Why the Flyers drafted Jett Luchanko over Zeev Buium, Konsta Helenius | PHLY Sports



Why the Flyers drafted Jett Luchanko over Zeev Buium, Konsta Helenius | PHLY Sports

and now we get to the draft um what a time it was at chickies and pets in South Philly we had an awesome draft party along with our friends at Broad Street hockey gritty was there it was uh tremendous he made me chug in ice cold Kors light it was a nice experience he squeaked at me squeak it was very funny but Charlie in Las Vegas the Flyers of course are not able to trade up to the fifth the seventh whatever they were working on the fourth I think was reported with Columbus and they eventually trade back one spot they’re sitting at 12 uh z b Williams still on the board they go n we’re good we’ll take a third rounder next year to move down to 13 and then go a little off the board with jet lenko now Charlie we played uh yesterday or Saturday whatever it was your um aren yeah we played your uh scouting your pre-draft scouting video for Jet lenko and seems like there’s some positives there dude has a ton of speed we talked about his age he does turn uh 18 until like August 21st I believe so he’s very young Prospect has some Puck skills on an awful uh junior year team yeah not what did you make of the uh what did you make of the jet luchenko pick well as I said I like him as a prospect I had him 20 on my board and I like him as a prospect I think the upside is there I like the physical tools I like the player he’s a fun player I really really love Z buam he was the number three player on my draft board I think he’s going to be really really really good so for me personally as someone who has watched these prospects and someone who felt I mean I I certainly would never consider myself to be a draft expert I’m certainly not a scout but I did research before the draft about two months worth of research and I came away very excited about Boo’s potential I personally disagree with what they did because I would have ran up to that Podium and picked zeve boam at number 12 I would not have Trad it down and they didn’t do that so for me personally it’s a disappointing because I think boo is going to be real good however I am not of the opinion that my evaluation of this player and these players as a whole is infallible I’m not a draft expert I don’t know they clearly were of the opinion that buam and lucenko for them were around the same tier quality of player and their view was that if we’re looking at two guys who we have rated around the same given our organizational weakness at Center and given the fact that we already have quite a few smallish defensemen that are in our projected top four for the foreseeable future we’re going to say Tai goes to the center we’re going to go for jet lenko so I understand where they’re coming from I disagree with their valuation of buam I think boam is better than they think he is however we’re not going to know who’s right until two three four five six years down the line I mean that’s what it boils down to and I am not of the opinion opinion that like I am the smartest hockey mind in the world and just because I think Bo’s going to be a stud and I think lenko is probably just going to be good that that’s definitely going to be the case and I’m 100% right in there 100% wrong I personally would have taken booya but it’s not I’m not necessarily right one thing I do want to point out is those comments that they made explaining the the boam passing on him a lot of people and not just Flyers fans but like National media people like I saw a lot of people interpreting that quote as Danny Brier doesn’t like small players of course it’s Twitter which is absolutely not what he said or what he meant they’ve been saying they’ve been saying literally since the day that like Keith Jones got hired that they think it’s important for there to be sized on the defense and it’s actually kind of funny that the way it’s been is that they traded for Jamie Dy the guy that the guy on the blue line who they like the most is Cam York who’s small that’s why you’re like okay this is probably not the deor they ideally want to build and they’re building it because of just the way things have played out that’s why it was definitely going to play a role in their draft decision if they’re going to take they’re going to take a guy at 12 that guy is almost certainly in their mind going to be penciled into the future they probably weren’t ideally going to be taking another smallish defenseman unless they looked at that defenseman and they said this guy we think he’s going to be a number one game-changing defenseman I think boam is that so I would have taken it they don’t so they didn’t and that’s what it boils down to fair enough all like Danny also told us I think at that um pre-draft presser he did that diversity in the uh which again yes in so much that he doesn’t like small defensemen it’s that we have some that said like all right if you want to bring up Jamie Dale that’s fine because he is a slight guy I wouldn’t necessarily call Cam York small although he is under six fo he’s 5’11 and almost 200 pounds and I gotta believe once he develops a little bit more he’s going to be bigger I don’t think Bo’s gon Bo is gonna be small either he’s just not big but I just think like if you account like oh and we have a Andre is consider than the other they really like a Andre and that should serve as reminder that they really like him they view him as part of the future I guess so I just think of like yeah then why isn’t he here like he’s not he made the team last year got sent down and there ain’t no path for him coming up this year well that there are always going to be injuries they could make a wrist a line and trade at some point there’s a lot of ways for him to come up here it’s just there isn’t like he we’re penciling you into a spot because I think they could they believe he could benefit from another year down to the minor because they personally and this is another thing they probably disagree with you on they personally look at it as there’s nothing wrong with overcooking a guy in the minors there’s always more things he can learn down there we don’t need to rush him that’s their view again you can disagree with it but that’s their view uh history disagrees with it speaking of History I just who are these players that have come up from the Phantoms and been great for us okay well the flyers I just feel like as a there’s Duncan Keith who was down there for years and then became a Hall of Fame he was in the AHL for two years one of them was a lockout I’m just saying Andre is dunin Keith Charlie just said it what I’m saying is that the idea that like guys can’t come up at at an older age and still be really good is faulty I would just like to know who they are in this organization’s history okay well the Flyers don’t tend to develop defens and well maybe in part maybe in part because they’ve rushed them in the past who Yoni Pickin and maybe Yi P that was 20 years ago well you’re saying in the history I’m giving you defenseman like Samuel Moran cooked for a while came forover off possibly everyone knew the samaram pick was bad the second it was made though like that wasn’t a question it took like three coaching staffs in the NHL to get something out of Travis sanheim just saying like I I just don’t know who these play like oh yeah we’re gonna do it like thisy I’m not ready to write off Emil Andre not wrting him off I think making determinations at the draft because there’s a guy available at 12 because of some dude you got a few years ago not in the first round like is in the AHL like and they like him they they’re looking at him as part of their future defense score and that’s three guys who they view as smaller so they were basically looking at it as we’re not going to take another smallish defenseman unless we think he’s a stud they don’t think boam is a stud my disagreement is I think he is but like if Sam Dickinson was there at 12 I think they oh I think I think Dickinson is one of the major reasons yeah but that but forward it’s different a little bit I know but just getting back to this pick like as Flyers fans I feel strongly that over the last 5 10 years we should have learned a lesson that like analyzing this information two days after the draft is kind of useless like there have been consensus top three four picks that turned out to be [ __ ] like Nolan Patrick there have been players that go later in the draft that everyone thought was going to suck that turned out to be very good hockey players like Claud Drew like maybe we just need to say like all right maybe this isn’t what I would have done because me on Twitter I read a lot of stories and I read what Charlie wrote so I wanted them to take zeve boom but I don’t [ __ ] know nobody does and none of us are going to know for like three years so we can revisit this and be mad about it later but like it could be fine jet luchenko might end up being one of the top three players in this draft I have no goddamn idea that I’m not disagreeing with the pick it’s the process used to get here is more what I’m worried about like I don’t know if Amil Andre was going to be something that we really had to account for like he’d be in the NHL well see here’s my counter to that though because obviously one of the things that we justifiably give the Flyers a ton of [ __ ] for is flubbing the Nolan Patrick pick and what’s the story of the Nolan Patrick pick the story of the Nolan Patrick pick was you had a guy at two who was the consensus top two pick who if the Flyers had passed on Nolan Patrick the day of the draft we us and then we and the media in general would have absolutely Rak the Flyers over the for how dare you how dare you not take the what are you doing the guy because he was the guy and everybody says he was the guy so they took the guy and Ron hexall by all accounts more or less overruled his Scouts who told him Mir hkin is the better of the two players he’s the higher on our board and hexa was like n I’m taking Patrick because we need a center and also I you can’t say this didn’t influence him even a little bit if I don’t take Patrick I’m going to get killed for and then in retrospect it’s like well man they should have freaking taken hkin and not just because the injuries that Patrick dealt with but because it looks like hykin is just a damn much better player than Patrick ever was GNA be even without the concussions and everything and what we’ve said is like you know what it’s your job to be right it’s your job who cares what the consensus was who cares what everybody said Patrick was going to be it’s your job to be right and we’re going to give you [ __ ] because you [ __ ] up well in this case it seems like the flyers I think Bam’s better I thought Patrick was better back then than hinet and so did most of the so do most of the public people in terms of buam versus lenko what did Brier do this time he went with his Scouts his Scouts think lucenko is going to be the better player right now I think he’s wrong because I think boam is going to be better but at least he went with his Scouts yeah at least like he picked the guy who he thinks is going to be better and a lot of this depends on how much you trust Danny Brier and that’s fair maybe he hasn’t earned your trust and if so you’re going to be more Angry than the people who he has earned their trust but he went with the guy who he thinks is going to be better and we’ll see if he’s right and we also we talked about this while you were out Charlie that a lot of people seemed pissy that he seemed to be drafting for need because the Flyers need centers but my argument is that he’s drafting for need three years from now right like he’s thinking about a mitchoff team and what does he need he need someone to get him the puck and by everything that I’ve read over the last few days lenko is very goods people the puck which they’re going to need so like yeah will he be like the best number one Center that comes out of this draft probably not but if he fits in three years onto a Flyers team that needs a guy that’s able to get our sick goal scor the puck over and over again like that seems good so like maybe they are thinking about building that team and not building this team team they definitely are and that’s they have a vision of what they want this team to be and they’re just really high on lenko I mean it’s abundantly clear that they’ve loved him all draft year you know somebody asked him at the draft that’s es Brier at the draft did lenk’s very strong performance at the under 18 World Championships influence your decision to take him and Brier basically said no actually we didn’t want to see him do well at the under 18s because we kind of were hoping we could get him with a second first round pick that’s what we were hoping all year and then when he goes out there and blows it away the under 18s it’s like well [ __ ] now we might have to freaking take him with the first one if we like of course Florida gets all the way to and wins the stand up so if you’re hoping for like 22 and it ends up at 32 little bit of a different situation [Music] indeed we all sitting like the mayor

