With the Carolina Hurricanes on the brink of missing the playoffs for the ninth straight season, there are countless ways to slice and dice the data to come up with causes.
When I work through the Hurricanes roster, the team seems deeper than it was a few years ago both at the NHL level and in terms of its prospect pool. But while the Hurricanes might be increasing their ability to fill out the bottom part of the roster, there are still gaps in the top half. In my series a short time ago, I identified holes in the top 6 forward group and also in the top 4 on defense. There are multiple avenues to fill such slots. Trades and free agent signings are a possibility, but the prices are high and the odds low of obtaining players who legitimate slot at the very top of a lineup. As proven by Sebastian Aho, Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce, it is possible to get top players in later rounds of the NHL draft. But the one area that offers the most promise if the first round of the NHL draft. And in terms of identifying reasons for the Hurricanes continued struggle to push up above the midway point of the standings and into the playoffs, the lack of realized production from the first round of the draft is worth considering.
Not since Jeff Skinner in 2010
Counting realized results and not potential and projections, I think it is fair to say that the Carolina Hurricanes have not netted a pure top half of the roster player with a first-round draft pick since Jeff Skinner in 2010. Elias Lindholm is in the neighborhood, but if he qualifies with his pace again for low 40s in points, it is by a small margin and definitely as a #9 or #10 player (out of 20) not a top 5. Otherwise in seven tries, the Hurricanes have yet to net a top half of the roster player.
Too low of picks? Or not the right choices?
Not getting the elite players desired in the first round can be attributed to two things. First is simply not drafting high enough. Especially drafting in the top two or three picks has a much higher probability of selecting a ‘can’t miss’. Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Auston Matthews, Aaron Ekblad and others made drafting easy as ready-to-go NHL stars.
The other angle is simply not getting the right players. While it is no doubt easier to get top half of the roster players in the top few picks, by no means is it impossible to get elite players much later in the first round. So while a completely horrible season or two and a top pick overall would certainly have helped, to blame the team’s draft fortunes solely on this is inaccurate.
Carolina Hurricanes first-round draft picks by year
2011 Ryan Murphy at #12
As a high upside offensive defenseman, Murphy was a bit of high risk/high reward choice who never figured it out enough defensively and never really translated his offensive upside to the NHL level and therefore was a miss. The 2011 draft has not yielded a ton of talent from the second half of the first round, so the ‘could have had ____’ regrets are minimal. But what if the Hurricanes had been a bit worse and moved up into the top 10? Any of Mika Zibanejad, Mark Scheifele, Sean Couturier, Jonas Brodin or Dougie Hamilton who were selected 6-10 respectively would have been a nice upgrade.
2013 Elias Lindholm at #5
How time flies. Elias Lindholm is suddenly a 23-year old NHL veteran who is approaching 400 games played at the NHL level. He has established himself as a capable all-around top 9 forward, but he has yet to really get anywhere close to being elite or a true first line type difference-maker. And nearing the end of his fifth full season in the NHL, the chance of significantly more upside is decreasing. The big ‘what if’ for this draft is Sean Monahan who was selected right after Lindholm. Many had Monahan rated above Lindholm, so it was clearly an either/or choice for the Canes. Especially for a team that could desperately use a true top line scoring center to complement Jordan Staal’s line, Monahan’s 137 goals compared to Lindholm’s 63 is glaring. Monahan has become the top line center that the Hurricanes hoped for in Lindholm when drafting him. To be clear, Lindholm is a good and useful player, but he just is not on the same level as Monahan as far as offensive production now through nearly five seasons.
2014 Haydn Fleury at #7
Haydn Fleury has taken a step-wise path in his development and just arrived at the NHL level this season. His rookie season has been another of step-wise progress. He has had a decent 2017-18, and it is reasonable to think that he will improve in his second season in 2018-19. But in a sport where increasingly players still at or under 20 years old often emerge all of a sudden, Fleury right now projects to be another serviceable middle of the lineup player not really the type of elite player who drives wins. Selected right after Fleury were William Nylander and Nikolaj Ehlers who both represent good young offensive forwards. Both are scoring at a clip just short of Aho and Teravainen thus far in 2017-18.
