The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 233: The Luck of the Draw

Episode Date: May 1, 2018

Ryan Biech joins the show to discuss the results of the draft lottery, help preview this year's class of eligible prospects, and try to figure out what makes certain teams better at drafting and developing than others. 1:35 The top two picks 6:15 The next tier 14:15 Ottawa's big decision 18:20 Ways for the Blackhawks to squeeze value out of their pick 25:30 Under the radar prospects that could soar up the board 42:30 Red flag prospects that could wind up dropping 50:00 What makes certain teams better at drafting than others Sponsoring today’s show is SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell sports and concert tickets. They’re giving our listeners a $20 rebate off of their first purchase. All you have to do is download the free SeatGeek app and enter the promo code PDO to get started. Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, and Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews are also greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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My name is Demetri Filipovich. and sitting across from me as my good buddy Ryan Beach. It's an in-studio show, which is always my favorite to do. Ryan, what's going on, then? Not much. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I'm doing better. I apologize to all the listeners taking the past two weeks off now, I believe. You know, first off, I took the first week off because doing podcasts during the playoffs

series is so tough. It's like so reactionary and the shelf life on them is so short. You do one after like game two and you praise a team. then all of a sudden, game three is the next day, and it's like completely going another way at Topsy Turby. And then I got sick last week. So now I'm back at it and we're here. And we're going to do a bit of a draft lottery reaction slash recap slash whatever show. You're a big prospect guy.

I know you'll do a lot of stuff, especially around the Canucks in that regard. And you're familiar with a lot of these names and stuff that people are just kind of getting well-vers with now. So it's going to be fun to go through that with you. Yeah, for sure. the, you know, reactions have settled a little bit since Saturday evening. Yes. The Twitter was a little crazy with people's reactions to the lottery and many things,

especially here in Vancouver. So it's kind of nice to decompress, take a couple of days, and then kind of let the dust settle. So what do you, I mean, when we knew that it was coming to the bottom three, or I guess the top three picks, and it was going to be Buffalo, Montreal, Carolina. It actually wound up working out, in my opinion, like my favorite out of those three. I mean, I'm obviously not like cheering for any of those teams, but just in terms of what's best sort of for the league

or what's the most interesting from a roster building perspective, I thought like Buffalo so badly needed a guy like Rosemoisdalen and just a defenseman in general. And then for Carolina, while obviously having another one of those guys, you can never have too many defensemen. But it seems like if they're good anywhere, it's there, and then getting a guy like whether it's Svetnikov or Zedina

is going to be really useful for them. And then Montreal, I just, I was like, oh, my God, if Montreal gets rewarded for just incompetent management by Mark Bergervan in the past couple years with the first overall pick here. I'm going to be sick to my stomach, so I'm glad that didn't happen. Yeah, it's not like a get out of jail free card like Buffalo. Yeah, Buffalo needs that defenseman so badly. We obviously know the, you know, Ristelan being a number one defenseman talk all the time.

Finally, they have a top, top defenseman named Rasmus. Yeah, exactly. So, and then I saw like Scuttlebot about trading Rasmus Restalina, and now that they have Dahlane, and it's just like, don't just take the Dahlian and let's start fixing these problems. And I think Carolina, they, you know, they have a good collection of prospects over the last couple years in that five to 10, 15 ranges they've been getting every year. They need a game breaker potential player. And I think Svechnikov is kind of that potential to slot in the middle and kind of fix a lot of their

problems on the ice, which will be, you know, it'll be good. You know, Svetchnikov and Skinner or Svetschnikov and Terrvinen or Ajo or anything, it makes everything a little bit better of what they have and then they're not getting another prospect. It's going to take two or three years. like we could be talking in October and Sveshnikov's in the lineup and knee cash is in the lineup and all of a sudden Carolina is able to overcome those little points that they weren't able to get to make the playoffs. Yeah. Well, that's the thing.

I mean, it's tough because, you know, I do, I know it kind of goes against what I just said in terms of like Carolina really needs a forward like that. But also for a lot of these guys, I think sometimes you can get a bit too unrealistic with their timetables. And it's like, you just expect these guys to step right into the lineup and contribute. And that's not fair to them. And that's typically not how it works unless, I mean, like Ross, Thomas Dahlion probably will be, I'm not sure if he's going to play top pairing minutes for Buffalo next year, but like top four probably.

Oh, yeah. I know Craig Custin wrote today that an anonymous GM, I wonder if it's Jason Bottrell or not, said that he thinks Ross was Dahlian right now would be the best defensemen on a lot of NHL teams. Here in Vancouver, that's for sure. Yeah, there's all, I mean, that's the thing, though. You look around the league and I feel like there really is, I don't know if it's a dearth of NHL defensemen or if it's teams are just bad at. evaluating them still. So like there's a lot of guys who either get held back or aren't fully unleashed. But, you know, I was talking about this with Dom on a recent podcast. And it was the idea of why are scoring rates and shot rates up so much in NHL the season. And one theory I floated out there was teams are more willing to use skilled undersized forwards. But if you look on most teams blue lines, there's still a lot of like dead weight from from a bygone era there. And so I just, Every team, and you hear it every year, every summer and every trade headline, it's teams need puck moving defensemen.

So those guys are hot commodities. And that's why we're going to see this year's draft, what, like four or five of the top, whatever, 10 guys are going to be what we'd consider to be pretty skilled defensemen. Yeah, I'd say so. I think obviously Dahlene's the prize, but there's that group afterwards, which is he used, the boy quest, Dobson, I'd throw Ty Smith in that group as well for sure. Bushard, I knew I was forgetting one of these guys. That five, like they put, you know, I don't think they'll go six through ten.

but any one of those could go in that grouping and then the other one would fall outside that group. So, you know, by the time the dust settles on the, you know, the lottery teams of the draft, we could see six, seven, eight defensemen already gone by that point. And all of them kind of have that same mold of being puck-moving defensemen who can skate pretty well. And there's no, like, bruisers. There's no, you know, Eric and Branson's, there's no Luke Shenz in this group. There's no, you know, guys getting fantasized by their potential of size. It's, you know, efficient puck movers who can get the puck out of the zone,

which is kind of where most teams are going. now, right? So I know like doing a mock draft this kind of seems like a fruitless exercise at this point just because you can go one of two ways. You could just go like chalk based on what everyone sort of seems to have as consensus or you can like try to make waves by just saying crazy stuff and not actually believing in and that's disingenuous and we don't want to do that. But you know, if you're forecasting it right now, you know, we obviously know Dalyan's going to go number one. And then it seems like Svetnikov's a lock at number two. after that, like would any of those defensemen you mentioned there tempt you if you were number three with Montreal there?

