To D or Not To D? That is the Isles' Draft Question

The defense is stacked with players, but very few are actually good players. Jurcina, Eaton, Mottau, Hillen, and Martinek are not long term solutions. None are worthy of a top 4 spot on a team trying to make the playoffs. Hamonic, MacDonald, de Haan, Wishart, and Matt Donovan are the only players/prospects that have top 4 potential. The unfortunate truth is that some players often don’t live up to their potential. Adding a high end defensive prospect is definitely the right move.

You make good points, but they assume Huberdeau (or some other forward) and Hamilton (or Murphy or some other defenseman) offer equal value. That may not be true in the eyes of the GM and scouts.

If Isles believe Huberdeau might be a 30-35 G, 80 point C/LW, they should take him if they also believe Hamilton projects as a 5-10 G, 30 point 2d pair defenseman.

On the other hand, if they view Huberdeau as a 20-25 G, 60 point forward, and Hamilton as a 15 G, 50-60 point defenseman, they should take Hamilton.

I’m sure they’ll be looking at everything – speed, hands, smarts, character, etc.

It should, and hopefully will come down to which player still on the board at 5 projects as having the biggest IMPACT on a consistent basis.

http://gmbass.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/2011-nhl-draft-prospects-no-4-dougie-hamilton/

Most interesting phrase:

After playing forward for his entire life, he was moved to the back of the formation at age 13.

Dear God. What have we become?

http://thehockeywriters.com/the-next-ones-dougie-hamilton-nhl-2011-draft-prospect-profile-the-next-big-blueliner/

Dude makes big threats about legal proceedings and physical mayhem if I cut and pste anything from his site, so you’ll have to go see for yourself.

I think the most significant thing is, you can’t teach a kid to be 6’4". The common comparison seems to be with Joy Bouwmeester. He is seen as a big, slick skating, puckmoving, forward punishing, minutes eating, PP QB, [continue compliments ad nauseum] Dman who can be a franchise guy.

<—— rapidly developing a dom/frans type man crush.

I’d rather give everyone in the system one more year of Cushion before drafting a Dman this high.

We have holes in many places and our D isn’t as bad as you’re making it out to be.

For the next half decade, we already have 3 of our top 4 d-men found with A-mac showing he is a #2 d-man, Hamonic showing he can be a #3 at least, and DeHaan projected to be an offensive or 2-way top 4 d-man. Looking at that, we really don’t have a huge problem there with the exception of a #1 D-man, whom no one is saying hamilton is. Then after that, we have a number of promising D-men, some with a high chance of becoming top-4 d-men(donovan and wishart), while others could fill bottom 2 or depth roles.

That is why u have to take BPA unless you have a low-no risk future #1 d-man on your hands(and hamilton isn’t that).

Then comes the argument, who is the BPA at our draft spot. At our draft position, we will likely have Hamilton and one of these forwards on board: Huberdeau, Couturier, and Landeskog(all who have been or are ranked ahead of hamilton in the major rankings). Personally, I’d take any one of them over Hamilton because of Hamilton’s unpredictable growth curve and knocks/questions on him.They all have higher-end top 6 offensive talent and 2 of them(couturier and landeskog) are said to be above average 2-way forwards. You just can’t pass on that when you have no idea how the troubled Bailey is gonna mature or if Nielsen is going to be resigned/has the offense for a top 6 role or when PAP finally gets sent to the 3rd line(or gone) like he should. And then let’s not forget that forward depth is one of the keys to a cup.

And as others have said, D-men are rarely taken in the Top 5, and the last time garth had a shot at a 5-man there, he traded down for Bailey(instead of taking Schenn or even Myers). I agree that if you are taking a d-man that high(#5) that you better be damn sure he’s a future #1 d-man if not a low low low risk #2(which I don’t see in hamilton). And because of that, I’d take a forward at #5 or trade down for Siemens or Oleksiak if we want a d-man. 6’7’’ d-men(with o-potential) don’t grow on trees and Siemens has the gritty mean streak and overly physicality our defense sorely lacks(while being much more offensively capable then a mccilrath), as does Oleksiak. And both project as above average shutdown top 4 d-men and are safe picks.

But honestly, it’s probably all about Garth’s targets as people say. If I’m garth, the 1st target is Larsson, and after that I get a headache trying to be garth. Taking one of the top forwards that drop to us wouldn’t be bad at all, neither would trading down to get more picks and a big mean shutdown d-man with puckmoving abilities. And then there is Hamilton, a smart d-man that projects for me atm as a #4 offensive d-man, but his growth curve could turn him into a future #2 guy(imo). Is he a safe pick at #4? Hell no. And garth’s history is to go with the safer picks(that he personally picks). Hamilton has a similar ceiling and scouting report to DeHaan while being bigger and less defensively responsible during his draft year, and dehaan was an overdraft at 12th overall. I just see Hamilton as a high risk move at #5, and that’s why I don’t see garth targeting him. But I’m not garth and am gonna love to see how this goes. That’s my 2 cents.

because I usually don’t post more than once in a thread, but I think one of the things that Garth may well look at is the intangibles that come from being very very intelligent (as Hamilton is) and a very good leader (as the reports are unanimous in saying he is).

The reality is we won’t know who Garth is looking at until he (1) gets there and (2) we know who’s available. If Couturier or Landeskog is available, I think it’s a no brainer to go with one of them. Huberdeau, I’m not sold on, mainly (and again, this is an impression not based on years and years of scouting experience) because the Quebec MJHL game does not seem to translate as well to the NHL as the OHL or the WHL, except when it comes to goaltending.

The only knock I’ve read on Hamilton is that he sometimes gets a little lost in his own end. This can be learned and can be “blamed” on his “late” (GZUZ, Age 13 is LATE?) transition to Defence. Everything else is instinctual and he has it in spades.

Again, we won’t know what Garth is thinking until we se what he does. For all we know, if he’s sold on Hamilton and thinks he’ll be available at 7 – 10, he may trade down.

I has many faiths in our backup Goaltender.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/sports/Hockey+World/4857960/story.html

You draft BEST PLAYER AVAILABLE. Simple.
You will never go wrong in drafting i that way.
This is with the exception of the goaltending position.

trade up for larrson…whatever it costs. we have players in the farm that are expendable… If hes not available…draft a forward. trade nabokov and our 2nd from montreal to philly for their first and draft oleksniak or siemens who should go late in the first round.

Florida is 95% possible to draft a forward. NJ is likely to go either way. Nugent-Hopkins and Langdeskong are 1/2. Whichever Florida wants will be available at 5 as well as 3…so the islanders wouldnt have to give up anything to move to 3. Larrson is the player weve been waiting for.

If we were to add any of these three players our team would be instantly transformed – Larsson, Landeskog, and Couturier. They are NHL ready and could immediately alter the NHL roster positively.

Huberdeau needs to gain 10 to 15 pounds.

RHN is wishful thinking from a draft perspective and a year away because of his size.

Hamilton needs another year to cook in Juniors.

If we can land a transformer….

Larsson or Hamilton will be perfect for you guys, this draft is luckily containing some high end prospects, Murphy could be the best player in this whole draft class as long as his size and defense aren’t factors in the NHL.