Ryan Nugent-Hopkins: he’s a playmaker.

And our hope is that nothing else really matters.

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Jeff Petry: check that last number again there Mildred!

The draft/prospect system is kind of like a weighted lottery system wherein a player in that lottery (a team) can improve their chances to win the lottery by two methods: having more tickets or purchasing better tickets. That said it is still a lottery. Winning tickets are rare.

What makes the process so damn frustrating is that the draft/prospects system is also like unto betting at the tracks wherein a player at the cage can choose to what extent they are willing to hedge their bet in order to produce a winning ticket – betting your ticket to show may reduce the possible payout but at least you won.

So there are the two games at play – the first being to get lots of tickets and try to make as many of those as possible quality tickets AND the second being to determine the expected payout desired of each ticket.

It ain’t an easy game to play. Teams lose more often than not. Not just because they are often left holding a slip that doesn’t pay, but also because the ones that do pay often don’t pay enough.

Jeff Petry may be that rare horse that wins it all.  And the Oilers defense needs that kind of a win in the worst way right now.

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David Musil: for me it has nothing, and everything, to do with his dad.  I'll leave that with you for a bit.

Interesting thing, as many writers are wont note, David Musil was drafted earlier than his dad. 

I don’t actually care. 

What I care about is: can he play NHL level hockey?

Don’t know.

Probsibly?

sigh

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Full disclosure: I am not a goalie guy.  Bruce is a goalie guy.  I hereby advise anyone who wants to know more about Olivier Roy’s proclivities as a goaltender to go read Bruce's January 2011 review.  It’s a good’un.

As Bruce mentioned in that article, Roy played himself in-to and then out-of the starting goaltender job for Team Canada at the World Junior Hockey Championships.  While the World Juniors is affectionately known (heh) as the Tournament of Small Sample Sizes around these parts, it has to be acknowledged that, in Canada at least, it serves as a stage on which legends are born.  Falling off said stage qualifies as a ‘not-good’ thing.

To recycle Bruce’s Glass-Half-Full metaphor… Half-Full: that the Oilers finally had a goaltending prospect who grasped that top-job… Half-Empty: that the one Oiler prospect who does do that then proceeds to fritter the opportunity away?  Management material?

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Part 2 of 2 (click for Part 1 of 2).

So how does the aggregated list match up against the best there is this time of year?

Talking Bob McKenzie of course.

His list is found at TSN and it comprises of information gleaned from, primarily I believe, team scouts (he references 10 scouts but I haven't seen anything on whether or not those scouts are active team scouts, independent scouts or a mix). Since the aggregated list is comprised of information gleaned from, primarily, non-team scouts I figured this would be an interesting exercise.

Note that the aggregated list only takes into account the top-15 listings, so the number of players aggregated from those lists - 'in total' - in any given draft year can vary. For 2011 the number is 23.

So I will only look at McKenzie's top-23.

Here we go!

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Most drafts have tiers of talent in the first round - kind of like walking down those terraced stairs we often see carved into a hill that leads down to a beach - not this draft. This one has a ledge. Four, then Five, then the abyss.  Of those top-9 it's more like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and then everyone else.

As with other recent drafts the goalies aren't well represented.  I am starting to think its safe to say that the pendulum has swung and the search for the hot new goalie just ain't what it used to be.  With Tim Thomas winning it and Dwayne Roloson pushing hard we may be in the era of Goalie's I'd Like to Pluck. 

What makes that interesting is the wait. The wait for the first, next, Patrick Roy to start the swing back the other way.  Don't kid yourself.  It'll happen.  Them GM's be cool cats.  Lone wolves.  Mavericks.  They don't herd.  They pack!

heh

One more for you... what impact will Boston's 'tough' Cup win have on GM's this weekend.  How skewed will the draft boards get as everyone looks to copy that template (Hello Tyler Biggs!)?

Anyways, feel free to read on...

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The National Hockey League and its Players' Association have announced that they have concluded negotiations on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement that will be in place for the 2012-13 NHL season.  The new agreement has a 6-year lifespan, with NHLPA options to extend for two more beyond that, and it will replace the existing agreement that expires September 15, 2012.