Or do you just go with, or do you think Zadina and Kachuk as the two forwards are going to go after that? Yeah, the team there in that slot definitely plays a lot into it. I feel like my own, you know, assessment of players that Zadina is the number three guy. But, you know, a team like Montreal may feel the necessity to grab a defenseman and that could be Hughes. That could be BoyQuest. It could be winning one of those guys. and then that leaves Kachuk, or they might want to have that gritty forward who will grind his way to the front of the net to kind of compliment someone like

Drew-N or whoever, and that could be Kachuk. So, yeah, it is kind of a bit of a fruitless endeavor to mock draft these things because, you know, they're going to rank players based on needs. They're going to rank them based on what they could be, kind of things like that, where we may say, you know, that team could use a Puckmanman defenseman, which I think we could probably say Montreal could use one, but they may prioritize getting some grit because that's what they feel that they're lacking. and Kachuk is probably closer to being in H.

already. Oh, man. It's tough. I especially see with like, you know, I imagine Mark Bergevin is probably on pretty thin ice right now there in Montreal. It's like if you're him and you're trying to save your job, you're probably trying to get the guy who can most quickly step into the line up and contribute for you.

And that's not necessarily in the best interest of the team moving forward. So it's a really tough balance in that regard as well. Yeah, no, I agree. And they have four second round picks in that draft. So they're, you know, they are armed to be able to move. picks to get in NHL players and then you know they could add a Brady Kachuk as early as maybe not next year he's going to go back to college but the year after that suddenly he's in your lineup already right so you're going to see more immediate changes where maybe if you want to go like Quentin Hughes who may take

another year in the college and then a year in the HL may take a slower path those kind of plays into it and that's how I hate doing mock drafts I never want to do them just because of that fact right um so yeah you are absolutely right that plays into it so I do think that you know Montreal was kind of a team that I thought would be quite active if they hadn't won the lottery, trying to get up and get into control who they might get in the first round with those four second round picks. But now that they won the lottery, now they have those picks to trade and add NHL players now kind of thing, right?

So it kind of shifts what could happen. So where are you at with the current system and the current draft lottery process? Removing your allegiances with the Canucks aside. Like, just do you think we're at an okay place with it? Do you think this is like a conversation we need to be having more intensively in terms of how we can better the process. And if so, do you have a favorite solution?

There's obviously a lot of theories out there on what adjustments they can make. Yeah, like I do really like the gold drafting system. I don't know if it's able to be applied into it, and it's obviously a little harder, which is, you know, it's ranked by who, sorry, the order will be ranked by how many points a team accumulates effort of being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. So in that example, the Canucks would have been first because, you know, they won a bunch of games to drop down a few spots in the draft lottery.

My major issue with the current system is that, you know, there's a significantly higher chance of you falling down than staying put or moving forward. Right. That's obviously a result of the system. But, you know, at first glance or first thought, that kind of seems like a flawed system that, you know, you would land in this spot, but you're going to actually end up further behind than where you were. So that, you know, what the benefit of the lottery, right? I did think that, you know, the single lottery might have been the better system. But, you know, Edmonton won 17 years in a row or whatever it was. So that kind of created a perception of it not being great, but I think that's the least impact.

Because I think the ultimate goal of the entry draft is to bring more parity to the league, to give star players to put teams who don't have it at that time or may have had an off year. And the three system, sorry, the three lottery system is kind of changing that because there is a drastic difference from the first overall pick to the fourth overall pick. It's not huge, but we're still talking that where, you know, if we look at the last couple years, we're talking Connor McDavid's, you know, last year. you know, Kael McCar is going fourth or all. That's a big difference than Nico Heeshire at first overall, who he made an impact in the NHL right away. I think that's a really important point you raised,

like what the definition, like what the point of this whole thing is. Like if you're trying to increase parity, that's one thing. That's why always when people are complaining about teams, you know, tanking or not fielding the best lineups they can at the end of the seasons to increase their lottery odds, like that's what they're. within the rules and you should be doing that if you're a bad team. Like there's no incentive for winning games if you're already out of it.

So, but I understand why like people are against that. I mean, it just seems not even against what the sport is about, but it just, it's like you, in theory, every team should be trying to win as many games as they can. So that's where the gold system comes into place. And I wonder, it just seems way too risky for, for the NHL. It feels almost disingenuous in a way. Like, you know, you're how, you're still having, cost you. customers to come and watch this product. And like we,

I think we can all agree that players aren't going to play to lose and coaches aren't going to coach to lose. But, you know, teams will make active decisions to manipulate to the lineup. Right. And we see that, you know, Vancouver, as we said here, we saw that, you know, they kind of traded players away. Players were shut down. They brought up some young guys. UC Yokenin was in the top six. There we go. Yeah. It's not saying that they were actively tanking, but there was, you know, steps that you could say, okay, this team is, you know, they're not trying their hardest to win kind of in, right? Right. Right. by the moves they make.

Like, still these players were going out there and trying their hardest. And then, you know, they still won a few games in the move from, you know, third last or second last, which they were with two weeks less than the season to six last and then now they fall to seventh. And, you know, the Canucks aren't very good team right now. And the difference. That's a pretty generous way to find it. Yeah, I'm trying to be, I'm trying to be slightly positive.

Generally on my Twitter, I angle towards positive even though being realistic. Right, right, right. You know, there is a difference between Andres Svetchnikov and whomever they'll get it. seventh overall. Right. Yes. And I guess what is it? It's like the Canucks and the coyotes are probably the two teams that could take the biggest issue with the lottery system right now. Like it's, it's a lottery. So it's not the ones to blame necessarily, but in terms of like the ones, the teams that have been chaffed at the most, it's probably them. I mean, as I tweeted at the time, the Canucks have been the worst team in the league over the past three years and they have the fifth, fifth, fifth, and seventh

overall picks the show for it. And now you can make the argument that they weren't the worst team in any of those individual seasons. But as you mentioned in terms of the paying customer, just in terms of wins and losses, and what fans have been being treated to, they've been the worst team by pretty much any measurement. So it's tough that you don't really have anything to show for that. Whereas I guess you could spend it for Buffalo after all those years of, it's funny how it works out.

