Draft night for Prague [2/2]

[diamond_ace 3,114]

As Jason Glasser, GM of the Prague Phantoms, sat in the war room on draft night, there were a few key questions running through his mind. The biggest, of course, was what to do about the goalie issue. He had heard Davos planned to take a goalie, which kind of derailed things a bit, but a little additional scouting uncovered a solution to that particular issue - that wasn't the final twist to the goalie saga, but it was where things stood entering the draft.

 

The top two picks went by and the selections of Condor Adrienne and Lance Flowers surprised no one - the two had been far and away the best in the class, and they were widely expected to go 1 and 2, especially with Malmo winning the lottery and removing the issue of Adrienne's possible holdout. The third overall pick brought center Thorny Underyew to Seattle, where they would finally have another center alongside Scott Greene. Jeff Downey at 4 was also no surprise, and Luciano Valentino was a mild one at 5 but nothing that was going to bring about any real shockwaves. It was at this point that Prague would really start to look into people - the next tier of Frans Eller, Teemu Lehtinen Jr, and Wolf Stansson Jr were likely off the table but there could be a few other players depending on how the next few picks had gone. Players such as Kaspars Claude seemed realistic targets for Prague at 12, and Claude in particular was one management had reached out to in advance.

 

The next few guys came off the board. Eller at 6. Lehtinen at 7. A Red Guy started the goalie trend at 8, one that had seemed destined for a standoff among a few teams, but New York did not wait to pick one up after having been burnt the season before. New York also went a little off the board with Fredrik Elmebeck at 9, but Elmebeck had been flying up draft boards in the waning days and this seemed a reasonable choice. At this point, Glasser received a call from one of his chief scouts. "Did you see Stansson's still up there?" He had, in fact, seen that Stansson was still up there - surely, this man wasn't going to fall to 12? 10 was up next - Davos. This was the one we knew was going to be a goalie. Ok, so goalie at 10, Stansson at 11, where do we sit? Davos' representative went to the booth and announced Samuel Ross as the pick - a little off the board given that Raymond Bernard was still there, but Ross, like Elmebeck, had been climbing as of late. Then Moscow stepped to the booth.

"With the 11th pick in the S69 VHL Draft, the Moscow Menace select Raymond Bernard, goaltender, out of Ottawa."

The words that shocked the world. This move shook the Prague draft room every which way, but it had both a positive and a negative effect. The negative, of course, was that there was one fewer goalie available and Glasser's potential game of chicken was over before it began. The positive, of course, was that Wolf Stansson had indeed fallen to 12. The goalie scenario could play out in two ways from here, provided that Prague did not select one at 12: either DC would select Bruce Grimaldi at 14, and Prague could then sit on it for however long they wanted, letting Block Buster fall down the boards until late, or DC would go elsewhere, leaving Grimaldi for Prague's mid second rounders. However, there was a no brainer decision to be made at 12: take Stansson and let the rest sort itself out. The first ever non-expansion draft pick for the Prague Phantoms franchise was also the steal of the draft.

Claude was still on the board, however. Moscow had come knocking a little earlier, looking to trade down from 15, and Prague had an offer on the table of 26 and their 3rd the following year. At this stage, even more than when the offer was originally sent, Glasser was excited to move into the 15th spot. There were a few different directions to go at that stage. Owen Nolan went to New York at 13, and at 14, Prague's original target at 12, Kaspars Claude was selected to DC. This pick was bittersweet; it meant that Claude would not go to Prague, but it also meant that the goalie situation was sorted. With a lot of different pieces still available, Moscow had finally sent the offer through, and 15 would belong to Prague. With one move, the goalie situation was resolved. Bruce Grimaldi would be taken at 15.

Prague also had two more picks coming up at 17 and 19, and these two picks, barring yet another twist to the tale, were spoken for. There were two guys in this stage of the draft Glasser had talked to ahead of time, partially because they had played so well in Yukon with Erik Draven, the first Phantom. Once it was known that Draven would be landing in Prague, a scout was immediately sent to watch Seabass Perrin. A few days later, another scout was sent to watch Willie Dredge. Perhaps things could have taken a different turn, with both Micha Sage and Sigard Gunnar floating around yet (Sage was selected at 16 anyway) but as far as Glasser was concerned, there were blinders on for these picks. One of the most important things an expansion team can take into consideration is building a locker room atmosphere where the players are motivated to work together and there are no major rifts or lack of chemistry. Prague's war room had these two names carved into the wall. Unless one of them had been massively reached for early, or the team needed to put out a possible goalie fire, Seabass Perrin and Willie Dredge would be Phantoms by the end of the night - and so it proved. 17 was Perrin, and after a strong Ricky Johnson selection by DC, 19 was Dredge.

