2010 NHL Draft

[Shane Does Art]

WOW! El Nino really climbed up. I really thought they'd grab Fowler or Gormley.

[The_Admiral]

Keith Ballard to Vancouver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI21yeqmZgA

I never get tired of watching this clip. I can't stress this enough. If he tries to pull that stunt on Luongo, Ballard's blade is going to slide right off Luongo's oily face and bounce back at his own head.

[Corvus]

I think the Canucks over payed for Ballard. And, now we have no picks in the first three rounds.

[Lee.]

Gillis was going to draft a defenseman in the first round, and the guy he wanted wasn't available, so he got a top four defenseman whose cap hit will be less than anyone he could sign in free agency. Did he overpay? Probably, but he also got to dump almost $3M in salary and ditch two players who are shaping up to be career underachievers.

This is only the first round, he could still trade around to get a 2nd or 3rd round pick, but for now, he did what he had to do. For $2M, Bernier needs to prove that he's better than a 4th-liner, and Grabner's been showing flashes but absolutely no consistency.

There are a ton of Grabner-like players in Manitoba already (Schroeder, Shirokov, Rodin from SEL), one can easily grab Grabner's spot on the 3rd line next year.

Now, the Nucks have two identical players in Hansen and Rypien to worry about; one of those is worth a 3rd rounder, easily. Seeya, Jannick.

[Corvus]

Gillis was going to draft a defenseman in the first round, and the guy he wanted wasn't available, so he got a top four defenseman whose cap hit will be less than anyone he could sign in free agency. Did he overpay? Probably, but he also got to dump almost $3M in salary and ditch two players who are shaping up to be career underachievers.

This is only the first round, he could still trade around to get a 2nd or 3rd round pick, but for now, he did what he had to do. For $2M, Bernier needs to prove that he's better than a 4th-liner, and Grabner's been showing flashes but absolutely no consistency.

There are a ton of Grabner-like players in Manitoba already (Schroeder, Shirokov, Rodin from SEL), one can easily grab Grabner's spot on the 3rd line next year.

Now, the Nucks have two identical players in Hansen and Rypien to worry about; one of those is worth a 3rd rounder, easily. Seeya, Jannick.

Hansen and Rypien aren't really equivalent. Maybe offensive talent wise, but The Mediocre Dane is not going to beat the crap out of dudes a foot taller and 50 pounds heavier. On the other hand, he isn't going to take a year off for "personal reasons"

Grabner is really the reason I'm not thrilled with the trade, he seemed to be starting to develop, and speed is something you can always use. Bernier is dead weight I'm glad we ejected. Besides being big he contributes very little.

[NEW.ERA]

Well it was a uneventful day 1 lets up tomorrow picks up.

Surprised Emerson Etem and Cam Fowler fell that much. Oddly enough both to the Ducks.

[gingerbreadmann]

Interesting little piece of game theory here.

Just call it the Monty Taylor Hall Problem.

I would have rather had Hall for the short run and for the already-jammed center position in Boston (though I love Seguin's attitude and two-way skill), but I'm glad Chiarelli didn't trade up. I think the reasons you give that would help Edmonton would hurt Boston. All pre-understood leanings aside, if they're so equal, there could be only very little marginal benefit for taking one over the other, even specialized for team-specific situations. A 2nd-rounder and Blake Wheeler or whatever it would take would probably make it not worth it. But the biggest incentive to stay, at least for a GM, is that you have the single easiest pick in the draft: just take the guy Edmonton leaves and no one will blame you if it goes wrong. If it's a true toss-up then there is no incentive to move up from No. 2's perspective. If Chia was truly trying to move up then I'm glad for once he overvalues Blake Wheeler so much as to not pull the trigger and at least get something productive for No. 15.

[Lee.]

It would have been funny if the rumored Eberle-and-Hemsky-for-second-pick trade had gone through.

[The_Admiral]

It's nothing we didn't already know in the back of our mind, but the way one of the TSN guys put it during the draft tonight really gave me pause: trades are becoming virtually impossible because "the teams with money have no space, and the teams with space have no money." And at the risk of sounding like Tom Friedman, that's when it really hit me. I'm getting a real house of cards feel from the latest salary cap raise. That's not a sustainable situation there. I mean, the floor is like $43 million now. You used to be able to lose money profusely while fielding a team for $30 million. Most teams that couldn't make a buck in 2004 still can't make one today, to say nothing of the large fire burning in Glendale that we've been asked not to worry about. The Predators are so shoestring since the owner went to prison that they can barely spend around the floor. The Thrashers are losing $20 million a year and still need to add payroll for next season. The Panthers are asking for loans to pay their rent and practically sponsoring bathroom partitions to scrounge up spare change. And on the other end, the Blackhawks are about to give Cristobal Huet $10 million to trawl for low-rate underage gash at the Beef-a-Roo because they can. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we're probably going to lose a season again. What a mess.

