drafting russians in the 2008 draft

[jman]

here\'s one:

keeper league, we have the 2008 draft coming up in which we draft only those players that were drafted in the actual 2008 draft.

my farm in really deep all over as you see below so i figured that with the picks i have, i would take some gambles on some russian forwards this year. my picks are so positioned so that i could logically take all of:

filatov
tikhonov
petrov

and ive actually strongly considered taking them. but then i lost rads this weekend and it rubbed me the wrong way no doubt. i realize this whole KHL scare is really new but any input here would be appreciated. need i be afraid that i will never see these guys in the NHL or that their NHL careers will be short-lived?

also, what is everyone\'s opinion on del zotto. planning on snagging him over guys like karlson, sbisa, myers, teubert. how does he fit in their fantasy-wise?

thank you

[veronesepk]

I might take the risk in two of the three cases. I\'m in a similar draft position, and I think guys like Filatov will be protected a little bit betters than Rads (earlier contract extension, little time in the minors, etc.). I think Tihkonov is even less of a risk, due to the situation in Phoenix, Gretzky\'s presence, and the fact that he has lived in the U.S. before. I would be a little more wary of Petrov, as it was up in the air that he would ever come over in the first place.

I don\'t think Rads is gone. I would bet money he is in the NHL for at least next year and is more than likely traded before training camp. The team he is traded too will make a ton of difference as to whether he stays or goes to the KHL after his contract is up. This may be a shot in the dark, but I wouldn\'t be surprised if he ends up in Pitt due to Shero\'s connection to the Preds, the switch between conferences, and the great situation (playing with Crosby, along with countrymen like Malkin and Gonchar). I could see him staying in the NHL past next year if something like that happened.

[jman]

thanks for the input veronesepk. im pretty confident in tikhonov wanting to be here. and watching filatov get drafted, he looked excited to be over here. i agree with you.. i also agree that petrov is a bit of a mystery.

as for rads, there again, i agree with you. i actually thought yesterday that he would likely be dealt out of nashville. i was thinking of possible suiters and pittsburg raised my eyebrows as a defintie possibility.

im not sure what will happen, its hard to believe that 30 nhl GMs will just watch rads get on the boat to russia. he\'s a young up and comer which is very valuable. signing him to a lucrative 5-6 year deal might sound like a pretty good idea to a lot of GMs.

however, i looked at some of the press, and what really boggled me was them quoting rads: \"ive always wanted to go back to play in russia.\" something like that. he went on to say how he has always made management in nashville aware of this. this is confusing.

1. if management was aware of this, why didnt they take measures to prevent this. (work on signing rads to a solid long-term contract, give him better ice time than at least half of the plumbers on the team.)
or maybe they have been trying to sign him and he\'s been to stubborn on where he stands and the result was the ice time. the rise of the KHL was just the trigger he needed to finally be able to say \"im outta here\".

2. i consider the people who run this site and post on it to be pretty knowledgable regarding the status of players and what not. guys are always bringing forth rumors, a bit of inside info, etc. how did none of us ever catch wind of even a bit of this one? im not at all saying we are all idiots for missing this. im just saying that not even a sniff of this had come out until it all came out a couple days ago. weird.

[veronesepk]

The weird thing with Rads is that publicly, he always stated that he wanted to be in the NHL. I\'m a Nashville transplant, so this is what\'s confusing a lot of us. He was dead set on being here, and the past few days is a radical turn in events from what we were made to believe.

[Dakkster]

veronesepk: I thought I read in an article on NHL.com that Petrov wanted to play in the NHL, but that he would have to honor his contract that lasts for two or three more years.

jman: Apparently Del Zotto has looked really good in the Rangers development camp. He\'s looked better than Sanguinetti at that age and Sanguinetti is looking like he\'ll turn out just fine. I would take Del Zotto before all of those guys you mentioned. I would stay away from Teubert completely, because from his own description of himself, he\'s not much of an offensive dman.

[veronesepk]

I\'ve heard that too about Petrov. I think I\'d still be wary of Petrov - it would be hard to take a large paycut (a couple of million in your homeland vs. 875k in the NHL) to come over in a couple of years. If it\'s a late pick in a large prospects draft, it might be worth the risk, but I\'m not sure I\'d take him over someone with a little bit less talent that\'s definitely going to be in the NHL.

[fzusher]

Filatov - He fought to get out of Russia, the KHL have given up on him, the IIHF haven\'t sided with the Russian claims he was still contracted/obligated to his Russian team, Howson said there\'s a roster spot for him if he\'s ready, and Hitchcock mused about trying him at C on the top line. Barring a hugely surprising development, he\'ll be in North America next year. Will he stay? It seems like CBJ are gonna treat him like royalty, and unlike NSH, they seem like they would actually be willing to spend to get a cup. A lot can happen in three years, but i think he\'s as safe a pick as a North American. He went 3rd and 4th in my keepers. This whole Radulov thing shouldn\'t affect where he goes - at worst, somebody my go for Boedker ahead of him, but no one else.