2015 Noah Hanifin at #5
In a draft that featured a generational talent in Connor McDavid and another elite NHL forward in Jack Eichel, the Hurricanes’ #5 slot was good given the depth of the draft. And from everything I remember reading around that time period, the top group of five stood out from the next group such that the Hurricanes seemed almost certain to take whichever of the big five were left. That turned out to be Noah Hanifin. Because of the near unanimous agreement among experts, I do not think one can even consider faulting the Hurricanes for taking Hanifin here. That said, now three years later, he is still a #5/#6 defenseman who has yet to reach the high ceiling envisioned for him when he was drafted. From just a few spots behind Hanifin, Ivan Provorov with Philadelphia and Zach Werenski with Columbus are two defensemen who are already a season plus deep in top 4 roles on teams that have made the playoffs recently.
2016 Jake Bean at #13 and Julien Gauthier at #21
Again going with best available over prioritizing the forward position, the Hurricanes used their first pick in the 2016 draft to add another defenseman with a high ceiling offensively but work to do in terms of rounding out physically and defensively. Just approaching two years past that draft, it is far too early for a final verdict on Jake Bean who will not even play his first professional season until next year. But it is fair to say that the Hurricanes would pay highly for a do-over. In taking Bean who was an undersized defenseman with a ton of offensive skill but work to be done defensively, the team passed on two other defensemen whose names were possible in that range. Both players rated as more well-rounded even if with less offensive upside, and both players were also more or less NHL-ready physically with good NHL size and maturity physically. Those players are Charlie McAvoy who was selected immediately after Bean and Jakob Chychrun who selected three slots after Bean. McAvoy has ascended rapidly and is playing in a top defense pairing role on a playoff-bound Bruins team. Chychrun has also established himself as a top 4 defenseman at the NHL level. If there was a mulligan to be had on the draft in the past few years, the selection of Jake Bean at #13 might be it.
2017 Martin Necas at #12
The latest hope to find an elite star outside of the top few picks in the draft is 2017 draftee Martin Necas. He looks incredibly promising and probably rates as a top 5 selection in a redraft. So the hope is there, but it is premature to declare success before he steps foot into the NHL.
Netting it out
At the most basic level, the Carolina Hurricanes first-round draft picks have not yielded enough since the selection of Jeff Skinner in 2010.
The blue line situation is most interesting. The Hurricanes have spent three recent first-round picks (Fleury, Hanifin, Bean) on top 4 defensemen, but as of yet have not netted a top 4 defenseman. Meanwhile the group of players selected shortly after them creates an impressive list of defenseman that could build a very good top 4 group by themselves. The ‘what ifs’ is Zach Werenski, Ivan Provorov, Charlie McAvoy and Jakob Chychrun are a impressive group that could help the Hurricanes build a second defense pairing.
Are some combination of Elias Lindholm, Haydn Fleury, Noah Hanifin, Jake Bean, Julien Gauthier and Martin Necas on the verge of breaking out and pushing the Canes up to the next level? With the team still stuck just below the playoff cut line, that might be what it takes to reach the next level.
What say you Canes fans?
1) Do you attribute the lack of marquee players from the first round of the draft more to not being bad enough to select higher or to just not getting the right players?
2) What do you see as the chances that players like Hanifin, Lindholm, Fleury and Bean ultimately emerge as elite players and make this analysis look completely different in 1-2 years?
Go Canes!
Hurricanes biggest problem is they don’t tank. Edm,Tor,Pitt,and Wash all tanked for a two year period. Meanwhile the Canes go on winning steaks at the end of every season and miss playoffs and kill draft positioning. I respect that our team doesn’t quit. But for some reason the hockey gods rewarded all the teams who tanked an not a hard working team like ours. We need some luck like NJ had this year in draft.
Our 1st round drafting since moving to Carolina has been abysmal.
