Reflecting On The S70 Draft

[Patrik Tallinder 1,087]

1

E. T. Encarnacion , TPE: 371

2

M. Lahtinen , TPE: 350

3

O. Omdahl , TPE: 312

4

J. Lafontaine , TPE: 266

5

C. Magnum , TPE: 234

 

 

Reflecting On The S70 Draft

With S72 Draft eligibility opening up a few days ago, I figured now would be a good time to reflect on last season's draft, and how my predictions were for them in my draft profiles series. There have been some surprises since the draft, both good and bad. Let's get into them.

 

Best Team Performance

DISCLAIMER: This is based on who I think made the most out of all their picks, not who got the best players. That would obviously be Calgary with 3 of the first 4 picks.

                            Helsinki Titans

To put it simply, Helsinki had a fantastic draft, with just about every single one of their picks doing well for themselves thus far. Their first pick of the draft was at 8th overall, where they selected Jared Spaz. Since the draft, Spaz has earned 85 TPE, and produced at nearly a point per game for Philly this season. Spaz hasn't earned one TPE yet this week which is a bit concerning, but the week is not over yet, so no need to panick. With their second pick, they selected Kyle Andersen at 11th overall. He has earned 70 TPE since the draft, and his TPE production has been pretty inconsistent in the last month or so. Even with that said, he's never dipped below 6 TPE during that time, and he earned a very impressive 23 in one week. To me, this is a very solid pick, especially with his 72 points in Philly this season. Next up for Helsinki was Ike Bennett, drafted 17th overall. He was really the wildcard in this draft, because he joined so late and was producing quite a bit of TPE before the draft. He has panned out greatly for them so far, earning 90 TPE since the draft, and putting up 72 points on the season as well, identical to Andersen. He is definitely turning out to be a great value pick for his team. Moving on to 20th overall, they selected Vladimir Shaposhnikov. Once again, a really nice pick here. Prior to the draft, Shaposhnikov was consistently getting 6 TPE every week. Since then, he has upped his production, and hasn't even hit 6 or less TPE in any week. During this period of time, he has earned a total of 71 TPE. With their final pick in the draft, Julian Dalvao was selected at 46th overall. He went inactive for 3 weeks, but got last week's practice facility. I don't think he has much upside, but if he can keep earning practice facility he'll already be outproducing a lot of those ahead of him. TLDR: Helsinki had 5 picks in the draft, and undoubtedly got a ton of value out of each one.

 

 

 

Worst Team Performance

                               Toronto Legion

Now, Toronto did not have a great draft in my opinion but it was definitely not out of bad management. The picks they made were all very reasonable, and what I even thought were good picks. Things really just didn't turn out the way they were supposed to so far, but there is still time to turn it around for sure. To kick off their draft, they selected Justin Graves 10th overall. To me, Graves had the potential to be a star, but his smaller sample size did make him a bit of a riskier pick. Not long after the draft, he went inactive, and hasn't earned one TPE in 3, almost 4 weeks. Next was Aleksandra Olsen at 22nd overall. She was never a high upside pick, but a team could have confidence in her sticking around because she had been there since the first week of eligibility and never gone completely inactive. So far she's been rather inconsistent, but has stayed active as expected. The very next pick, Dick Cheezy was taken by the Legion. He seemed like a fairly low risk pick, but his inactive week right before the draft didn't help in that regard. Although he never hit the goose egg again in any week, he only got practice facility for 2 straight weeks. He has followed that up with 3 weeks of 8 TPE, so that's a really positive sign. If he can keep this up, I could see him being a solid VHL player eventually.  He has to be their best pick in my opinion. TLDR: Toronto made good picks than just haven't panned out for them to this point. Cheezy may be turning it around though.

 

 

Steals

17

I. Bennett , TPE: 91

 

I actually included Bennett in my "Final Thoughts On The S70 Draft" article just after the draft had happened, and this is what I had to say:

Quote

Since being drafted, Bennett has already earned 32 TPE. He has consistently put up around 10 to 12 TPE per week prior to the draft, falling behind in total TPE solely because of his late entry into the league. When looking back on this draft, we may be praising Helsinki for making this pick at 17, since his earning rate is up there with some of the first round talent. I think he has a lot of potential, and can't wait to see if he can become one of the best players to come out of this draft.

 

Since I already explained his situation when talking about Helsinki, I won't say too much here. It's clear to see he is a step ahead of his draft position when looking at his TPE earning.

 

 

19

A. Bridges , TPE: 97

 

This was a pretty great pick by Seattle, as Alex Bridges has been doing pretty well for himself since being drafted. I covered him in part 10 of my draft profiles series, and here's what I had to say on January 8th:

 

Quote

The newly appointed Marlins AGM, Bridges has been an interesting prospect to watch. Ranked number 19 on my list, he has steadily earned TPE, except for one week in which he didn't earn any. Now that he has the responsibility of being an AGM, I don't see how he could fall inactive any time soon, so I expect his potential to be considerably high. The American center is an exciting offensive threat with plenty of scoring talent. Bridges' defensive game needs work, similar to his teammate Ike Bennett, who I covered last week. Nevertheless, I see a lot of potential here and I hope Bridges does well in his new job.