After all those years of tanking, like intent, pretty intentionally and not really even trying to hide it, they kept messing out on the first overall pick. And now this year, they actually seemed to head into the season trying to be at least respectable and they wound up being 31st and it's cool that they I don't want to say can we say rewarded for it and it seems dirty yeah it is funny because they you know they didn't actively tank as we got I kind of outline there but they definitely had some bad luck with injuries they kind of you know players didn't do what they expected everything kind of fell and then they ended up winning the lottery anyways in the year they you know kind of didn't try to or you know the Connor macdavid year they they they you know

I think we can actively say they did and um they you know they unfortunately a lot of balls didn't go their way. They still got Jack Eichol, who's still, you know, arguably a franchise center for them. And it worked out well, but now they get the defensemen that they need. And yeah, it always comes back, though. You have to be good on the draft floor and make the smart moves. Like, you mentioned Arizona and, you know, I think they hit a home run with Clayton Keller at 7 overall. And then last year they had the same spot and they traded that away to get a number one center in Steppen and Ranta. And, you know, they had a pretty good season overall. They were really good in the second half. But it's just kind of, you know, it's how so how you make those picks. You know, picking seventh or six isn't going to be the end of the world.

And now you have to make sure you find the right player. Looking at some of these most interesting teams, obviously, like outside of that top three. Oh, okay, here's a good one for you. So Ottawa has the fourth overall pick. If you were running the senators, now they have the opportunity to, if they retain the pick this year and pick fourth or all, they have to give away next year's pick to Colorado as part of them at Ducane Trade. Do you think that the player they're going to get at fourth overall this year is a high enough caliber of a prospect to justify potentially giving away the first overall peck next season? Oh, that's a good question.

I would lean towards no. Yeah. Um, even if, you know, like arguably, let's say Montreal gives up, um, or sorry, takes Kachuk at the three slot, which I don't think will happen. Right. It could happen. And you're looking at Zadena on the board. Is Adina a better prospect than Jack Hughes? And it's, you know, there's no question about it, right?

So, uh, that's, yeah, that would be really hard. I wouldn't have made that Matt Dushain deal in the first place. Right. But, uh, yeah, I, I, I, that would be really tough to do. or you may, you know, you may have to just take the pick and hope for the best, hope you have a little bit better luck than they did this year. Well, yeah, it's like from the PR perspective, it's, you got to kind of throw your fans a bone a bit,

especially after the year they went through, not only the losing, but every, like all the entire Eric Carlson, uh, just back and forth. And is he going to be dealt or not and just sweating it out until the deadline. And to like give away that pick and out of Colorado. Like that'd be such a tough way. Like, how do you save face with that with your fan base? you then you basically go into next season going like, man, we better get the first overall pick here to justify that. You're playing with fire.

And the Eric Carlson thing, it definitely plays into it for sure because if he's not coming back. Well, that's the thing. I mean, if they trade Air Carlson this summer, for example, you assume what they're going to get back is a lot of futures. Like, they're not going to get guys where it's stepping the lineup right away. Like, you can make the argument they're going to be the worst team in the league next season. Yeah. No, I think you could. And then if that's the, if you, you know, if you go into that GM meetings and you've decided that this is Eric Carlson and we're going to burn

this thing to the ground and we're going to get as many futures, then yeah, I might consider trading or moving that fourth overall pick. And to be honest with you, like, I don't even know what the considerations of the deal is and when they have to give it to them. Like right, like leading up to the pick, I think they can like go up to the podium. I would do everything possible to trade down to eighth or ninth or whatever it is and then move that pick. And if you're going down that Carlson way, because if there's no conditions to say it has

to be provided by June 1st, you has to be provided the deal before the draft. And even then you can make trades now. If you, if you have made the conscious effort to say, okay, we're trading Eric Carlson, then I'm phoning up Vancouver, I'm phoning up, you know, Chicago, I'm phoning up whoever, and I'm making every possible effort to get down five, six, seven, eight spots, give Colorado that pick and then go from there. You know what? I've never even, I'd never even really considered that, but that is very, very smart and

shrewd, and I think, you know, get as many assets as you can in return for that. Because I don't think there's anything in the letter of the law that says they, like, they can trade that pick right now for other stuff. but obviously like we like kind of we're spitballing here and we're not privy to what the exact conditions are if it does yeah i wonder i wonder there must be some sort of condition because in theory like what if they just traded the pick for like players yeah it might be stipulated as being ottawa's first round pick and not a first round pick and then that's where the conversation stops right so i think i think that's it yeah okay never mind scratch scratch scratch what i said we felt good there you got the wheels turning and i was like oh that's genius how come i haven't heard that um so there was like a 30 second window there where like someone who was aware of that was like freaking out and yelling yelling in their phone you idiot. Yeah, we're going to get a tweet or two. Yeah, a couple at least. It's all in good fun.

Yeah, so that's a tough one. That's a sticky situation. I'm looking here. Like, Arizona at 5, I think they're probably feeling pretty good about that. Like, they're going to get a good player there, and obviously they're still riding a high off how they ended the season. So it seems like everything worked out there.

Whereas for the Canucks at 7 or even Detroit at 6, it's like, oh. You got to take whoever's the best available at that point. Yeah, yeah. Both those teams need, need who. however, which brings us to eight and Chicago, and they're interesting. So they have the eight and the 30 first. No, so they have Nashville's first. They have Nashville's first.

So we'll see where that's going to be, but it's probably going to be the last couple of picks whenever the first round. If you were running the Blackhawks, would you be tempted to use that pick to either get a player right now who could help you and sort of help reopen this window with Kane and Taves and the Sikor and Keith and all those guys? or potentially even using it to get out from under Brent Seabrook's contract, which would then allow you to use that money to help the team right now. Or do you think, I mean, they've drafted pretty well and they found unique ways to get

college free agents and stuff like that over the years, but there's still a team just based on how good they've been in the past few years. It's not like they have a loaded pipeline of prospects. So getting a, like, when's the last time they picked anywhere near this high? It's been years now. So I understand they'd probably be tempted to just get a really good prospect here, but it also must be pretty tempting to use this as a weapon to try and improve your present-day roster as well. Yeah, they're kind of, they have some interesting players coming.

They don't have any game breakers, and I don't know if eight affords them that opportunity, the same thing, but I think they probably, you know, whoever the eighth overall pick would probably be within the conversation is their best prospect, and that's a hard thing to pass up. I don't know if that cost is worth the eighth overall pick, though. That's the, that's, you asked before we started recording, and I was like, okay, that makes sense and then looked at Brent Seabrook's the length of deal left and I keep forgetting how many years are left. It's simply

amazing. It's the best way to describe it. I may just try to ride it out with that group because I don't know how many more years you're going to be able to exploit this window of Canaan Taves and you have a okay supporting cast there right now and you might have enough to do it and then just take the old eight overall pick and start going from there.