2017 12th Necas (unknown)
2016 13th Bean, 23rd Gauthier (unknown)
2015 5th Hanifin (undetermined 3-4 dman)
2014 7th Fluery (undetermined 5-6 dman)
2013 5th Lindy (solid but not great)
2012 none
2011 12th Ryan (BUST)
2010 7th Skinner (Goal scorer but minus player)
2009 23rd Paradis (BUST)
2008 14th Boychuk (BUST)
2007 11th Sutter (solid 3rd line player)
2006 none
2005 3rd J Johnson (major mistake would not sign with Canes. Traded)
2004 4th Ladd (good player)
2003 2nd Staal (best drafted player we have ever had)
2002 25th Cam Ward (great pick)
2001 15th Knyazev (who? BUST)
2000 none
1999 16th Tanabe (BUST)
1998 11th Heerema (BUST)
1997 22nd Tselios (BUST)
Honestly should let fans pick first round have a better shot at getting a good player! Absolutely horrendous
“Tanking” as a method of collecting top talent and being successful in the league is greatly overrated, particularly in the era of salary cap and the draft lottery.
Look at Buffalo which as an institution tanked (players don’t tank because it is not in their personal and professional interest to do so) and got a generational player in Eichel – how has that worked out 3 years later?
Edmonton drafted first how many times before getting McDavid. Other than last season the Oilers remain a train wreck and will continue to be marginal (the next NYI) for seasons to come.
I won’t disagree with your assessment of our first round picks.
Yes but they got
EDM McDavid, and 3 other #1 picks (they screwed up on)
Buf Eichel
Wash Ovie and Semin
Pitt Crosby and Malkin
Tor Mathews,Marner,Kap,Nylander
I actually hate tanking and think every team should have same chance in lottery. Pissed at the hockey gods for rewarded such cowardice.
EDM may have those picks/players but they are not being rewarded in the standings.
BUF deliberately tanked (i.e., traded a lot of experienced assets away) to get Eichel. They are still bad 3 years later.
TOR didn’t tank – they were just bad.
PIT (maybe WAS?) is the exception, not the rule.
Good article Matt.
Jake might be the only surprise drafted before Necas, but I doubt it.
I don’t think any of our current NHL roster defensemen from the first draft will move to a higher level, stepwise improvements yes, but not rankwise.
I have not been a fan of the Canes first round selections for a long time now, though Necas could be a dark horse that I totally overlooked but I remain high on him (maybe because you have to be optimistic about something).
I think d men are harder to predict and therefore first round picks used on d men are higher risk (lower than a goalie, but higher than forwards).
I was particularly unhappy with picking Jake (nothing personal) and never saw the logic behind picking Fleury.
And the number of formittable first round d men drafted after the canes drafted theirs definitely makes me question the decisions at the podium.
Another interesting blog to write is evaluating the hall for trading away pending UFAs to other teams.
I don’t think the Canes have managed to get back an NHL player in those trade deadline deals, though that could change.
so trading away your best players for players and picks that don’t turn out is not in itself a winning strategy.
I think staal in particular should have fetched a first rond pick, not a second rounder.
I don’t even consider Skinner to be a top line player. Just because he has scored 30+ goals during a handful of seasons doesn’t quantify top line status. I think because the ‘Canes have always been such a goal starved team it’s easy to see Skinner as our top line forward, but in reality he doesn’t excel defensively, rarely passes to his linemates and tries to do it all himself while losing the puck with his dipsy doo moves. (this is why he needs to play with unselfish, low scoring linemates).
Simply put, besides Aho/Necas and the Tuevo trade (potential 1st liners), we have not drafted a 1st liner since 2003 with Eric Staal.
This is a huge issue. If I am Tom Dundon I want a major overhaul of the scouting department. A small market team cannot win with bad drafting, and the Canes have been poor in the first round where you need to find your marquis players.
Murphy, Fluery and Bean all have the same problem. They come from Major Juniors. They are stuck there unless they make the NHL until they are 21. These defensemen don’t develop playing teenagers. They are physically superior and are able to do what they want which leads to bad habits. Kids that go through the NCAA or European route have options. They play against older, stronger players either in college, AHL, or European pro leagues. I would avoid CHL defensemen in the first round unless they were a total slam dunk.
The Canes had three top 10 picks in a row 2013-15 and didn’t do well. Hanifin may yet develop into a star, but Lindholm and Fluery look to be serviceable pros at best. Need to do better than 1/3 with top 10 picks.
I hope I’m wrong about Bean, but he hasn’t impressed me at all. Looks like another all offense, no defense player. The Canes have more than their share of those on the blueline right now.
Golden’s list is strong evidence. But I am still not sure I would convict the organization of failing. Mainly because of the players chosen before some of the Canes’ picks.
