With a few days having passed since the conclusion of the NHL's most recent edition of the player entry draft, the majority of the reports coming back on the Detroit Red Wings class of 2011 appear to be glowing in nature.
As for myself, aside from the majority of OHL draft-eligible players that were selected in the draft, I do not have the slightest clue on whether the Red Wings hit the jackpot with their selections in this draft. None of us truly will know for at least 4-5 years. However, what I can confirm is that I love what Ken Holland, Jim Nill and their scouts did by identifying talented players at positions of need.
The biggest needs for the Red Wings heading into this draft were to address the lack of blueline prospects within the system, get bigger players into the system and find some goal-scoring talent. For the most part, the Red Wings addressed these needs and then some this past weekend in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
By selecting a defenseman with five of their nine selections, Detroit did their best to restock their cupboard on the blueline now that it appears their most highly regarded prospect (
Brendan Smith) is expected to graduate to the big club this fall. Both rearguards selected in the second round in
Xavier Ouellet (48th) and
Ryan Sproul (55th) appear to fit the bill of big, mobile, puck-moving defenseman, at 6'0" and 6'3" respectively.
Matthias Backman (5th, 146th overall), appears to have the game of a low-maintenance, two-way defender, who came on strong as the season progressed. Detroit's 6th round selection,
Richard Nedomiel is already 6'4" and plays a tough, nasty game on the backend. The Czech defender who plays with Swift Current of the WHL will be given plenty of time to develop further in the WHL and eventually in Grand Rapids if he continues to impress with steady play along the blueline.
The X-factor of the blueliners selected by Detroit is
Alexei Marchenko. The 6'2" Russian is considered the top defenseman from the Russian 1992 class and the only reason teams have passed him over is due to the fear he may remain in Russia. Given he has a two year contract remaining with CSKA Moscow of the KHL, he won't be in North America anytime soon. However, the reality remains he would have been a much higher selection if he played in North America. He plays a very smart, aggressive game and is considered a very strong skater.
Of the forwards Detroit selected, the most popular one was
Tomas Jurco, the highly skilled and talented 6'3" Slovak who is well-known for his shootout moves. Jurco appears to be great value at #35 overall given the fact he likely has what would be considered Top 10 skill level.
On the surface, it appears Detroit made out well trading down from #24 to garner extra picks, enabling to further solidify the backend. Sproul, in particular, appears to be an intriguing prospect with the higher ceiling of the two defenseman prospects selected in Round 2. Speculation is rampant that once the Toronto Maple Leafs moved up to #22 to acquire huge power forward
Tyler Biggs, the Red Wings were content to move down and acquire an extra 2nd round pick.
I am very fond of two of Detroit's other mid-round selections. Both
Alan Quine (3rd, 85th overall) and
Marek Tvrdon (4th, 115th overall), provided the Red Wings with great value in those spots. Both possess qualities Detroit is looking for in their forwards. Quine is a quality two-way centre with exceptional speed. His play improved dramatically during the second part of the season last year following a trade to Peterborough of the OHL. His progress should continue to improve under another campaign of seasoning as the top centre on his team within the junior ranks.
Whereas Marchenko is the likely wildcard on the blueline, Tvrdon is the same out of the forwards selected by Detroit. The huge Slovak (6'4", 213lb.) got off to a fantastic start in his first season with the Vancouver Giants of the WHL scoring 11 points in 12 games. A shoulder injury ended his season and did not enable scouts to analyze his game any further. The likelihood is without the injury, this kid goes off the board during the first 50 selections. Huge potential as a power forward option that can put the puck in the back of the net.
This winter's holiday season should provide Red Wing fans with intriguing television to watch as there is a high likelihood that up to 5 Red Wing draftees will be playing in the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships in Calgary/Edmonton:
Slovakia: Jurco, Tvrdon
Finland: Teemu Pulkkinen
Czech Republic: Petr Mrazek
Russia: Marchenko
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Although one of my projected players being available at #24 for the Red Wings, did in fact go 24th overall in the draft, I will stand by my original notion that
Matthew Puempel is going to be a very productive NHL forward for many years to come, despite not being a Red Wing draft pick. In my humble opinion, he has all the attributes of a poor man's
Luc Robitaille. He possesses many of the same drawbacks/criticisms that were slung at Robitaille resulting in "Lucky Luc" being the 171st selection of the 1984 entry draft. In particular, Robitaille was labelled as a poor skater. During the broadcast of this year's draft show, I found it interesting that Pierre McGuire criticized Puempel for his lack of foot speed and the fact he scored too many of his goals within ten feet of the goal. Isn't that where the majority of NHL goals are scored from???
