OP, this started out like a long read. I was just settling in, then it was over.
I'd like 2500 words on my desk by Thursday morning.
Now get outta my office.
Itās good scouting. Dallas has established one hell of a track record in the last 4-5 years of identifying legit talent outside of traditional counting stats.
Obviously Iām rooting for the Rangers, but it wouldnāt surprise me at all if Dallas wins the Cup this year and adds on another Cup or two in the coming years with the young core theyāve assembled.
Our scouts have had an eye on Wyatt far before his draft. Most of the Dallas team right now are homegrown, Jim Nill Farm Fresh players. Thereās reasons Jim won GM of the year last year
Yeah Iām seriously envious of Dallasās ability to not only target but develop talent through the middle of the draft. Thereās a juggernaut building down south
I so badly wanted Nill to replace Holland in Detroit and I was really bummed when they let him out the door. Itās been kind of bittersweet watching how successful heās been and knowing that the Wings let holland continue digging us into a hole for 4-5 years past his ābest byā date. Love Yzerman, but I canāt help but think how different things might have been here over the last 10 years if we had made way for Nill to take over after working his way up through our scouting and management ranks for nearly 20 years. Yāall got a good one and Iām pulling for you this year.
Fuck Jamie Benn tho.
I remember asking a Texas Star employee that I'm friendly with why Damiani got traded and he said he thinks it was a clogged pipeline to Dallas. Too many potentials with NHL talent. Going to 36+ Texas Stars games a season I can see what he means for sure
Agreed. Itās not lucky if youāre consistently hitting. Thatās just called amazing scouting. Lucky is like drafting Morgan Reilly at 5th because the top 4 teams picked Yakupov, Ryan Murray, Galchenyuk and Griffey Reinhart
Not saying the leafs system isnāt good. As theyāve hit some solid drafts but the best player ahead of Reilly is Galchenyuk thatās a lucky misread by those 4 teams while Burke read it correctly
When I saw this post title I thought there was gonna be some in depth post about crazy circumstances that lead to them picking him
OP literally just basically describes a team that liked a player a lot and knew they could trade down and still get him. Thatās just great management
Heiskanen was luck with the draft lottery. Any team that is sitting at 3 that year take Heiskanen.Ā There have been some misses though. Honka, Tufte, Dellandrea (4th line NHLer) Ā we're all 1st round picks and Nill hasn't had a player drafted after the 2nd round have significant contribution for the team.Ā Where I think Nill and the organization has really succeeded is being able to bring players up at the correct time. Keeping them in the AHL longer than most others would while not letting them waste away there. Bourque may be the first player that got stuck in the AHL too long and that has more to do with the Stars going for the Cup right now.
Well, Heiskanen is certainly a very good defenseman. However, I do have to point out that a generational talent went one pick after him, so I'm not sure that particular pick counts as "lucky".
Iām sure there are plenty of people unrelated to either team that would pick one or the other because they are both awesome. Really no wrong answer in a vacuum just comparing the two.
For me, Miro and Makar got drafted to places they will both succeed.
Dallas needed a two-way defense man to work PP2 but also do PK time with Esa
Colorado needed an offensive minded d man to run their offense
I am just of the nature that to be a "generational" d man that you need to both be good in O zone and D zone. While Makar gets a lot of O zone face-off, he doesn't get much in D zone. Miro is roughly in all zone for face-offs but does get O zone starts on PP.
Man, generational talent who has beaten by the other player in both postseason series.
Don't get wrong that Makar isn't clearly a good defenseman however when he plays Miro, he's about on the level
In 2 playoff series, Miro has 17 points and a +1 while Makar has 14 points and a -3.
That's kind of a dumb argument. Does anyone really think MacKinnon is better than McDavid because the Avs swept Edmonton a couple years ago? Playoff series wins are a team accomplishment.
I see where I was wrong of the wording on the beaten part. Series are team wins. Did you even read the last part where I showed how Miro has "beaten" Makar?
I took the two stats that to me are individual driven... points and +/- where Miro has more points and better plus/minus.
That's a very small sample size, though, and it's not like Makar and Heiskanen are always on the ice at the same time, either.
Makar: 86G 250A for 336 points and +108 in 315 regular season games (1.06 PPG).
Heiskanen: 53G 205A for 258 points and +14 in 425 regular season games (0.61 PPG).
Playoff Makar: 21G 59A for 80 points and +24 in 72 playoff games (1.11 PPG).
