Your Pick For #5...

[Boston_Habs]

I don’t get the “need” part. If this was Cale Makar then sure you draft the D man.

But we have Guhle, Harris, Barron, Mailloux…. Did we really need a prospect like Reinbacher?

[PTH]

Jun 28, 2023 19:49:02 GMT -5 Skilly said:

Very boring draft so far. No movement , no trades

Still no movement. Weird. Nothin'

[Skilly]

Best line of the night on Twitter

“Dvorsky is what hockey players call it when their parents split up”

😂😂

[seventeen]

Jun 28, 2023 20:23:41 GMT -5 Boston_Habs said:

I don’t get the “need” part. If this was Cale Makar then sure you draft the D man.

But we have Guhle, Harris, Barron, Mailloux…. Did we really need a prospect like Reinbacher?

Guhle and Harris (Xhekaj, Engstrom & Hutson too) play primarily on the left. How much confidence do you have in Barron or Mailloux? I’m not justifying the pick. I would have picked Michkov and worry about team makeup later. It does have a bearing. The Raptors had a strong group of individuals but the strengths were all the same. So were their weaknesses and the team fizzled.

[seventeen]

Jun 28, 2023 20:35:48 GMT -5 PTH said:

Jun 28, 2023 19:49:02 GMT -5 Skilly said:

Very boring draft so far. No movement , no trades

Still no movement. Weird. Nothin'

The NBA is so much more fun.

[Tankdriver]

To think, most people figured there was a 50-50 chance that we would be getting Dubois and Michkov.

Newhook and Reinbacher is definitely not as exciting or what the people wanted.

[Habs_fan_in_LA]

Jun 28, 2023 21:53:24 GMT -5 Tankdriver said:

To think, most people figured there was a 50-50 chance that we would be getting Dubois and Michkov.

Newhook and Reinbacher is definitely not as exciting or what the people wanted.

Not impressed with HuGo after two disappointing drafts. Michkov was a lost opportunity that comes every twenty years.

[Boston_Habs]

They’ll certainly be second guessed and they should be. I like the management team but as far as I’m concerned the honeymoon is over. I’m not saying we should be a playoff team this year but we need to be better, lots of guys need to be better, Marty needs to be better. This is a real progress year.

Again, I really hope they got this right. Some combination of not being confident in Michkov’s potential and believing Reinbacher is more than meets the eye. At a minimum I hope his offensive game has a lot of untapped potential. Otherwise I don’t really get it. A good defensive dman is nice but those guys aren’t special, not in this day and age.

[folatre]

Jun 28, 2023 20:23:41 GMT -5 Boston_Habs said:

I don’t get the “need” part. If this was Cale Makar then sure you draft the D man.

But we have Guhle, Harris, Barron, Mailloux…. Did we really need a prospect like Reinbacher?

It is hard to know. I recall Hughes in the last month or so saying that in the event that 'equivalent' prospects are available, then position of need can be used as a 'tiebreaker.'

I was not really over the moon for Leonard at #5, so it is not so much that I would have picked Leonard over Reinbacher. But passing up Michkov to pick a d-man who is just a safe top-4 guy at the NHL level seems like the type of risk-aversion that never gets anyone close to a Cup. I could have sort of stomached passing up the clear cut unique talent (Michkov) if a team was throwing together a package where Montreal walked away with a nice additional asset or two, but this is not what happened. Basically Hughes stuck to his draft list and got stranded on second base.

[PTH]

I think we have to figure the Habs brass really saw Reinbacher as the BPA, and no offer to trade down made sense.

If in their view Reinbacher is #1D material, while Michkov was an unacceptable risk, Leonard doesn't have the size to play his game effectively and Dvorsky is closer to Marcel than Marian Hossa, then trading down for a 2nd riunder or even for 22nd overall, just didn't make sense.

The HF thread about Reinbacher has a lot of people seeing a lot of positives to his game.

[folatre]

In general terms, I totally agree with what you are saying, PTH.

The thing I cannot quite shake off easily is that Michkov by most accounts is a kid who would probably go first overall in every second draft year if not for him being under contract for three years and being 'underscouted' due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

[habsorbed]

Part of the issue is we were in the worst spot of all at #5. The first 4 picks were pretty obvious. Then HuGo had to make a tough decision. Michkov has his risks and the others in my mind were a coin toss. So once they decided not to go with Michkov then they would have been criticized for any pick including Leonard (he's good because he played with two amazing line mates).

But for Reinbacher to be worth the pick he will have to become the best Austrian hockey player ever born by a large margin. I suppose Austrian hockey has improved but don't like that prediction. This is similar to last year as HuGo are hoping that Slafs becomes the best Slovak hockey player ever born by a large margin. Sure hope HuGo and their crew have a good handle on European competition!

Sadly, I feel Reinbacher has a better chance than Slafs.

