2228 Words, 2x draft media

There have been an absolute ton of draft related media popping up, draft predictions, post draft recap and analysis and I love every bit of it. Keep it up even when the bankers don't hand out that juicy 2x
Anyway I wanted to do an in depth draft recap from behind the GM screen and take you on a bit of a journey that @Citizen of Adraa and myself ventured on Sunday night at 7pm EDT (not EST, those are different).

So in all honesty, scouting for us started at the trade deadline. We knew we had a high pick coming in, and due to some wheeling and dealing we had a good crop of high end picks coming up in this draft. We kept note of who was recreating and what kind of interest they might have coming over to the Timber, because some of the recreates have their heart set on a destination, and if that's the case and you are up front about it, the J's GM's will respect that.

The season wore on and more folks joined, then playoffs where we were unceremoniously dusted in the first round, but we got the top lottery chance, and an end to a very rough first season for Hans at the Co-Reigns.

We hit the lottery and the conversations started, not super quickly, but we would poke each other to chat every once in a while. We talked about what we needed, who was going up and who was available. We needed D and C, any other position wasn't worth talking about, no matter how good they were. we had no high end centers on the team and 1 capped D who we later would find that we would lose. More on that later. As the days wore on and the draft came closer we had 2 players break away from the pack. Mikkel Asmus Sondergard @Rabidsponge21's recreate, and Konrad Danke @JHS's recreate. We had the pleasure of JHS joining us as a DFA for the playoff run and we got to know him and his player a bit.

Ultimately we knew we were going to be able to get one of these guys, but without trading up to give us a shot at the other one, there was no way we were going to land both. I was very pro see if we could trade up into the mid 1st round, but to do that you have to pay and CoA was of sounder mind - we needed to fill out our roster, so every time I brought up the idea we debated it down and left it there. We were going to hold on to 11, and we were going to get the best player available when the time came. That left the decision to Center or D? JHS or Rabid?
Now it may seem like this was the easiest pick in the world to make, but I'll be the first to tell you it wasn't. We were maybe 75% MAS. the night before the draft we found out that we would be losing Skinner to call up, and that solidified the pick, we desperately needed that D to replace what we lost with Abel.

Now I'm going to take the time machine a week into the past and this post is going to jump, because I was just talking about events on Saturday night. On Monday night we had reached out to a few players, and responded to some players who had reached out to us, but we weren't in full blown scouting mode. This is when we started digging in. I was sending out form messages to as many of the prospects as I could. They weren't pretty, but they were an introduction. Some of these were ignored, some were returned, and some of them morphed into lovely conversations with some of the prospects and we grew our list. At this point we didn't care about positions, we just wanted to get a feel for the draft class.

Slowly over the course of the week we added onto our scouting sheet. I tried to follow up on some of the new prospects to keep an eye on who may have flamed out before the draft, and who was still checking in. More conversations followed and it seemed like every day I was getting another 2 long multi day conversations. We were able to start building positional depth charts based on these conversations.

On the Friday and Saturday evenings we were able to get together and solidify some things. We had an idea of who we wanted for round 1, 2, and 3, but I think more importantly we had an idea of which positions we wanted and we took to heart a few lessons that we learned in the previous draft. Have a build out of many players you want to pick at that position that extends past 2 or 3, and have it in advance. Now this seems very simple, and I'd argue it is. We had something similar the season before, but that was CoA's first draft as a head GM, and that was my first draft as a GM, and with it being Reddit I made the mistake of assuming we knew something that the other GM's did not. Now what that assumption lead to was constantly St. Louis or Detroit would snag our target the round before, or earlier in the same round than our pick and we were left scrambling.

So over time we massaged our list. We had a depth chart for positions but we also wanted a sudo mock draft. Not caring enough about what teams needs were and what they would likely pick, but a top down listing of our rankings, and this time we built out the sheet into the 40s I think? The only thing we were leaving off this time was the clearly IA's and some of the brand new creates who we hadn't had a chance to scout yet.

Saturday night I went to bed ready and prepared, I can't say the same for CoA, because with the time difference I think I only had my top 5 or 10 picks done by the time he headed off. Still I was excited for the draft. I felt much more ready than the previous one, perhaps that was due to more intensive scouting, perhaps it was having learned from S52, and maybe it was the freedom to focus on the team solely and not intern tasks or WJC GM like I was attempting to split the previous season. Honestly probably a mix of everything and added experience.