I would, I think that Nashville pick is the one I would try to use to get out from under the Cbrook deal if I'm going to do anything. Yeah, but I mean, a pick that low, I can't, like, I don't know how much wiggle room that pick even affords you. Like, it's a valuable. It's still a first round pick, but it's like, don't know if it's out of, to get you out of, wow, many, seven more years, eight more. No, no, that'd be a tough one. Yeah. Because that's the thing, right? It's like, there's a bunch of those teams.

Oh, there we go. There's a bunch of teams, whether it's like. like in Arizona we've seen in the past that have taken on dead money basically to get some sort of draft capital. Yeah. But that much money that far into the future, you're basically saying like, you're shutting the door on like seven years from now, we're not even going to need that money. It's like how do you, how do you know that?

Well, yeah, I don't mean like even, let's say a team like the Canucks or Detroit teams that are kind of in that thing where hoarding assets are better and they're not too fine or they're not too bad in the cap space situation. Even then, like, I don't know if an eighth overall pick is enticing enough to. for want to take on that much money. And I think like, I don't think Seabrook, I think Seabrook can play in the NHL

is just not extremely well and the cost value isn't there. So I just don't, I don't see a match even too when doing it. And it's, Chicago's in a rock and a hard place because of the things that I mentioned that they don't have enough,

like they have supporting cast, but not something to break and they could use the eighth overall pick, but they also should try to get out of that deal. So it's, that's a really, that's not a good situation. No, no, not ideal. But you know what?

They have all those cup rings to help crimes. They can't hear us with their cup rings. Yes, yes. And then this is the point of the draft where, I mean, it includes the eighth overall pick. But, you know, when you get into nine here with New York, the Rangers, or 10 with Edmonton or even, you know, 11, 12 with the Islanders, like, I guess we'll see how the draft goes and whether there's players there, the teams are really intrigued by. But those are the picks where, like, it seems like if there's going to be fireworks,

a lot can happen, like, especially with a team like the Islanders, for example. Yeah. Like, you know, having 11 and. 12 and then this whole entire Tavares situation looming. Like if they wanted to get very creative or feisty and try to help the team right now, they could do so.

But it seems like that on their Zamo the past few years has been, under Garth Snow has been to just chill out and just take two guys. And based on the way they drafted recently, like, I'm sure someone really good is going to slip to them in one of those picks. But it's always, especially the fact that they have those two picks back to back.

Like it opens such a interesting room for just getting creative and potentially either trading them, packaging them, or doing whatever, I don't know. Yeah, they might be the team that kind of tries to move up with one of those picks to, you know, get into a four, five, six, seven spot, get a player that they want rather than hoping who falls to them. I think that myself and a lot of people kind of view it as like, you know, there's Dalene in the top. And then we got Svechenkov and Zedina's kind of the two, three in a separate tier with I put Svechenkoff, off ahead. And then it's kind of like four through 12, four through 13 that like, you know, the higher of that group is better, but, you know, the lower, it's not a huge difference between the two. So, um, you know, if you're not, you know, if you don't fixated on a certain player,

you can just kind of wait and to see who falls to you and that might be what the Islanders do. And then the Tavares situation might play a lot into it. Hmm. Okay. Um, we're going to do a little, little tease here. We're going to do a break, but afterwards, stick around because Ryan will. be telling you who his favorite sleeper and bust pick is in this year's draft. Back in a second. Before we continue on with the show, let me tell you a little bit about Seekek. Seekek's been a long time sponsor of the show, and especially this time of year, it seems

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Just download the Seekek app and enter the promo code PDO today. That's promo code PDO for $20 at the first CKeekeek purchase. Now let's get back to Ryan Beach in the HockeyPedio cast. Okay, no pressure here, Ryan, but I will say last year when I asked you this, I remember I had you and Garrett hold on a bit closer to the draft, so maybe it's unfair to you now because, maybe last year you had had more time to do research and prepare, but I'm sure you're on top of right now. And you gave me Morgan Frost as one of your favorites sort of under the radar,

sleeper guys. In 2017, 2018, it's so tough to have like the traditional sleeper because people were just so much more informed and information is out there and readily available. But, you know, outside the top, like, let's say like 15 or 20 guys where it's like not necessarily a household name yet, but this guy in his draft plus one year, everyone's going to be like salivating at his numbers and being like, how did this guy fall to 26? Yeah. Do you have any guys like that for this year's class? Oh, that's a tough one.

It's funny because you bring him Morgan Frost. I went back to look at our profiles on Canucks Army, and I think we had him like 45th, because when we do that list, we have to submit our list super early, like basically now. Right. And then we have two months to get all these posts out. So he came out a lot lower than what he actually ended up.

So then a lot of my viewings happen now to the end of the year because that's when there's actually free time. Right. And by the time I finally came on, Morgan Frost was a player that it kind of stood out to me. So, you know, it's hard. I find it really hard with this group to kind of point to a few players. Like there's some players that I really like myself.

I think that Jonathan Bergren, who is on the U-18 Swedish team, has been rising significantly in people's rankings over the last month. He had a really good U-18 showing, just really good one-on-one skills. And I think he's someone who's going to go higher than people originally anticipated even a month ago. I think, like, he could be flirting his late first. early second potential, just because people like his games. And another play that's been rising quite a bit is Martin Cout, the Czech Ford. And I want to disclaim that I am terrible at pronouncing names.

So if I am wrong on that, you can tell me now. He's another player that has been rising. He made the Czech World Championships team over Phillips, you know, and that's a pretty big accomplishment. And I think those are the two players in the late first, early second that are kind of kind of surprised people. You know, they're going to, you know, they'll probably go in that range. And then next year we'll talk about them as being, you know,

pretty good value for where they were. And Philippeel was another player last year. I don't want to add that us, Canucks Army people were pretty far on. And I can't remember what he went, 27th? Yeah, he went with, well, the Rangers gone on their second pick, yeah. 21. It was in the 20s or whatever, and it was been a surprise for people.

