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Draft Wrap-up [message #654817]	Mon, 29 June 2015 00:44

Adam
Messages: 6842
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB

6 Cups

On Friday morning, the Oilers were tied for the most 2015 draft picks with 10 selections. They were as follows:

- No. 1 overall
- No. 16 overall
- No. 33 overall
- No. 57 overall
- No. 79 overall
- No. 86 overall
- No. 117 overall
- No. 124 overall
- No. 154 overall
- No. 184 overall

A lot changed from that list. After selecting Connor McDavid first overall, the team dealt away 16 & 33 for Griffin Reinhart, then 57, 79, 184 for Cam Talbot and the 209th pick. We'd briefly own the 107th pick, grabbing it (along with Brad Ross) for Martin Marincin, then immediately sending away Travis Ewanyk and the pick to Toronto for Eric Gryba. We also picked up the 208th pick from the Tampa Bay Lighting for a late pick next year. I want to talk about all these things in a little more detail, but I thought first it might be interesting to see how all the picks we touched turned out...it may be something we analyze to death in future years.

- No. 1 - Connor McDavid
- No. 16 - Mathew Barzal (New York Islanders)
- No. 33 - Mitchell Stephens (Tampa Bay Lightning - via Islanders)
- No. 57 - Jonas Siegenthaler (Washington Capitals - via Rangers)
- No. 79 - Sergey Zborovskiy (New York Rangers)
- No. 86 - Mike Robinson (San Jose - compensation for signing Todd McLellan)
- No. 107 - Christian Wolanin (Ottawa Senators)
- No. 117 - Caleb Jones
- No. 124 - Ethan Bear
- No. 154 - John Marino
- No. 184 - Adam Huska (New York Rangers)
- No. 208 - Miroslav Svoboda
- No. 209 - Ziyat Paigin

So in the end we draft six players. McDavid the only forward, then four defencemen and a goalie. The last two players are both 20 year-olds out of European leagues. It'll be interesting to see how all these picks look in five years or so. Barzal will be the one that keeps scouts up nights, I'd imagine. He was ranked in the top ten and slid, and he was well over a point per game player in the WHL this year.

I have to say, I wasn't sure how to feel really when I heard the Reinhart deal. He's pretty inexperienced and I really worry that the Oilers fall in love with Oil Kings. Mitch Moroz seemed like a big reach at the start of the second round, and Travis Ewanyk probably shouldn't have ever got a pro contract from the team based on his seasons after being drafted. His numbers suggested from the start that he was unlikely to be anything more than an AHL plugger at best.

In the end, I like what Chiarelli's done because he seems to have realized that this draft is virtually meaningless if the Oilers can't become not just a winning team, but a contending team in the next 2-3 years. This team has a very short window to show Connor McDavid that they are serious about winning and will do everything in their power to make it happen. If they are not contending for a Stanley Cup when his rookie deal expires, assuming he's anything close to the hype, McDavid's camp will be able to ask for and receive top dollars - 20% of the cap, probably in the $15-16MM/year range. If the Oilers balk, someone else will offer sheet that number, probably for four years to take him right to UFA as soon as possible when the Oilers match. Once that is matched, then good luck managing the cap when you have that much tied up in a single guy.

The only way to avoid that is to either have already won Stanley Cups, or to at least seem on the verge of it so that McDavid decides that he doesn't need the top dollar and allows the team to sign him for a discount so that they can afford to surround him with the pieces to get to/stay at the top.

After McDavid, none of the players on that list above, including Barzal, are likely to be contributing regulars in the NHL in the next three years. Reinhart, as a 21 year old who had a sniff of the NHL last year, is a much better bet to contribute during this window. Talbot will certainly be a contributor this year and hopefully he can A) prove that he's a #1 guy and B) be signed in January to a reasonable deal that covers off the rest of the McDavid window. Everything I've looked at about Talbot suggests to me that he's a decent bet and I prefer the team rolling the dice on a younger guy in the hopes of finding our goalie for the next 5-10 years than chasing a guy well in to his 30s who'll only be a stop gap.

As for Martin Marincin, he has a lot of nice aspects to his game, but he was healthy scratched in the AHL playoffs this year. He had accumulated a lot of baggage in this organization. Some of that was no doubt the fault of Dallas Eakins. He was a disaster as a coach and regressed just about everyone, so it's not that surprising to see Marincin moving backwards, but even so, at this point in his career, he should dominate the AHL, not find himself in the pressbox for lacklustre play. Some guys just need a change of scenery to put their career back on track and Marincin may be one of them, but I think it was going to be hard for him to be successful in Edmonton. Best case for him? He ends up the next Kyle Brodziak, another guy that the Oilers ditched during a regime change because the previous coaching staff had had issues with him.

I don't know a lot about Eric Gryba, other than he hurt Hall. In the few times the Oilers have played him, he seemed like a jerk to play against...that's probably a good thing to have on the squad. He's another bottom pairing defenceman, which we do seem to have a lot of, but most of the ones we had previously weren't particularly snarly. And he's a right shot, so there's that too. The other nice thing about picking up Reinhart & Gryba? The team seems to be fine now with making it very difficult for a highly touted guy like Nurse to make the team. He'll have to absolutely dominate now if he hopes to climb up the depth chart to the NHL level - and that's how it should be. Neither he nor Draisaitl have an easy road to a roster spot now. However, I'll go out on a limb and say that McDavid has a pretty good chance of cracking the line-up.

Chiarelli does seem to be living up to his comments about wanting a little more size and sandpaper in the lineup. I was also impressed that he didn't get suckered by Sather's shenanigans regarding Talbot. I think that Slats planted stories with Dreger to try to drive the price up. Good on him for trying - there's zero reason to be honest with a prying reporter about what is on the table for a player - but I'm happy that the Oilers managed to get the guy they wanted for a pretty good value even with those false reports out there. I couldn't help but think that the former administration would have been beside themselves trying to beat whatever price the Rangers had supposedly been offered.

All in all, I think it was a pretty fantastic weekend for the Oilers. It is staggering that it could have been even better, although, had the Bruins been run by anyone more competent, they probably would have received even more than Chiarelli reportedly offered. Even without that though, this team is miles ahead of where they were at the end of the season now. There's still a couple pieces we need but it's nice to see things start to take a little more shape.

Welcome to Edmonton, Connor McDavid. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

[Updated on: Mon, 29 June 2015 00:47]

"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
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Draft Wrap-up	By: Adam on Mon, 29 June 2015 00:44
Re: Draft Wrap-up	By: Adam on Mon, 29 June 2015 10:08
Re: Draft Wrap-up	By: OilPeg on Mon, 29 June 2015 10:42
Re: Draft Wrap-up	By: Skoobz on Mon, 29 June 2015 11:00
Re: Draft Wrap-up	By: CrudeRemarks on Fri, 26 July 2019 09:26
Re: Draft Wrap-up	By: NetBOG on Fri, 26 July 2019 09:40
Re: Draft Wrap-up	By: WhoreableGuy on Fri, 26 July 2019 09:43
Re: Draft Wrap-up	By: GabbyDugan on Fri, 26 July 2019 09:57
Re: Draft Wrap-up	By: Magnum on Fri, 26 July 2019 10:02
Re: Draft Wrap-up	By: CrusaderPi on Fri, 26 July 2019 10:07
Re: Draft Wrap-up	By: WhoreableGuy on Fri, 26 July 2019 10:08

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