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Meltzer's Musings: Draft Wrapup |
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My long-held belief about the NHL Entry Draft is that teams should take the best available player in rounds 1-3 regardless of the position he plays. However, if two players are projected to have similar upside but one plays a position in which the organization has greater needs, that's where drafting by position comes into play. In the latter stages of the draft, that's where a club may want to draft with positional depth in mind or else draft a big-bodied but extremely raw project player.
In this year's draft, the Flyers used five of their six picks on forwards. I'm fine with that, even though the team has greater organizational depth needs on the blueline and in goal. It's pointless to try to assess a draft class as a whole until 5 years have passed although some individual players can be accurately gauged within 2-3 years.
When looking at a team's picks right after draft day, all you can really look at is upside. In a best-case scenario, what would be his most likely role with an NHL team? Don't worry about who is currently in front of him in the organization. Those issues resolve themselves over time.
Instead, here's what I always look at:
1) What is the player's demonstrated skill level relative to his level of competition? Most NHL role players -- even players who rarely put the puck in the net -- were once scoring standouts (at least close to a point-per-game, if not even better) at the game's lower levels. Even most NHL defensive defensemen at the junior or collegiate level were skilled enough to get some power play time.
So even if you project that a draft pick will be an NHL role player down the line, it's almost a must that he was a guy counted on for points at the lower levels. The lower the level of competition he played in his draft year, the higher his level of dominance needs to be. Conversely, the higher the level of competition, the less important the offensive stats for an 18-year-old.
Level of competition is also important. A draft-eligible player who averages a point-per-game in the CHL circuits likely has a higher upside than a USHL player with similar productivity. A teenager who is already suiting up in a European elite league -- even if he didn't get much ice time and only posted a few points in his draft year -- is probably more advanced in his game than a point-per-game player for the organization's J20 squad.
However, just because a player competed at a lower level in his draft year need not scare off a team from drafting him. It just adds a little more to the guess work involved. For every Jamie Benn who goes on to be an NHL impact player after being selected from a Junior A league, there are two or more lower-level standouts who fizzle out as they move up.
2) How old is the player? There is a massive amount of guess-work involved in assessing the professional upside of an 18-year-old prospect. With each passing year, the picture gradually starts to get clearer.
It's fine if the draftee (especially a lower round one) needs a lot of work on his skating or defensive play at age 18, or if he is not currently one of the top few players on his current team. By 19, you'd like to see him making significant progress and a soon-to-be 20-year-old forward or defenseman should be ready to at least challenge for an AHL spot within a season.
3) What specific areas does the youngster need to work on to be a pro? The three most common issues are the need to fill out and add muscle, the need to improve skating and the need to learn to play professional-caliber defensive hockey. As a youngster moves up the ladder into the pro game, these issues need to be addressed. Again, age is a consideration. At 18, the player still has plenty of time to answer the question marks about him. With each passing year, it becomes more important.
The one issue that scares me the most: a reputed lack of work ethic, coachability or character concerns. I'm not saying that a young player has to be like Rocco Grimaldi off the ice, but he does need to come to the rink ready to work. If there are red flags about work ethic and/or willingness to sacrifice for team, an NHL club needs to do a lot of homework on the root causes of these issues before selecting the player.
Yes, some seemingly out-of-control players may eventually mature (see Ray Emery, for example). But the guys who are "talented underachievers" at the lower levels rarely go on to do anything of note at the pro level. For instance, just ask the Chicago Blackhawks how well their "steal" of Akim Aliu in the second round in 2007 has been working out.
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I think most people would agree that Flyers first-round pick Sean Couturier is almost a lock to play in the NHL and has an above-average chance at emerging as a two-way impact player. Among the team's five other picks, who knows? If the Flyers get one additional player who goes on become an NHL regular plus one or two others who ever get even a fill-in spot in the NHL, they will have had a successful draft.
At first blush, I think the Flyers have at least a decent shot at finding a second future NHLer among their other picks. Every player has at least one major question mark -- that's why they weren't first-round picks, after all -- but most of them also have foundations off which they can build in the next couple years.
