Post by Toronto Maple Leafs on Oct 20, 2021 21:05:14 GMT -6
Trust the process…
This hockey cliché is overused and often is used to explain poor results and to provide hope of for future salvation. In the PWHL for this draft you really needed to have some sort of evaluation process and the Maple Leafs working with their large analytics department developed a very easy and manageable database. We outlined which ratings we wanted to key on, as well as age, contract term, and salary and awarded a single point for each key area a player, we then filtered the rankings by who had the highest total score, with tie scores being sorted by overall. This was not the final order by any stretch but it moved some youth up the ranks and provided a solid base to move forward with. If anyone is curious the top 3 ranked players that I had were Barkov, Dahlin, and Guentzel but I couldn’t take a winger to build around and 8 seemed too early to take a defenseman so I took my 6th ranked player in Elias Petterson.
After that things really took off for the Maple Leafs. Nikolaj Ehlers came in at 19th in our rankings and was there in the second round for me which gave me a solid foundation for my top line without breaking the bank. Initially the plan was to take one top pairing defender and a second line center but when Morgan Reilly went at 72 he was the 32nd ranked player on my list and Brett Pesce who was 52nd on my list was there at 121 the die was cast. Getting my top pairing in at just over 9M looks was a tidy piece of business. Adding another top 6 piece on just 2.45M in Andrew Mangiapane put us in a position to take a big swing for our second line center. We looked at Toews & Backstrom but had a slight edge to Backstrom given his higher DF rating and his 1.3M lower cap hit and it looked like the wheels were about to fall off when Toews went two picks ahead of us but cooler heads prevailed and we landed our man Nick Backstrom at 185. With any luck we can bridge Petey until Backstrom's money comes off the books and then lock him up long term going into his 30’s.
There is still plenty of work to be done as the Zamboni driver looks to be the opening night starter but 6 rounds in the Maples Leafs are pretty happy with how the roster is coming together.
This hockey cliché is overused and often is used to explain poor results and to provide hope of for future salvation. In the PWHL for this draft you really needed to have some sort of evaluation process and the Maple Leafs working with their large analytics department developed a very easy and manageable database. We outlined which ratings we wanted to key on, as well as age, contract term, and salary and awarded a single point for each key area a player, we then filtered the rankings by who had the highest total score, with tie scores being sorted by overall. This was not the final order by any stretch but it moved some youth up the ranks and provided a solid base to move forward with. If anyone is curious the top 3 ranked players that I had were Barkov, Dahlin, and Guentzel but I couldn’t take a winger to build around and 8 seemed too early to take a defenseman so I took my 6th ranked player in Elias Petterson.
After that things really took off for the Maple Leafs. Nikolaj Ehlers came in at 19th in our rankings and was there in the second round for me which gave me a solid foundation for my top line without breaking the bank. Initially the plan was to take one top pairing defender and a second line center but when Morgan Reilly went at 72 he was the 32nd ranked player on my list and Brett Pesce who was 52nd on my list was there at 121 the die was cast. Getting my top pairing in at just over 9M looks was a tidy piece of business. Adding another top 6 piece on just 2.45M in Andrew Mangiapane put us in a position to take a big swing for our second line center. We looked at Toews & Backstrom but had a slight edge to Backstrom given his higher DF rating and his 1.3M lower cap hit and it looked like the wheels were about to fall off when Toews went two picks ahead of us but cooler heads prevailed and we landed our man Nick Backstrom at 185. With any luck we can bridge Petey until Backstrom's money comes off the books and then lock him up long term going into his 30’s.
There is still plenty of work to be done as the Zamboni driver looks to be the opening night starter but 6 rounds in the Maples Leafs are pretty happy with how the roster is coming together.