I'd like to think CoA woke up happy that the overall rankings were done on my end. We chatted in the morning about goalies and the different paths we could venture with number 11. We had 5 potential goalies on our chart, and looking at which other teams needed a goalie I was confident that we could wait until they started flying off the board, most likely using our last second round pick at 19, but maybe we would be able to bump that to the 3rd or 4th round. It all depended on when other people were picking. Now we were by no means hard up for a goalie. We have the luxury in having a capped 3rd season goalie in @prettyburn and we couldn't be happier with her. Our goal was to find her replacement for whenever that may be. We wanted an active goalie who was fully aware of our situation, so in scouting I was honest with all of the goalies about that, and I got some pretty good feedback.

CoA Reached out to our resident graphics artist, @suavemente Sunday morning to see if he could do up a little something special for our 1OA pick. Not every day you get to be the first pick in the teams history, so it was extra special for us. As he always seems to do it seemed to take no time at all and we had the signature that he is now sporting and our Draft graphic.

The day moved along and I was able to catch some of the SHL draft before heading off for some errands. You know, pick up some groceries among this Corona panic. I got back home about 20 minutes before the draft to a few panic'd messages from CoA - due to daylight savings time shenanigans the draft was actually an hour earlier than he thought. I went through that same panic the night before, all was good. I grabbed a few beers, settled down at my computer, and signed into the voice chat. About 10 minutes before CoA was with me in voice and we were waiting on the ok to begin from HO (I feel like I remember starting about 5 minutes earlier last season, but the draft posts didn't go up until the start time. This time we didn't get that luxury, we had to wait it out until 7 on the dot.

Time. HO gave us the ok, we posted our pick in the GM channel and CoA posted our pick to the form. Welcome to the team MAS @Rabidsponge21. We were super happy to be getting a player of your caliber out of the draft. This is the kind of prospect that leaves teams salivating over the prospect of adding to the team, and we were lucky enough to get the opportunity to add him.

Anchorage was right behind us, posting immediately after. They took another D, I have a feeling that if Rabid was available he was theirs, if not they got their next choice, but filled a position they targeted for sure.

The draft was moving along at a pretty swift rate. Teams knew who their target was and they wasted no time in picking them. Until St. Louis. I'm not sure if it was a copy past error, but they posted "9 - " for what felt like an eternity. Eventually they posted their name and both GM's let out a small yelp of joy. It wasn't Danke. He had managed to fall out of the first round. How I'm not sure, but he was our #2 and was high enough for us that we seriously considered taking him at 1. We got our 1 - 2 punch, our elite D and elite C and this draft was coming along perfectly.

Goalies started coming off the board. Covid went early in the first round, but that didn't trigger a goalie frenzy. Pick #12 did however. @honkerrs went to Anchorage. This triggered a goalie frenzy and we watched as 3 goalies were taken within the next 4 picks. This was ok, we had prepared ourselves for this. We knew we were taking a goalie with the next 2 picks now, and even though the decision for which goalie was made for us, we were stoked to land @BloomeyGB at #19. I had some really good conversations with him and was really excited to see what he's going to turn into in our system.

Right before Bloomey though, we had 18 as well. Now when these back to backs came up and we still had Patrick Shepherd @Cobbenstein available we could not be happier. Not only were we locking up the 2nd C slot that we needed from this draft, and the goalie, but we were able to get an elite prospect as well. I had Cobbenstein at #4 overall on my chart. We did not expect him to be available and at the end of the second round we had picked up our #1, #2, #4 overall prospects and one of our top 3 goalies. We filled out 1 D, 2 C and the G spot, so all that was left was 2D or a D and W. Nearing the end of the 3rd round we had an opportunity to move down 2 picks and gain a little bit down the road, so we took that, and our next target was still available for us. Big win-win deal on our part. We got another recreate with Will Windsor @Allegiant.

A bit more moving and shaking, we did another move that gained us a pick down the road for a small drop in position. This time we did have some guys we were looking at go, but when push came to shove we were able to snag Kyle Sutton @CrazyMojito another looking active player who I had quite a bit higher than where we were drafting. We weren't necessarily looking for a winger at this time or in the draft at all, but it worked out and we were able to grab another player who I had some good scouting talks with.

All in all I am super pleased with how the draft went and the new rookies we have joining our team. I don't think it is too much of a swing to say we came away with the best draft and I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do with FHM this season.

Thanks for reading my ramblings :)

I love this and I love that we ended up with this GD class. yall are awesome GM’s and i couldnt be happier coming back to Maine

Konrad Danke / C / 340 TPE / Texas / Maine / Czech
S54 Draft Class // Czech Republic


John Heimer-Schmidt // Former Whaler GM // Retired
The Greatest Shitstirrer of All Time


thanks @suavemente !

Maine gonna be hot this season.

Thank you @Ragnar  for the Sig!

Previously: Patrick Shepherd (S52 - S64)

For sweet Sigs @sve7en
https://twitter.com/DwightKnight33/