Another tangentially related side story to how this draft went was the relationship between Fredrik Elmebeck and Dalton Wilcox. Prague had eyes on Wilcox for weeks leading up to the expansion draft, and he was definitely a prime target, even passing on a better but also young player in Mikko Aaltonen to acquire him. Wilcox had made an offhand comment in a quote to the media that he got along well with Elmebeck who was a draftee, and thus Elmebeck was firmly planted on the Prague draft board. This plan had been in motion for quite some time - Wilcox and Elmebeck were going to be part of the cornerstone of this team. Then Elmebeck's stock started to rise. Other teams took notice. New York in particular was absolutely set on taking him... well after Prague had already gotten Wilcox. No reward for spotting a guy early when the guy who spots him late has all the picks. Having failed to convince New York to part with one of their picks, the only options were to trade above them (which would most certainly have involved one of the high value S69 or S70 Prague 1sts to go the other way) or, unfortunately, to trade Wilcox to New York (making him the first official member of the Alumni). Fortunately, New York was a lot more reasonable in trade talks for Wilcox than they were in trade talks to try to get the pick for Elmebeck, and Prague ended up with Blake Laughton and the 27th overall pick in this draft. Admittedly, there wasn't much scouting done on Laughton; after all, he was under contract elsewhere, but so far he's proven to be quite the gem and is firmly in the plans going forward.

As for the 27th pick, let's catch up to that point. At 20, the notes in the Prague war room were that Calgary was going to take Fang Flashback here, but the sudden fall of Sigard Gunnar postponed that plan and Calgary got themselves a steal. In Riga, Jeff Tates would be selected to join Lincoln Tate, no relation. Two more of the noted defensive depth of this draft class would go next, Aamon Grim to New York and Finnegan MacBurn to Seattle (MacBurn had actually been another player scouted by Prague management). The 24th pick, belonging to Davos, had the potential to be quite off the board, or so the Davos representative had claimed. It proved to be a slightly unusual pick in Jerry Wang, but not too far from normal. 25 was another great pick by Prague's expansion rivals over in the states, bringing center Balentine Kidd into the fold, and 26, originally owned by Prague but dealt to Moscow, was dealt once again to Calgary and with it Calgary took the player they'd been assumed to be taking 6 picks earlier in Flashback. This led us to 27, the pick acquired in the Wilcox deal.

This one... took a while. The so called "BPA" at this point was Gert B. Frobe, a guy that admittedly had not been scouted a ton by any Prague staff. There were a lot of options just a bit off the board here - Ryan Busser, for example, had been recruited by the diamond_ace agency responsible for Glasser's GM tenure (ooc: I didn't go Busser because I'm already his GM in another league, and I figured it might be more fun for him if he got to experience something else here). Killy Foilen would have been a slight reach here but he was a player that we were definitely interested in bringing in, and the same was true for David Wallace - both players that ultimately Prague expects will outperform where they currently are, but in theory anyway, they could be had later (one of these proved truer than the other). Ultimately, when faced with a lot of "just off the board" options, we went with the most on the board option imaginable. A quik on the clock scouting of Frobe revealed a player that was every bit deserving of a draft spot even earlier than this, so there was no sense passing on him. This was a pick we didn't anticipate making before the draft, but the team is incredibly happy with how it's turned out.

 

The next few picks went, Busser among them, and our scouts started making a few calls to acquire another mid 3rd. Killy Foilen, a guy we'd been looking at, had shot a quik video out at a club with his crew about how having not been drafted yet was putting a fire in him to prove everyone wrong (ooc: his constant talk in the livestream, I felt was getting people's attention and he was no longer quite as under the radar as he had been going in - I'd wanted to grab him as I felt people hadn't noticed him, but he was making sure people noticed him, which kind of hurt my draft plan a bit). Moscow had agreed to a deal to send pick 34 to Prague, but of course then selected Foilen at 30. By the time 34 came, the next logical choice was to just guarantee taking the guy who would have been the plan at 38, David Wallace.

If Wallace, who had been planned at 38, went 34, then what happened at 38? All the people Prague had officially scouted were gone with the exception of Block Buster, who unfortunately was a tad redundant at this stage after having taken Grimaldi earlier (which worked out for the better for Buster anyway, landing with DC who has no other goalie). The next three people on the board heading into 38 were Chad Gilbert, Alyksander Hunter, and Jacob Perry, none of whom had been specifically scouted. However, this became a pick where pulling double duty was beneficial - a member of Prague staff is an associate of the commissioning team in the VHLM and has access to most of the inner workings of the VHLM franchises. This staff member quickly called into the war room and suggested Perry, as he'd noticed a good contribution from him in Mississauga. That was enough to split the three candidates, and Perry was brought into Prague. Much like the other unscouted selection of Frobe earlier, the Perry pick seems to have panned out quite well for Prague so far.