The two players chosen directly ahead of Fleury were: Dal Colle and Virtanen. Neither appear clearly superior at this point.
As bad as Murphy turned out, the D-man selected with the prior pick, Duncan Siemans, hasn’t fared that much better.
So, while Monahan is a clear example of a missed opportunity in hind sight, I am not sure the overall case is as damning as it first appears. Outside the first 2-3 picks, most drafts offer difficult choices. Just for example, from what is available online today it appears that in 2011 Mark Scheifele was considered a risky pick at No. 7.
I think the first round might indicate that the organization is too cautious if anything. They seem to go for the “safe” choice. After the first round, the organization has been able to find quite a few players that are better than those drafted around them: Faulk, Rask, Slavin, Pesce, even DiGiuseppe and McGinn would be rated as among the best from the 2013 second round. Several current prospects (Roy, Mattheos, Helvig) might also one day be considered steals even though Bean and Gauthier could both be first round misses.
Like most things, the story of the organization’s first round choices is complex.
I agree…While I do think it is fair to say that the recent run of first round picks has not yielded what one might reasonably hope for, I do not think it is as simple as chucking the scouting department under the bus.
The team has actually fared very well with later round picks netting Slavin, Pesce, Rask, Faulk and Aho. And there is an element of luck/dice roll with drafting. But that said, having even one more bonafide star from the recent group would be significant.
VERY well. Aho is still the 5th highest scorer of the 2015 draft (behind McDavid, Eichel, Marner and Rantanen and he’s within 15 career points of the last two.
Of course having one more star would be significant, we all recognize that, but drafting like trading, like free agency, can be a crap shoot at times. Further, it’s important to recognize that all 31 teams do not exist in a vaccuum. Both available opportunities and organizational culture play huge roles in determining early development and overall success.
Before RF, we weren’t even drafting NHLers in the first round (outside of Skinner). We just stocked nearly our entire defense and a lot of depth scoring. If all it takes is one more pick to set it off, I think we’re doing pretty well. Gauthier and Bean are both under 20, so let’s not be writing either off as of yet. NHLers not fully developing until they’re 22-23 is still common place even if the McDavids and Skinners of the world are throwing off the curve.
RF actually hit more on 2nd – on draft choices pretty well.
I understand how iffy the draft is but at least hit every couple years. Our history is horrible.
I think it is more likely that the Canes might want to claim a do-over for Gauthier than Bean. In his draft year Gauthier fell from a presumptive top-10 pick (or better) to 21…for a reason. We should have noted that reason. As I once said (here?) when I went to Charlotte to watch a couple of Checkers games, Gauthier and I were doing the same thing…watching a couple of hockey games. Except he was on ice. That said, of course, I will give him credit for starting to work to improve his game. When he is moving his feet and skating he shows off what he can do.
Bean, on the other hand, will be a valuable left-side option or a decent trade chip. The one thing he has shown me in juniors is that he makes his team better – look no further than last season when he returned from injury. His team’s fortunes reversed themselves completely when he came back into the lineup.
But I think you are right, Matt. Francis tended to be conservative with his picks – and it is really a role of the dice. Meanwhile, Rutherford was very focussed – but frequently off – in selecting what he wanted (Murphy and Lindy) and then misusing them (particularly Lindy).
And I wonder how much of it is the player and how much of it is his usage/coaching.
I tend to agree with what ct says. It’s easy to look back and say we made the wrong pick, but all picks outside of the top-3 are usually difficult to make, even at the very top of the draft: look at Pierre-Luc Dubois and Jess Puljujärvi at #3/#4 in 2016. The next 2 forwards were Tkachuk and Clayton Keller. Do you think those teams aren’t saying the same thing?
The other point often overlooked is that most of these other teams were playoff teams before the player arrived – the drafted player contributed obviously but didn’t cause the team to make the playoffs. Maybe we’d like to have Charlie McAvoy or Zach Werenski or Ivan Provorov, but who’s to say they would be any better on the Canes or that Fleury/Hanifin wouldn’t have performed better on those teams. Playoff teams can digest any draft pick better than we can.
