OILERS AT 32: MITCH MOROZ
tsn had Mitch Moroz at 56 overall, but the Oilers clearly felt they couldn’t wait for the 3rd round to get him.
Craig Button: Mitchell is a player who enjoys the physical game. He will hit and punish opponents but is also willing and able to stand up to the challenges that comes with playing that particular style. He’s a very good skater and can close on opponents very quickly and thus there is not a lot of wiggle room to avoid a check when he’s on the ice. Because his skating is so good, he can play versus better players and make them uncomfortable. He plays in straight lines and is very effective along the boards. He doesn’t run around without purpose and he is very effective in his approach. He has very good awareness playing and is capable of contributing in areas other than physical play. He battles for the puck, will go to the net and is a player who plays with energy and an undeniable spirit and determination. He gives players on the ice a certain comfort but only if you are on the same team. Playing versus him, is a challenge and not fun because he is focused on doing what he can to disrupt you and help his team win.
Redline Report: Big, edgy power forward plays an in-your-face style and looks to initiate hard contact all over the ice. A feared enforcer who picked up 20 fighting majors, yet skates and handles the puck well enough to take regular shifts. Coaches eventually rotated him into the top six to give scoring lines a boost – gives smaller, skilled linemates more room to work with his physicality. Has surprising offensive tools with a heavy snap shot. Puckhandling confidence is soaring and he’s willing to try things with the puck now he wouldn’t have dreamed of six months ago. Skating enables him to play in open ice and even has decent lateral agility. Spins off checks to find space and gets to open ice. Emerging force uses great size/strength to dominate below the circles and is impossible to move around crease. Development curve is heading straight up and has upside.
NHLE: 6-3-9
- Bob McKenzie: No. 56
- NHL Central Scouting: 72 NAS
- International Scouting Services: No. 170
- Redline Report: No. 102
Ah there’s that familiar feeling of disappointment. Bah.
WTF?
Another idiotic pick.
Fuck.
Really Stu? Moroz would have been there in the third… What a reach. Just because he played in Edmonton doesn’t mean he’s worth a #32 pick.
I like the kid, but there were much better options.
Very odd. Especially in light of Tambellini’s quote last night about the guys they like still being on the board after the first round – and then this pick??
Stu has made some very, very questionable picks post 1st round.
It’s quite sad, actually.
Awful. I hate this fucking team. It is so easy to see which teams are ahead of the curve and which are living in another century.
It’s funny. A team that used a monkey who drafted straight off the consensus list would be a great drafting team. They would get no sleeper stars but they would make so many less mistakes.
This is a Tambo pick. This is “we drafted small guy again, need the toughest player who can skate.” They all want Lucic (which this kid is not), but he is a tough guy who can also skate so he can play 3rd line, or even nd (in the magical realm of makebelieve that Tambo resides in).
And man are they ever putting alot into the Justin Shultz basket.
What’s the Methot price? Omark and 4th/5th?
This is a Coke Machine pick imo, Oilers have drafted a 6.02, 208 player and based on the Tambellini quote yesterday I expect we’ll see more of the same.
Ben,
Methot is terrible. If Method is the veteran D we add we’ll be a lottery team again next year.
So the Oilers use their second pick to look for a modern version of Buchberger? No ambition.
Meanwhile there goes Finn and Thrower to TO and the Habs. Bah.
I hereby award a hand-rolled Three Stooges exploding cigar to blogger Richard Cloutier:
Yeah, I can see how the guy slots in. What name were they dreaming they had already called out for their first pick of the day? If they call his name again in the next round, that will explain a lot.
I think there is more to Moroz than the stats say but there were a couple highly skilled Swedish players on board. Obviously scouts liked him a lot so I’ll have to wait and see on this one.
Why do the coke machines always have to play for the Oil Kings? Abney, Ewanyk, Moroz, it’s ridiculous. If they are going to massively overdraft terrible players can’t they at least mix it up.
I’m guessing there was pressure from upper management on this one but time will tell. Hopefully he becomes the “dark horse” like Marincin sp* or Gernat. Personally I would have like to see Finn or even Dansk (if he was available) drafted.
I bet there’s going to be a lot of obnoxious over reactions though!
When I Google’d Moroz the first thing that came up was hockeyfights.com.
Thrower goes at 51. wow. Thought Tambo would wake up early and try to move up. he woulda been nice.
So they’ll deal for Methot now, for a prospect perhaps? Or will tambo surprise us all by dealing for the mythical beast known as the top 2 dman?
Captain Obvious,
You think it’ll be Tyutin? 4.5 a year until 2018? Not sure…
Wasted pick. A very early 2nd on a bottom 6 guy. Deplorable.
Given a 2nd round pick will get you an NHL defenceman as exemplified yesterday, it makes more sense to trade it if you’re going to waste it on a guy like this.
Sickening.
Wow, way too early for Moroz, what the Oilers need but 32 overall? Ouch!
Round 3 pick…. Defenseman:Esa Lindell?
Detroit, Nashville, and Montreal must all think this game is so easy. And they are right.
Brutal pick. Thought the Coke Machine Era was over. Fuck. This ain’t even a Coke Machine. Royal Cola at best. Bet they heard someone was interested in the late 2nd & jumped.
Watching guys like Finn, Thrower, Frk, Hart, Aberg drop off now is like repeated crotch punches.
Damn. There goes Severson. I was hoping he would fall..
