Predators/NHL Offseason Thread

[Mercalius]

Great read on Barkov.

http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2013/04/27/statistically-aleksander-barkov-is-the-most-promising-nordic-forward-since-peter-forsberg/
 

No player in this group with an NHL equivalency of 35 points or more has failed to average at least 50 points per 82 games in the NHL. The correlation between the two sets of numbers is an extremely high 0.763; as a rough indicator, NHL equivalencies seem to do a very good job at picking out successful major league players in the top Swedish and Finnish leagues.

Put another way: based on his production in a men’s league at the age of 17, there is every reason to believe that Aleksander Barkov is going to be an impact player at the NHL level.

Highlight video:  Check out the laser-pinpoint pass at 1:40 and overall knack for getting the puck in net, especially on dirty rebounds.  Shows some nice shootout skills too (1:10 wow...)  - but there's a second video linked below for that

Check out this shoot out goal. So sick. Reverse Datsyuk to perfection.

So stoked that he'll likely be a Predator!

[Mercalius]

I'm getting amped for him to be the pick.  Let's hope Poile doesn't do something crazy.

 

http://flyersfaithful.com/2013/04/26/2013-draft-eligibles-is-aleksander-barkov-the-finnish-eric-lindros/

 

Some scouts challenge Barkov’s skating ability and speed. But that is a result of his tremendous positioning skills. His smarts allow him to decipher the play and creatively weave throughout the ice eyeing the puck movement. By doing this he appears to be gliding and not skating hard, which is a gross underestimation of his abilities. Barkov has very good skating skills and can turn on the jets if he needs to burn a defender from the outside.

 

....

 

No Finnish-born player has ever been selected number one overall in the NHL Draft. If Barkov were born two weeks later, he would have been available for the 2014 NHL Draft, and would’ve been the consensus number one pick. Because of the elite CHL talent entering this draft, the European skater’s stock is dropping to no fault of his own. Barkov has the array of abilities and sky-high ceiling to be a top pick.

[Mercalius]

And I'm not trying to overly hype Barkov here as a consolation prize, even though I would've really liked MacKinnon - but Carolina fans are freaking on their MB (they pick 5th).  To them, and a vast majority of others, the top 3 is more like a top 4 and they're super pissed at themselves for likely missing out on Barkov.  

I'm a happy guy right now.

[Guest]

Barkov actually could climb up. I could realistically see us landing any of the four except Seth Jones. The only thing that would be upsetting now is some kind of trade down.

[Guest]

Like I said it's very possible Drouin slips especially with this Barkov making noise according to Merc. 

 

Outside of Jones-MCKinnon going 1-2 (I don't see any way McKinnnon falls out of the top 2 Bink) anything could happen...last year Forsberg and Grigorenko were projected in the top 5 right up to draft day and they both ended up falling out of the top 10. 

 

Now let me plant the seed for 2013-14...this isn't the NFL where kids come in and make an impact and it's very possible neither Forsberg or your draftee plays much next year. 

 

So if i am a preds fan...this is what I want. McDavid will be the #1 overall pick next year. He is a "generational" talent ala Sydney Crosby.  Scouts say if he was in the draft THIS year he would be the #1 pick easily and he's barely passed 16 years old. 

 

So i trade Rinne now for high end prospects. He's too damn good and he's going to screw the Tank up. I add my prospects from the Rinne trade to Forsberg, Drouin(or whoever) and your top pick next year and now I am building something big.  I would also think about trading Weber. Yes he's young but he;s going to be way older than your future core and you can get a boatload of assets for him and he;s probably not going to be happy with the "win later" plan. If you trade weber and add all those prospects to the stable you have the best young talent in the league outside of maybe the Oilers. 

 

You guys can't win with this roster anyway in the short term. I would build the dynasty. 

 

TANK in 2014 FOR McDavid.

[Mercalius]

I thought McDavid wasn't eligible until 2015? Could be wrong on that one though.

And though I was fully committed to THE TANK this season, I'm not quite as all in for future years McDavid is a beast though.

[Guest]

Quick research proves McDavid looks special. I bet the draft is going to be David Stern'd so that he goes to a traditional powerhouse team.

[freakingeek]

Like I said it's very possible Drouin slips especially with this Barkov making noise according to Merc. 

