How Minnesotans did in the draft

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Sartellcelly
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How Minnesotans did in the draft

Post by Sartellcelly » Sat Jun 23, 2012 11:36 am

Let's hear about Minnesota-connected guys getting drafted and your opinions. That includes MSHSL players, Shattuck, National Development, college, U.S. juniors, WHL, etc.

Where did they go? Too low? Too high? Anyone missed?

almostashappy
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Re: How Minnesotans did in the draft

Post by almostashappy » Sat Jun 23, 2012 11:51 am

Sartellcelly wrote:Let's hear about Minnesota-connected guys getting drafted and your opinions. That includes MSHSL players, Shattuck, National Development, college, U.S. juniors, WHL, etc.

Where did they go? Too low? Too high? Anyone missed?
Nanne to the Wild in Round 7. So Lucia's offer is vindicated now, right?
:roll:

O-townClown
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Post by O-townClown » Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:03 pm

Does anyone know where John Draeger played his youth hockey?
Be kind. Rewind.

xy
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Post by xy » Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:06 pm

What with their storied history of recent postseason success, of course the Wild are in a position with their talent level to make a pick based on public relations reasons.

You almost feel bad for the kid, who had nothing to do with this. By the seventh round you're largely shooting in the dark, and realistically, none of the players you're looking at are likely to ever play in the NHL, but honestly . . . I would really like to know if someone employed professionally to assess hockey players can actually think Louie Nanne is likelier to play in the NHL than Michaelson, Merchant, Besse, Kloos, Michael Zajac (still eligible after being passed over last year), Jake Randolph, Eli May, Sam Wolfe, Trevor Olson . . . .

Or, conversely, I would really like to know the mechanics of exactly how this happens. Does Lou Sr. actually pull Chuck Fletcher aside and ask him to do this? Is Chuck simply smart enough to know it makes sense to do favors and get powerful people in his corner, since Lou has an open phone line to every media member in the Twin Cities and lots of influence?

xy
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Post by xy » Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:07 pm

O-townClown wrote:Does anyone know where John Draeger played his youth hockey?
I believe Michael Russo wrote, either on the Star Tribune website or on Twitter, that he lived in Edina until third grade, when he moved to Faribault.

rainier
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Post by rainier » Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:11 pm

Surprised Adam Johnson did not get drafted; he was ranked 82nd in NA in the last NHL central scouting rankings.

Slap Shot
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Re: How Minnesotans did in the draft

Post by Slap Shot » Sat Jun 23, 2012 2:19 pm

almostashappy wrote:
Sartellcelly wrote:Let's hear about Minnesota-connected guys getting drafted and your opinions. That includes MSHSL players, Shattuck, National Development, college, U.S. juniors, WHL, etc.

Where did they go? Too low? Too high? Anyone missed?
Nanne to the Wild in Round 7. So Lucia's offer is vindicated now, right?
:roll:
It was never in question by anyone with a clue.

bafata88
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Re: How Minnesotans did in the draft

Post by bafata88 » Sat Jun 23, 2012 2:31 pm

Slap Shot wrote:
almostashappy wrote:
Sartellcelly wrote:Let's hear about Minnesota-connected guys getting drafted and your opinions. That includes MSHSL players, Shattuck, National Development, college, U.S. juniors, WHL, etc.

Where did they go? Too low? Too high? Anyone missed?
Nanne to the Wild in Round 7. So Lucia's offer is vindicated now, right?
:roll:
It was never in question by anyone with a clue.
You all can say this without sarcasm? Wow. I guess I don't have a clue. XY seems to have hit the nail on the head with his post above. The beautiful and frustrating thing about our limited mortal existences is that we have to wait 4 or 5 years to see if the opportunities dropped on this hockey player were warranted. Nice player. Nice young man. But honestly........I am soooo clueless.

observer
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Post by observer » Sat Jun 23, 2012 2:53 pm

Nanne to the Wild in Round 7.
Not a top 20 Minnesota High School draft eligible player. And, I'm a Wild fan so a little disappointed with their lazy scouting as well.

Reality Check
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Post by Reality Check » Sat Jun 23, 2012 3:14 pm

The Wild are simply a disgrace of a franchise. While I do realize that a seventh round draft choice is fairly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, I find it hard to believe they couldn't have found a player with a little more potential.

I have no problem with taking a flyer in the later rounds, but at least pick a guy with some skill. This is a franchise that has struggled to score goals for over a decade and they waste a draft pick on guy who had a whopping 20 Points in a high school season. I guess 20 pts really isn't that bad in mn high school hockey...if your a third liner.