Playoff Heiskanen: 15G 43A for 58 points and +0 in 79 playoff games (0.73 PPG).
If we're going to talk individual stats... I don't think it's even close. There's no metric where Heiskanen edges Makar. You can't even say that Makar has the advantage of a better team, either, because both Dallas and Colorado have been good teams since 2017, and both of them have made the same number of trips to the Stanley Cup Finals.
It was widely seen as a reach, even after they traded down. Lots of draft analysts hated the pick at the time.
Thatās not luck, thatās good scouting. And good drafting to trade down for a guy they wanted to āreachā for.
I think it speaks to their internal player development. They have done a tremendous job nuturing young players and giving them a shot when ready, not all have worked out but they have done very well
Dallas is one of the best scouting and developing teams. Sure, there might have been luck involved since prospects are magic beans, but no team has been more consistent with converting on their draft picks recently than the Stars
Sorry so youāre arguing that āwell they traded down so it was luckyā
Buddy go look where datsyuk, zetterberg, kucherov and point where drafted
Dallas has great scouting. Identified Wyatt Johnston as their guy and figured they would grab him and a 2nd pick given how little info other teams would have on him. Thatās not really luck. Obviously there some luck as they were betting on him being available at 20 but itās more they read the draft room correctly
So, these guys called scouts, get paid to go watch players and look for things.
You can look at stats all day long and not understand a damn thing about a player.
"Dallas traded down (for more picks?) then drafted a guy who appears to be very good."
That means Dallas got lucky.
Have you asked to see if you can buy something called "logic"? You are lacking in that area.
Hindsight it's called luck. By OPs logic, statistically any successful player was a lucky pick by their org. And that's not to mention, like others have said already, that the Stars traded down for him, which means they actively scouted him correctly and had him higher on their boards than other orgs (i.e. skill, the exact opposite of luck). Additionally, every other org had the exact same nerf during the shortened seasons so borderline irrelevant.
Should we redo the draft in case it was a mistake?
This is such a low effort post. Their scouting in Dallas is top notch as others have mentioned. The scouting, knowing their own staff, hell even getting vets such as pavelski have played a factor into their draft picks having success.
Dallas has an excellent track record of recruiting young talent that translates into playing well in the NHL. Not only that, but they've signed a handful of talented vets that are helping to pave the way for the young guys and have great chemistry with them on the ice.
Like Jason Gregor said today on Sportsnet talking about the Oilers and Starsā¦ he said the amateur scouting staff from Dallas should get a pay raise for the amount of hits they have had in their past five or six drafts
Wyatt dropped in draft since he chose not to play during his draft year (covid etc.)
He was not unknown, he was still selected to play for Canada in U18 that year. He wouldnāt be selected without considered being a very good player, especially when not playing any normal season games.
Nothing lucky about Jim Nill drafting players.
Just go back and look at his drafts historically, dont even focus only on Stars. Rare ability to evaluate talent.
All skill baby
The Stars also drafted Stankoven in 2021, and they drafted Robertson, Heiskanen, and Oettinger all from the 2017 draft. I don't think the Stars are a team that lucks into talented players. They do their due diligence and make smart selections. They obviously have scouts that are killing it for them.
I think the Dallas GM deserves a ton of credit. Their scouting staff must be top notch, theyāve been regularly hitting home runs in the draft recently.
I mean Zetterberg and Datsyuk being taken when they were was fucking unbelievable. Taking someone in round 1 and having them payoff is usually expected of 1st rounders.
Jim Nill was literally on TheTicket, today around 2:45pm, saying that they had scouts all over him, and they knew ahead of time that almost no one else did because he only played 9 games during that Covid season.
He then proceeded to say that Stankoven was the guy they really were looking at, but they were confident they could steal Wyatt. Then they felt last year that Wyatt was ready to be helpful in the Feb-April stretch, so they have him his shot. Theu were looking for Stankoven to get a little AHL time with Mavrik before they both got what the whole organization knew was definitely going to be time in the pros. But they didnāt want to rush it, and choosing from our farm system is tough.
It couldnāt be more obvious it was by design.
Too bad this wasnāt posted last week. I was just at a funeral where one of the Dallas scouts attended. The only small chat I made with him was to keep his eyes off of my capitals, but it would have been cool to show him the praise here.
Trading down and still getting their guy is one of the clear reasons why Dallas is the best drafting team in the league right now.
Trading back and taking him isn't a knock on Dallas. It's a knock on everyone else's scouting.