[PTH]

Jun 28, 2023 23:27:50 GMT -5 folatre said:

In general terms, I totally agree with what you are saying, PTH.

The thing I cannot quite shake off easily is that Michkov by most accounts is a kid who would probably go first overall in every second draft year if not for him being under contract for three years and being 'underscouted' due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

6 teams passed on him, though. Only Chicago was right to do so, if he lives up that kind of billing.

I wouldn't risk a #1D for a high end forward with that many red flags. In 3 years the war will be over, Russian oil baron billionnaires pumping cash into the KHL, and an ELC won't seem all that attractive. An 18 year old who won't be learning English for 3 more years... would give me pause, too.

[Cranky]

Jun 28, 2023 23:17:34 GMT -5 PTH said:

I think we have to figure the Habs brass really saw Reinbacher as the BPA, and no offer to trade down made sense.

Hughes sat motionless for the duration of his 5 minutes and the last seconds looked down to his phone, then got up. That tells me he had a deal in place and the other GM didn't bite.

If we got Reinbacher AND Foerster (or 22nd), it would change the meh feeling into optimism.

Right now, it looks like we are going to grind out this "rebuild" for the next 3-4 years. After 30 years of nowhere fast and another lousy season, it's also grinding my hope as a Hab fan. Meanwhile the Bruins dropped and rose, NYR dropped and rose, NJ dropped and rebuild completely, Vegas never dropped...etc.

[habsorbed]

Jun 28, 2023 19:02:42 GMT -5 Willie Dog said:

Rienbacher better be the 2nd coming of Larry Robinson

Well, it's possible that Reinbacher, Guhle and Mailloux, all first round picks, (or maybe Hudson) become our next Big Three. Hopefully in a few years we'll be refering to David Reinbacher by his intials Dr., due the surgical precision he displays when he exits the zone and runs the PP.

What concerns me is that Hughes himself said it was not likely Reinbacher would be a #1 D and called him "a diamond in the rough" Gotta say, I don't really like going for diamonds in the rough at the #5 spot. And if so then trade down and get the guy later.

Anyway, at this point I'm going to sleep on the Big Three dream!

[PTH]

Jun 29, 2023 0:22:04 GMT -5 habsorbed said:

Part of the issue is we were in the worst spot of all at #5. The first 4 picks were pretty obvious. Then HuGo had to make a tough decision. Michkov has his risks and the others in my mind were a coin toss. So once they decided not to go with Michkov then they would have been criticized for any pick including Leonard (he's good because he played with two amazing line mates).

But for Reinbacher to be worth the pick he will have to become the best Austrian hockey player ever born by a large margin. I suppose Austrian hockey has improved but don't like that prediction. This is similar to last year as HuGo are hoping that Slafs becomes the best Slovak hockey player ever born by a large margin. Sure hope HuGo and their crew have a good handle on European competition!

Sadly, I feel Reinbacher has a better chance than Slafs.

You make a good point that Hughes didn't go for a safe pick. I suspect Leonard is the guy with the highest floor, among the available options.

[Skilly]

It is quite possible that Michkov told Montreal during the interview that he does not want to play for them. He only did 4 interviews (SAN Jose, z Montreal, Philly and Washington). The interpreter told Sportsnet that they are happy because they are going ccto the team they wanted. 🤷‍♂️

[Cranky]

Jun 29, 2023 0:43:08 GMT -5 PTH said:

You make a good point that Hughes didn't go for a safe pick. I suspect Leonard is the guy with the highest floor, among the available options.

I think so too and that is why I'm pissed we didn't move down PLUS gain assets.

The problem is that it's hard to compare forwards and defenseman unless there is a clear separation of success. THAT we won't know for at least 4-5 years.

I go back to the KK debacle. KK was a "need" that solved NOTHING. I never bought into the "late riser" bs and thought that he was overhyped with a paper thin resume for 3OA. Same with Slaf. In the case of KK, I wanted Zadina or Tkachuk, of which one is a home run and the other, well, less so, so far.

Let's hope that history doesn't repeat the "need" over the BPA KK debacle.

[folatre]

Bedard was the generational talent. Most scouts seemed to coalesce around the idea that the next tier basically consisted of four players (Fantilli, Carlsson, Michkov, and Smith). For me Anaheim, Columbus, and San Jose did not do anything controversial because those guys were projected to be top five. So really the only team, aside from the Habs, that truly dipped into the next tier down instead of taking Michkov was Arizona, though Arizona was certainly not risk averse given the fact they took two Russians in the top 12.

Hockey is debatable and time will say how the NHL careers of Michkov and Reinbacher compare. But for me Hughes played it safe and did not swing for the fences.