Is that what the Wild have resorted to, drafting third line mn high school hockey kids? What a great recipe for success!

I wonder if Detroit would have won all those Stanley Cups if they would have used their late round picks to select local Detroit high school players instead of guys like Federov, Datsyuk and Zetterberg?

Why does everyone feel they owe Lou Nanne something?

I would like to say this kid has no chance to play in the NHL, but he probably will. Why wouldn't he? Papa already got him on the USA U17 National Team, a scholarship to the Gophers, and now drafted by the Wild. What's next?

Mr Hockey?
World Junior team?
Hobey Baker?

Or will he go straight to the Wild and play on a checking line with legendary Wild players like Sephane Vellieux and Jed Ortmeyer?

And don't give me the "he's a such great kid" or "he works so hard" lines. I've heard them all. I am not questioning that.

I am simply, a hockey fan who happens to live in Minnesota and is sick of watching the Wild make a mockery of the game.

keepyourheadup
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Post by keepyourheadup » Sat Jun 23, 2012 3:21 pm

As a wild fan I just can't see throwing away any picks, its not like they are stacking Stanley cups on the shelf. At least take a flyer on a kid with size! Louie is a great kid but not even one of the top 50 in high school last year. He was barely top 5 on his own team. For a team starved for success this looks like an absolute publicity stunt and the Wild will end up taking more heat about it than its worth. If you took all the HS school players in minny last year and had a draft where do you think he would have been picked? Important to remember its not louie's fault but the wilds.

xy
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Post by xy » Sat Jun 23, 2012 3:25 pm

I'm hardly well-connected and back in February I heard the exact same rumor - Nanne to the Wild in the 7th - from a source reputable enough to make me think there was something to it.

I do struggle with even addressing this topic - no one is being harmed, really, and if any of the players passed over in the draft do well in college they'll get a chance at the pros and actually be in a better position as they can pick the team they want to go to as free agents. And someone who's by all accounts a really good kid has question marks surrounding everything he does, which doesn't seem entirely fair. But I don't know how you can objectively look at this situation and not have some questions about it.

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Post by Gopher Blog » Sat Jun 23, 2012 3:32 pm

The reality is 7th round picks often don't amount to much as it is. Getting all up in arms over such a selection seems like wasted energy.

xy
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Post by xy » Sat Jun 23, 2012 3:59 pm

Is it worth getting up in arms about, or organizing protests? Obviously not.

But if you support the Wild with your money you can certainly wonder about the direction of the franchise and the judgment of the people in charge after something like this. Seventh round picks are not gold, but they are worth something.

And again, this is not fair to the kid . . . but at some point the amount of recognition, and much more importantly, opportunities, being afforded to certain people solely on the basis of their name and who they’re related to just gets a bit excessive. I’m a big boy and I understand that the world in general, and the sports world in particular, are not perfect meritocracies, but eventually it becomes hard to take.

xy
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Post by xy » Sat Jun 23, 2012 4:21 pm

Reality Check wrote:Why does everyone feel they owe Lou Nanne something?
I suspect Lou's current status as the elder statesman of Minnesota hockey shows the value in life of being a nice guy, and how it helps you in the long run - I've never met him but have heard plenty of positive things, and no negative ones, from people who have. This helps explain in part, I'd guess, how his reputation hasn't been tarnished much by how badly his regime as North Stars GM ended: he had a team that was in the finals in '81, and through trades had the first overall picks in '82 and '83 (technically they had the second pick in '82 but Bellows was the consensus top choice and the made a deal with Boston so they could take him), and mismanaged it so badly that by '88 they finished last overall and had the top pick which became Mike Modano.

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Post by Gopher Blog » Sat Jun 23, 2012 4:36 pm

xy wrote:But if you support the Wild with your money you can certainly wonder about the direction of the franchise and the judgment of the people in charge after something like this. Seventh round picks are not gold, but they are worth something.
The reality is if you look at the percentage of 7th round picks that actually make the NHL (and especially make a serious impact), it is pretty small. It is about perspective when you are considering "the judgment of the people in charge". Anybody that supports the franchise should realistically understand that such a choice is hardly going to make/break their future. What they do as a franchise in the first couple of rounds of their drafts and the decisions they make in free agency is far greater in importance when considering their judgment as compared to whether they took the right guy when considering who to take a flyer on in the 7th round.