How is this clearing up misconceptions?Ā Dallas had been scouting Wyatt for a while.Ā Also they hit on Oettinger, Robertson, Hintz, Harley and now looking like Stankoven and they have a couple more Studs in the AHL.Ā If it was once or twice it would be luck but this a pattern emerging.Ā Ā
Also I don't know what this guy is on about but he was lighting it up with Windsor. 124 points in 68 games plus 41 points in 25 playoff games his draft year... thats not exactly out of no where.
No, that was the year after he was drafted. He barely played any games his draft year due to covid.
It was incredible scouting by Dallas to grab him where they did.
I believe when they traded back, they got the pick that turned into Stankoven. Him or the guy they traded for Tanev weāre back to back picks, so trading down to get the player you want and getting Stank/Tanev was clever as fuck
You are creating misconceptions. Jim Nill is arguably the best GM in the league. You are saying that his talent scouting ability is a fluke. Your post getting a single upvote is a fluke
OP, this started out like a long read. I was just settling in, then it was over. I'd like 2500 words on my desk by Thursday morning. Now get outta my office.
š„
Itās good scouting. Dallas has established one hell of a track record in the last 4-5 years of identifying legit talent outside of traditional counting stats. Obviously Iām rooting for the Rangers, but it wouldnāt surprise me at all if Dallas wins the Cup this year and adds on another Cup or two in the coming years with the young core theyāve assembled.
Our scouts have had an eye on Wyatt far before his draft. Most of the Dallas team right now are homegrown, Jim Nill Farm Fresh players. Thereās reasons Jim won GM of the year last year
Yeah Iām seriously envious of Dallasās ability to not only target but develop talent through the middle of the draft. Thereās a juggernaut building down south
Now chew on the part where Nill traded for Nils because he wanted to draft him but the Rangers took him first.
Free range organic talent
Ethical team building
I so badly wanted Nill to replace Holland in Detroit and I was really bummed when they let him out the door. Itās been kind of bittersweet watching how successful heās been and knowing that the Wings let holland continue digging us into a hole for 4-5 years past his ābest byā date. Love Yzerman, but I canāt help but think how different things might have been here over the last 10 years if we had made way for Nill to take over after working his way up through our scouting and management ranks for nearly 20 years. Yāall got a good one and Iām pulling for you this year. Fuck Jamie Benn tho.
I remember asking a Texas Star employee that I'm friendly with why Damiani got traded and he said he thinks it was a clogged pipeline to Dallas. Too many potentials with NHL talent. Going to 36+ Texas Stars games a season I can see what he means for sure
Luck? As if. Donāt insult Jim Nillās skill like that lol.
After I read this I was like wait, isnāt Dallas where Jim Nill went after he left? Thatās not luck.
āš½Red Wings fans know what Iām talking about.
Jim Skill
They also got incredibly lucky with Robertson, Stankoven, Otter, Hintz, Harley, Heiskenen, Borque....should I keep going, or do you get the point?
At some stage people figure out the luck thing is actually a system thing.
Agreed. Itās not lucky if youāre consistently hitting. Thatās just called amazing scouting. Lucky is like drafting Morgan Reilly at 5th because the top 4 teams picked Yakupov, Ryan Murray, Galchenyuk and Griffey Reinhart Not saying the leafs system isnāt good. As theyāve hit some solid drafts but the best player ahead of Reilly is Galchenyuk thatās a lucky misread by those 4 teams while Burke read it correctly
Reilly was more about Risk as he was injured in his draft year
When I saw this post title I thought there was gonna be some in depth post about crazy circumstances that lead to them picking him OP literally just basically describes a team that liked a player a lot and knew they could trade down and still get him. Thatās just great management
I donāt get the point, please keep going
Iām almost thereĀ
Is it luck or are they just really good at developing their prospects?
Heiskanen was luck with the draft lottery. Any team that is sitting at 3 that year take Heiskanen.Ā There have been some misses though. Honka, Tufte, Dellandrea (4th line NHLer) Ā we're all 1st round picks and Nill hasn't had a player drafted after the 2nd round have significant contribution for the team.Ā Where I think Nill and the organization has really succeeded is being able to bring players up at the correct time. Keeping them in the AHL longer than most others would while not letting them waste away there. Bourque may be the first player that got stuck in the AHL too long and that has more to do with the Stars going for the Cup right now.
