I do not believe in passing judgment on the quality of any team's group of selections at a particular NHL Draft until several years have passed. However, it is tough not to form first impressions and to have certain prospects whom you prefer to others chosen at particular spots in the Draft order.
Having had a night to sleep on it, I am OK with the Flyers' selection of Samuel Morin in the first round. There are scouts who privately (and, in the case of TSN's Craig Button, publicly and enthusiastically) believe he is every bit as good of a prospect as Nikita Zadorov, who went 16th overall to Buffalo. Morin wasn't THAT much of a reach.
In both the case of Zadorov and Morin, the belief is that the player's huge frame and above-average athleticism will someday enable him to become a dominant shutdown defenseman in the NHL. The 6-foot-5, 220 pould Zadorov may be a little smoother in some facets of his game (puckhandling, certain aspects of skating) but the 6-foot-6 1/2, 208 pound Morin is no lumbering oaf. The Quebec native is a good skater in his own right and can get even better as he irons out things such as his pivots and cuts to be more efficient. He showed at the Under-18 World Championships that he can consistently make a good first pass in the defensive zone, clear the porch in front and combine his innately aggressive physical game with sound positional defense.
With both Zadorov and Morin, the big question mark is whether they will have any sort of offensive game at the professional level. Morin repeatedly emphasized yesterday that he sees himself as a two-way defenseman, has worked a lot on improving his shot and offensive awareness. That remains to be seen, and I'm pretty skeptical that either Morin or Zadorov will ever be more than 15-to-20 point players in the NHL (and that's if they eventually become secondary power play types).
I know that a lot of Chris Pronger comparisons got tossed out there yesterday by Morin himself and others. Forget that. Morin doesn't have, and probably will never have, even one quarter of Pronger's offensive ability. Pronger circa 1993 was a projectable franchise player who simply needed to gain the benefit of on-ice and off-ice maturity to fulfill that potential. Morin doesn't realistically have that upside. Neither do Darnell Nurse or Zadorov.
Here's a better comparison for Morin: Think of him as a bigger version of Luke Schenn circa 2008. Morin may even be a bit ahead of Schenn in the straight-ahead skating department at the same age, but Schenn was more advanced in other areas. Morin absolutely has the potential to surpass Schenn's development in the years to come but it may not happen until he is 23 or 24.
The Flyers will need to show a lot of patience with Morin and not pull the plug on him too fast if his early progress is slow or there are some seeming backward steps along the way. He is still exceptionally raw, and it's going to be a long process. Morin may not be pro-ready for two more seasons, may need as much as a full year in the American Hockey League at age 20 and it could take two or three NHL years beyond that before he might become the finished product the organization envisions.
I hope the Flyers' win-now philosophy does not trump their newfound pledge to develop more homegrown defensemen (which is the more salary-cap friendly way to put some of the necessary pieces in place to contend for a Stanley Cup). Preaching patience and actually exercising it are two totally different things.
My knee-jerk reaction to the Morin pick at the 11th spot is that there were other available players -- both defensemen and forwards -- whom I would have preferred to see the Flyers. Among blueliners, I would have rather rolled the dice on the offensive upsides of Ryan Pulock (selected 15th overall by the Islanders) or Josh Morrissey (taken 13th overall by Winnipeg) rather than taking someone who projects as a defensive defenseman. I could have seen the justification for taking Zadorov, who had been the more hyped prospect than Morin before the latter made a jump in the ratings based on a strong QMJHL playoffs and Under-18 Worlds. I'd have been fine with taking an offensively skilled forward such as Max Domi, Alexander Wennberg, Hunter Shinkaruk or even the maligned Anthony Mantha.
That is NOT to say that I don't like the selection of Morin. I have high hopes for the player on the ice, and I found him eminently personable and charismatic in his post-selection interviews. It's just that I would have preferred if the Flyers had been able to move down a bit in the first round, pick up an additional pick in this year or next year's draft (perhaps a 2014 second rounder), and still take Morin. Of course, it's entirely possible that the Flyers tried to do just that and were unable to find a compatible trading partner.
It is believed that Montreal tried to move up from 25th to the Flyers' 11th spot specifically to take Morin. But if Morin was Philly's top guy once three defensemen -- Seth Jones, Nurse and Rasmus Ristolainen -- were off the board in the top 10, perhaps there were teams other than Montreal with whom the Flyers could have struck a deal that would still have enabled the Flyers to take Morin. If not, well, there were still plenty of quality alternatives to Morin who would still have been on the board later in the first round.
On the flip side, I thought the Flyers potentially got tremendous value in selecting Robert Hägg with the 41st overall pick in the Draft. He is someone whom I would not have minded seeing Philly take if they had either traded down in the first round (and were unable to get Morin) OR even see the Flyers trade up from the 41st spot to get.
All in all, I thought the scales balanced off between potentially taking Morin a little too early and then seeing Hägg -- who had generally been regarded as a first-round worthy pick until some second-half inconsistency knocked him down a bit -- fall to them 11 spots into the second round.
