A day later and the dust is finally settling from the draft. There was a lot of talk about how they Flyers could move up but it turned out it wasn't to be. At the end of the day they had drafted four defensemen, one winger, and one goalie. Let's take a quick look at who they drafted.
11th Overall - Samuel Morin - Rimouski Oceanic (QMJHL) - Defense - 6'6, 203 lbs
41st Overall - Robert Hagg - MODO (Sweden) - Defense - 6'2 203 lbs
72st Overall - Tyrell Goulbourne - Regina Pats (WHL) - Left Wing - 5'10, 190 lbs
132nd Overall - Terrance Amorosa - Holderness School (High School - New Hampshire) - Defense - 6'2, 190 lbs
162nd Overall - Merrick Madsen - Proctor Academy (High School - New Hampshire) - Goalie - 6'4, 176 lbs
192nd Overall - David Drake - De Moines Buckaneers (USHL) - Defense - 6'4, 170 lbs
So let's start breaking these guys down.
Morin is a big, physical defenseman. I think a lot of people look at that and see the next great shut down defenseman. I think some foolish people look at him and see the next Chris Pronger. Drafting defenseman is always risky since great play in juniors doesn't translate to great play in the pros as easily for defenseman as it does for forwards. But the Morin pick is especially concerning. Here is an article (keep in the blogspot family, yo!) that shows that defenseman who don't score .4 points per game very rarely make it into the NHL. Morin, with 16 points in 46 games, averaged around .348 points per game. "But Morin is a defensive defenseman, he shouldn't be judged by his offensive production". I've heard this argument a number of times since we've drafted Morin less than 24 hours ago. What the article is saying is that if a player lacks the skill to put up points against the lesser quality of competition in junior he doesn't have the skill to make it to the NHL. .4 points per game isn't a really high amount. Michal Rozsival and Carl Gunnarsson averaged more than that this past NHL season. Luke Schenn averaged more than .4 PPG in his draft eligible year and he has always be considered a shut down defenseman. Per Hockey's Future, Morin has a great first pass out of the zone, a booming slap shot, and a powerful stride. If he has all those assets where are the points? Rimouski was a good team; they finished 4th in the league and 7th in the league in goals for. Morin got a lot of minutes all season. Where are his points? I'm not saying he should be a point per game player but shouldn't he be scoring at the same clip that Luke Schenn did? Especialy considering that Schenn was playing on a much weaker offensive team.
I like to keep this blog positive. But I fear the Flyers have drafted a dud. With other strong prospects like Ryan Pulock, Alex Wennberg, and Joshua Morrissey also available I think the Flyers will be kicking themselves on this one.
As much as I dislike the Flyers first pick I absolutely love their second pick. Robert Hagg has been on the Flyers radar since the World Juniors. He played most of the season in the top league in Sweden as a teenager. He's a tremendous two way defenseman who has good speed and can be quite a physical player. He was supposed to go in the mid to late first round but fell all the way to the 41st pick overall. He is a great two way defenseman with out any deficiencies. He reminds me of a bigger more physical version of Jonas Brodin, who was taken 11th overall by the Wild in 2011 and finished 4th in Calder voting this past season. He will most likely play in Sweden next season but could be ready to make the jump to the NHL as early as 2014-15.
Now we get to the Flyers most confusing pick from this years draft: Tyrell Goulbourne. Goulbourne is an undersized fighter. Think Zac Rinaldo. The thing is, Goulbourne wasn't picked in the late rounds where Zac Rinaldo and other fighters are drafted. No, he was taken in the 3rd round with the 71st Overall pick. He wasn't ranked in the top 150 prospects on any lists, a ranking consistent with his fighter status. Why did the Flyers take him so high up? Well, without a pick in the fourth round maybe they were afraid Goulbourne wouldn't make it to the fifth round for some reason. It's more than the fact they took a fighter so high, its the amount of talent they left on the board. This third round is as strong as the second round in the last few drafts. Guys like Mattias Janmark Nylen, Anton Slepyshev, Taylor Cammarata, Peter Cehlarik, Jimmy Lodge, John Hayden, Pavel Buchnevich, Anthony Duclair, Keaton Thompson, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Bogdan Yakimov, and even Sven Andrighetto. There is star quality there. All of those guys have a good chance at becoming serviceable NHLers. And they passed on them for a fighter that could be there in the later rounds. It's especially infuriating when you think that in the last two seasons the Flyers have had the steal of the 3rd round. Nick Cousins in 2011 and Shayne Gostisbehere in 2012. Just think if they got somebody like Peter Cehlarik, who averaged more points per game in the top Swedish league this season than Matt Duchene (who played there during the Lockout). Insane.
Without a pick in the 4th round the Flyers were left with 3 picks in the later rounds. The Flyers in recent years have used a lot of their late round picks on players who were bound for the NCAA. This is a smart strategy. The later rounds are gambles and if you can get more time to try and figure out if a player will turn into an NHL play all the better. Players going to the NCAA don't have to be signed for three years after they are drafted, a year more than players coming out of the CHL or most countries in Europe. A player going to a good school has a greater chance to develop because they will be thrown into a much more difficult environment. They will be exposed to better coaches, better training, better competition, and better players to play with while similar CHL players will continue at a level they are already at and playing against lesser and lesser competition as the better players age out or move on to the NHL.
The first NCAA bound player the Flyers drafted was Terrance Amorosa who was under the radar to say the least. He wasn't even ranked by NHL central scouting (who list 245 North American skaters alone) and until he was drafted he didn't have an Elite Prospects or Hockey DB profile. He put up pretty good numbers playing in high school and will be heading to the University of New Hampshire in the fall. There he will have to battle for minutes against some pretty tough competition, including JVR's brother Trevor (or TVR) who finished 2nd in scoring amongst all NCAA defensemen last year, 6'6 senior Eric Knodel, and 3rd round draft pick Brett Pesce.
After Amorosa the Flyers went for goaltender Merrick Madsen. Madsen has good size and is moving into one of the best conferences in college hockey, the ECAC. Already home to Flyers prospects Shayne Gostisbehere (Union), Reece Wilcox (Cornell), and Petr Placek who will be Madsen's teammate at Harvard. The league is also home to Quinnipiac and Yale who met in the NCAA final last season. Two of the best NCAA goalies in the past two seasons have come out of the ECAC, Troy Grosenick (Union) and Eric Hartzell (Quinnipiac). It will be interesting to see how he develops. It is not uncommon for goalies, even star goalies, to emerge from the late rounds of the draft.
(A quick aside, I don't know who the Flyers scout covering high school hockey in New Hampshire is, but look for him to move up in the organization in the near future. He clearly has Holmgren's ear considering they took two pretty off the board picks from the same area.)
The Flyers last pick in the draft is David Drake. The tall lanky defenseman will be headed to the University of North Dakota in the fall. UND is already home to Flyers pick Michael Parks who ended his 2011-12 freshman season with a promising 18 points in his final 22 games but spent this season marred by injury. North Dakota is a professional hockey factory, turning out great players at the same pace as schools like Boston College. Drake will need to put on weight but if he can turn into something in at UND he could be a real steal.
The big issue I had with this draft was there insistence on drafting the "best Flyer available" and not the "best player available". They consistently passed over skilled players to take tough, gritty, physical players who will at best be depth forwards in the NHL. This outdated idea of who the Flyers are/were has left the Flyers walking away from the best draft in a decade with one great prospect, a bust in the making, an undersized goon, and a handful of gambles.
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