In many ways, third-round pick Nick Cousins fits the typical profile of a forward who goes in the second round. He's a smaller player who is not a speed demon (which is almost a must for a small player to go within the first 30 picks). However, he has already demonstrated that he has a high compete level and an above-average skill set relative to his level of play. Cousins won't even turn 18 until July and has two full major junior seasons under his belt, including a point-per-game season in his draft year. That's three good reasons to feel an early sense of optimism about the pick.
With fourth-rounder Collin Suellentrop, my knee-jerk reaction is that he is the same type of pick as past Flyers blueline draftees like Kris Mallette or Jeff Feniak. Hopefully the difference here is that Suellentrop will prove to have pro caliber mobility.
Even though Suellentrop is described as a physical, stay-at-home D who will never put up many points as a pro, sooner or later he needs to convincingly demonstrate that he can be a reasonably effective puck-mover and a top-tier shutdown defenseman at least against OHL competition. Otherwise, his upside maxes out as a number six or seven NHL defenseman or, more likely, a player who never rises above minor league hockey.
Keep in mind, however, that defensemen usually take a little longer to develop than forwards and Suellentrop only turned 18 on June 10. He has plenty of time but also a long way to go.
Taken two selection spots after Suellentrop, Marcel Noebels is a player who fits some of the profile of the types of past mid-round draftees who have gone on to have NHL careers. First of all, the right winger has decent size and skill. He already played a season against grown men -- some with NHL experience -- in Germany's DEL circuit and did not look out of place. Secondly, he has already competed for his country at the Under-20 World Junior Championships. Lastly, he came back from the WJC this past season and played very well in the second half for Seattle in the WHL.
Main concern with Noebels: He is a subpar skater and may not be skilled enough (relative to NHL standards) to make up for it. He is also 19 years old (turned 19 on March 14), so he has a one-year head start on the majority of the 2011 Draft Class. For these reasons, the odds are against him becoming an NHL impact player. If Noebels goes on to become a role player for the Flyers someday, it will have been a good pick. Anything beyond that would be a pure bonus -- but there are a few comparable players at the same age who have gone on to be 18-20 goal players at the NHL level.
Of all the Flyers' picks this year, the hardest one to get any read on is Petr Placek. This is a straight-out project pick, but as a sixth-rounder, why not?
When I saw that the 19-year-old Czech forward was playing his hockey in a U.S. prep school, the immediate response was to wonder why. That's a very uncommon route for a Czech player to take -- the better prospects usually try to play Canadian major junior hockey or else stay at home and try to break into the Extraliga as teenagers. Then I saw that Placek has been accepted to Harvard, and I realized that he was thinking about his education at least as much as hockey when he opted to come over.
Therefore, it's a pretty safe bet that Placek is an exceptionally bright and mature kid. But is he a bonafide NHL prospect?
Well, you have to be intrigued with Placek's size. He's 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds. On top of that, he's said to be a plus-skater who fits the athletic profile of an NHL player (has skills with the puck, is well-conditioned, etc.).
It is also a plus that, before coming over to the US, Placek was playing at the top Czech J18 level at age 15 for the legendary HC Kladno program. He didn't do especially well, but just the fact that he was playing on a fast-track level at that stage suggests that there is some skill there as well as size. That said, the fact that he didn't utterly shred the competition at the U.S. high school level -- at least in part due to injury -- also suggests that his potential is largely untapped.
The big advantage in drafting college-bound players is that the NHL team holds onto his rights for the duration of his NCAA career. As such, the Flyers will have up to four years to sit back and watch Placek to see if his very raw game evolves into a pro caliber one.
With their final pick of the draft, the Flyers selected Peterborough Petes enforcer Derek Mathers. He's a bonafide heavyweight (6-foot-3, 226 pounds) and, if he ever has a role in the pro game, it's pretty obvious what it will be. It remains to be seen if he is a good enough all-around hockey player to make it to the pro level. Also keep in mind that he's a converted defenseman at the junior level.
Even the majority of NHL enforcers, including Jody Shelley were close to point-per-game offensive players (if not even more) by their final junior season. Mathers has only played one season of junior hockey and is just 17 -- he'll turn 18 on Aug. 4 -- so there is lots of time for him to bring up his all-around game in addition to demonstrating that he can go toe-to-toe with anyone in his league.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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