I’m not saying we’ve drafted well – clearly we haven’t and have missed some excellent players taken around us – but we’ve not had and are still looking for the core group of dynamic players to build around that all these other players mentioned have on the teams where they’ve been drafted. I happen to believe that we’re actually very close, wrongly perhaps, and that our d-core plays much better with one solid veteran ([insert 30-yr old blue-collar guy]) and our forwards slot better with one Top-6 difference-maker.
The goal for this offseason to me is to find these two players, and I’d be willing to give up quite a bit to solve these two problems. Then I think our draft picks start to look better.
It is easy to look back 3-7 years and see how a first round pick was a miss. But I like to challenge myself, so I will make my 2018 pick (as of today, it may change based on several factors).
Currently the Canes look to be drafting 10 or 11.
Based on almost all analysts, that means all of the top tier players (Dahlin, Svechnikov, Zadina, Wahlstrom, etc.) will be gone. Given that, I would trade down from the 10/11 spot to around 22nd. At 10/11, it is likely one of the coveted D-men is still available, so I would think there would be takers for switching 1st rounders. I would hope the return would be a 2nd rounder–this is a deep draft with several strong prospects in the 2nd.
With the 22nd pick I would choose Martin Kaut. As discussed at C&C before, the Canes need more talent/depth at RW. Kaut is the best option after Zadina and Wahlstrom. He has produced in both an adult professional league (actually more productive in the Czech league than Necas last season) and international play. He seems to have chemistry with Necas (think of a slightly taller version of Aho with Teravainen). Because he fits a need and creates a Czech connection, I think it makes the most sense to draft Kaut even if he is “rated” as a slightly lesser prospect than players like Veleno and Kotkaniemi who would be available at 10/11.
Now in 4 years when Dominik Bokk and Ryan McLeod are budding stars, everyone here will know that I too can fail at choosing NHL first rounders!!
Even if you just draft a starter. You would have already done better than most of our GMs have.
I find this discussion to be fascinating. I would like to throw in my 2 cents.
Back in the old days (The original 6 and then in the days of the 12), it was widely held that a defenseman was not considered to be NHL ready until he had toiled in the minors for many years. The 30th birthday was the cross over point. Of course, there were exceptions;Bobby Orr, the Watson brothers, etc. But by and large, d men had to wait until they were 30.
I just read a column by Justin Lowe in Hockey Buzz where he offers a new time for young d men’s rite of passage to the NHL. 250 games.
He goes on to say how difficult it is to keep up with speedy and tricky forwards and to meet the demands of the job (e.g. keeping a good gap, an “active stick”).
I think we all agree that our d corps has been less than spectacular. Let’s see how many games we are talking about:
Faulk 473 games
Hanifin 231 games
TVR 227 games
Slavin 217 games
Pesce 215 games
Dahlbeck 160 games
Fleury 57 games
Wow!
I wonder how we would have done if we were more patient with Ryan Murphy?
So I guess that means a d man doesn’t get ready for prime time until into his 4th season in the NHL? Hmmm!
I mean, by and large, the stats do bear that out.
Bad drafting I think. While drafting as a whole can be a crapshoot, there are plenty of examples in recent years where kids picked after the Canes are doing better than the Canes pick. Bean and Gauthier both come to mind as issues, though mostly Bean. I still don’t get that pick. I hope he becomes the second coming of Chris Letang like he was compared to, but I don’t have high hopes.
I’d like to think a new coach will bring out the best in Hanifin and Lindholm. Both players had guys drafted after them doing better, but maybe they can catch up.
For those of you with a subscription to the Athletic, they came out a nice article ranking the 30 teams (excludes Vegas) at draft performance.
Here’s the link: https://theathletic.com/277861/2018/03/20/from-worst-to-first-ranking-how-each-nhl-team-performs-at-the-draft/
Here’s how they ranked the Canes:
4. Carolina Hurricanes
Avg Games per pick: 56.8 (4th)
Top 105 NHL players under 25 *writer subjective*: 17.1 (2nd)
Average pick position: 100 (8th)
The Hurricanes have gotten a lot of good, young, smart players and have hit on a high percentage of their picks for a while now. Noah Hanifin was an all-star this season, while Jaccob Slavin remains one of the more underrated defencemen in the league. The only thing holding the ‘Canes out of the top-three has been their limited ability to find premium scoring talent. The closest they’ve gotten is with Aho, who has 25 goals already this season.