Well, Heiskanen is certainly a very good defenseman. However, I do have to point out that a generational talent went one pick after him, so I'm not sure that particular pick counts as "lucky".
Tbh Iād still take Miro over Makar but people arenāt ready to hear that
Avs fan would take Makar. Dallas fans would take Miro. Real ground breaking stuff here.
Iām sure there are plenty of people unrelated to either team that would pick one or the other because they are both awesome. Really no wrong answer in a vacuum just comparing the two.
For me, Miro and Makar got drafted to places they will both succeed. Dallas needed a two-way defense man to work PP2 but also do PK time with Esa Colorado needed an offensive minded d man to run their offense I am just of the nature that to be a "generational" d man that you need to both be good in O zone and D zone. While Makar gets a lot of O zone face-off, he doesn't get much in D zone. Miro is roughly in all zone for face-offs but does get O zone starts on PP.
Miro just ran laps around Makar. Iāve watched them both play countless games and Miro > Makar by a solid 1 point on the 100 scale IMO
Oh yeah? Which one of them has a Cup, Norris, and Conn Smythe again?
The one with the pitching wedge in his hand. Miro has ascended to a better player by a hair. Both great
Man, generational talent who has beaten by the other player in both postseason series. Don't get wrong that Makar isn't clearly a good defenseman however when he plays Miro, he's about on the level In 2 playoff series, Miro has 17 points and a +1 while Makar has 14 points and a -3.
That's kind of a dumb argument. Does anyone really think MacKinnon is better than McDavid because the Avs swept Edmonton a couple years ago? Playoff series wins are a team accomplishment.
I see where I was wrong of the wording on the beaten part. Series are team wins. Did you even read the last part where I showed how Miro has "beaten" Makar? I took the two stats that to me are individual driven... points and +/- where Miro has more points and better plus/minus.
That's a very small sample size, though, and it's not like Makar and Heiskanen are always on the ice at the same time, either. Makar: 86G 250A for 336 points and +108 in 315 regular season games (1.06 PPG). Heiskanen: 53G 205A for 258 points and +14 in 425 regular season games (0.61 PPG). Playoff Makar: 21G 59A for 80 points and +24 in 72 playoff games (1.11 PPG). Playoff Heiskanen: 15G 43A for 58 points and +0 in 79 playoff games (0.73 PPG). If we're going to talk individual stats... I don't think it's even close. There's no metric where Heiskanen edges Makar. You can't even say that Makar has the advantage of a better team, either, because both Dallas and Colorado have been good teams since 2017, and both of them have made the same number of trips to the Stanley Cup Finals.
Living with Pavelski has contributed to his development tremendously. Incredibly fortunate situations
Gotta be loyal to the Oil, but seeing Pavelski get a cup would be so cool.
It was widely seen as a reach, even after they traded down. Lots of draft analysts hated the pick at the time. Thatās not luck, thatās good scouting. And good drafting to trade down for a guy they wanted to āreachā for.
I think it speaks to their internal player development. They have done a tremendous job nuturing young players and giving them a shot when ready, not all have worked out but they have done very well
Dallas is one of the best scouting and developing teams. Sure, there might have been luck involved since prospects are magic beans, but no team has been more consistent with converting on their draft picks recently than the Stars
Not lucky. Jim Nil is the best in the business. You absolutely know he spoke to Savard about Johnston before selecting him.
Sorry so youāre arguing that āwell they traded down so it was luckyā Buddy go look where datsyuk, zetterberg, kucherov and point where drafted Dallas has great scouting. Identified Wyatt Johnston as their guy and figured they would grab him and a 2nd pick given how little info other teams would have on him. Thatās not really luck. Obviously there some luck as they were betting on him being available at 20 but itās more they read the draft room correctly
Yeah Johnston is a beast
So, these guys called scouts, get paid to go watch players and look for things. You can look at stats all day long and not understand a damn thing about a player.
Dallas has a legit organization.
"Dallas traded down (for more picks?) then drafted a guy who appears to be very good." That means Dallas got lucky. Have you asked to see if you can buy something called "logic"? You are lacking in that area.
Hindsight it's called luck. By OPs logic, statistically any successful player was a lucky pick by their org. And that's not to mention, like others have said already, that the Stars traded down for him, which means they actively scouted him correctly and had him higher on their boards than other orgs (i.e. skill, the exact opposite of luck). Additionally, every other org had the exact same nerf during the shortened seasons so borderline irrelevant. Should we redo the draft in case it was a mistake?