Can’t see one second rounder so far that I would have picked Moroz over…
How you could pick this clown and leave Phillip di Giuseppe on the board I will never understand. You want a guy like Moroz you can send a 4th or 5th round pick to Pittsburg for Aaron Asham.
What a complete and total waste. In Stu we no longer trust…
Any ex-oiler offspring playing tier 2 junior somewhere ? that could be pick number 3.
Alright JuJuhar Binks!!
Downright Fierce,
RC Cola FTW. Same as PC cola
Coke Machines!
Khaira: LW Prince Geroge BCHL 6-2 185 lbs. 54 games, 29 goals, 50 assists, 69 PIMS. Aggressive physical player, thrives down low, and protects puck well. Committed to Michigan Tech next year.
This reeks of tambo… not Stu.
Oilers pass on Bozon twice despite Stu’s Kamloops connection. Must be something they didn’t like.
NB_Oiler_Fan,
Sadly, I do not beleive that. Tambo has been good about letting Stu make the calls. If there was interferance, this sounds more like Lowe than Tambo if you look at the Oilers draft record during the Lowe era.
Just when you think Edmonton finally understands how to get value, they go and show you that they are still bumbling goofs.
Wasted pick
Would have liked to have Finn over Morotz. Could be that they just know him and his character despite the skills of others.
New thread of pain on last pick
Brutal pick for round 2. What the hell happened to Stu the Magnificient One? Hangover?
I hate the Coke Machine pick. Moroz? Urg.
And they draft another coke machine in the 3rd round, this one from the BCJH? Really, there was no one in a top junior leage to pick from? I am having Pedergast flashbacks. All faith in Stu is now lost.
I don’t like this pick. Had the Oilers traded down in the first and taken Reinhart. Then followed it up with Moroz it might have been enough for me to quit watching the team.
Here is a good story on him:
http://thehockeywriters.com/mitch-moroz-the-next-ones-nhl-2012-draft-prospect-profile/
The guy they picked 63rd was ranked 148 by ISS and 149 by Future Considerations. Could thing we grabbed him this early. Wouldn’t want to go off the board or something…
Makes a bit more sense after seeing the Redline opinion on Jujhar Khaira. They thought they were picking up a steal in the next round that few teams had adequately scouted, so there wasn’t the option to wait. I doubt they could have obtained both these players any other way (not counting a small draft position trade-down).
Ducey,
Feeling much better about the pick after this quote in the article:
“Playing mainly on the fourth line in Edmonton last season Moroz will most likely have a similar role at the NHL level. ”
yep, that’s what you want to spend your 2rd round picks on. 4th line guys
Matt Finn was ranked 15th or so and we take Mitch Moroz? Matt Finn plays defence.
How about Dalton Thrower? Even the leafs could not pass on Thrower
This is truly sad. This pick would be considered bad if it were in the 3rd round.
Embarassing in so many ways. The author of this web page….pretty bland comments about value for the pick. This is so embrassing. Need a LOTmore stronger commentary on this pick.
How do you suck so bad for soooooo long ( we are the butt of jokes even in the US ) ?
Steve Tambo just showed us how with this 2nd round pick…..
Zack,
Zack- ISS had him ranked at 170….we took him at 32. A few overeactions…you think?
It would appear there a some people that really enjoy the Kool-Aid Tambo is serving. Drink up boys….PunjabiOil,
Over at Oilers Nation, Jon Willis thought it was a reach, but did point out that Moroz had shown improvement in offence this year. Moreover, he mentioned that if you’re trying to draft the next Lucic, you’re either doing it in the top 10 or reaching for it a bit.
I personally wanted Thrower here – right mix of tools and upside, but these guys have been mostly good in the draft recently. They have absolutely earned a little benefit of the doubt. Once you get out of the first round, the scouting and stats gets iffy so let’s stop declaring this the worst pick of all time.
A guy with size and mobility and truculence rockets up the charts if he wakes up one morning and the light comes on. Our guys certainly got a lot of looks, and they must have concluded they haven’t seen the last welt.
Personally, I’m pretty much immune to the speculator’s peril: not being willing to buy something when you have the chance because you think you can pick it up cheaper a month from now on the other side of town. It matters far more that you get what you want than paying the least possible price.
Clearly the Al Gore hasn’t see him good the way our scouts have. Angry? No. Wide-eyed? Yes. But you know, one game in the preseason where he knocks all of Burrows, Lappy, and Kesler ass over teakettle and he’ll instantly be the most appreciated smash-mouth asset we ever drafted too soon.
Meanwhile, we’ll be watching the guys they could have chosen ever so closely. My guess is they slotted the bottom of his range as a forth-line crowd-pleaser. Six solid minutes a night from the Tiger Williams family tree. A lot of second round picks wash out worse than that.
But … but … we had dreams.
It’s worth noting that Moroz plays on a really deep team and his counting numbers might have been different… probably would have been better… if he was on a team with less depth and he was playing bigger offensive minutes.
These guys are still idiots when they don’t have the obvious shoved in their face – #1 pick. You never draft this type of guy this high as you can ALWAYS trade brains (top 6 skill) for muscle (bottom 6 grinders). Absolutely deplorable with Finn and de Guiseppe still on the boards. You think they would figure out how bad they are at drafting this kind of player after a dozen or so failures.
Waited 6 hours for the vitriol to subside and the only consolation is that they didn’t take him first overall….Zharkov was a good choice tho’…maybe they had him mixed up with someone else…