On Charlie’s first show back since covering the NHL draft for PHLY Flyers, he explains why the Philadelphia Flyers drafted C/W Jett Luchanko over higher-ranked prospects like Zeev Buium and Konsta Helenius.

Bill, Charlie, and Kelly also discuss Danny’s second draft overall since taking over as GM for the Flyers.

#nhl #hockey #flyers #letsgoflyers #flyershockey #nhldraft

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7 comments
  1. Nobody knows how these picks will shake out so only time will tell. My beef with the Flyers is you say you are rebuilding then you have to put yourself in a position to draft in the top 5-6. Tortorella is the wrong Head Coach for a rebuild. They refuse to trade Laughton for some reason and other players on the roster that made them too good to be a team that has a chance to draft top 5-6. Last year was just a waste of a season when you end up drafting #12.

  2. All 3 were worthy of being picked in round 1. Helenias was probably the closest in AHL readiness at #12, the other 2 should have gone much later. Biuim, although very talented, is undersized & the last defensive need on a Flyers roster already over-full of small guys. Luchenko gives them speed, a skill unheard of on Flyers' teams for years. But he's a project because he needs to improve in so many other areas.

  3. To me size on defense isn't the only important thing. Cam York seems to play bigger than his size. So it's not just about height but how tough and strong you play. Provorov was 6'1" but played soft in his final years on the Flyers.

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