[STL FANATIC]

The problem--perhaps overly simplified--is that the cap raises with increases in REVENUE and not necessarily increases in PROFIT. Profit would be harder to track and teams would have to be totally transparent with their books, but it would likely lead to a much better situation than there is now. On the other hand, it might me the cap rarely rises and sometimes drops (but I'm not sure that's terrible if we're talking about team survival).

[Still MIGHTY]

Very excited about the Ducks picks. (Well as excited as I can be for guys I've never really heard of and seen 5 highlight reels and some stat boxes).

GM Bob Murray was legitimately surprised to get Fowler. He said he never even interviewed him because he never thought he would fall to 12. They didn't even have a nameplate ready for his jersey, like most 1st round picks have, but they had one for Etem.

Very excited to have a home-grown SoCal kid from Long Beach in the system (although he grew up a Kings fan, but that's done now haha). I've just heard that he can fly and he has a very nice scoring touch. I just hope that he works out tons better than the last SoCal kid we got (Brian Salcido of Hermosa Beach. He played a few games here and there over the past two years, but he has most likely has hit his potential ceiling. Too bad, really).

Not happy about the Ducks trading Mike Brown for a 5th round pick, though. He was just a grinder, but he was the hardest working and most determined player on the ice whenever he went out for a shift. Good luck in Toronto, Mike.

[officeglenn]

Here's something neat: I work for a newspaper in St. Albert, Alta., which is right on the doorstep of Edmonton, and a kid from here was drafted by the Oilers in the fifth round. Talked to him and his mom this afternoon: Saint City News article

[The_Admiral]

The problem--perhaps overly simplified--is that the cap raises with increases in REVENUE and not necessarily increases in PROFIT. Profit would be harder to track and teams would have to be totally transparent with their books, but it would likely lead to a much better situation than there is now. On the other hand, it might me the cap rarely rises and sometimes drops (but I'm not sure that's terrible if we're talking about team survival).

That sounds pretty terrible for the league as a whole. I doubt that the big-time owners (your Ilitch, Wirtz, Dolan, Snyder, &c) want the cap to drop. For these owners whose teams operate on spend-money-to-make-money models, it does them no good. Under that system, the failures would drag down the successes even more than they already do based on revenues. Because the bad teams can't make money, the good teams can't spend on players, which means they have to tear down teams, and themselves risk not making money. Wouldn't that mean that, say, the Coyotes would post losses, which would drop the cap, which would force the Red Wings to shed salary by foisting big contracts on...the Coyotes? That's basically what's happening now, as the Blackhawks dump Byfuglien and Sopel's bad paper (and Byfuglien's marketing value here largely absorbed said bad paper) on Atlanta, who has been bleeding money for years now with ownership that's famously a complete gong show, and now has to spend $6 million to hit floor. Profits in lieu of revenues would make it even worse, since I believe that even in best-case scenarios, the specific team profits are rather low, while the ocean floor is the limit (I couldn't say sky) when it comes to losses. It's not easy to make $30 million a year running an NHL team, but you can sure as hell lose that much. Also, like you said, consider the bookkeeping for organizations like the Senators and Sharks, where the hockey teams are part of diversified entertainment concerns that profit as a whole while the hockey side itself is expected to break even or take small losses in exchange for profits elsewhere.

Now, I'm not an accountant with a law degree, and so I am not qualified to design a better system, but I can tell that the current one can't last a great deal longer. I mean, money has no space and space has no money. There it is; they nailed it in nice axiomatic form. We're on a runaway train to Screwedville. That the floor of today is higher than the ceiling of five years ago would be an unqualified success for the NHL if not for the fact that there are so many franchises overtly or covertly struggling to keep their heads above water. How much longer can failing teams be made to spend money they don't have and can't make?

[NEW.ERA]

Flames draft was uneventful nothing big except that they had a chance to get Kabanov. He has all the talent in the world just but his attitude must improve or it's off to the KHL.

[Subi]

Flames draft was uneventful nothing big except that they had a chance to get Kabanov. He has all the talent in the world just but his attitude must improve or it's off to the KHL.

Since he isn't a western farm boy, Sutter wouldn't have touched him regardless of attitude.

[dwertman]

Flames draft was uneventful nothing big except that they had a chance to get Kabanov. He has all the talent in the world just but his attitude must improve or it's off to the KHL.

only problem is the KHL doesn't want him (I think they banned him from the league for 5 years)....Does make for an interesting question as to what the Islanders do with him since Moncton doesn't want him either, and he probably won't make the NHL, and can't play in the AHL....

I was mildly impressed with what the Islanders did though, even though Im not a fan

Biggest surprise to me was John McFarland in the 2nd round

[Don]

Caps drafted 2 Russians, surprise surprise.