E.9 Jan 9

Hello and welcome to What's Hot and What's Not.
Today we'll visit the surging Florida Panthers,  we will also discuss the 3 "overperforming" team from early on and where they're at halfway through the year,  and we'll go to an interesting subject to finish off this edition. 

What's Hot:  Florida Panthers

This season was a very important one for Gm Levergneux.  Not making the playoffs without his 1st rnd pick for the 3rd straight year would be hard to digest. But here they are, winners of 5 straight, sitting 2nd in the atlantic.   The offence has woken up scoring 24 goals in the last 5 games, all wins and 2 of those coming against division leaders Dallas Stars and Carolina Hurricanes.   This team is average at this point, making the playoffs will be huge relief for Gm Levergneux and his team and after cutting his rebuild short, he'll need his top prospect to make an impact soon in the nhl.  Free agency will be key for the Panthers to keep the momentum going. 

What's Not:  Cinderella teams

After a hot start to the season, the Penguins, Maple Leafs and Blackhawks were the 3 teams with mediocre to poor rosters to overperform.  Pittsburgh has some decent pieces but being in the metro, they are just not a playoff team... on paper.   They have fallen to 4th in the metro after only 3 wins in their last 10.   Their OT/SO losses have helped them stay relevant as they are tied for the league lead with 6 pts coming off those results.     Toronto is still hanging on to 3rd spot in the atlantic, not because theyve played well enough to stay there but because the division isnt good enough to surpass them.  Boston will get there eventually.    And then there's the Blackhawks, they have held their own in that tough divsion,  being 10 games over 500 is quite amazing for this team. Grubauer has been their mvp and who knows if he can keep it up for the rest of the season.   They're hanging in tough but we should expect them to fall out of the playoff race. "

What's Hot.. or not.. no sure:  Value of 1st rnd picks

Everybody loves 1st rnd picks, but are gms trading for them value them to much and/or gms who sell them dont value them enough?   I will exclude lottery picks from this discussion although the difference between the 1st playoff team pick and the last lottery pick is minimal, the chance to win 1st overall just adds enough value for any team to hold on to that pick.   I, and Gm Wilson, have analyzed the non-lottery picks from year 2016 to 2018. We chose those years because 2016 was the furthest we could go back and anyone drafted after 2018, stars aside, didnt have enough time to develop and it'd be too hard to judge what kind of players they'll be.   

From the 2016 draft we have 2 stars in Mcavoy and Debrincat drafted 16th and 26th respectively,  then we have 2 low 80s player like Hronek, kunin and the rest are either in the 70's or unrated. 

From the 2017 draft we have 0 stars, we do have some interesting players in the likes of Josh Norris, Robert Thomas, and Martin Necas who is the best rated from those with an 84ov.  

From the 2018 draft we have 0 stars, Farabee would be the player with the most success so far, there's plenty of attracting names like Sandin, Lunderstrom, Denisenko, K'andre Miller.   

In conclusion,  out of 48 non lottery players drafted between 3 and 5 years ago, we have 2 top line/pair players and mostly hope for the rest.  Certainly some of the other popular names will end up something worth drafting but majority wont.  So is the hype worth it? Should gms trade quality roster players for those picks? Should gms hold on to one of those pick and not acquire a top forward even if its just for a short stint?  I'm sure everyone has a different point of view on this subject but its something to think about. 

Thanks for tuning in. 
You stay classy, Dchl