[Boston_Habs]

Reinbacher was a defensible pick from the perspective that he probably has a pretty high floor as an NHL dman, while forwards have more variability up and down. Maybe HuGo thought guys like Benson and Leonard weren't all that great. We'll see. I can believe an argument that had Reinbacher grading out higher than Benson or Leonard and Michkov. He's a low beta pick while Michkov is a high beta pick.

That's basically my problem with Hughes on this one. It was a safe pick and I think this was a great time to take a risk - we have a pretty deep albeit unspectacular prospect pool, we're probably not not drafting this high again for a while, so take the guy with the upside. Who knows, he may be vindicated on that but at some point he IS going to need to take a risk to get over the hump.

[Cranky]

Jun 29, 2023 15:55:20 GMT -5 Boston_Habs said:

Reinbacher was a defensible pick from the perspective that he probably has a pretty high floor as an NHL dman, while forwards have more variability up and down. Maybe HuGo thought guys like Benson and Leonard weren't all that great. We'll see. I can believe an argument that had Reinbacher grading out higher than Benson or Leonard and Michkov. He's a low beta pick while Michkov is a high beta pick.

That's basically my problem with Hughes on this one. It was a safe pick and I think this was a great time to take a risk - we have a pretty deep albeit unspectacular prospect pool, we're probably not not drafting this high again for a while, so take the guy with the upside. Who knows, he may be vindicated on that but at some point he IS going to need to take a risk to get over the hump.

Low level risks are is not the worse policy to take, but it also depends on the cost of those risks. Newhook didn't come cheap.

There are two interesting low achievers out there in Lafreniere and Kakko who are obviously available for the right price. I wonder if Laffy would of gone for Newhooks price. I like Laffy and I think that he may have a higher ceiling then Newhook.

If you can build a team where the floor of your forwards are 30-40 point young energy guys, it may not matter if you don't have a first line of 90-100 point stars. See Vegas versus Laffs. Top scorer for Vegas had....66 points. That would put him 5th in scoring on the Laffs...and yet, who won the cup?

[Willie Dog]

Jun 29, 2023 17:35:40 GMT -5 Cranky said:

Jun 29, 2023 15:55:20 GMT -5 Boston_Habs said:

Reinbacher was a defensible pick from the perspective that he probably has a pretty high floor as an NHL dman, while forwards have more variability up and down. Maybe HuGo thought guys like Benson and Leonard weren't all that great. We'll see. I can believe an argument that had Reinbacher grading out higher than Benson or Leonard and Michkov. He's a low beta pick while Michkov is a high beta pick.

That's basically my problem with Hughes on this one. It was a safe pick and I think this was a great time to take a risk - we have a pretty deep albeit unspectacular prospect pool, we're probably not not drafting this high again for a while, so take the guy with the upside. Who knows, he may be vindicated on that but at some point he IS going to need to take a risk to get over the hump.

Low level risks are is not the worse policy to take, but it also depends on the cost of those risks. Newhook didn't come cheap.

There are two interesting low achievers out there in Lafreniere and Kakko who are obviously available for the right price. I wonder if Laffy would of gone for Newhooks price. I like Laffy and I think that he may have a higher ceiling then Newhook.

If you can build a team where the floor of your forwards are 30-40 point young energy guys, it may not matter if you don't have a first line of 90-100 point stars. See Vegas versus Laffs. Top scorer for Vegas had....66 points. That would put him 5th in scoring on the Laffs...and yet, who won the cup?

We need someone on the right, a guy like Kakko would fit... I wonder what it would take?

We would corner the 2019 draft with kakko

[seventeen]

So we traded Ethan Gauthier and Mikhail Gulyalev for Alex Newhook. Stay tuned.

[Willie Dog]

Jun 29, 2023 21:30:33 GMT -5 seventeen said:

So we traded Ethan Gauthier and Mikhail Gulyalev for Alex Newhook. Stay tuned.

Gauthier kept saying the Habs were gonna pick him... He's this years Shane wright

[PTH]

Another consideration is how Hughes mentioned only seeing Michkov on tape. There is nothing quite like viewings to know how a guy plays away from the puck, how he reacts, how his teammates see him, etc.

[PTH]

Jun 29, 2023 21:30:33 GMT -5 seventeen said:

So we traded Ethan Gauthier and Mikhail Gulyalev for Alex Newhook. Stay tuned.

Then again, if we keep those picks, it's unlikely we draft those 2 guys...

[seventeen]

Jun 29, 2023 23:19:43 GMT -5 PTH said:

Jun 29, 2023 21:30:33 GMT -5 seventeen said:

So we traded Ethan Gauthier and Mikhail Gulyalev for Alex Newhook. Stay tuned.

Then again, if we keep those picks, it's unlikely we draft those 2 guys...

Probably not but I can’t pick and choose the best or worst guys around those two in hindsight. They were who was picked at the time and are as good a comparable as we can get. I heard both names around that level.