Eastside's Hockey Elite Collide

I haven't actually looked at any of the draftees yet, but it seems like a lot of people are eager to bail out of this draft. I acquired some extra picks in this draft at least partly because of the talk that the 2012 draft was supposed to be very deep, and now everyone seems to be saying that the 2012 class is weak but 2013 will be strong. WTF?

fuuuuu

Well, EHEC 2010 we can agree was a once-in-a-lifetime-strength draft, and the same experts who said 2012 would be super-deep have reviewed their opinions of NHL 2011 and determined that it actually was pretty good after all. Meanwhile a lot of the NHL 2012 class is currently injured or underperfoming and it never really was clear that the 20-50 range was going to be great anyways. Also, y'know, these guys are young and all. The consensus opinion on a draft changes on a monthly basis.

A lot of the picks that made NHL 2011 deep (20-50) came on strong at the end of the season and caused constipating consensus consternation to scouts. Case in point: Josh Leivo, who suddenly turned into a PPG player midway through the season and started kicking ass in the playoffs.

For 2012, it's supposed to be deep in skilled offensive defensemen, and EHEC 2012 looks like exactly that. Not to mention there are still 2 or more starting goalies to come, 1 top 10 forward in Galchenyuk, and whoever else works their way up the draft rankings in the next couple of months.

Bob McKenzie tweeted the other day that draft picks will be moved like currency at the trade deadline. Then he added #notdeepdraft. So, I guess, the overall opinion of this draft has soured. I have yet to determine how I'm going to proceed. Adding too many boosters could be an issue because the number of players to boost has been higher than I would like. But, having the 3rd-7th rounds too weak will cause apathy.

There's definitely very little consensus outside of the top five. Only two goalies who are first round type talents.

On another hand, I'm happy that it's a weaker draft. Having so many impact guys from the '10 and '11 drafts already at the NHL level is a little unrealistic. It would leave us with a bunch of drafted guys in the file and no place for longtime NHLers.

We'll see where we end up.

Yippee, another year in the cellar.

Hopefully the so called experts are all wrong and we will have to pot boost everyone by 20 next year!!!

Well, if you're going to be that down heartened about your 1st, I'll take it off your hands.

I'll take some draft picks if anyone is looking to drop them.