 

Outside of Jones-MCKinnon going 1-2 (I don't see any way McKinnnon falls out of the top 2 Bink) anything could happen...last year Forsberg and Grigorenko were projected in the top 5 right up to draft day and they both ended up falling out of the top 10. 

 

Now let me plant the seed for 2013-14...this isn't the NFL where kids come in and make an impact and it's very possible neither Forsberg or your draftee plays much next year. 

 

So if i am a preds fan...this is what I want. McDavid will be the #1 overall pick next year. He is a "generational" talent ala Sydney Crosby.  Scouts say if he was in the draft THIS year he would be the #1 pick easily and he's barely passed 16 years old. 

 

So i trade Rinne now for high end prospects. He's too damn good and he's going to screw the Tank up. I add my prospects from the Rinne trade to Forsberg, Drouin(or whoever) and your top pick next year and now I am building something big.  I would also think about trading Weber. Yes he's young but he;s going to be way older than your future core and you can get a boatload of assets for him and he;s probably not going to be happy with the "win later" plan. If you trade weber and add all those prospects to the stable you have the best young talent in the league outside of maybe the Oilers. 

 

You guys can't win with this roster anyway in the short term. I would build the dynasty. 

 

TANK in 2014 FOR McDavid.

 

Dammit CTF. You're making too mch sense and your starting to piss me off.  Salary cap reality is a harsh mistress. You dance with who brung you, then you have to let your supporting cast who drove you to the dance waltz off with the highest bidder, then you get divorced and then start all over again. What you suggest would take some brass nuts. There's more Rinne jerseys than any other player at Preds games.  It may make sense in the long term but I'm not sure how Poile would sell that to the fans.

[Mercalius]

With the current draft lottery there's no ensuring we could get the number 1 pick. Yes, we could hypothetically trade Weber and Rinne (I would hate that) for prospects + future round 1 picks. Trade those 2014 round 1 picks for 2015 round 1 picks and definitely increase our chances, or at least have ridiculous trade bait to swap for the first overall (would be hard to turn down 3-4 firsts) but even still, it's highly unlikely any team would trade off the rights to McDavid. You don't pass over a Crosby like talent if you're lucky enough to land one.

As is, I think too many are too doom/gloom with our roster. We signed Hornquist longterm today, and he and a healthy Wilson could surprise next season. Losing those guys to injury hurt us more than most people realize. Roman Josi was more than adequate (and pretty impressive) paired beside Shea and should only play better as they'll have more chemistry next season, and we'll always have a chance so long as Rinne is in net. Turns out, he was injured this whole season. No clue why it wasn't reported earlier and he wasn't pulled from some of the games after the playoffs were out of reach, but it more than explains his subpar (for his standards) year. Even without the immediate contributions of Forsberg and let's assume Barkov- I think we'll look like a much different team than we did this season assuming we don't have injuries to 70% of our top two lines. A backup goalie not named Mason would go a long way as well. I think we won 1 game all year when Mason was in net, which is just unacceptable even for a backup goalie.

Poile's already said he's going to be bringing in an Erat-quality or better forward this offseason regardless of who we draft, so the pressure will lessen on our rookie and Forsberg even further. I'm not proclaiming a Cup- run next season or anything, but we have more than adequate pieces to hemorrhage the bleeding next year and surprise and if Forsberg/Barkov do evolve into elite NHL talent, and a couple other prospects at least become adequate 3-4th liners, we could be significantly better than we ever have been, which for a team that's been to the playoffs 8 of 9 years - is pretty damn good.

Blowing it all up would infuse us with talent in a few years - at the risk of fan alienation and a losing philosophy. It's not the worst idea ever, but McDavid is no guarantee no matter how much we mortgage our short term. If you could look into the future and tell me 100% that McDavid could be ours and that he'd translate like Crosby at the next level for the price of Weber and Rinne - I still don't know that I do it because I'd always wonder if we weren't better off as is. The fact is, I don't think we're nearly as far away as many are believing. We have an elite goalie, defenseman, 3-4 productive, if unspectacular, goal-scorers (though Wilson could be special), 3-4 really young yet promising prospects finally getting legit ice time, and potential elite talents in Forsberg and whoever we draft at 4 this year. That's a pretty damn good place to be and a way more balanced team than most franchises could dream of.