It will be very interesting to see how the careers of Puempel and Jurco progress. They will always be linked in my eyes and help determine whether Detroit made the correct decision in dropping down from the 24th overall selection. However, I can certainly understand Detroit's reasoning for moving down if they were not overwhelmed by Puempel or any of the other prospects on the board at the time and were comfortable taking the best remaining prospect when their turn came up early in Round 2.
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Not including the three most recent drafts prior to 2011 (still too early to determine), the Red Wings have selected 14 NHL players over the ten year period of 1998-2007. An "NHL" player is considered someone to have played at least 100 career NHL games:
1998:
Jiri Fischer (1st, 25th overall),
Pavel Datsyuk (6th, 171st overall)
1999:
Henrik Zetterberg (7th, 210th overall)
2000:
Niklas Kronwall (1st, 29th overall),
Tomas Kopecky (2nd, 38th overall)
2001: None
2002:
Jiri Hudler (2nd, 58th overall),
Tomas Fleischmann (2nd 63rd overall),
Valteri Filppula (3rd, 95th overall),
Derek Meech (7th, 229th overall),
Jonathan Ericsson (9th, 291st overall)
2003:
Jimmy Howard (2nd, 64th overall),
Kyle Quincey (4th, 132nd overall)
2004:
Johan Franzen (3rd, 97th overall)
2005:
Justin Abdelkader (2nd, 42nd overall),
Darren Helm (5th, 132nd overall) (
Jakub Kindl a likely addition to this list in the future).
2006:
Shawn Matthias (2nd, 47th overall) (
Cory Emmerton,
Matthias Ritola and
Jan Mursak are "potential" additions to this list).
2007:
Brendan Smith seems to be an eventual likely addition to this list.
So out of 82 total draft picks over that 10 year span, 16 of them currently have played 100 games or more (19.5%). That number could rise to 21 (25.6%) if the players I outlined surpass 100 career games. I'm not certain how that stacks up to the rest of the franchises in the NHL over that same span.
So although when reading every prospect profile on the Wings draft picks (or any team for that matter), it sounds as if they have 9 future contributors to the Detroit Red Wings, these statistics basically confirm for us the likelihood that 2 (or maybe 3) of the 9 prospects drafted by Detroit over the weekend will ever make an impact on a National Hockey League roster.
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With TSN's
Bob McKenzie tweeting that the Vancouver Canucks are shopping the rights to UFA defenseman
Christian Ehrhoff now that contract talks have broken down between the two sides, the question needs to be asked if the Red Wings should attempt to obtain these rights and garner a headstart on negotiations to nail down this addition to the team's top 4 on the blueline.
Despite both
Kevin Bieksa and
possibly Joni Pitkanen re-signing with their respective clubs prior to July 1st, the "high-end" UFA d-man market is quickly dwindling. Regardless, my gut tells me the Wings won't chase Ehrhoff's rights because he may throw the Red Wings pay structure out of whack, especially with
Niklas Kronwall needing to get a raise prior to hitting the UFA market next summer.
That's not to say the Red Wings won't talk to Ehrhoff if he is a UFA on July 1st. I just don't see Kenny Holland raising the ante to get a leg up on the competition to acquire Ehrhoff's services. As usual, Holland floats it out there to all of the agents, if your client wants to play in a winning environment, give us a call. If Ehrhoff is seeking more than the $4.5 million per season that Bieksa received in Vancouver, I'm skeptical that the Red Wings are going to give him anything over $5 million per season.
Furthermore, with speculation continuing to grow that the Red Wings are nearing a deal with RFA defenseman
Jonathan Ericsson, it will sharpen Detroit's focus on acquiring one defenseman and possibly one forward to the active roster. Now given the UFA market is not very appealing for offensive forwards, perhaps the Wings will show some creativity in attempting to acquire a goal-scoring winger to replace one of the Red Wings aging top-six wingers (Holmstrom, Bertuzzi).
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