Fletcher is a very smart hockey guy. I can see questioning individual decisions but he is about as sound of a hockey guy as there is. Questioning his overall judgment because of one move in the 7th round is a big time overreaction IMO.

xy
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Post by xy » Sat Jun 23, 2012 5:06 pm

No, it's not a dealbreaker, and I suppose I could have phrased that less dramatically. Throw out the idiotic Nick Leddy trade and Fletcher seems to me to know what he's doing. But there are only seven rounds in the draft, through which you can secure the rights to a player who might down the road bring something special to the table. Whether they did their best to make that happen is, I think we can agree, not clear. Throw in the fact that there were rumors about this happening three months ago. And objectively, do you really think there's a better chance the guy they picked develops into an NHL level player than some of the Minnesotans who went unpicked, not to mention some Canadian junior players? I'm not saying fire the guy, but are fans supposed to just ignore it if he does something that doesn't make sense? That's all I'm saying.

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Post by Sats81 » Sat Jun 23, 2012 5:16 pm

This thing can be dissected all we want, and I could really care less if I catch all the heat in the world over this post, but have to agree with xy, keepyourheadup and Reality Check on this topic. The Wild are a joke of a franchise, always will be and this just proves it. I don't care how much you wanna argue that Fletcher is a smart hockey guy. This is a bush league, courtesy pick on the Wilds part.

Yeah, 7th round picks rarely even make it and the liklihood of a 4th round pick playing an NHL game is low, but this is garbage. Argue all you want with me. Nanne will never even play for the U. He is an average 2nd line HS hockey player and his father was given the same breaks because of his name. Your telling me regardless of it being the 7th round, Justin Kloos, Michael Zajac, Will Merchant, Grant Besse, Randolph, Olson, May, Wolfe, etc don't have a better shot of playing in the show???

How Kloos didn't get drafted is absolutely beyond me. Don't give me all this garbage about his size either. There are plenty of guys playing in the NHL smaller than him.

Respond however you want to my post but you can't even begin to make an argument that Nanne deserved to be drafted today. I don't care how good of a kid he is, how hard he works, whatever. The NHL is a business and the Wild will be a mockery for many yrs to come.

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Post by wblhcky24 » Sat Jun 23, 2012 5:24 pm

Sats81 wrote:This thing can be dissected all we want, and I could really care less if I catch all the heat in the world over this post, but have to agree with xy, keepyourheadup and Reality Check on this topic. The Wild are a joke of a franchise, always will be and this just proves it. I don't care how much you wanna argue that Fletcher is a smart hockey guy. This is a bush league, courtesy pick on the Wilds part.

Yeah, 7th round picks rarely even make it and the liklihood of a 4th round pick playing an NHL game is low, but this is garbage. Argue all you want with me. Nanne will never even play for the U. He is an average 2nd line HS hockey player and his father was given the same breaks because of his name. Your telling me regardless of it being the 7th round, Justin Kloos, Michael Zajac, Will Merchant, Grant Besse, Randolph, Olson, May, Wolfe, etc don't have a better shot of playing in the show???

How Kloos didn't get drafted is absolutely beyond me. Don't give me all this garbage about his size either. There are plenty of guys playing in the NHL smaller than him.

Respond however you want to my post but you can't even begin to make an argument that Nanne deserved to be drafted today. I don't care how good of a kid he is, how hard he works, whatever. The NHL is a business and the Wild will be a mockery for many yrs to come.
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Huskiesfan16
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Post by Huskiesfan16 » Sat Jun 23, 2012 6:24 pm

So the guys like kloos, Johnson, Wolfe, Randolph , etc, can they get drafted in later years, let's say after a year or two of college? It'd be pretty ridiculous if you could only be eligible for one year.....

northwoods oldtimer
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Post by northwoods oldtimer » Sat Jun 23, 2012 6:39 pm

Sats81 wrote:This thing can be dissected all we want, and I could really care less if I catch all the heat in the world over this post, but have to agree with xy, keepyourheadup and Reality Check on this topic. The Wild are a joke of a franchise, always will be and this just proves it. I don't care how much you wanna argue that Fletcher is a smart hockey guy. This is a bush league, courtesy pick on the Wilds part.

Yeah, 7th round picks rarely even make it and the liklihood of a 4th round pick playing an NHL game is low, but this is garbage. Argue all you want with me. Nanne will never even play for the U. He is an average 2nd line HS hockey player and his father was given the same breaks because of his name. Your telling me regardless of it being the 7th round, Justin Kloos, Michael Zajac, Will Merchant, Grant Besse, Randolph, Olson, May, Wolfe, etc don't have a better shot of playing in the show???

