Nik the Trik said:
herman said:
I get what you're saying here with the NHL track records being short/non-existent/replacement level; I think in a Cap system, the path to success is to pick up a defenseman on the cheap (draft, import free-agency, trade throw-in) before they start to establish a record and build them up to the point they have value. Obviously a top 10- pick helps a lot, but top 10 defensemen picks are not nearly as strong an indicator of talent as it is for forwards.
I'll be sure to mention to Scott Niedermayer, Zdeno Chara, Chris Pronger, Drew Doughty and the like that their teams did success the wrong way. Maybe they'll give back their rings?
No matter how you add contributing NHL talent, the point is to add it. Believing in their ability to find that talent in harder to find places is fine but I don't think that's any more or less practical than, say, believing in their ability to also be able to find a truly elite defender in the top 10 even if other teams occasionally fail.
Perhaps I wasn't explicit enough in saying that was in the context of our current situation where top-10 picks are generally no longer within our reach (barring a prudent trade with a sad-sack partner). Your point is well taken though.
Nik the Trik said:
for all the talk of how Dubas and Co. really shifted things around and disrupted the system with all of their "We want to draft and develop good players" innovation I don't think there's a point in time where you can look at the Leafs roster and not see a handful of reasonably decent players who passed through the Leafs' AHL affiliate at some point. Is the current crop better than average? I'm not sure.
Right now we've got Nylander, Hyman, Brown, Kapanen, Johnsson, Dermott, Carrick, Leivo on the Leafs lineup that has gone through Dubas' Marlies. Gauthier and Soshnikov had spells with the team.
The last stable Leafs team of Nonis' era was
2013-14, and this was largely the work of Brian Burke, anyway. Here are the players that hit that roster coming through the AHL: Kadri, Carter Ashton, Trevor Smith, bits of Peter Holland, Troy Bodie (current director of pro scouting!), Jerry D'Amigo, Mark Fraser, James Reimer, Greg McKegg, Jerred Smithson, Drew McIntyre, Spencer Abbott, and Jamie Devane.
2014-15 was just as crazy/futile.
Outside of Kadri and Rielly and Gardiner (who are higher end picks), the best AHL grads from the Leafs own system I can last remember are Matt Stajan and Alex Steen (and Kyle Wellwood).
So that's the context in which I'm saying Dubas' Marlies program is something I'm excited about; admittedly it is a very, very low hurdle.