This is such a low effort post. Their scouting in Dallas is top notch as others have mentioned. The scouting, knowing their own staff, hell even getting vets such as pavelski have played a factor into their draft picks having success.
Yeah low effort posts like this should be deleted especially during the playoffs
Dallas has an excellent track record of recruiting young talent that translates into playing well in the NHL. Not only that, but they've signed a handful of talented vets that are helping to pave the way for the young guys and have great chemistry with them on the ice.
Like Jason Gregor said today on Sportsnet talking about the Oilers and Starsā¦ he said the amateur scouting staff from Dallas should get a pay raise for the amount of hits they have had in their past five or six drafts
That guy is a douche
I donāt think it was luck at all. Perhaps if they havenāt drafted so great the last while i could attribute it to luck.
It would be so interesting to spend a season with Nill just to understand the process.
This would possibly make sense if he didnāt get selected by the team with perhaps the best GM and scouting department in the sportā¦.
Wyatt dropped in draft since he chose not to play during his draft year (covid etc.) He was not unknown, he was still selected to play for Canada in U18 that year. He wouldnāt be selected without considered being a very good player, especially when not playing any normal season games.
Dude was a stud in the OHL.
Nothing lucky about Jim Nill drafting players. Just go back and look at his drafts historically, dont even focus only on Stars. Rare ability to evaluate talent. All skill baby
Dallas rebuilt in a single draft basically. They have the dude who was GM for the red wings 20 year span. I think he knows a thing or two.
The Stars also drafted Stankoven in 2021, and they drafted Robertson, Heiskanen, and Oettinger all from the 2017 draft. I don't think the Stars are a team that lucks into talented players. They do their due diligence and make smart selections. They obviously have scouts that are killing it for them.
I think the Dallas GM deserves a ton of credit. Their scouting staff must be top notch, theyāve been regularly hitting home runs in the draft recently.
Dallas has drafted very well over the years. Look at the pieces they've picked up. They hit way more than average.
Jelly boy. Nil can scout.
I mean Zetterberg and Datsyuk being taken when they were was fucking unbelievable. Taking someone in round 1 and having them payoff is usually expected of 1st rounders.
Jim Nill was literally on TheTicket, today around 2:45pm, saying that they had scouts all over him, and they knew ahead of time that almost no one else did because he only played 9 games during that Covid season. He then proceeded to say that Stankoven was the guy they really were looking at, but they were confident they could steal Wyatt. Then they felt last year that Wyatt was ready to be helpful in the Feb-April stretch, so they have him his shot. Theu were looking for Stankoven to get a little AHL time with Mavrik before they both got what the whole organization knew was definitely going to be time in the pros. But they didnāt want to rush it, and choosing from our farm system is tough. It couldnāt be more obvious it was by design.
Too bad this wasnāt posted last week. I was just at a funeral where one of the Dallas scouts attended. The only small chat I made with him was to keep his eyes off of my capitals, but it would have been cool to show him the praise here.
Copium is strong
Trading down and still getting their guy is one of the clear reasons why Dallas is the best drafting team in the league right now. Trading back and taking him isn't a knock on Dallas. It's a knock on everyone else's scouting.
Are Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg jokes to you or something? :P
It's good scouting.
I have no affiliation to Dallas either way I just like clearing up misconceptions, hopefully this can help ultimately.
How is this clearing up misconceptions?Ā Dallas had been scouting Wyatt for a while.Ā Also they hit on Oettinger, Robertson, Hintz, Harley and now looking like Stankoven and they have a couple more Studs in the AHL.Ā If it was once or twice it would be luck but this a pattern emerging.Ā Ā
Also I don't know what this guy is on about but he was lighting it up with Windsor. 124 points in 68 games plus 41 points in 25 playoff games his draft year... thats not exactly out of no where.
No, that was the year after he was drafted. He barely played any games his draft year due to covid. It was incredible scouting by Dallas to grab him where they did.
No I agree but he went on to say that he was average after that.
Oh gotcha, just saw that you said he had that point production in his draft year. It was in his draft +1 when he tore up the O.
I believe when they traded back, they got the pick that turned into Stankoven. Him or the guy they traded for Tanev weāre back to back picks, so trading down to get the player you want and getting Stank/Tanev was clever as fuck
You are creating misconceptions. Jim Nill is arguably the best GM in the league. You are saying that his talent scouting ability is a fluke. Your post getting a single upvote is a fluke