Create Account

Montreal Patriotes: Draft Review (2x draft media)
#1

[Image: 146698504_crop_north.jpg]

Montreal Patriotes: Draft Review

This weekend's SHL draft was an important moment in the league's history, seeing a great crop of rookies find the place that they are going to call home for what could be a very long time. For two of the franchises in particular, this draft represented the first crop of rookies that they would have the chance to select, and provide an opportunity for them to set the tone for their franchise's future by starting a tradition of acquiring valuable talent through the draft and building a culture of success that could last for a lifetime. The Montreal Patriotes were arguably the expansion franchise that had put the most value on the S60 draft, making some moves to get themselves two first round picks in order to attempt to acquire some players that they believe would have a really good chance of setting them up solidly for the future, and were also fortunate enough to win this season's draft lottery. Winning the lottery had them sitting in pole position with the first overall pick, and meant that they could go into the draft and pick out the player that they believed to be the very best in the entire class, an opportunity that teams don't really come across all too often. Add into this discussion the fact that when the draft started they also possessed the 17th overall pick, the 24th overall pick and the 30th overall pick, and it certainly looked like the team were set to have an important night at the draft.

With this draft being incredibly hard to get a read on with how tight-lipped other general managers were choosing to be in the run up to the draft, the Patriotes' GM had to go into the draft prepared for anything, with an expectation that a big name prospect might fall to their second pick or that the players that they were targeting with those picks might in fact be taken long before they got them chance to step up to the podium and select them. As it was, the Patriotes were incredibly happy with the way that the first round, and in fact every other round of the draft, shaped up for them. With their two first round picks they were able to take two players who were in the top 5 of their board, and with their second round picks they were able to take a player on whom they had a clear first round grade, and another whom they believe has great potential to be a serious sleeper pick from this draft. There's a lot to look at here so without any further ado, lets get into the specifics of the picks that the Patriotes were able to make on the day of their inaugural draft and what role on the team we can expect to see them playing in the near future!


1st overall - Stan Din'desque Outlaws
Much speculation existed around who the Patriotes were going to take with the first overall pick, until a few days beforehand when the front office dropped all pretences and told everyone who was interested that they were going to be selecting Stan Din'desque of the Anaheim Outlaws as the player to lead their franchise into the future. Having been selected with the first overall pick one season prior in the SMJHL draft, there was no denying that Din'desque was seen as one of the most talented prospects to enter the league in some time, and was marked as someone that the Patriotes saw as having very clear potential to be a franchise, first line centre when his time came. Stan had a quiet rookie season in the SMJHL playing on Anaheim's 4th line, but there's undeniably a wealth of talent possessed by him and it'll be interesting to see how he's able to apply that this coming season, when he should undoubtedly be given more opportunities to show exactly what he can do. Montreal is a city with high expectations, and now that it has its long awaited SHL franchise to get behind, there's undeniably going to be a lot of pressure placed on Stan as the franchise's first ever pick to succeed in the league, but I believe that the way he handled things in Anaheim shows that he's totally capable of that and should be set to have a long and successful career with the Patriotes as a leader in the locker room and an electrifying player on the ice. As far as Montreal management were concerned, this is about as close to a home run draft selection as you can get and everyone involved with the franchise is incredibly excited to watch this young man's career take shape when the time comes for him to make the transition to playing in the SHL. I would expect that there's no vision for Stan other than him being a successor to Bobby Sharp and Taylor Johansson as one of the team's elite centres, certainly with a first line projection on him and a clear vision of a future team captain when he's had the time to learn his trade a little more. All on ice considerations aside, when forming an expansion team and looking to set a great culture for our players and prospects, there wasn't anyone better we could think of to do that than Inf1d3l. A user who's incredibly highly recommended for what he's able to bring to a locker room and with the experience he has of the league, I'm already massively impressed with what he's been able to contribute and I'm very glad that we're going to have him on our side for a long time to come as one of the team's most important leaders and a voice that I can rely on and trust in the team's war room.


