I got this email from the Crappy One the other day...enjoy
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I think they're done. they looked pretty tired last night. they have to rely too much on the failure of too many other teams while winning all of their remaining games. it's been a fun ride the last 2+ months and hopefully they'll be able to pick it up again in the fall. they're currently tied for 24th in the league, which means that as long as they don't get hot again they should be in line for a top 7 pick at least. this draft isn't exactly stacked but they should get something decent that high. just depends on what they decide they need. honestly, I don't really know what that is.
the post-rolston devils should have a top 6 that looks like this:
kovy-zajac-parise
tedenby-josefson-(clarkson/elias)
tallinder and volchenkov will be around for a while on D. my man-crush, john merrill, probably won't be in the nhl for 3 more years. white will probably get another contract which would impact my hope that he leaves. urbom will hopefully be a regular next season. I'd like to see greene resigned, too. fayne will probably be around because he's cheap and has been really good for a rookie this year. and I'm sure taormina will get another shot, but I'm not sold on him yet. too little time before his injury.
I really think that nugent-hopkins will be an all-star, maybe along the lines of mikko koivu, where if he's not the best player on your team, you'll be fine. adam larsson would be the ideal pick for them, but having played their way out of a the top 2, there's no way that happens unless they trade up. doug hamilton is supposed to be a big stay at hom angry defensive defenseman, but I have a gut feeling that he will end up too much like colin white. white was good before the eye injury, but definitely not worth that high a draft pick. sean couturier is supposed to be a jordan staal type with more of a scoring punch, which make for an awesome 3rd line center on the devils, or a good second line center on most other teams. ryan murphy is a puck-moving defenseman. from what I've read on the TSN boards, ryan strome and jon huberdeau (both centers) will be the 2 players that, in 5 years, everyone will say should have gone top 3 (with larsson) rather than where ever they end up. there's actually a pretty sick strome goal somewhere online. if you watch any of the tsn ranking videos you should see it there.
larsson keeps getting compared to lidstrom and probably better than hedman. very good offensive upside, but not great. very smart defensive upside, but not great. that's what the devils really need and have totally missed since the real neidermeyer left: a top defenseman that does plays both ends at an A- level or above. I think greene can do that (paul martin, too, although expectations for him were way fucked) at a B level. tallinder was supposed to do this at a B level, but that was before I realized I hate him, which was before I realized that I don't hate him but might consider punching him in the nuts out of principal anyway. 6 B dmen would be great, but that ain't happening. they have always relied too heavily on dmen that were only good at one thing. offensive dmen aren't great in their own end, defensive dmen could't make an out-going pass to save his life. so the hybrid version is what they really need.
I haven't looked at any of the goalie rankings at all. I guess they need to look at taking a D or C first overall and see how things play out. they need to stay away from the whole undersized forward thing. as much as I like tedenby, he needs to add about 10 lbs of muscle and 10 lbs of fat because he was just getting thrown around like an over-used cliche (you thought I would say thrown around like a rag-doll, didn't you?). it's been a little better lately, but I still think he might need to spend a summer in the keith tkachuk workout school.
of course, there's the whole goalie issue, too. they have a few in the system that are kind of highly regarded, but I don't know that any of them have really shown anything to make people think they can be full-time top goalies in the nhl. of course, having someone like brodeur is (was) a luxury but you don't need a superstar goalie to win anymore. niemi won it last year, fleury won it the year before. fleury sucks. lundqvist will keep the [censored] rangers from winning because he eats up too much cap space, which is fantastic. they could spend half as much on someone else to give them 80% of what queen henrik does and use that extra 3+ million to buy some more goals. this isn't to say that the drury and gaborik contracts aren't total albatrosses for that team, but I don't think they take enough flack for mismanaging their salary cap. everyone was on the devils for their issues earlier but the only reason the rags iced a full team was by demoting redden to hartford. they overpaid gaborik (too injured), drury, redden, lundqvist and, in my opinion, staal. he will be good but shouldn't have gotten the contract he did quite so soon.
I'm done ranting. whatever train of thought I had derailed somewhere and then I started thinking about how the rangers go to [censored] and shit.
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The Crappy One then goes on to list the top 30 skaters in this years draft but I am going to cut that and let you find it for yourself if you are interested
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