Guilt Trip
Active member
Too bad about Bracco. Hopefully he can get his shit together somewhere else. It's sad though because he's got some great hands. His passing is totally high level. Best of luck to him.herman said:
2020-2021 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion
- Thread starter herman
- Start date
Guilt Trip
Active member
Haha. Too bad but that's the way it goes. I enjoyed watching him with the Marlies.herman said:
dintymoore
New member
herman said:
No more Gauthier........ thank god
herman
Well-known member
Size is advantageous in hockey. This is just my read on the situation.
I think there are a couple of narratives at the moment spinning through Leafs fandom. They're separate, but related.
1) Dubas only drafts smurfs
2) Dubas said he wanted to make the team tougher, why did he keep drafting smurfs?
1) is by and large true, but 'only drafts smurfs' is the result and not the reason.
Size is good and useful in a contact sport: associated strength, reach, potential for puck protection, etc. We see prospects who reach physical maturity a bit faster than their peers stand out literally and occasionally on the scoresheet (Lawson Crouse, Nick Ritchie, Logan Stanley, all the Leafs big boys Hunter drafted). The key is determining if their size was the sole reason they had success, or was it a complement to their skills? Prospects that have the skill, speed, and size blend sort of only happen in the top 3-5 range. After that, everyone is a project in some capacity. Dubas' draft philosophy is not looking for smurfs, but he is looking for the skill and hockey sense that is their innate potential. Skating technique and size can be developed over time, but the way the game is processed and the aptitude for quick decision making takes far longer (if not impossible -- see Kapanen
).
Dubas treats size akin to hair colour and nationality in drafting, and it just so happens the most skilled players available are currently smol. He's not averse to size: Justins Holl and Brazeau, Mason Marchment are not smurfs and he plucked them out of obscurity and developed skating and puck technique as much as possible before the asset becomes NHL usable or NHL tradeable. The draft sets the potential meter; the more important development program tries its best to max it out.
2) is simple to answer: only 2-3 picks from 2020 are going to make immediate NHL impact, and it certainly isn't coming from the middle of the 1st round. Honestly, only Lafreniere and Lundell and maybe Rossi should hit the NHL right away. So filling a current toughness need (or any current need, really) isn't coming from the draft.
I think there are a couple of narratives at the moment spinning through Leafs fandom. They're separate, but related.
1) Dubas only drafts smurfs
2) Dubas said he wanted to make the team tougher, why did he keep drafting smurfs?
1) is by and large true, but 'only drafts smurfs' is the result and not the reason.
Size is good and useful in a contact sport: associated strength, reach, potential for puck protection, etc. We see prospects who reach physical maturity a bit faster than their peers stand out literally and occasionally on the scoresheet (Lawson Crouse, Nick Ritchie, Logan Stanley, all the Leafs big boys Hunter drafted). The key is determining if their size was the sole reason they had success, or was it a complement to their skills? Prospects that have the skill, speed, and size blend sort of only happen in the top 3-5 range. After that, everyone is a project in some capacity. Dubas' draft philosophy is not looking for smurfs, but he is looking for the skill and hockey sense that is their innate potential. Skating technique and size can be developed over time, but the way the game is processed and the aptitude for quick decision making takes far longer (if not impossible -- see Kapanen
). Dubas treats size akin to hair colour and nationality in drafting, and it just so happens the most skilled players available are currently smol. He's not averse to size: Justins Holl and Brazeau, Mason Marchment are not smurfs and he plucked them out of obscurity and developed skating and puck technique as much as possible before the asset becomes NHL usable or NHL tradeable. The draft sets the potential meter; the more important development program tries its best to max it out.
2) is simple to answer: only 2-3 picks from 2020 are going to make immediate NHL impact, and it certainly isn't coming from the middle of the 1st round. Honestly, only Lafreniere and Lundell and maybe Rossi should hit the NHL right away. So filling a current toughness need (or any current need, really) isn't coming from the draft.
herman
Well-known member
Nik said:
This is a fair point, but I?ve only seen this nuance from you here and not in the broader fan base.
Dubas has historically rounded out the other elements outside the draft. I think the belief is that the draft is the best place to acquire skill (for nearly free!) and other stuff is cheap enough to outsource.
We don?t have any truly shutdown centres in the pipeline. H?llander might be closest.
Phileas Fogg
New member
herman said:
Chara - 56 round 3
Maroon - 161 round 6
Parayko - 86 round 3
And that's just off the top of my head. If dubas' strategy is to assume or play the odds that there's no decent prospects with size later in the draft, then these are the types of players the leafs will miss out on.