And he's obviously, you know, made the team of the camp. Yep. And he's been playing extremely well. So, but yeah, I think that there's a lot of players in that group that late, late first, early second, that are really interchangeable. And it's going to take teams preferences to, see who kind of stat like kind of who goes ahead of each other but those are kind of the two names that stick out to me there's a defenseman nils lundquist as well um plays really well played in the shl those are kind of things i i talked about it last year but i seem to be um anytime there's a

a teenager playing in the finish league league or the shl immediately i'm drawn to those players because of their success rates and and how well they usually come out after that right well let's let's think a bit deeper there with like with theory or philosophy for the draft like what do you what you looking for because I always find the idea of I think there's with scouting and with pro scouting there's a lot

of value to be gained from the eye test and from multiple viewings of something. But with a lot of these players come to draft especially when you get out of the first round it's just silly to me that you could have seen a guy enough times to feel super comfortable

one way or another on which way they're going to go. I mean maybe I would bring this up but you never know like the guy might be just having a crappy week you know he might have broken up with his girlfriend he might be sick you might be this and that and you just if you see him on a bad night you just write him off and be like oh this guy's not going to be a player and then all of a sudden he's amazing it's like oh well maybe that happens all the time yeah um i'm still fairly new into the like hockey circles in the scouting circles i'm a couple years in and i'm definitely noticed that it like going to giants game's year locally and then just overhearing the group of

scouts that's sitting there and they constantly talking about these players and you'll hear these things that like oh no this player isn't very good he can't skate and then you know are you watching me like what is a singing it's exactly that you'll you'll you'll wonder like what week was this kid are you watching this kid or like he heard or whatever and and that's always it's always fascinating to see how players shake out and a lot of it also comes down to the conversations that the teams have in their draft rooms like you'll have a swedish scout who says that this kid is going to be an hl player and he's the one who beats his drum loud enough and he's going to quiet the w hl scout who thinks that, you know, another player is going to be an NHL player.

And then it just so happens that they have X player or a head of Y player and it didn't work out for them. And it's always so fascinating to understand, you know, when they saw these players, why they don't like it and how much it plays into it. I think that scouting staffs are improving as a whole incorporating data into their decision process, which is good because, you know, it helps to vet opinions and biases and things like that. and we're starting to see more, you know, better results because of it.

Yeah, I'd say, you know, it's interesting. I was watching Winnipeg versus Nashville last night, game two, and, you know, you're watching a guy like Nick Eelers, and obviously he was a top prospect, but you just watch him play it and, you know, the goal-scoring ability and all that is one thing, but even if, like, he had no touch whatsoever and just had no actual skill in that regard,

like you watch what he's capable of in the neutral zone with his own entries and the ability to transition the puck just by himself and that's such a remarkable skill and that's one of those things where you know i i'd never really gotten to watch him play that much in major junior his numbers were obviously through the roof but there was i remember there was like a lot of pushback of people being like oh how good is he actually because he was playing with drew and i think and people weren't sure how much of that was him and how much of that was environment and then you know if you watch some of that tape and then it's like oh this guy is just you know a dynamic force just capable of stuff by himself. So that's obviously an extreme example. But there's guys like that where obviously viewings of him will help quite a bit because there's certain skills that might not necessarily translate into. Especially for some of these leagues, like all we have is points. And it's like, well, there's a lot not being captured with that or it might be attributing too much to a guy who's not actually who's just getting a lot of second assist or something like that. Well, up until this year, the WHL didn't track individual shots. Yeah. Like it's unfathomable in my life. I think the NCAA still doesn't even have ice time.

totals, do they? Correct, yeah. And well, neither are most of the major juniors. It's just which is, considering how much is online, like, and how much value that would provide, that is staggering to me. And how much analysis you can get out of it. Like, there's, now I think that, like, we have companies that are, you know, third-party companies and teams will pay for data and they track and can figure that stuff out. But, like, as a league, they're not tracking. They're not publicly releasing that information. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And like I said, it's just fascinates me how much of these things play into it, the role. We talked about Morgan Frost. He was kind of behind some players last year on Sue St.

Marie, and then he got a bigger role and exploded. And there's a player like that in this year's draft class, Barrett Hayton, who's a similar situation. He didn't put up, like, crazy numbers, but he was playing more of a depth role for them. Now he's projected being a 10 to 20 range because people think he has those skill set to now when he gets a bigger role, he'll kind of explode from there. So, yeah, it's always intriguing to understand why player X fell down and changed. And we saw, you know, Adrienne S Johnson with Maple Leaf's seventh round.

pick. I had some people kind of asking me that, you know, why did he fall the seventh round? And the only conclusion I could come to is he was slight. He was a skinny kid who grew a little bit when he was 17, right? And it could have been that, you know, the Swedish scouts only saw him once or twice and kind of wrote him off and didn't think of it. And then the Maple Leafs decided to take a flyer on him. And he turned out pretty okay so far. So it's, it's, it's, yeah, the best way to say, it's just fascinating. Oh, my God. Speaking of guys who have developed my like that physically. Henrik Borgstrom.

Yeah. Obviously he was a first round pick, but I remember at the time, it felt like kind of a bit of a reach by the Panthers. Or it was off the board at least, and people were like, what's going on here? And then you used to do some of the research that's like, oh, this guy just grew an insane amount and was probably having a tough time adjusting to his new body and a lot of teenage, teenager problems.

And now you watch him what he was doing at the University of Denver, and next year what he will be doing for the Panthers. And I mean, his nickname, the artist is very well deserved. He was such an insane, insane talent. And I just wanted to give a little shout out to our friends, the computer boys there for that. for that fine. Yeah,

no, I was in Buffalo. I was the first draft I attended. I wasn't lucky enough to be in the risers for day one. I wasn't legit enough. I was still not. But I remember that we were

sitting there typing away at something I can't remember and then the Florida Panthers went up and I piqued my interest obviously because of computer boys and they take handwork boards from and the mood in the room it felt like the air was sucked out

and it was a total like, who the hell is that? Yeah. Like everyone's like shuffling their papers. Yeah, I never had experienced anything like that. But definitely everyone was like who was that?

And then we see that, you know, we see that, you know, he was just grew and he was going the NCAA. And he was a wizard with the puck. He's able to carry it really well. And, you know, despite his side, he's really crafty with it. And that's kind of the thing is that how did they know? And obviously, given that, it's, you know, he had some really good underlying stuff. So, um, it was a home run pick there.

So, Eelers. Get back to Eelers. Yeah. Um, you're like, I went to Youngstars at year in here in Penticton. And that guy was just electrifying. Yeah. It was Nikolai Eilers. everyone else on the ice and um you know the size concerns weren't there um why did he fall to eighth

um even if you say you know he's really good in the drudgeoned zone how much value is there in that aside from his offensive capabilities yeah well you know when you're watching these playoffs like especially now in the second round if you just look at all eight teams that are left um the one unifying skill is they're all just really fast and really like not even it's easy. It's easy. easy to say really skilled and, you know, scoring a lot of goals. But what sticks out to me watching these games is the transition game for all those teams. Like it's how quickly they move the puck from one zone to the other and how that is, that really embodies like the developments in the game and the evolution of it. And whether that's a defenseman who can help break out there or if it's forwards who can do the carry the puck into the zone.

