Appantly they are going to start the year with high hopes, and 100m salary cap, end then it turns to 💩. 🙄

Sign and trades like that aren’t a thing

Can only retain on three contracts

Aim higher for debrusk

20 player rosters aren’t a thing.

Goaltenders are never worth 1st round picks. No exceptions.

Your trading partners are all wrong. Colorado needs a center, NYR don't need LW, Buffalo and Edmonton definitely don't need LHD.

Not saying Ullmark is guaranteed to return a 1st but there are have been goalies traded for 1st round picks.
-Semyon Varlamov for 1st+2nd in 2011.
-Martin Jones for Sean Kuraly and a 1st in 2015.
-Frederik Andersen for 1st+2nd in 2016.
-Darcy Kuemper for Conor Timmins, a 1st and 3rd in 2021.
Not straight up but Ryan Miller+Steve Ott for Jaroslav Halak, Chris Stewart, William Carrier, a 1st and a 3rd in 2014.

They do happen but starters aren't traded often.

And in every one of those cases it wasn't worth it. Only in Kuemper's case did it even remotely work out for the team that paid the 1st, and I'd still argue that Colorado overpaid out of desperation.

Well, you said they don't happen but they do. Not worth it? I wouldn't have any issue trading a 1st round pick for Vasilevskiy, Hellebuyck, Shesterkin, Sorokin, Oettinger or Saros.

I didn't say they didn't happen. I said that goaltenders aren't worth 1st round picks with no exceptions, including all of the guys you just mentioned.

Not to mention Askarov, Cossa, and Wallstedt all taken in the 1st round in the last 3 years

COL isn’t trading premium resources for a guy that would be what maybe the 4th best winger on COL maybe the 5th. If COL is trading resources it is for a center.

Don't forget, Canucks traded Schneider for a 1st..... ended up being some guy named Horvat

You tried. That is just the hill he wants to die on.



You are entitled to it but that is a flabbergasting take.

Not really. The fact that firsts have hardly ever been moved for goaltenders in the salary cap era and that the times it did haven't worked out well for the buyer suggests that it's not so "flabbergasting" of a take.

I'd go so far as to say it's always a bad idea to draft a goaltender in the 1st round as well.

Lots of issues here, but let's just start with you're gonna need to retain on only three contracts and umm Orlov ain;t coming back. Gonna need to star over from there, and then will need to be more realistic with some of your asks and destinations.

Pretty hilarious. Trading M NTCs , trading cap and not expecting any back. Yea, UFA Orlov signs an extension without NTC clause.

You just aren’t saying it right: what you should be saying is, “teams shouldn’t move first round picks for goalies, it usually doesn’t work out.”

Nhl GMs definitely disagree with you, and reigning vezina winners in their 20s with two years left on a cheap deal are going to surpass previous highs

Ya Tampa is really regretting it

You're just as likely (if not more likely) to find a franchise goaltender in later rounds as you are in the 1st round.

What you just said right there - that’s a reasonable take.

You have this habit of saying hyperbolic and frankly ridiculous things, and then when you try to explain them, you reveal what is a far more logical and reasonable take.

The above statement i absolutely agree with. But you said “it is always a bad idea to draft a goaltender in the first round.”

I doubt Tampa is upset they drafted Vasilevsky in the first round.
Doubt the devils are upset about Brodeur
Doubt the habs are upset with drafting price (though maybe they should be. I would be)
Really doubt Boston is upset that Toronto took Tuukka in the first round.
Jake Oettinger looks like a pretty good bet for dallas

Point being, it is not always a bad idea to take a goalie in the first round.

If you are just as likely to find a franchise goaltender in the 3rd round than the 1st round, why would you waste a 1st round pick on a goaltender, considering that you're not as likely to find a franchise forward or defenseman outside the 1st?

So yes, while all the guys you mentioned worked out well for their teams, there are even more that went with goalies in the 1st round that wish they hadn't, and due to the development arc of goaltenders, there's absolutely no way to know which ones are which at age 18. On the flip side, some of the best goaltenders of the last generation (Lundqvist, Quick, Rinne) weren't taken in the 1st round.

So I stand by my statement that it's always a bad idea to take a goaltender in the 1st round. That doesn't mean I think that goaltenders taken in the 1st round will never work out.

There’s just too many variables to say it’s always a bad idea. Organizational needs. Who else is available. The player. That’s the biggest one

I think it's always a bad idea to draft for immediate organizational needs too. All but the top few players in the draft won't help the NHL team for 4-5 years, at minimum. By then the organizational gaps will have changed. Vancouver recently acknowledged this when they said they picked Olli Juolevi at 5th overall because they needed a defenseman, instead of going with a much more highly regarded player like M. Tkachuk or Keller.

1st round picks are too valuable to spend on a goaltender. If your 1st is in the late 20s or early 30s, then you can make an argument, but even then I'd say it's not a great idea.

That’s a pretty reasonable opinion. However your initial comments on this thread made it seem like you thought this was a ridiculous notion. It’s not, because we have a lot of evidence to indicate that NHL management teams strongly disagree with you.

I don't think that's true, because there's only been a handful of goaltenders that have been traded for a 1st round pick in the salary cap era. The draft opinion might be a bit more of a hot take, but the evidence is there for anyone to see. Here's a list of the top 25 goaltenders in wins over the last 10 years, as well as their draft round:

Bobrovsky - Undrafted
Fleury - 1st
Andersen - 3rd
Holtby - 4th
Vasilevski - 1st
Rask - 1st
Hellebuyck - 5th
Quick - 3rd
Jones - Undrafted
Rinne - 8th
Price - 1st
Talbot - Undrafted
Varlamov - 1st
Bishop - 3rd
Dubnyk - 1st
Lundqvist - 7th
Gibson - 2nd
Elliott - 9th
Smith - 5th
Halak - 9th
Crawford - 2nd
Markstrom - 2nd
Anderson - 3rd
Allen - 2nd
Kuemper - 6th

Right so we’re talking about trades. There are plenty of incidents of goalies being moved for a first. It’s rare, sure. Isn’t it kind of rare for a reigning vezina winner in his 20’s with two years at a low number being made available? Shouldn’t he be at the top of the market? Haven’t we already established that the top of the market can include a first round pick?

Seems pretty simple here.