Thursday, March 22, 2012

Nail Yakupov and first post

Nail and past failures:
So for my first post I thought I would provide my opinion on the upcoming draft and the projected #1 overall pick Nail Yakupov. So as any Jackets fan should know they are last in the league and that gives them the best chance at getting the 1st overall pick in the draft, and the projected first overall pick is Nail Yakupov a winger who plays for the Sarnia Sting of the OHL. He is a great offensive player who also plays a good two-way game, the one drawback that he has at least in the Jackets point of view is that he is Russian. The Jackets as some of you may or may not know have had horrible luck with drafting Russian in the past. Those Russians being Nikita Filatov and Nikolai Zherdev. Nikita who was drafted 6th overall in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft played a few seasons in the Jackets organization but seemed unwilling to put in the work needed to play well and went to play in Russia when he didn't get the playing time he thought he deserved so when it didn't look like it would work out we traded him to the Senators for a 3rd round draft pick. Nikolai who was drafted 4th overall in the 2003 draft looked like he was going to be the perfect fit alongside Rick Nash, but some attitude problems mixed with him not playing consistently lead to us trading him to the NY Rangers. But there is one major difference between Nikita, Nikolai and Nail. Nail already plays in the CHL and he has been tearing it up which shows that he is already used to the "American" style of play where as Nikita and Nikolai were playing in Russian leagues when we drafted them and it took them a while to get adjusted to the "American" style of play. I would also argue that Nikita and Nikolai would rather play over in the KHL instead of playing here in the NHL, and I would say that Nail playing in the CHL should validate that he wants to play here in the NHL. So in my opinion if we win the draft lottery and get the 1st overall pick we should draft Nail Yakupov even if he is Russian.
Other options:
There was some talks about us drafting a center as opposed to drafting a winger such as Nail Yakupov. The top rated centers at this point are Filip Forsberg, and Mikhail Grigorenko. Forsberg is a center playing in the Swedish league Allsvenskan who is a good two-way player with some offensive skills. Grigorenko is a balanced forward playing in the QMJHL who also has great offensive offensive skills. Although personally I would prefer drafting Yakupov if we had the 1st overall pick I would be okay with drafting Grigorenko and Forsberg since they would add more depth to our centers and they could always play as wingers. Because wingers usually can't play as a center, but centers can usually play well as wingers. They may be decent prospects and be good additions to our teams but I would prefer that we pick the best prospect on the board which in my opinion would be Nail if we had the 1st pick.
Most ideal situations:
In my eyes the most ideal situation is that we get the 1st overall pick and the LA Kings make the playoffs this year and we choose to use their pick this year and we pick Nail Yakupov 1st overall and Malcolm Subban the top ranked goalie with the Kings pick.

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