We were ranked behind only Winnepeg, Tampa Bay and Anaheim. The basic point of the article is, if you look at the whole, the Canes have been doing just fine drafting of late. Hopefully Ron is still overseeing the draft because since he took over hockey operations in 2011, our draft record has been pretty damn good, comparatively.
Fogger. As always, love the enthusiasm especially when you back it up with information.
One point of clarification. Slavin might be one of the most underrated defensemen in the league, but he is third “most underrated” on the team. TVR has been strong all year. I know people love to assign numbers, so I would have to say TVR is a strong 3-4 D-man. Yet most consider him an average 5-6. I even think he could provide some moderate offense. I won’t re-argue my belief in Pesce, but I will repeat that he is not as appreciated as he should be.
Finally, Aho in the second and Teravainen in a salary deal are better than many teams’ first round picks. I think TT is near his ceiling, but he will consistently get 60-65 points. While I believe Aho has one more level and ends up being 80-85 point center for the next decade.
Van Riemsdyk is an interesting case. The starting point is to say that he has been absolutely phenomenal in his role as a steady #5. He has probably been the most of consistent of the bunch and provided a good amount of sound/steady for Fleury’s acclimation to the NHL and also next to Hanifin when he fell to the 3rd period and started his ascent offensively.
But for defenseman, I do not think it is possible to play your way up from #5 to #4 without actually stepping into the role and playing regular shifts in a top 4 role that sees a heavy helping of elite offensive players, especially on the road.
I did not include it in my “initiatives” article, but it might also be interesting to see van Riemsdyk try a run of games in a top 4 role next to Slavin.
One reason that van Riemsdyk was available was because he had not been able to climb over that hump in Chicago. Reports from a couple people who track the Blackhawks were that he was a capable third pairing defenseman but at least in Chicago was in over his head boosted into the top 4. Worth noting was that a big chunk of that was playing on his off side and with Seabrook who might not really be a top 4 himself.
I have read many articles like this in the past that try to come at draft rankings from a stats ranking. My general issue with most is that in trying to put math to it/be objective, the general approach is use “games played” or similar to rank teams. At a general level, I think that misses the point. The goal is to get players who are significantly above the “serviceable/can play in the NHL”. The reason is that there is not a ton of value in drafting a ‘meh’ #9 type forward. You can always buy that kind of player for a reasonable price in free agency if you do not have enough. The only significant value is in adding players who are more ‘top half of the roster’ players (term I like) or better. Those players cannot be added easily via trade or free agency.
So getting back to the Athletic article and its rankings…I like the “Top 105 player metric”. That is at least a try to count players who are above the serviceable/easily replaceable level. And the Canes rate well in that regard, and the article obviously paints a favorable picture of the Canes drafting in total. But back to my original article, I still think the Canes are light on real difference-makers so far from first-round picks. 5 of the 7 players highlighted were 2nd round or later. And I stand by more original assessment that Hanifin is not yet (potential still intact) a top half of the roster player and that Lindholm is right on the cut line for that.
Shorter version: Canes are doing well in drafting good players below the first round. The first round is thus far a story of unrealized potential.
Can’t argue with you there, Matt, but in all of those cases (including Lindholm’s) there is a lot of potential development years still to go. Especially with the 18-19 year olds from the last two drafts, the jury is still very much out. Not to say that any of our prospects will be the star that we’re looking for (though I have high hopes for Necas) but it’s important to remember that several of today’s stars (e.g Claude Giroux, Blake Wheeler, William Karlsson, Brad Marchand, Wayne Simmonds, etc. etc.) were slower on the development curve.
I agree it would be nice to get an instant winner lottery pick too, but we’ve been doing the best we can with what we’ve got more often than not.
Quick thing first…Someone (not Cory actually) asked if it was okay to post links to articles in the comments.
The simple answer is yes. Obviously spammy type links that are unrelated to the discussion will be deleted immediately. But links that contribute to the discussion at hand are welcome.
Not intentionally but by default, the site management automatically holds comments that have multiple links (as a way to prevent the spammy stuff). Those will get approved and appear (if appropriate obviously), but might see a lag. We do not have full-time admin monitoring things constantly.