The announcement was posted at the the NHL and NHLPA websites:

"The National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players' Association have reached an agreement in principle on the terms of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Details of the new Agreement will not be made available publicly pending the formal ratification process by NHLPA Members and the NHL Board of Governors. It is anticipated that the ratification process will be completed next week, at which time the parties will be prepared to discuss the details of the Agreement and plans for next season. No further comment will be made until then."

The new agreement is considered a giant leap forward by both the owners and the players.  One source referencing both the the labour action taking place in the National Football League, and the anticipated labour unrest that will occur in the National Basketball Association, commented that "the owners and players flirted with annihilation once and had no urge to dance on the edge of armageddon again, everyone wins with this new deal".

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In Part 1 of this tangent we looked at* the very nature of writing itself.  And didn't find much there.

Which is good.  That is the way it should be.

Before we go any further, however, let's proceed by taking one step back.  Prior to point, it is important that we take a look, even if cursory, at the nature of the content; more specifically, the form - or type - of content written.

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By now many of you know about the Major League Baseball revenue sharing 'scandal' that hit the news last month.  The full financial details of the Pirates, Rays, Marlins, Mariners, Angels and Rangers were leaked, and in every case, they showed where those teams were profiting, sometimes hugely, from pocketing revenue sharing dollars... dollars that, one would think, should be earmarked for player salaries.

(The SB Nation baseball sites have picked this up, btw)

The scandal is particularly scandalous in Florida where the Marlins recently received hundreds of millions of dollars in free money to subsidize the building of a new stadium.  Apparently the owners said they needed a new stadium in order to create the revenues they would need to be a competitive team.  They cried loudly about the poverty they silently endured for their fans, and when prudently asked to open their books to prove said poverty, they cried all the louder.  The politicians, hearing their cries, kicked prudence to the curb and forked over the cash.

The cost of kicking prudence to the curb?  Some estimate it to be as much as $2.4 billion dollars (once everything is paid off).  She's like that I hear.

Now, how scandalous is the scandal?

Well, the MLB revenue sharing provisions are quite accommodating in regards to what constitutes a player expense, so technically, the teams are off the hook as far as MLB is concerned (gonna make for some fun owners' meetings, eh?).  Further, in terms of the Marlins travails, well... perhaps their poverty was well earned after all, and the rest of the world just doesn't understand how accounting math works.  It's a good thing all those public tax dollars are so well spent.

Not a scandal at all then.

I mean, really, player development expenses ARE THE SAME AS player salaries.  THE EXACT SAME.  No question.  And if a sports team owner needs to use all their profits to pay off previously incurred debt, then they have every right to ask for taxpayer money while they are paying off said debt; it's only right.  And if the debt is subsequently paid off, then the profits are the owner's to keep; the taxpayer's money has already been spent by then, so its not really a factor anymore.  The taxpayer agreed to spend it, and it's spent, so what does it matter to the team?  Besides, you never know when an owner has to incur more debt, right?

Ah well, good thing I don't have to care about that sort of thing.  The owner will tell me what's going on.  The financial status of a private entity are sacrosanct after all.  I best not worry about it.  

You know, I have family in Edmonton.  I imagine I should thank them for paying for me to watch hockey.

Funny thing.  I was just thinking about the days I spent on a farm back in the when.  You know, I never saw a pig not go back to the trough.  Once they knew where it was, they knew where it was I guess. 

So.

How could the Pittsburgh Pirates save small market sports entertainment?

Just get rid of the 'sports'.

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As with Bruce, I have many favourite Oilers (Ryan Smyth is as dear to my heart as any Oiler player can be) so it is hard to come at this from that angle.  However, it is easy for me to name, whom I believe to be the most important post-dynasty Oiler and from that starting point it becomes, as I think about it, easy for me to say that Doug Weight is my favourite post-dynasty Oiler.

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Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons - author unknown

You know, I started writing this article over two years ago.  Stopped and started many a time because:

1. there were thoughts I couldn't complete and/or
2. it didn't seem topical anymore

heh...

There is a lot of discussion, on occasion, regarding the blogger/journalist paradigm.  When I think about it I tend to let the tangents take me where they will, mostly because a) there really is nothing new under the sun when you think it through and b) I burn easily.

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