be able to run circles around most bottom-6 lines.
You're looking at these young players like they won't improve at all from this year to next. I would be shocked if this roster didn't perform better than this year with all the improvements from the young players and additions of Weegar, Ehlers, and Honka. They would for sure be better than DET, OTT, NJ, NYR, LA, SJ, BUF & MIN, probably better than: CBJ, CHI & EDM, and probably competing with: WPG, FLA, VAN, CGY, NSH & PHI. So they'd likely be competing in that 13-20 ranking in the league which is a decent place to be when you're a young team and have players developing on your team with others like Drysdale, Zegras, Tracey & Holtz on the way.
I don't want to build a team that will be able to compete for a Cup in two-years, I want a team that will be able to contend for the playoffs by next year, compete for a Cup in three years, and be "dynasty-esque" for the next decade. Players like Henrique, Silfverberg, and Manson are all very good players, but they're expendable because they won't be in their primes in 3 years when the Ducks will want to compete, so might as well exchange them for assets that will be greatly beneficial for the Ducks' Cup contention throughout Gibson's contract.