 

As the next round carried on, Hunter and Gilbert were the next two names off the board, and GM Glasser started making a mental list of a few guys he felt could be assets. Nate Wright - taken. Ondrej Ohradka - taken. Alex Armstrong - taken. Two names found their way onto a slip of paper - Joakim Sakic, Ben McGirr. Sakic would be taken two picks before Prague's next selection, and as DC stepped up to the podium and took Julian Blackthorn, the choice was clear for Prague - McGirr would be the pick.

When the last round arrived, there weren't many options left, and teams were just selecting anyone who might be able to contribute in some way. Prague had two options here, especially as it neared the back half of the round: Raleigh Ritchie, a once promising talent who flamed out but could maybe rekindle the spark just a little, and Lukas Schweitzer, a guy who just wasn't that good at hockey but everyone who'd shared a team with him spoke highly of his contributions to morale. Both would be viable additions at this late stage. DC made the choice clear by taking Ritchie, which led Schweitzer to be the final selection of the draft.

2277 words
Another month off for Dagmar

[Victor 11,043]

I was wondering how much people expected me to draft a goalie. I had reached out to all 3 main names before the draft (muffins, Bernard, Ross), but wasn't sure if any of them ever mentioned Moscow speaking to them. Good to drop a draft day surprise though.

 

(It was also why I was keen on trading down from 5th as I was gonna pick a goalie there regardless but that would have been a bit off the board)

[diamond_ace 3,114]

1 minute ago, Victor said:

I was wondering how much people expected me to draft a goalie. I had reached out to all 3 main names before the draft (muffins, Bernard, Ross), but wasn't sure if any of them ever mentioned Moscow speaking to them. Good to drop a draft day surprise though.

 

(It was also why I was keen on trading down from 5th as I was gonna pick a goalie there regardless but that would have been a bit off the board)

The thing that was weird was I'd written a big article about the goalie situation, knowing full well May was a borderline guy now, but just wasn't sure you were actually ready to pull the trigger - and especially did not expect it in the first. A major part of my strategy going in was to play chicken with the goalie situation into the late 2nd early 3rd, which had kind of gone out the window once I found out Shawn was taking one, but had left the window entirely and started crossing the yard once you took one also. Still, if I'm going to have to take a goalie earlier than anticipated, getting Stansson is one hell of a consolation prize.

[DangerGolding 222]

Review:

 

This is a really nice article, it gives everyone a cool insight into the thoughts of a GM come draft night and and how a front office's decision change with how the draft develops and who's available. Especially love how it's all kept in character. Little details like how Foilen's stock rose unexpectedly and using contracts with minor teams to get insight on a prospect make it much more interesting to read. Some pictures could liven it up a bit or small quality of life stuff like bolding player names but overall a really unique article.

Edited September 11, 2019 by DangerGolding

[Renomitsu 934]

Review

I'm in complete agreement with Danger here - it's nice to get snippets of GM insight on individual trades, picks, and strategy changes; it's even better to get a wholesale overview of an offseason or draft, as is the case here. I know we've talked briefly about Wilcox/Elmebeck, but it's important to see here how much rational thought went into the decision(s) to trade players away, when externally it might look like a transaction that isn't perfectly even.

 

My only concern is that it's a bit of a wall of text - some might find it a little tough to get through completely without an intervening picture or two.

[diamond_ace 3,114]

1 hour ago, Renomitsu said:

Review

I'm in complete agreement with Danger here - it's nice to get snippets of GM insight on individual trades, picks, and strategy changes; it's even better to get a wholesale overview of an offseason or draft, as is the case here. I know we've talked briefly about Wilcox/Elmebeck, but it's important to see here how much rational thought went into the decision(s) to trade players away, when externally it might look like a transaction that isn't perfectly even.

 

My only concern is that it's a bit of a wall of text - some might find it a little tough to get through completely without an intervening picture or two.

I've been on the record a few times against pictures in articles - I suck it up and do it sometimes, but in a newspaper, only the headline articles get pictures, most don't, yet plenty of people get through it fine. Fair enough though

[diamond_ace 3,114]

Ni

[diamond_ace 3,114]

2 weeks left on this, just to let the people in the draft chat know, since you guys were so concerned

[diamond_ace 3,114]

using the other two weeks of this article (written on sept 9, so legal to use at any point after) for week ending 10/20...

[diamond_ace 3,114]

and 10/27.