Like you need to be able to do that in today's NHL. And that's where the high in talent really shows the most. And I just want like, do you think? we're seeing that at this point reflected enough in the draft process in terms of what teams are valuing? Or do you think it's still, it's improved from where it was maybe five, ten years ago, but it's still lagging a bit? I think it's still improved. I still think that the teams could be definitely more efficient with their late brown picks. You know, the teams kind of stand out to me that to do that well are Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay. It's just getting skill. And then if they want to get

brewers or whatever, they'll trade for them. And I think that's a way, a much more efficient way of doing. it. I think, yeah, we're seeing it more reflected in this draft class. Like, all these kind of defensemen, there's going to be a lot of defensemen going in the early part. It's going to be a lot of defensemen in the 20 to 50 range. And there's not really, in my opinion, like those prototypical giant defensemen who can't put up points who can't move the puck well, they're just known for being physical. To some degree, all these defensemen are good at moving the puck out of the zone. And if they aren't, then they're good at carrying the puck out of the zone. And there's value in that. And I think it's the kids recognizing junior

hockey recognizing to then you know we're at this point where they're going to be drafted where these kids are understand where the NHL is going and how it's more important that the puck can move faster than anyone else on the ice yeah um and so there's value in that and that will help you get more points and and better on underlying numbers so I think that we are seeing that maturation process of hockey we're just still kind of in that infant stages of how do we recognize where there's value and where you know where a player might look good at doing it but where can it be exploited negatively and positively yeah you're right. You mentioned like Luke Shen earlier and like Eric

Branson for example. Like it you know one thing that's definitely changed over the years is teams have realized that just based on like the unpredictability of it or the value of it like goalies just aren't being taken high anymore. Like if they are it's towards the end of the second end of the first round. And then you when you get to that second third round range then teams are kind of

taking kind of swift home run swings at it. But it's no you're not I can't imagine we're ever going to see a goalie taking first overall again. And I it seems crazy to imagine now that we're going to see that type of a defenseman. The profiles like that taken in the top three to five like we have in the past. So you're right. I think at the top of the draft, it's getting a lot better. But it does still seem like you mentioned there that certain teams are good at seeing it all the way through and realizing that this guy might be a long

shot because he's playing overseas and he might not want to come here or, you know, he's under size. So we're not sure how he's going to hold up physically, but let's just take a chance anyways. Yeah. And then there's teams that are using this. they're like six-round pick on a guy who profiles as a fourth-line center. It's like if you're profiling as a fourth-line center in major junior, you will probably not be a fourth-line center when you get to the NHL level because that's just not how it works. Like those guys usually like the failed top prospects. Yeah, they usually are.

And it's, it's, you know, there's always going to be the outlier of a junior kid who just worked really hard and worked his way up. But the majority of those lower players are players that just weren't able to get offensive abilities at the top and they were taken there. So, yeah, it's. it's about adjusting the view and carrying it all the way throughout. We're seeing teams are adapting and evolving to make those better decisions. And it's, um, it is,

you know, it's making it the whole draft process better. Um, you know, obviously like a lot of people point to, you know, a successful draft quote unquote is two out of seven picks. Hmm.

But we're talking about like history. We're talking about how they were inefficient. There wasn't data being used for this. I'm curious to see how in, if we have this conversation in 10 years, what's considered an excesses or is it three? three and a half players because we have these kids who are maturing who are now going through these programs where they have an agent since they're 15 they're going into programs that are

meant to do this or understanding what needs to be done teams are getting smarter things like that and how much is changing so um and lastly you're i'm always i always trouble like uh boxing yeah i can see you see the wills training uh quintin hues is an example when like can we can we can we call him Quinn i'd like to call him queen you you're so formal you're I'm not sure if it's one end or two ends, that's the thing. Oh, verbally, you can just call him. You can just say, Quinn and just go for it. Quinn, when was the last five-nine defenseman in the conversation for top five pick?

Oh, man. And I could honestly. I mean, how many five-nine defensemen are even in the NHL right now? As much as we say it, the league is more progressive. It's like, what, it's like Jared Spurgeon? Tori Krug. Tori-Krooos. Joe Hicketts, if he makes it.

There's a handful of ones, but there's still value in those players. Oh, absolutely. But I think that that's a pretty good indication of how things are changing them. The team might be willing to take a risk on a small kid like Quinn Hughes, who just continues to put up points and is absolutely dynamic with the puck, where maybe five years ago where he's in the 10 to 20 range, despite what he's done. Right.

Well, that's the thing. I mean, you watch, let's say, like, L.A. San Jose in the first round, it's like, or no, sorry, L.A. Vegas. And you're wondering, like, oh, you know, how are Vegas's defensemen going to hold up against L.A.'s bruising forecheck and physical style? it's like, well, you don't have to worry about those questions because by the time that Forejacker gets there, the puck's already gone because the defenseman's skilled enough, right? Yeah.

Like every time Trevor Lewis or Kyle Clifford is coming in for a body check, Shay Theodore has already gotten the puck out of the zone and he can skate away. And so obviously like all things being equal, you would prefer the guy who's going to be more physically imposing and able to hold up in that regard. But those things generally aren't all things equal. And when you get in trouble is when you start overvaluing and what you're going to value in one thing for the other. And I think just take the most skilled guys.

There's nothing in the CBA that says you're not allowed to do. So you can have as much skill as you want and let everything else fall into place and figure it out after. I think the UFA market also changes things because, you know, you don't want to commit, you know, a properly run team doesn't want to commit long term to a free agent who's 26, 27, 28, 20. Right. But what you can find there is Brian Boyle.

You can find a Dominic Moore. You can find like the Canucks did a few years ago, Manny Malhotra. And you can commit a little bit more money. to that player to get them to sign for one or two years and fill that hole that you have that you might not have within your prospect group. Right. And I think that's probably the, you know, the more efficient way of getting things. And then you're not hemorrhaging yourself with a Brent Zbrook contract.