A healthy Hornquist and Wilson would've made this season look a lot different in all honestly. I have no doubt those two players alone would've gotten us ~30 more points (or more) than what we ended up with, which would have turned a significant amount of losses into wins.

[OILERMAN]

[Guest]

Another female reporter just trying to see naked men and thinking about sex all the time. We knew it. 

 

Merc it doesn;t matter if you miss out on McDavid you'll get another great player to add to Forsberg and your pick this year. 

 

It seems completely non sensical to m,e to trade one of your best players when you're 2 points out of the playoffs this year and, then, not continue to build future assets. Can you cp0bble together a group that can compete for the 8th playoff seed next year? Yes probably. I keep hearing you guys are sick of that. You had that this year.

 

One of the issues I think you guys might have is ownership may think they can;t keep the fans interested and engaged in a 5 year plan.

 

The new core of this team should be: Forsberg, your pick this year, your pick next year and the assets you get for Weber and Rinne. Something special could be built with that. I would be really excited as a preds fan to watch all those kids grow up together. I wish the Leafs would have pursued a plan like that. 

 

It's the way it's done witht he best teams year in year out...Blackhawks were terrible forever and they drafted Toews and Kane and all those other great players...Pens Malkin, Crosby, Staal all top 5 picks 3 straight years;...show me any great NHL roster that competes for Lord Stanley year in year out and I'll trace it back to a time when they sucked and were accumulating young assets. 

[Mercalius]

I get that point but there's no promise those draft picks ever pan out, either by injury or just not becoming what they're supposed to (see Leggy). But there's also the risk of them bailing the second their contract is up as well. As much as I love the Predators, I'm not naive to believe that good/great players would consistently choose us over the Red Wings, Penguins, Bruins etc. it seems like every year we have "that guy" who were offering fair money to who finds a way out regardless.

We have enough talent and depth that our top lines could be special with one or two missing pieces. Maybe Forsberg and Barkov are those guys. Maybe we land one in FA since the cap is lowering and good players will be looking for new homes (and we can spend this year). Maybe it doesn't work and we should've blown it all up. I just don't think it's a gamble a small market team who's only recently started to feel some sort of stability in location/fanbase should consider risking.

[Guest]

Yep Ottawa is a good example of a team that followed the "Build the dynasty plan" and have it all not turn out so good.

 

3 #1 overall draft busts...Bonk, Redden and Daigle...and then despite building up a team with awesome young assets (Fisher, Chara, Spezza, Alfreddsson,  Hossa, Havlat, Phillips, etc...) who looked like world beaters in the regular season...they kept choking in the playoffs and then the contracts came up and they had to melt it all down again...

 

 

...and here they are again rising from the ashes with the assets they gleaned from trading Chara, Fisher, Hossa, etc...they have young talent again. 

 

There's alot of angst if you go down the "build it big" road and it doesn't turn out. In Edmonton now... they have Ryan Nugent Hopkins, Yakpov, Hall, Eberle, schultz, etc...and they're still too young to win and make the playoffs. Can they stay patient? Can they win Stanley Cups before all these contracts come due? Interesting times for sure. 

 

So there is no perfect way to do it but there is a  best way imo and the great thing about the preds is they are already half way there with Forsberg, the pick this year...

 

They may be selling something to the fan base that is something different than the actual plan. Think about it...they have sold no long term plan to the fan base but what are you doing with the Forsberg trade? If the preds are struggling next year and may miss the playoffs and someone wants to trade every prospect in their org for  cup run with Rinne and Shea Weber would they say no? I think the Forsberg trade is a big "tell" here guys. 

 

Damn freaking shame they got nothing from Suter...imagine the young talent you would have right now had you traded. Suter is going to win the Norris this year. 

[Mercalius]

The Suter thing still stings. It's mostly all on Poile as you should never "trust" your talent to that extent when it comes to a contract and always have a backup plan for when the worst happens, which it did. But Suter pissed the entire fanbase off by straight up lying about his intentions to stay. We could've easily gotten at least two, maybe three, solid players from him alone.

[Mercalius]

Craig Button on Barkov:

 

 

Craig Button interview from several months back. He's really, really high on Barkov.

Says skating/shot are 4/5 but everything else is 5/5.

Goes into detail about him being the best player on the ice with NHL talent during the lockout and outplaying Mikko Koivu.