Subjective choice for a team with the best execution at the Draft: Dallas

Mešár was far from a reach at 26, he could've gone a lot earlier.

But I still agree with this post. All the teams you listed drafted pretty well overall.

Dallas reached for Bichsel in my opinion he wasn’t a terrible pick but I feel like he’s more of a project then most other reach in the first round

I would be surprised if nobody would mention that

Players selected behind Bichsel were Ohgren, Miroshnichenko, Pickering, Gaucher, Snuggerud, Yurov, Rinzel, Mesar... I would also select Bichsel at no. 18.

One might say Miroshnichenko (or Yurov) has higher upside, but also much higher risk. Ohgren, Gaucher and Snuggerud are all safe picks with average upside.

If speaking about D-men, I am taking Bichsel in front of Pickering, Rinzel, Lamouroux and others. He is tested against men (including his hitting) and I like his Combine results. Pickering, Rinzel and Lamouroux each has their share of struggles in juniors. So it relatively easy pick for me. If I am on the clock, I also select Bichsel at no. 18.

It's the nature of the game, D-men are more important. Regular roster has 12F and 6D. D-men play more minutes and their mistakes are devastating. You can afford to play with a few suspicious forwards, but not with a suspicious D-men. That's why on the Draft day GMs prefer D-men in front of forwards of comparable value. Fans would also say Nemec (no. 2), Jiricek (no. 6), Korchinski (no. 7), Mintyukov (no. 10), Mateychuk (no.12), Pickering (no. 21), Rinzel (no. 25) and others are all reaches in front of some XYZ forwards. GMs would call it fair value, fans would call it reaches/overpayments. I am on the GMs side, playoffs history speaks you mostly win with defense and goaltending.

There’s nothing terrible about the pick don’t get me wrong I just feel like this pick aims towards the future and Dallas is in win now mode. I think Bichsel is a great prospect but he’s not a full Klingberg replacement I think he could be that but I just don’t see it yet

I know you have good intentions. That's the point, it's desirable to have diverse opinions. How would we otherwise be able to learn anything new if we would all think the same way?

Win now? Yes and no. Their roster is old, but they do draft smart (2021: Johnston!!!, Stankoven). They try to be competitive over the longer term. That might mean they could be average over a long stretch of time, but that's another story. I don't think they try to rush their prospects. And if we switch back again to 2022 Draft: is at no. 18 there any player who can help them immediately? Ohgren? Gaucher? Mesar? Kulich? Lambert? I doubt. Maybe 5 NHL games with 5-8 minutes/game on the 4th line, but that doesn't mean anything.

So I would say if Dallas would want to win a Cup now, would they trade away their 2022 1st round pick (like some other teams) and possibly also their 2023 1st round pick. So far it look they are OK with mediocrity.

Drafting to replace a specific player over bpa that fills your depth chart needs? I don’t think you can really do that. If they wanted to replace Klingberg they could trade for an nhl ready if soon to be ready guy or they should have planned for this in advance and been looking for his replacement sooner. In the short term Heiskanen is already the #1 D now he can get a chance at PP1 and more of an offensive role. Harley could potentially be ready (we’ll see how camp goes) to fill that PP2 spot but more likely it’s Suter which I expect to be a less explosive pp unit.

If they drafted Lamereaux, Luneau, Chessly or another righty here it would have been a bigger reach and still as long or longer development track (3 years minimum imo before Bichsel gets a shot at the NHL roster).

I’d prefer what they are doing to gambling away firsts on players in the back half of their useful career (any UFA aged player imo) or rentals for what is still very long odds to win now with Benn and Seguin’s contracts holding them down. They’re good enough to sneak into playoffs right now get some revenue and keep their picks and hopefully hit a few home runs, just the four NHL players out of the 2017 draft and last year 2021 (with some high potential picks taken) is enough to convince me they should keep their picks. It would take a lot for this team to be bad enough to seriously contend for a lottery pick with as bad as other teams are right now so that not ideal either and would completely waste the early careers of the 2017 guys.

Call it mediocrity or call it keeping the business afloat by being a contender to make playoffs and get some postseason $$$, but I’d prefer that to selling the farm to be slightly better and it’s the closest thing to having your cake and eating it too if drafting good players and having a great season.

I was kind of surprised that Dallas took Bischel, but I was really hoping the Canes would be able to land him. As a Canes fan, the Canes weren’t always a great drafting team (looking at you pick before EK65 and other screw ups). But ever since the ownership changed and Waddell was brought in as the GM, everything changed. Don’t get me wrong, Francis had a few really amazing picks, but he also had a few, not so stellar picks as well (Aho, Lindholm, Hanifin compared to picks like H. Fleury at 7OA (high potential but didn’t pan out), Bean at 13 (defensive pylon with not enough offense to out shine his deficiencies), J. Gauthier at 21 (like the player but didn’t pan out). The Canes for a long time have had an excellent farm system, and are one of the league’s best at developing. So it really doesn’t matter that much with bad picks if they can be developed better. So, Canes fans are extremely excited for Morrow, Trikozov, Montgomery, and Blake.