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2015 NHL Draft Day 1: Philadelphia Flyers |
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The 2015 NHL Draft will take place on Friday and Saturday in Sunrise, FL. The Philadelphia Flyers will be a busy team this weekend, with 10 picks to make in the seven-round draft. Additionally, Flyers general manager Ron Hextall will undoubtedly discuss potential trades with other teams.
At the conclusion of each day of the Draft, HockeyBuzz will have profiles and analysis of the Flyers selections and, if applicable, any trades or other team-related news in this blog space. Currently, the Flyers own the following selections in the 2015 Draft:
1st round -- 7th overall, 29th overall (Tampa Bay, Braydon Coburn trade)
2nd round -- 61st overall (Chicago, Kimmo Timonen trade)
3rd round -- 70th overall (San Jose, Tye McGinn trade), 90th overall (Tampa, Coburn trade)
4th round -- 98th overall, 99th overall (Columbus, Scott Hartnell trade)
5th round -- 128th overall
6th round -- 158th overall
7th round -- 188th overall
During the calm before the storm, here is a real-life cautionary tale about the dangers of reading too much into pre-Draft hype, no matter how credible the source may seem to be.
On the weekend of the 1998 Draft, a well-regarded center for the Quebec Remparts went out to dinner with his family. The Remparts' general manager stopped by to chat with the player's father, who was himself a former hockey player before becoming a police officer in Quebec City.
The GM delivered the family some news. He told the player's father he had just spoken with two highly influential scouts for the Montreal Canadiens, who owned the 16th pick of the first round, about the results of their final pre-Draft meeting. The scouts told him that the Habs planned to select the young man from his team's junior program, whom Central Scouting and The Hockey News had rated in the mid-to-late first round range, with its first round pick.
Driving back to their hotel after dinner, the family turned on the radio to a sports news and talk station. In the course of discussing various hockey topics, a sports reporter said he was hearing the Habs were going to select the young francophone player with its first-round pick.
Draft day arrives. The first 15 picks are made. The family, especially the young draft hopeful, are expectant as the Montreal Canadiens approach the podium to bilingually make their first selection.
Says Habs general manager Rejean Houle, "The Montreal Canadiens are proud to select, from the Quebec Remparts...."
The young player, whose name is Simon Gagne, grips the sides of his chair and starts to rise ever so slightly as Houle briefly pauses for dramatic effect.
".... Eric Chouinard," Houle says.
Gagne slumps back in his chair. He is too stunned to be happy for his Remparts teammate.
The 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st picks get made, with a gap of several minutes before each selection. The Colorado Avalanche, formerly the Quebec Nordiques, have three selections in this span of five picks. They bypass Gagne all three times.
By now, the crestfallen teenager is in agony. He is numb by the time the Philadelphia Flyers approach the podium. Flyers general manager Bob Clarke ends the suspense quickly by cutting right to the chase and announcing Gagne's selection.
Gagne is just relieved to have been drafted. He is, however, surprised that the Flyers were the team that took him. Unlike numerous other NHL teams, he had not spoken with the team at all ahead of the Draft. His father Pierre's only contact was a brief chat with an old friend from the Quebec Aces; Flyers scout Simon Nolet. The elder Gagne, who had been a tryout player at the Flyers/Aces jointly held NHL/AHL training camps of 1967 and 1968, jokingly told Nolet that the Flyers had better select his kid all these years later. Nolet chuckled. The rest of the conversation was non-hockey pleasantries.
Of course, the brief dialogue between Nolet and the elder Gagne had nothing to do with why the Flyers took Simon Gagne with their first-round pick. Simon didn't even find out about the joking exchange -- or his father's long-ago friendship with Nolet as a member of the Quebec Jr. Aces -- until after he'd been drafted. That knowledge only added a bit of humorous retrospect.
Fast forward 17 years. The NHL Draft is a little bit different than it was back in 1998. The League now has its annual Combine. The amount of pre-Draft prognostication (also known as educated or not-so-educated guessing) has greatly increased, especially in the online realm. It also more common these days for Draft weekend to feature more trade rumors and potential wheeling-and-dealing than any other time except the trade deadline.
Three things, however, remain constant:
1) The Flyers are rumored to covet Brandon Wheat Kings defenseman Ivan Provorov. If it works out that way, they would be getting a player with both a high ceiling and a high floor as a future two-way NHL defenseman. However, with the exception of the top pick or two, never believe anyone who speaks in absolutes about whom a certain team is going to take if available. Now, more than ever, such information is kept top secret and is subject to change right up to the time the actual pick is made. When there are leaks ahead of time, there are often personal agendas driving them so one has to alert to potential misinformation. A few very select journalists, such as Bob McKenzie, are ever made privy to what the actual decision-makers are thinking ahead of time. Most other sources, whether members of scouting staffs, players' junior coaches or GMs, etc may pass along accurate info but things are still subject to change. Agents and "family advisors", naturally, true to pump their clients' tires.
2) While it is not meaningless to know which teams spend a lot of time interviewing a certain player, a lack of contact is not necessarily an indication of non-interest come draft day. This is especially true nowadays with the NHL Combine. A team may feel like it has done more complete legwork on some players and is trying to fill in a few gaps with others. For instance, the Flyers did interview James van Riemsdyk at the 2007 Combine but did not interview Sean Couturier in 2011, while Flyers 2014 first-round pick Travis Sanheim interviewed with all 30 NHL teams at last year's Combine.
3) This is just my opinion: If Provorov is there for the taking for Philly, it would be awfully tough to bypass him. He is the complete package as a blue line prospect. Conservatively, he should be NHL ready by 2016-17 according to scouts with whom I have spoken. Some think he might even be able to make the immediate jump (although, if Philly drafts him, I think he will spend one more year in Brandon). I would be equally comfortable with Zach Werenski, who may have slightly higher offensive upside but isn't quite as well-rounded right now. Is there one player that I wouldn't want to see the Flyers draft? Again, this is just one person's opinion but I was not floored by Pavel Zacha in the streams of his games that I saw this year. There were times where he was invisible and he didn't seem to respond well when the checking got tight. Keep in mind, though, that I am going off a four-game sample size. The real scouts have many more viewings and a broader knowledge base of homework done.
4) The year-round truism that no deal is done until it's actually been announced most certainly holds true at the Draft. Last year, in the media stations at the Draft in Philadelphia, word spread very rapidly that the Flyers had been in talks with the Florida Panthers -- which could only have been about trying to move up to obtain the first overall pick and select defenseman Aaron Ekblad. Ultimately, though,nothing happened.
The best advice about trade speculation is to basically ignore it until/unless deals are done. A host of trade scenarios involving current NHL players, draft picks and prospects will be discussed throughout the weekend. Only a small fraction will actually come to fruition.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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