Kin
New member
herman said:
Dubas has, historically, not really succeeded in putting together a well rounded team.
herman said:
I think there's a definition of skill that Dubas and the like tend to use that dictates how they approach the draft and I think it ultimately hinders their thinking. You can call one thing skill and another "grit" or "physicality" or anything else but it still all boils down to whether or not a player is doing something that helps his team win a game. If the answer is yes, then it's all "skill". The distinction between one or the other is ultimately meaningless.
The other thing is, you know, the whole "we need to get tougher to play against, more physical, etc" stuff is actually a pretty common refrain to hear about eliminated teams in the NHL. It's why, I think, that anyone who can combine any element of offensive ability with that sort of physical play tends to be overvalued and actually is really hard to pick up on a free agent market when compared to a "skill player" who can pop 20 with some pp time.
I think, and I think we as Leafs fans have some solid first hand experience of this, that if you look at a lot of the worst contracts in the league you'll find a ton of guys who got overpaid for toughness. It's why I think developing those guys, or at least attempting to, is actually pretty important and, realistically, that doesn't mean looking for ECHL castoffs but rather investing the occasional 2nd or 3rd rounder.
Guru Tugginmypuddah
Active member
Frycer14 said:
Chara and Parayko being picked in the 3rd round and ending up like they have is pure dumb luck. Any team in the league would give up their next 5 first rounders if they knew what they had in Chara or Parayko.
While I think everything else being equal you would want to draft players who are going to be "large", we witnessed Burke blow first rounders on guys like Tyler Biggs.
Frank E
Active member
herman said:Size is advantageous in hockey. This is just my read on the situation.
I think there are a couple of narratives at the moment spinning through Leafs fandom. They're separate, but related.
1) Dubas only drafts smurfs
2) Dubas said he wanted to make the team tougher, why did he keep drafting smurfs?
1) is by and large true, but 'only drafts smurfs' is the result and not the reason.
Size is good and useful in a contact sport: associated strength, reach, potential for puck protection, etc. We see prospects who reach physical maturity a bit faster than their peers stand out literally and occasionally on the scoresheet (Lawson Crouse, Nick Ritchie, Logan Stanley, all the Leafs big boys Hunter drafted). The key is determining if their size was the sole reason they had success, or was it a complement to their skills? Prospects that have the skill, speed, and size blend sort of only happen in the top 3-5 range. After that, everyone is a project in some capacity. Dubas' draft philosophy is not looking for smurfs, but he is looking for the skill and hockey sense that is their innate potential. Skating technique and size can be developed over time, but the way the game is processed and the aptitude for quick decision making takes far longer (if not impossible -- see Kapanen
Dubas treats size akin to hair colour and nationality in drafting, and it just so happens the most skilled players available are currently smol. He's not averse to size: Justins Holl and Brazeau, Mason Marchment are not smurfs and he plucked them out of obscurity and developed skating and puck technique as much as possible before the asset becomes NHL usable or NHL tradeable. The draft sets the potential meter; the more important development program tries its best to max it out.
2) is simple to answer: only 2-3 picks from 2020 are going to make immediate NHL impact, and it certainly isn't coming from the middle of the 1st round. Honestly, only Lafreniere and Lundell and maybe Rossi should hit the NHL right away. So filling a current toughness need (or any current need, really) isn't coming from the draft.
Dubas didn't draft any of Marchment, Brazeau, or Holl.
Peter D.
Moderator
I would like to see Dubas be more proactive/ballsy some time at the draft where instead of always playing the "we have 4/5 guys we view the same so we'll just slide down and grab another asset" card, and instead uses all the assets he's accumulated to move up.
This is only a personal preference and simply a notion as I don't know if he was in the sights of the team nor not knowing what the price would be, but for example, I would have loved to have seen him see Askarov falling out of the top 10 and pouncing (same could apply to Rossi and Perfetti slipping). Instead it's always sliding back. I get the more assets the better the chances, but sometimes you just after go after a guy.
Again, that's just me and a gripe I have.
This is only a personal preference and simply a notion as I don't know if he was in the sights of the team nor not knowing what the price would be, but for example, I would have loved to have seen him see Askarov falling out of the top 10 and pouncing (same could apply to Rossi and Perfetti slipping). Instead it's always sliding back. I get the more assets the better the chances, but sometimes you just after go after a guy.
Again, that's just me and a gripe I have.
Kin
New member
Rob said:
That's true of any good player picked outside of the 1st round. It's not like the people who passed on Gaudreau were like "Sure, he's going to be a PPG player in the NHL but he's too small".
The point is that in the vast, unknowable wilderness of the later rounds of the NHL draft there are bigger guys who turn out good, smaller guys who turn out good and medium guys who turn out good. Neglecting any because of a narrow definition of what "skill" is probably means turning away from some really good opportunities.