 

Although Bridges didn't hold onto his job, he has maintained his consistency in earning TPE, even more than he was before. His defense has improved, which is good to see. He has had 46 TPE in his last 3 full weeks, and a total of 82 TPE since the draft. I think Seattle has a real good pick here. With Mexico City this year, he's put up a nice 69 points in 58 games so far. I think there's quite a bit of potential there for Seattle to enjoy soon enough.

 

 

20

V. Shaposhnikov , TPE: 77

 

Once again, I already talked about Shaposhnikov with Helsinki. He's been progressing well, no longer being limited to his usual 6 TPE per week prior to the draft. Here's just a quick graph of his TPE earning:

 

 

 

26

JaredN , TPE: 74

 

As a possible future teammate of Jared Newman, or JaredN, I really hope he's able to keep up what has been a great run of consistent TPE earning over the last 3 full weeks. When he really wants to, he can compete with some of the talent much higher than his draft position in terms of TPE earning, yet his consistency is what remains a bit of a question. If he can keep this streak going, he could end up being a massive steal for Riga. In his last 3 full weeks, he has earned an encouraging 44 TPE. 

 

For San Diego this season, he has 44 points in 59 games, with a staggering +61 as well. His build is very well-balanced, and he projects to be a solid two way center with exceptional faceoff skills and some scoring potential to top it off. Riga should be excited for what he could potentially bring to the team.

 

 

35

N. Kulikovich , TPE: 69

 

This is, in my opinion, the biggest steal of the draft. I thought it initially, and I still believe it. Even saying that, I didn't know how good he would turn up, which looks right now to be a very good prospect. Here's what I said in my post-draft article I mentioned earlier:

 

Quote

This one was very interesting to me. In my opinion, Kulikovich was just flat out better than some of the names ahead of him. While he did go inactive for two weeks, he did update with 6 TPE prior to the draft. There were entirely inactive players with less TPE that went above him, and that is what makes it puzzling to me why he wasn't an early or even mid third round pick. This week, he has 4 TPE so far as well. I don't necessarily see star potential, but I do think this was a high quality pick for 35th overall.

 

Since then, he has earned 70 TPE, when many players selected before him have fallen either inactive or close to it. Davos should be thrilled with what they got at 35.

 

 

Busts

6

I. Risteneen , TPE: 212

 

This one pains me to write. I was really excited to see Risteneen in the VHL, and I thought it was almost certain he would. He had a job as the portal news manager, and was earning high amounts of TPE weekly. There was no decline, he just seemingly disappeared. I hope he comes back soon, but I'm not sure it will happen.

 

 

10

J. Graves , TPE: 148

 

I thought Graves was a great pick at 10th overall, and at the time, he was. He was earning large amounts of TPE and quickly catching up to the rest of the top prospects in TPE. This turned out to be wrong, as he's been inactive for weeks now. There's always a chance he comes back though.

 

13

D. Wolfe , TPE: 161

 

After being a staple in the top 5 in the draft early on, Wolfe took a dip in TPE production, and hasn't returned to form. He has earned 0 TPE in 5 of his last 8 full weeks, and 0 total in the past 2 weeks. Hopefully he can turn it around.

[McWolf 3,115]

good read, as always!

[diamond_ace 3,112]

2 of the busts were actually 2 of the guys I thought would be steals. The third... not so much.

[Patrik Tallinder 1,087]

6 hours ago, diamond_ace said:

2 of the busts were actually 2 of the guys I thought would be steals. The third... not so much.

Me too, it sucks how abruptly they left. They were on the track to becoming really good players.

[Peace 1,530]

Graves dipping out really hurt Toronto's rebuild, but this is the risk you take with first generation players. I know from a personal perspective the guy just bought his own house and was moving into it and everything. The sudden disappearance is worrying, he went from expressing his desire to purchase Toronto merchandise to totally MIA in just a few short days. Hopefully everything is okay and it's the move and home that are burning him out of his VHL interests. 

Edit: Thankfully we did pick up two studs from this draft class though in Magnum and Hextall. 

McDagg has also been earning nicely.

Edited February 22, 2020 by Peace

[Patrik Tallinder 1,087]

6 minutes ago, Peace said:

I know from a personal perspective the guy just bought his own house and was moving into it and everything.

That gives me a bit more confidence that he’ll come back. We could be looking back at this article a season from now, and saying how I jumped to conclusions too quick about him and other players.

 

Hopefully he does return, cause he showed a lot of promise! Good luck to you guys, and I can’t wait to see just how good Hextall and Magnum are in the peak of their careers.

[Enorama 2,038]

13 hours ago, Patrik Tallinder said:

With their second pick, they selected Kyle Andersen at 11th overall. He has earned 70 TPE since the draft, and his TPE production has been pretty inconsistent in the last month or so. Even with that said, he's never dipped below 6 TPE during that time, and he earned a very impressive 23 in one week. To me, this is a very solid pick, especially with his 72 points in Philly this season.

 

@Cusemode git gud