How Kloos didn't get drafted is absolutely beyond me. Don't give me all this garbage about his size either. There are plenty of guys playing in the NHL smaller than him.

Respond however you want to my post but you can't even begin to make an argument that Nanne deserved to be drafted today. I don't care how good of a kid he is, how hard he works, whatever. The NHL is a business and the Wild will be a mockery for many yrs to come.
Right on the money Sats you got that right! Fletcher should be run out for his horrible picks in the draft and this one is just a sign of the crony crap that goes on. Now Dom Toninato there is a pick, that kid is a player! Toronto DID their homework on a prospect. Lets get past the BS name recognition crap that goes on in this state in the so called "state of hockey". It is getting completely out of control.
This state is churning out complete mediocre talent at too many levels and in far too many areas. Take your pick: Twins, Vikings, Wild, Gophers, are below average. They are below average at best because people just shut up and keep going to the games. Who the hell else in the country does that! Folks this is unacceptable and should be questioned. Great organizations do not toss draft picks away on account of some elbow rubbing. Enough already!!

Toomuchtoosoon
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Post by Toomuchtoosoon » Sat Jun 23, 2012 6:59 pm

This baffles me. If you assume that the 7th is a thowaway pick anyway, why not go for some good PR. Who makes sense-local kid who led the BSM team to a made for TV season by scoring 5 goals in the State Championship game, or a grandson of a local hockey celebrity? One has the ability to score goals in bunches and could develop into an goal scorer at a higher level, the other has the potential to be a 3rd/4th liner. There are plenty of guys on the waiver wire and FAs every year to fill the 3rd/4th line role. Very few goal scorers. If I had an elite hockey mind, I would roll the dice on the goal scorer, not the grinder.

xy
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Post by xy » Sat Jun 23, 2012 7:03 pm

I somehow feel it goes against the spirit of this board to bring facts into the debate (I much prefer the baseless speculation, rumor-mongering, and outlandish predictions, which are what I try to engage in), but a glance at 7th round picks since 2000 shows that it is (a) very rare to get a contributing NHLer in the 7th round, but (b) also possible to get a gem - Joe Pavelski or Hendrik Lundqvist, anyone? Kyle Brodziak and Erik Haula were 7th round picks as well. Derek Boogaard was also among the leaders in NHL games played for 7th round picks, although I was mostly looking for people who actually played hockey rather than just cracking skulls.

So while it's true that the value of any given 7th round pick isn't very high, they do have value and I don't think they should be lightly used. Whether that is what happened today is a matter of opinion, I guess.

observer
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Post by observer » Sat Jun 23, 2012 9:42 pm

Nanne will never even play for the U.
Based on the strength of the players I've seen at tryouts I'm not sure he can make a USHL roster.

As for the throw away pick in the 7th round, Henrik Zetterberg was drafted in the 7th round. Check his wiki page,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Zetterberg

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Post by Gopher Blog » Sat Jun 23, 2012 9:46 pm

Let me preface this by saying I am surprised Nanne was drafted. I thought he'd go undrafted too. I do think the level of ire over his being selected is over the top given the general history of selections in that round as it is. The draft in general is a crap shoot. Especially after the top few rounds. It's not like they used a high pick on a kid at the cost of missing out on a sure fire superstar.

When questioning the selection, I do think it needs a little perspective beyond the knee jerk stuff.

1. The kid was ranked by Central Scouting as a late round type of prospect (#188 in the Final North American rankings). So it's not like he was a kid that was totally off the map that suddenly got drafted. His grandpa may have some sway locally but he's not capable of influencing all those scouts whose opinions come together for Central Scouting.

2. People who focus on current performance when arguing who should be selected are ignoring the key factor on what the draft is about... which is projecting players on future possibilities. When Stu Bickel was in high school, would have anybody had guessed he'd be seeing regular shifts as a defenseman for the NY Rangers seven years later? Highly doubtful. The point being is you can't completely judge these situations right now.

I'm not here to say Nanne will end up better than some of the other players that were mentioned in another post. I am simply pointing out that it is not always as clear cut as some people are acting when you make these choices.

As for players like Kloos... it is hardly uncommon for very talented smaller players to get overlooked by the NHL types. Look at Jack Connolly. He was a great college player, won the Hobey, etc... and he's going to be playing in Sweden next year. If he can get overlooked, then I don't see why it is so outrageous to believe a player of relatively similar stature that is less proven can get overlooked. I don't think it is right either but the NHL types have always overrated the height variable.

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