Draft

[diamond_ace 3,106]

Going into this draft, the Prague Phantoms only had a 1st and two 4ths, and weren't really expecting to get much out of it other than at the top. Originally I'd been looking into dealing the 1st down a few spots (spoiler after the fact, if the trade down would have cost me @Doomsday, the backup option would have been @Proto, so I couldn't really move too far). Ideally, this trade would have netted me a late 2nd or so - no real targets in that area, but I like to have guys in the pipeline and we really haven't had that since Ben McGirr @cartoes made it up to the bigs last season. No trade materialized that I was comfortable with - a few decent offers on the value side of things, but value doesn't necessarily mean it's what we want. No real issue - couldn't stock the cupboard, but I was able to grab the guy I'd had in my sights for over a season.

 

As the draft went on, I started looking into the guys down the board a bit. I spotted one guy who TPE-wise would have been a decent fit with my 41st pick, but was one of the few guys left on the board who'd actually written a media and did some press conferences. I opened up Woody McPine's @HearnNation67 update log and saw not only a guy who would and should go before 41, but a guy who was going under the radar massively based largely on the timeline of when he joined. Moved some pieces around, jumped up into the late 3rd (crucially without giving up 41, but 44 instead) and managed to pick up McPine.

 

At 41, the top guys were primarily welfare and practice facility, which isn't really going to create a star, but done consistently that'll net you a solid 2nd liner upon reaching their prime. I looked through some guys and one of the most consistent ones left, and a guy I'm definitely happy to have added to the pipeline, was Jack John @GoadenGoalie35. If a welfare and practice facility guy picks up some extras here and there, training camps, theme week pts, that sort of thing, you get Alex Pearson @Jayrad28 who is one of my best guys from the expansion draft - if John becomes another Pearson, I'm very happy with that, especially from the 4th.