You're not committing yourself to these players who are going to fall off a map physically and not be able to keep up. So, you know, don't draft a guy that you're hoping to be a five, six defenseman. Draft a guy that you're hoping to be a three, four defenseman. And if he doesn't reach it, then he slots in your bottom pairing. that's kind of the way to go. I think that's a good way to put it. Okay, so one final thing then,

is there a guy in this year's class that's sort of, I don't know, I guess the most recent example is like Michael Rasmussen, where it's people are high on him and his numbers look okay, I guess, like just on the surface. But then if you actually, I remember the knock on him at the time the draft was, oh, well, so much it was on the power play, blah, blah, if you look at his 5-15 production, it wasn't necessarily that impressive. You know, he's basically, basically,

like a grown man playing against children in the major junior but by the time you come to the higher levels that's not going to be the case anymore and is he going to be able to keep up like is there someone in this year's class who you look at as a red flag candidate whether it's based on the production or just based on like context i guess i can't think of like a very specific one um i think that you know there's obviously the two groups there's the you know online scouting community that i'd say that people who you know do this as fun or passion or whatever and then you know michael rasmussen was that player that i was identified and he was being ranked in mock drafts as being 21, 22, 23, 24, and he still went ninth overall.

Right. I can't think of a player like that specifically, because I think that there's been an improvement in the, like the online scouting community to recognize these players ahead of time, but it's hard to know what's going to happen on draft floor. We're still going to be surprised. We're going to see the Henrik Bostroms come into the first round. We're going to see Michael Rasmus single ninth overall,

and everybody's going to be surprised. The player that has stood out to me as kind of a player that we've identified as kind of overrated as Rasmus Kupari. But he's starting to fall down draft rankings. And the player that was identified as being underrated, another finish player, Yaspari Kokonimi is rising up the draft ranking. So I think that there isn't one giant red flag player about this group. I think that they're in the top 45 to 50.

There's a lot of players that kind of project to be NHL players, whether that's a third or fourth liner or a bottom pairing defenseman. There's still something there. I don't think that we have such a. drastic player like Michael Rasmussen in this draft class. You know, if we have this conversation in late June, I might feel differently.

But at this point, I don't think there's anything standing out. All right. I think we've covered most of what I wanted to talk about here today. Is there anything else with whether it's draft theory or whether it's in particular with this year's class or from the lottery that we haven't covered that you think is notable? What makes a successful draft team?

That's like, because we talked about, you know, a team who focuses on skill or speed. Right. And obviously there's still some to that. But is there another team that sticks out to you as being successful on the draft floor? Like in terms of like actual specific individual teams? Yeah.

You know what's, I feel like Anaheim has always drafted defensemen really well under Bob Murray here. I mean, I think it was, I forget who. Someone had a like a list of like year by year and they basically have gotten like one impact defenseman. And they had a year where they had every player make the NHL. 2011 or something like that one? Well, they had the one year it was like where like they draft I mean they drafted both Justin Schultz

and Jake Gardner who they got nothing from obviously but like you know Brandon Juan tour Shea Theodore Hampus Linholm, Cam Fowler on and on and it's never you know even like who's the highest of those guys Hamas Linholm and he was like eighth or something like it

it's like a no doubt about it first overall pick and I don't know like a lot of those guys that you need to find quality they have is that they can all move and they're all skilled but I wonder where the guy like Hampus Linholm I remember looking at his numbers and I wasn't necessarily blown away or anything. And at the time of the draft, I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting. But then you watch him play it.

It's like, oh, this guy's just good at every single thing on the ice. So it makes sense that they would have taken them that high. But so I guess Anaheim is one of those teams. Like, I don't know if it's necessarily translated that well to their forwards, but just in terms of defensemen, if they take a defenseman late in the first round here or in the second round, I'm going to just chalk that guy. I'm going to pencil that guy in is like a top four guy who's going to wow me in three years. Yeah.

I agree with that. If they take a forward, you're like, yeah, he's just going to be green. Although I like Sam Steele. I think Sam Steele will be good, but yeah. I think defensemen are the hardest to kind of rate. Right. Just because I think the Skidding community still struggles amateur and professionally of identifying what makes a defenseman successful and why is another defenseman

better than another one, right? And I think that, you know, it seems with every team, there's that one or two defensemen that the coach just seems to love that you don't understand how they got here Roman Polack, Emmeline, Goodbranson, all these kind of defensemen's that you just, how are these players being rated higher? And we see that in the draft classes, you know, bruising defensemen and why is Hamas Linholm going sixth overall? Right. So it is, it's always interesting to see when you, you know, after the draft, what teams say about, you know, specific defensemen and how they actually rate. And how can teams be more efficient in doing so and improving that area?

I guess the other teams would be like the obvious ones like Tampa Bay, especially like in the later rounds. It seems like they're just sort of taking the guys with the most skill and just high stop side. And if we never hear from them four or five years from now, well, it was a fifth round pick. Yeah, or unsigned or unrafted design. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So, I know, teams like that, I don't know, you mentioned Pittsburgh earlier. Like, I think Philly has done a good job recently under the Ron Ex-Toller regime.

Is there any, for your perspective, anyone I'm missing out on that you think is done? I think those are the standout ones. I think that Philadelphia has done a really good job in identifying defensemen. And they all seem to be big kids who can move the puck really well. Proverroff is a pretty solid guy. Hague, Sanmheim,

all these players that they might not reach their potential. But it does kind of point back to there is usually one general theme is that it's teams who have accumulated a little bit more extra picks throughout time in here. Are you trying to segue towards the local team here in Vancouver? I talk about the Canucks a little too much.

but I think it seems to always be a common theme. Right. You know, it's more spins of the wheel. We talk about teams being more efficient and more, you know, better on the draft floors. But it's generally, you know, there's a lot of teams that they just get more spins of the wheel. And it's, it is a little bit of luck based when it comes to it. Well, it is still such an imperfect science, right? Like as much as you can be looking at the right indicators and you can be getting rid of a lot of the noise and all that.

But at the end of the day, it's like, if you're drafting an 18-year-old, who knows what he's going to look like when he's fully formed in his 20s and a lot of stuff happens, whether it's injuries or just doesn't develop the right way or whatever, what have you. And then all of a sudden, you know, you know, you have nothing to show from that guy. And if you just invested all, you put all your eggs in that one basket, you're going to be very disappointed. Whereas if, you know, four other guys like that, chances are one of them is going to pan out. Exactly. Yeah. You're, you know, spreading the idea around a little better. It is always interesting to develop, like, how much does situation play into it as well? Like, we talk about

Michael Rasmussen is that, you know, he was slagged by quite a few people as being a guy who, you know, scored a lot of points in power play. It doesn't seem to have a high upside or anything like that. And he's been an absolutely, like an absolute wrecking guru in the playoffs this year in the WHL just because he's been, you know, been put in situations where he's going to be able to put up a lot of points against teams that can't deal with his size. Is that going to translate to the NHL? And then when he gets into Detroit system in the AHL, how is he going to start on the fourth line? and is that going to derail everything? Sorry, when he's in Grand Rapids, is he going to start on the fourth line and work his way off from there?

