Sens Fan Draft Poll Results and Breakdown
Marc Desrosiers - NBC Today Sports
Written by: Luke Muise
Ah, the off-season. That magical time when one team and fanbase has all their hopes and dreams come true, another team and fanbase has them shattered, and the rest begin to hope again. Amongst those fanbases, opinions start to get louder and more frequently offered as there are lots of events in a short period of time. What free agents are available? What dead-weight player needs to be bought out? Which player are we pinning our hopes and dreams on at the draft? Or, are we foregoing the pick and pinning them on a big trade?
With the draft in Vegas upon us, I wanted to connect with Sens fans and hear their opinions on what the Sens should do at the draft. I posted a number of poll questions, and let fans have their say.
Should the Sens keep the seventh overall pick or trade it?
This was entirely unsurprising. After a long stretch of having one of the league's best prospects pools, the Sens have tumbled down that ranking as those prospects graduate into NHLers, leaving things a bit light on the prospect side of things. I don’t think it's as dire as it’s made out to be. The Sens do have some good or even great prospects still in the system (hello, Stephen Halliday and Angus Crookshank), and the NHL roster is filled with NHL players, not prospects. That said, every team needs options when the injury bug comes knocking, and the Sens certainly need more options. With this in mind, making the selection at seventh overall makes the most sense, especially if there is a high-potential defenseman available (you’ll note that neither Halliday or Crookshank are defensemen). I’m with the majority on this one… unless?
Would you be willing to move back a bit in the draft if it improves the team immediately?
I didn’t think these results would skew so heavily toward moving back after the overwhelming opinion on the first question. I suppose in the context of the first question the pick would evaporate in place of a good player in return, whereas in this context you’re not losing a first-rounder, just moving back a touch.
Seems like fans are generally amenable to this idea (without knowing who the Sens would acquire in such a deal), which is good for GM Steve Staios as he’s said he’ll listen to offers on the seventh selection and there are always teams trying to move up. So long as the pick doesn't move back too far I think the fans would be okay with getting a solid prospect and some immediate roster help, though there is still a strong contingent of fans who want the Sens to just make the seventh selection. I'm kind of with the former group, especially since there doesn't seem to be a lot of consensus amongst the prospect rankings after the first few picks. If this move does happen, I’d bet there is a deal already in place that will go down on the draft floor depending on how picks 2-6 shake out (that’s just my speculation though).
Would you keep or trade Boston’s 25th overall pick?
Didn’t have to wait for an answer on this one, welcome to Ottawa, Linus Ullmark! Staios was on the same page as the fans here.
Should the Sens draft for need or best player available?
No need to galaxy-brain anything here. The fans want the team to select the player they feel is best available, regardless of position. The tricky part of that is there are going to be lots of opinions on just who that player is - it's impossible to know who the best available actually was until years later. Picking the best player available is usually a lot easier if you’ve got a top-3 (specifically one OR three) selection. The further down you are, the harder it is to know, and with the seventh pick there are going to be detractors no matter who the Sens take in that spot.
There’s one thing bugging me about this result though. It’s so overwhelmingly in favour of best player available, but at the same time…
What position do the Sens most need to address at the draft?
…The fans overwhelmingly agree that there is one position of need above all else. I could understand the best player available argument a little more if the results for team need were even a little bit closer, but they’re not. Just about everyone agrees that the Sens need right defense, and they’re insanely difficult to trade for. They’re always a hot commodity, most teams get their best right defense through the draft, and there are some very intriguing right shot defense in this class.
To be fair, I did post these polls before the 25th pick was shipped off to Boston for Linus Ullmark, so I'm sure plenty of respondents also had that in mind when they answered so maybe I shouldn't be as surprised by the results that are seemingly at odds with each other. Right hand d-man Harrison Brunicke of the Kelowna Rockets was my guy at 25 if the Sens selected a forward at seven, and I'm sure lots of other fans were thinking of that 25th pick as the spot to lock down a right-handed defenseman when they answered.
Which defenseman would you take at seven overall?
I’ll admit I'm not as caught-up on the prospect pool this season, but opinion among fans is reasonably tight between Dickinson and Parekh. Parekh seems to be the offensive home-run swing while Dickinson appears to be the more protectable two-way choice. It’s worth noting that Parekh shoots right and Dickinson shoots left.
For me, I'd probably skew Parekh between the two, based on the team’s need at right defense and current logjam on left defense. Could you imagine a Sanderson-Parekh pairing? Sign me up.
Which forward would you take at seventh overall
Not really a close one here, Iginla has been rocketing up the draft rankings for a little while now. He’s ranked as high as three and as low as 12th on the various draft boards listed on Elite Prospects, where they list his player profile “offensive forward, playmaker, sniper.” Sounds like fun to me. Lindstrom also garnered a respectable 25 per cent of the fan vote for forwards. Also from Elite Prospects, he's ranked as high as three and as low as 11 on the listed draft boards and is noted as a “heavy shooter, power forward, sniper.” Sign me up for that too.
No matter what happens at the draft, it will be an exciting time for Sens fans. Steve Staios has been working the phones like crazy, so it's really difficult to predict exactly how things will go in the next couple of days aside from the fact that the fanbase will be welcoming some new faces to Sens family. Hopefully they can take us to the promised land.