Tikhonov - He grew up in California, came to Russia with minimal grasp of the language, culture etc., and was happy to come back to North America. The Russians don\'t even mention him as \'one who\'s getting away\' they do with Filatov and Voinov. He\'s as North American as Alex Steen, Eric Nystrom, or Paul and Jan Stastny. PHX seem to believe he can make the team - they\'ve already signed him. I\'d be very encouraged. In terms of bolting, i\'d say he\'s a low risk - slightly riskier than most North Americans, by far not as high a risk as Russians who haven\'t crossed over yet. The bigger question is where he fits in PHX; be ready for the possibility that it\'ll be on a 3rd line (though that 3rd line could be Hanzal and McLean ...). If you\'re stacked at the farm but need bodies on the active roster, he\'s a decent bet. He went 17th and 19th in my keepers.

Petrov - I gambled on him in one of my leagues with the 30th pick. In the other, someone else did at 33. He was never supposed to come over early - he always said he wanted to, but was contracted in Russia until 2011 and wasn\'t going to break the contract. A lot can change till then - for example, he could fall in love with someone who refuses to move and prefers the millions offered at home - but at this point that was enough for me, but then, I needed upside on my team.

In the same league I took Trunev at 35th. It was probably early, but I doubted he\'d last till my next pick (67). It was right after he was picked in the CHL import draft and Gainey said he told them he\'d come over and play in the CHL. In my other league I picked him for a GMless team at 52.

Voinov - went 36th and 48th in my leagues. If your league counts PIMs heavily (one of mine counts 5 PIM the same as one assist) he\'s as valuable as Del Zotto and and Karlson. He\'s also already confirmed as coming over to the CHL.

Del Zotto vs. Karlson - I picked MDZ 15th in one league, with Karlson going 16th; it was almost a coin flip (Del Zotto has higher goal upside but not necessarily higher points upside, and I think Karlson has a better chance of reaching his upside - he\'ll play lots of NHL minutes, MDZ could be a stud, but still could equally turn out to be no more than a power play specialist - a more offensively consistent and defensively responsible MA Bergeron), and at the end I just gambled that Karlson might slip to my next pick (28). He didn\'t. I consoled myself by grabbing Aaron Ness. In my other league MDZ went 15, Karlson 20, Ness 40.

Of the other Russians in the draft, Grachev went 49th and 33rd. The 33rd was a big exaggeration for me, as him coming over this year was rumored, but never confirmed. Kugrishev (unconfirmed to come over, and not off the charts upside, so i wouldn\'t have touched him before the 5th round) went 70th and 54th. The GM who picked him 54th is really big on Europeans. Loktyonov went 113th in one league and is yet to be taken in the other (we\'re around pick 80 now); he\'s not on my radar because there are plenty of North Americans players with similar upside available. The Russian goalie taken by PIT wasn\'t taken in one league and still available in the other. I know nothing about him.

[fzusher]

On Radulov\'s comments:

There\'s some mistranslation going on here. He was asked in mid June by a Russian paper about his NHL future and stated that while he definitely wants to return to Russia some day for now he wants to stay in North America and win the Stanley Cup, and he also said he really liked rabid fans like the ones he met in Quebec during the WC. In an interview after the contract signing (some 2-2.5 weeks later) he was quite careful in what he said, but he did single out the facts that Salavat is a team that goes after titles and has a big and fervent following as two factors that attracted him to that team. He didn\'t say Nashville lacked in those two things but you don\'t need to be a mind reader to figure that out - the Preds don\'t exactly attract large fervent crowds, and they didn\'t go after any major free agents in July a bid to win now - on the contrary, they cut salary by shipping Zidlicky for a prospect. That may have been part of what changed his mind - if he\'s stuck for the next three years on a team that would rather keep its budget than contend for the cup, he may have figured he might as well go home where he can contend for titles among his own. Or at least use this to force a trade to a more likely contender.
Another thing that could have changed in the interim was that he may have gotten the sense that Nashville, due to their budget situation won\'t offer him the kind of contract he\'d like to get - heck, the 4 highest earners in NSH (Erat, Arnott, Legwand, Weber) all have cap hits of 4.5M, which after tax is would be less than the contract he signed in Russia, and he has no realistic reason to expect them to make him the highest earner on the team. His numbers are slightly better than Corey Perry\'s and he got just over 5M.
What he informed the team of was that he had an offer on the table and was strongly considering it; as he puts it, team management heard him out, promised to call back (he\'s currently in Russia), and never did. He took that as a sign that they are either not that interested in him or are taking him for granted. I don\'t blame him for that interpretation.

[jman]

fzusher, your time and effort is greatly appreciated. wow. thats all very good stuff. thank you.