Or is he going to be put in a situation where he's going to be put with two skilled forwards to try to work out and round out his offensive game? Right. So, you know, I follow the H.L pretty closely because of the comments and things like that. So we see a lot of teams that you do see where they're going to put, you know, players in situations where they're going to do well, Andreas Johnson, Carl Grunstrom in Toronto. You know, Syracuse, they just put all their young guys all over the lineup and let them do their thing. And then you see teams that might be with other affiliations where they're more leaning on

AHL veterans. And how much does that play into the development of these players? So where do you stand on the idea of drafting versus development in terms of like which you like the teams that are really good or really bad on either end of the extreme? Is it mostly that they're doing the right stuff come to draft? Or do you think it is sort of an organizational, structural, philosophical thing in terms of like what they're doing with their guys once they're already in the system that is. is helping make those draft picks look like the smart picks.

Yeah, I think it has a lot to do with organizational, because we talk about Tampa Bay, and they've always, you know, for the last couple years, the last five, six years, they've generally been one of the top teams. You know, there's been some hiccups here and there. So they're not getting players that are going to speed, you know, skip the HL step.

They're going to the HAL, and they're being putting in situations to do well. And then they're taking risks on players like a Yanni Gord or Tyler Johnson for many years ago and then giving them opportunities and letting them work their way up and things like that. I think that the, you know, the development standpoint for players is definitely underrated in this because, you know, Edmonton picked, you know, 31st overall for quite a few years,

and I don't think they have a player to show for that. Where you're going to show that Sebastian Aho came 35th and skipped the process and did really well. So, you know, how did that 31st overall player in Edmonton fizz out because of the situation in their HL team or was it just a bad pick from scouting? So I think it isn't as simply, you know, the decision making being made on, you know, draft day because that is a whirlwind basically 16 hours where, you know, there's a lot happening. And it's, it's the two, three years afterwards and how much is that changing? And how much are you controlling a player's, you know, success from there?

Right. One thing I do want to say is that I know sometimes people freak out, like after the draft we go through the same, same dance every year. So the draft happens. Then the people who are paid to do so or do it as a hobby release their draft grades or teams they like. And then people freak out and go, how do you know? You got to give you, like, let's come back in four years and see how it turned out. And I'm always very passionate about this, but you have to evaluate the draft at the time of the draft.

Because you're evaluating, from a team perspective, you're evaluating the team based on the information we had at the time. It's not hindsight or revisionist. And so I just wanted to point that out. No, I 100% agree with that. And that happens in any business. Any corporation, you're going to be, you're going to have a review based on what's happened and then you're going to go back. Yeah, of course.

And it's fun to look back four years from now, how it wound up turning out. But at the time, based on the information we had, whether you like the picks or not, that's the draft grades. Yeah. And I, like, I would only ever do a draft grade because I like, I think it's hard to put it into one or, at eight or C or D. I know. I know.

Don't get me started. I know. But I do agree that you can kind of look back and take a look at. it and I think that, you know, draft analytics has come far enough that we can look at percentages. And we can say, you know, they have a, with these six picks, they have a 72% chance of getting an NHL player or they have a, you know, 56% chance of getting two NHL players based on statistical comparable players. Right. And I think that's probably the most fair way to do so. And you do kind of have to do it at that time and then say, well, how do we do better next year as an

organization? How do we improve? What can we change? Are you going on the draft this year? I just booked my stuff for Dallas about a week ago. Oh, that's going to be awesome. Yeah, no, the draft's always a blast. I've only been to the one in Philly a few years ago, but it's always such a fun event for just networking and talking to people around industry and all that. And I believe Vancouver is, is it next year? It's next year, right?

Yeah, they're hosting in 2019. I'll probably be here for that one. Don't have to go anywhere. Someone asked if I was excited about it being in Vancouver, and I was like, uh, yes, but then I don't get a local. No, it's fun going somewhere else. Yeah, it's fun going somewhere. Last year was Chicago, you're before that.

I went to New York City for a couple days, and that was a lot of fun. And you're absolutely right. It's even as being someone who, you know, you're still a little bit of a hockey fan in there. Yeah. I went to the Cubs game a couple nights before. Yeah. There was literally anyone you could think of in the NHL world was all there. It was pretty surreal at times to see that happening.

But I see, it's a fun event. It flies by the 16 hours of actual draft because of the first night and then the next day. And then it's just everyone leaves. Like, it clears. hours. Well, the best is like the thing that I really learned, um, in my time in Philly for that draft was, I mean, I was still like, what? I mean, I was like 21 or 22 at the time.

You're so young. Um, and I remember like, so there's the first, the first round on Friday night. And then everyone goes out afterwards after everyone files their stories and you're having drinks at the bar. And then, you know, you have a couple drinks here. And then a couple more. And then Saturday morning rolls around and, you know, second round starts bright and early. Just like roll off to the ring.

just like sunglasses on just struggling. And then you see like the consimate pros who have been doing it for like 30 years and you wouldn't even be able to tell they were out last night, like got their new suit on like a impression. I'm like, you're like 50 years old. How are you pulling this off so gracefully?

Yeah. So yeah, that's for any young enterprising writers out there that are attending this year's event, that would be my one tip to, don't let the veterans get to you. Yeah, drink some water. Yes, drink some water. There's another gathering prior to.

Friday night as well. So, uh, pace yourself and, uh, have fun. It's a cool experience. So, for sure. All right, um, plug some stuff. What, uh, what are you working on right now? Where can people follow you online? All that good stuff. Uh, they can follow me online at Ryan Beach, P-I-E-C-H. I write for Canucks Army, the athletic Vancouver, uh, connects.com. Um, and I am on SportsNet 650 as well, um, the local radio station here. We're going to be doing, um, up until the draft to doing at least an hour a week, um, in studio of talking draft prospects. So that should be a lot of fun. So then,

And, you know, if you listen closer to June, I'll have an overrated prospect for you. Awesome. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks for coming on to Chad. It was a blast, and I'm sure we'll have you back on sometime here down the north. Thanks for having me. Cheers, man. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich.

Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud. At soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.