This is one area where in retrospect you make a draft what you want it to be, i.e.; you are either inclined to prove it was bad or prove that it was good. For example, most of the writers on this site seem to rate Fleury as a failure and thus their opinion of the draft for that year is negative. I don’t share that opinion. To me Fleury has performed well in his first year in the league and as he continues to gain experience will be an excellent defenseman. He has to learn without the availability of having an experienced shutdown type defense partner causing his lessons in the NHL all to have to come from learning on the fly. I might add, that the Canes fan community seems to emphasize the negative to most everything associated with the team. This is probably due to the team’s lack of success overall. This lack of team success leads us to constantly dissecting why we failed to win which leads us to constantly point out every perceived mistake by a player with the only occasional positive expression of a player’s performance. There is a lack of overall evaluation of performance of a player versus the expectation we have for that player. We tend to concentrate on a game-by-game evaluation which leads to a lot of pointing the finger at every individual lapse by a player without putting in perspective the player’s overall performance against our expectation for that player. For example, we (including yours truly) harp on his lack of performance almost every game. Yet Rask has scored as he historically in the past has scored and is one of only three players to be a plus performer. Based upon the game-to-game discussions he was a failure, but based upon what a realistic evaluation of what we should have expected in performance he pretty well was up to snuff. What this shows us is we have two things that are failing us. Our expectation for Rask was not realistic for him to be outstanding. We rated his performance based upon him being a third or second line depth scorer the role that the coaches and management when we should have been evaluating him based upon being a depth 4th line scorer. If he had produced the stats playing 4th line we would have been raving about him instead of castigating him during the year. Many of the contributors to this site have recognized this error and have reevaluated Rask based upon the role he was suited to play, not the role the coaches placed him in. Think about it relative to your evaluation of drafts. Would Rask represent the good use of a 3rd or 4th round draft pick. How would your opinion of that change or not change your evaluation of that year’s draft.
If you get a 1, 2, or 3 pick year after year your team will probably IMPROVE quicker than those teams that don’t get those early picks. To evaluate a draft if you are picking later in he draft you have to look at each draft in totality IMO to compare. If we drafted Smith before Jones by us in the first round and Jones has turned out to be better than Smith just says that we MIGHT have been better off drafting Jones rather than Smith. Bu if we get a mix of 4 players made up of top line forwards and/or top 4 defensemen in a draft and Team B gets only 2, than you might say we had a better draft for that year than Team B even though Team B got a star with a 1-3 pick in the first round.
^This is a very accurate and well expressed sentiment^
Couple assessments from above…
-Rask at $4mil per means fans expect him to be THAT player, fair or not. It’s a two-way street, GMRF provided the contract for Rask to be 2nd/3rd line center, and Rask signed. Regressing to 4th line numbers is not acceptable to contract size or length.
-Defenseman do take longer to develop than any other position (even some goalies burst onto the scene with quicker, higher impact). Fleury and Hanifin will be fine. Faulk on the other hand I’d be concerned with as he is outside the 5-year window with the wheels coming off.
-The last few years our early 1st rounder’s were projected to continue developing 2-3 years out, and this was stated by GMRF. Meaning a good 3 years from even cracking the NHL, let alone making an impact. This means Fleury is on pace. Prior to this we were spoiled by Slavin and Pesce who went the college route and at age 20 were older w/man bodies and speed for the NHL. Whereas Hanifin at 18 was the exception to the rule by being quick enough for the NHL but lacking muscle and making reads. Rightfully he has had his ups and downs..he’s still 21 and was an all-star this year.
-Many confuse draft results with immediate results. The bigger debate for GMRF (that we all have) is to question whether we should we have drafted someone more NHL-ready, versus needing development. It seems like mixed signals with Hanifin and Lindy being rushed, whereas Fleury and Necas taking time. True results are hard to quantify with still developing players.
I must admit, seeing Fleury play in the last couple of games has made me question my thinking that he does not belong in the NHL. If he lasts long enough, I will wait until he gets 250 games under his belt before passing judgement. I would recommend that we all suspend judgement on Justin Faulk for a bit. This guy is the only defenseman we have who has over 250 games under his belt. That can’t be good for him. If we trade Faulk now, we won’t get nearly enough. It’s the same with Skinner. If we trade away either one, in their new home they will come alive again. We will rue the day.