The New Unending Flyers thread

[phillychuck]

Not all that significant...reportedly, draft talent is pretty even from about pick 20 through picks in the mid-second round this year. You have to hope to get lucky.

[zambonir]

I think it's a lot more than luck in hockey. But if your scouting is good, yeah, 24 vs. 32 vs. second round shouldn't matter.

[Austinfan]

Flyers have good scouts, just look at last year's draft with Briere/Flahr.
Michkov (7), Bonk (22), Bjarnason (51), Zavragin (87), Barkey (95), Sotheran (135)
Bonk and Barkey have been key players for London, Zavargin top goalie in VHL, Sotheran one of the best D-men in CHL playoffs. Bjarnason the only disappoint in the top picks.
2022: Bump (133), MacDonald (165), Gendron (220) all playing well above their draft slot
2021: Kolosov (78)
2020: Andre (54)
2019: Brink (34), Attard (72)
Like the baseball draft, after the first round, it's more about hits than misses, b/c you miss on most

Problem has been GMs, not scouting and development.
With this kind of scouting, you want more, not less, draft picks.

[Docs]

outside of the goalies, later round picks that hit typically have role player upside. its still possible and a little more likely for a late first to be a top line player, a few of my favorite players (Gagne & Giroux) were drafted in the twenties.

100% agree with you all with the tiers, my understanding is that the drop off this year is at 16, and another at 40, so a few spots in the first are similar lottery tickets. While all scouting departments do not have the same exact lists, there is some overlap. It is possible that wherever the Flyers pick, the player that they take was higher on their board - and the higher that Florida pick, the more likely another team didn't snake their ideal target ahead of them.

Not the end of the world of course, but I had a small rooting interest in that pick being as high as possible just as I'll hope the most likely deferred second rounder from columbus next year is as high as possible.

[zambonir]

Well, that's where it does become luck as much as scouting I guess but it always starts with the latter. Mike Richards was also picked where Gagne and Giroux were. So were Laughton and Konecny. The young forward core of the Stars team that just made the conference finals two years in a row are all late or second-round picks (Robertson, Johnston, Stankoven with Bourque to follow, plus Hintze. Europeans always seem like a better pay-off in the second or third round too).

It will be interesting to see which of all these picks actually get used by the Flyers over the next two drafts.

Plus, we would have had to root for the Rangers (I kind of was tbh but I didn't want them to win the Cup).

[Aquapong]

Just eyeballing the last 15 drafts or so, to get a game changer you need to pick in the top 12. Yeah there are a few exceptions, but not many. Likewise there are some notable busts. The Flyers certainly have the capital to move up if they are really in love with someone.

[zambonir]

Well, a "game changer" is not even the same thing as a top line player. We know they're not getting an automatic star but someone who can play on the top two lines (or pairs) with #1 upside is doable.

[xogfog]

The 2003 draft was great and awful, in the first round they got Jeff Carter and Mike Richards, and they had a bunch of picks in the later rounds and they were all flops.

[Docs]

Thought this was interesting - by purchasing cap friendly outright the capitals are benefitting from the sites data and team while taking this data away from the rest of the league. The article mentions several NHL teams that have been notified that their contracts with the site will be terminated in a month.

Capitals to Purchase, Privatize Popular NHL Salary Site CapFriendly

[zambonir]

Yeah I didn't realize teams had private contracts with it. The website will shut down.

Kind of surprising this has never happened in baseball, they've just hired dozens of individuals.

[flyers19rw]

Try using Puckpedia.com. Not as good as Capfriendly but not bad. Puckpedia will probably be upgraded as time goes by

[bkeich]

Thought this was interesting - by purchasing cap friendly outright the capitals are benefitting from the sites data and team while taking this data away from the rest of the league. The article mentions several NHL teams that have been notified that their contracts with the site will be terminated in a month.

Capitals to Purchase, Privatize Popular NHL Salary Site CapFriendly

I have to wonder if this isn’t stopped due to the anti-trust elements of the purchase. They are literally taking control of a tool used by other teams and giving themselves a competitive advantage. It is obviously a gray area, I am by no means a legal knowledgeable person, but this is strongly anti-competition.

Someone will make a similar website / set of tools because there is money to be made.

[andyb]

I have to wonder if this isn’t stopped due to the anti-trust elements of the purchase. They are literally taking control of a tool used by other teams and giving themselves a competitive advantage. It is obviously a gray area, I am by no means a legal knowledgeable person, but this is strongly anti-competition.

I don't see it that way as there are other sites that present the same data as cap friendly, just not in such a user friendly way.

My question is more on the Caps side and what they get out of this. Can't imagine they did not have most of this information already and it seems an expensive way to get what is not really a competitive advantage since it is working with public and not private data.

[Docs]

they are taking on the whole staff - so if they wanted to build this kind of internal resource they know the staff is qualified and there is no wait time to build a new internal platform

[zambonir]

Yeah there's certainly no legal issue just because CapFriendly was an independent contractor for a few teams (including the Caps).

I'm assuming it wasn't really that expensive. Probably cheaper than hiring a few new employees (over time). The difference now is they will actually have the confirmed contract information instead of just relying on public reports.

The website says it's an independent site and not in any way affiliated with teams, I'm assuming that disclaimer just became outdated at some point.

[bkeich]

I have to wonder if this isn’t stopped due to the anti-trust elements of the purchase. They are literally taking control of a tool used by other teams and giving themselves a competitive advantage. It is obviously a gray area, I am by no means a legal knowledgeable person, but this is strongly anti-competition.

I don't see it that way as there are other sites that present the same data as cap friendly, just not in such a user friendly way.

My question is more on the Caps side and what they get out of this. Can't imagine they did not have most of this information already and it seems an expensive way to get what is not really a competitive advantage since it is working with public and not private data.

I assume it is the tools analyzing that public data (and the work of the people that wrote them) that they are purchasing. They are taking those tools and more importantly taking them away from their competitors. I assume someone immediately saw the opportunity and started writing similar tools, as there is now a clear void as other teams will lose access to this analysis.

I don’t think it is a big deal, but in the short term the Caps will have access to analyzed data that other teams will lose.

[xogfog]

7 round mock from Corey Pronman at The Athletic. He has the Flyers taking:

Round 1 - 12 Konsta Helenius, C, 31 Sam O’Reilly, RW
Round 2 - 36* Linus Eriksson, C, 51 Cole Hutson, D
Round 3 - 77 Henry Mews, D
Round 5 - 148 Frans Haara, D, 150 Matyas Melovsky, C
Round 6 - 173 Marek Howell, D, 177 Thatcher Bernstein, G
Round 7 - 205 Miroslav Satan, C

In other news, we were told we should hear something about Michkov in late June, hopefully before the draft starts on the 27th.

[Squire]

A lot of twitter smoke today about a deal between the Flyers and Ottawa to occur sometime before the draft.

[Docs]

I love the rumor mill but hate it when zero details emerge lol. If it includes a swap of 12 for 7 i wonder who the flyers like in that range, looking forward to the early offseason and draft

Also looking forward to finding out if the blue jackets will keep their second rounder, either way i think there’s an upside but looking forward to it being decided and i haven’t seen any reports to indicate where they are leaning

[zambonir]

I got the impression smoke was the operative word but we shall see.