11th overall - Zak Wilson Falcons
As mentioned earlier, the Patriotes entered the draft with two first round picks. They'd managed to play the expansion draft so that they acquired the 20th overall pick from the Texas Renegades in order  to take a specific player, White Goodman, before a second trade with Chicago saw them move veteran Nick Connolly in return for a 2nd round pick and a draft selection 3 spots higher in the first round. From here, the Patriotes entered draft night with the 17th overall pick and had no plans to move up, quite simply because we didn't expect to find many willing trading partners to drop down the draft order by a couple of spots. A major consideration for the team however was the lack of defensemen later in the draft, so we were conscious that we would likely have to use the 17th overall pick to go out and acquire someone who we saw as a valuable piece on the team's blueline in the future. Zak Wilson was not someone I believed us to have any chance of acquiring before the draft happened. I reached out to him about an hour before it all started for a final time,  letting him know that I would love to trade up for him, but based on other conversations he believed he'd be picked somewhere in the 4th overall to 7th overall region and I simply did not see us being able to move up to that kind of draft position in order to take him. As it happened, the unpredictability of the draft meant that he started to slide down a couple of spots, and before long we were into the region of the draft where we might realistically be able to move up and acquire him without having to pay too heavy a price from our future assets. As it was, we were able to make a trade with the San Francisco Pride to acquire the 11th pick in return for the 17th pick and a pick swap next season. It's a deal that we had to think a little on as we really didn't want to move any of our owned picks, but we decided that Wilson was too great a talent not to make this kind of deal for, especially with the limited options at his position available in this draft. We have high hopes for what Wilson's going to be able to bring to the team in the future, possessing seriously elite potential as a young defenseman. There's no doubt in our mind when evaluating his talent that he's going to be a top pairing defenseman in the future, and I see him as an absolutely vital piece of the Patriotes future success. Someone who's going to be a huge piece of the team's future, I'm particularly excited to watch Zak's development into a number 1 defenseman and be a very important presence on the Montreal blueline for a long time to come.

24th overall - Roderic Banes Kraken
It's probably the biggest cliche around in these type of draft articles that a team "didn't expect a player to be there" at a particular pick, but the honest to goodness truth is I had zero expectation that we would have the good fortune to select Banes at the spot we did. Given his TPE level, the enthusiasm he'd shown in his rookie season and how highly recommended he was by his SMJHL GM, I had a clear first round grade on Banes and he was in fact one of our big considerations for a player to draft with the 17th overall pick. After picking Wilson 11th it was something of a wait until we were able to get back on the board and make a pick, and as we watched the intervening draft picks with some anticipation, it became quite clear that Banes was the guy we wanted to get there. It really was a great moment when were able to lock in that pick, as I'm completely confident that Roddy has enormous potential for the team and is someone that will be a huge piece for us in future seasons. He's already been a great guy to talk to in our locker room, and someone who believes in their ability to earn and develop as a player which is really encouraging to see as a GM. I'm excited to see what he's able to achieve with the Kraken over the next few seasons, and how the lessons he learns with them will translate to results with the Patriotes when the time comes for him to play in the SHL. You love being able to make these kind of high upside picks in the second round of the draft, and I'm super excited for what Banes is going to bring to the team over the course of his career.


30th overall - Miles O'Brien Timber
The last pick we made in the draft was Miles O'Brien, another young forward, this time from Maine, who stood out in the deep scouting that we carried out as someone that had serious potential to be a sleeper pick in this draft. Although he was a little behind in TPE, taking Miles' joining date into consideration gave us the picture of someone who was getting seriously slept on, and as it became clearer exactly what he might be able to contribute, when it became our turn to pick we knew which direction it was we wanted to go in. I think that given some time to develop further and get his feet under him within the league, O'Brien has some seriously good potential and could well turn into a serious steal of the draft. Someone who some teams might not have seen coming, Miles definitely has the potential to impress and be a massive part of our forward group in the future. He'll need some time to work on his game further down in the SMJHL, but there's a lot to like about Miles' game and what he can bring to a team, so I'm certainly going to be following his career with some anticipation. I'm sure the fans in Montreal will be hoping that he can show exactly why other teams should have had a higher grade on him on draft night, and I'm hopeful that his talent will translate to success on the big stage!

All in all, I don't think I could be much happier with the pieces that we were able to acquire in our first draft as a team. There's a lot of talent that we've been able to bring into our organisation, and the potential to have added multiple franchise players is a dream outcome as a general manager. All four of these guys have potential for great careers in the league, and it's going to be a lot of fun following them and seeing the way that things play out over the years to come!

Code:
2,136 words (2x draft media)

[Image: VkRiFym.png]





[Image: dankoa2004.gif]
Reply
#2

Do they all speak french?
Reply
#3

06-16-2021, 07:36 AMgolden_apricot Wrote: Do they all speak french?

Shit I barely speak English









Reply
#4

06-16-2021, 07:36 AMgolden_apricot Wrote: Do they all speak french?
NEIN, WIR SPRECHEN DEUTSCH

[Image: banes.png]
Reply
#5

Great article! Very flattering!

[Image: banes.png]
Reply




Users browsing this thread:
1 Guest(s)




Navigation

 

Extra Menu

 

About us

The Simulation Hockey League is a free online forums based sim league where you create your own fantasy hockey player. Join today and create your player, become a GM, get drafted, sign contracts, make trades and compete against hundreds of players from around the world.