I also like the jolt of organizational depth and range of long-range possibilities that Morin and Hägg create. Taking both players improves the odds of getting at least one future long-term NHL starter. There are entirely realistic scenarios that could see BOTH players reach levels somewhere in the middle of the floor and ceiling of their raw potential, which would mean a pair of second-pairing worthy players.
International Scouting Services ranked Morin as the second most "overrated" prospect in the Draft pool and Hägg as the fourth most overrated. Strangely, ISS also ranked Hägg as the third best offensive defenseman in the Draft, behind only Seth Jones and Josh Morrissey while also rating Hägg's defensive skills as "very good" (on an ascending rating scale of below average, average, good, very good and excellent). I'm not exactly sure how the same scouting service would rate the player so high offensively, praise his defensive upside and then dismiss him as overrated.
Of all of the Flyers' picks yesterday, the most baffling one was the selection of Tyrell Goulbourne in the third round. Now perhaps Goulbourne really will turn out to be the next Zac Rinaldo, playing an agitator and ultra-aggressive forechecking role in the NHL to the hilt. But here's the thing: That is the absolute ceiling of the 19-year-old Goulbourne's potential.
I would rather see the Flyers -- or any team -- aim their sights a little higher than that even in the third round. If you swing and miss in round three, so be it. I'd live with the risk of a dud pick with higher upside rather than aiming to feed my NHL fourth-line or AHL third-line in three to five years. You can find potential future 10th to 12th forwards later in the Draft, too, but the odds of finding future impact players get lower and lower the deeper you move into the Draft.
My round-three philosophy: take a gamble. Go for the big-framed but raw power forward, a skill player with some significant rough edges or roll the dice on a big and athletic but raw goaltender; for instance, Downingtown native Jimmy Lodge, Erie Otters left winger Connor Crisp or Swedish goaltender Marcus Högberg, who all went later in the third round.
Don't see a big-and-skilled-but-raw type you like in Round Three? OK, then go for the undersized skill player like the Flyers did last year with defenseman Shayne Gostibehere. This year, there was a slew of skilled but small players still on the board at the 72nd pick. The possibilities ranged from forwards like Oliver Björkstrand, Taylor Cammarata,Tyler Motte, Anthony Duclair, Martin Reway or 2012 Flyers Prospect Camp attendee Christopher Clapperton to defenseman Jordan Subban (who slipped all the way to the 115th spot). Smallish but athletically gifted Finnish goaltender Juuse Saros went to the Predators -- an organization that knows a thing or two about drafting and developing future NHL goaltenders -- in round four.
Are you afraid that none of these small players will be able to translate their games to the NHL level? Alright, then is there a skilled European player who may or may not ever come over to North America and make the successful transition to the NHL? There were two such players taken after Goulbourne in the third round: Russian forward Anton Slepyshev and Slovakian forward Peter Cehlarik.
Not enamored of the potential of any of the European elite league players? Fine. Then is there a U.S. high school or Canadian Junior A player who has dominated against a low level of competition? The Penguins chose one such player in round four when they picked American high school defenseman Ryan Segalla. With the 98th overall pick, Florida chose center Matt Buckles, who tore apart Ontario Junior A hockey this past year.
Personally, I would rather have seen the Flyers pick a player from ANY one of these aforementioned categories than Goulbourne in round three, even if it someday works out that Goulbourne makes the NHL and the alternative player falls short. If Goulbourne was still on the board in round six or seven, then take him if you like him.
As for the Flyers' fifth-round pick of U.S. prep school defenseman Terrance Amorosa with the 132nd overall pick, sixth-round selection of Harvard University recruited American high school goaltender Merrick Madsen with the 162nd pick and seventh-round pick of tall but skinny USHL defenseman David Drake, I'm fine will all of the above.
In all of these cases, the Flyers will have the duration of these players' amateur hockey eligibility -- as opposed to the two years allowed for CHL-affiliated players -- to track their development and eventually make a decision whether to offer an entry-level pro contract. They are stabs in the dark, and that's fine. I am very much a believer in taking a goaltender somewhere in the Draft, and Madsen has both size and solid athletic skills.
Final thoughts: Things like pre-Draft ratings, people's opinions (including my own), and even the player's selection spot become meaningless. The NHL Draft is a starting place for a potential professional career at the top level of hockey. Some start in a lofty perch. Others start from humble beginnings. Once Draft day is over, it's up to each player to rise on his own merits.
With that said, it is not uncommon to hear NHL scouts, general managers and personnel directors say "I hate to pigeonhole any young player's potential, but..." and then proceed to politely describe the characteristics of an NHL role player or AHL-NHL swingman. Only a minority of draftees will ever reach the NHL and even fewer will become stars, but why use ANY picks in the top 100 on teenage players that you already know have no shot at being more than bottom-of-the-lineup players even if they reach their ceiling?
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