The draft is less than a week away! I’ll be having stuff all week as we prepare for the most exciting time of the year and today we will start with three things the Blue Jackets need to avoid this weekend.
1. Trading Pick #3
This has been discussed numerous times and I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing it, but it needs to be mentioned at least once more here. The rumour is the Jackets want to move down to select one of the top centres; either Logan Brown or Clayton Keller. I understand the team needs centres in its system but I don’t think either player is going to end up anywhere near as good as Jesse Puljujvari.
In order to get to the playoffs and to have success in the playoffs you need top end players. The best chance to get one of those players is at the top of the draft. Puljujarvi has a chance to be one of those players. Others lower in the draft very well could become one of those players as well but the odds are much lower relative to Puljujvari. Unless one of those players and more is coming back in a trade the Jackets should not be trading their pick.
The other area that needs to be considered here is the Blue Jackets dreadful cap situation. Puljujvari is likely to make the team next season and because of the rookie cap structure he's not going to make much money. He will have bonus money due to being a high pick but overall it will be much lower than what he is worth.
2. Picking Older Players
Last draft the Jackets selected three players who were passed over in previous drafts. Occasionally this isn’t a bad strategy as some players are late bloomers, or were simply just missed by scouts. Conor Garland and Andrew Mangiapane are examples from last season. This season Brayden Burke looks to be that player.
The Jackets have not gone for those players instead selecting players like Sam Ruopp, Vladislav Gavrikov and Markus Nutivarra. Those players didn’t do anything their first draft eligible season to warrant being drafted and have done nothing since to suggest they should have been re-drafted. The Blue Jackets only have five picks this season they cannot afford to be wasting them on players who have no business being selected.
These players should be further along in their development because they are older but in case of the Blue Jackets players they are not. This is an issue for Ruopp as he is now 20 years old and should be ready for the AHL. However he has yet to dominate even the WHL. Gavrikov and Nutivaara both played in pro leagues in the KHL and SM-liiga respectively and can continue to develop in Europe. The issue though is they are both much older, Gavrikov will be 21 and Nutivarra 22, both should be on the cusp of the NHL at this point. They are both about to enter their prime and neither looks particularly close to the NHL (though Nutivarra did have a solid season in the SM-liiga).
3. Pick a Big Low Scoring Centre
The Jackets need at centre is obvious and judging by the last few drafts they tend to pick bigger players more often than not. If the Jackets really want to address their issue at centre they need to be picking the players who score the most regardless of their size. The reasoning behind this is simple players who score more are far more likely to have NHL success. Rhys Jessop of Canucks Army
explained this very well in a piece he wrote last year regarding Jake Virtanen.
“The pattern here is pretty clear: the more points a player scores at their given age, the more likely they are to become an NHLer. The safest bets are simply the guys that score the most.”
The Jackets need to be looking at players like Cam Morrison, Pascal Laberge or Linus Lindstrom who are very good offensive players and scored plenty of points in their respective leagues. The odds are in favour of these players as if they don’t reach their top six potential they will settle into bottom line roles. As an example look no further than William Karlsson on the Jackets. He was a second round pick who was a great scorer in Junior in Sweden. He hasn’t to date lived up to his top six potential but has settled in nicely as a bottom six option.
It’s ironic but the riskiest players in the draft are usually the players regarded as “safe.” They are usually strong defensive players and people think that if their offensive game doesn’t develop well they will just settle in as a third line player. More often than not it doesn’t work out that way. For that reason I would avoid players like Trent Frederic, Beck Malenstyn, and Connor Bunnaman as they didn’t post great offensive numbers this season making them longshots to develop into NHL players.
The Jacket prospect pool needs a boost this draft, avoiding these three things at the draft table would be key to doing that.
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