I like drafting.
That specific portion of team management makes a big difference, even a huge difference between a No. 1 and No. 30 team. Continuous bad draft choices will cause a team to crumble and fall down the standings.
It won't happen right away, but after a few years the absence of legitimate NHL prospects will be felt. When you have nobody coming up to replace your aging players, and nobody pushing for a spot every year, thus forcing the older players to give more to keep their jobs, the drop becomes inevitable.
It’s really simple. If your prospects are not developing into NHL players then you have to get them from somewhere else, which means trading your best players and draft picks in the process, thus digging an even deeper hole.
Any time you can get a legitimate prospect for "free," go for it. There are always a few busts, players that are expected to do well, but in the end do little or nothing at the NHL level. It happens every four to five years or so that a very high draft pick ends up being a waste.
The real problem is when a team has a succession of bad draft picks or when they trade their best players for average to low-level prospects, then we’re no longer talking about "busts," but rather a bad scouting team. Those prospects often end up being hated by their respective teams, not to mention fans, for their lack of success. But it’s rarely their fault.
We can all name a few bad draft choices in the last few years. Some drafts are deeper than others, like the 2007 draft, which was exceptionally deep with the first 15 picks thought to be either legitimate first line forwards, top two defensemen, or franchise players to build a team around.
However, sometimes even high draft picks are not expected to do great. In some years, only the first two or three picks are good, while the rest are long-shots. For me, a "bust" is a player picked high (depending on the year, usually within the first 10 picks) that never develops or becomes the dominant player they were thought to be.
Alexandre Daigle easily comes to mind, followed by Pavel Brendl, Jason Bonsignore, Chad Kilger, Andrew Ladd, Aki Berg, and Patrik Stefan. There are others, but those are the most "notorious."
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about 1 month ago
Nice read! Good to see how impressive the Habs look on paper. You chose the right time to post this article at this time to make people realize and snap out of OMG! Montreal is losing MODE! We have potential...if we can rock once, we can rock again. Go Habs Go!
about 1 month ago
Nice article, I agree drafting is crucial in the salary cap era but I do have a few points I'd like to add.
I'd argue that the Kings ARE going in the right direction and that they haven't drafted poorly. Some teams are just able to rebuild faster. LA has a number of young players who will be stars in the years to come (Kopitar, Brown, Johnson, Doughty, O'Sullivan, ect).
I also find it hard to praise the drafting of Kostisyn in 2003. Sure, he is a good player who could be very good but in a draft that featured several franchise players he is a consolation prize. AK will always be the guy the Habs took intead of "x". With X being Ryan Getzlaf, Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, Zach Parise, Corey Perry, Patrice Bergeron, and the previously mentioned Dustin Brown among several others (Brent Burns or Shea Weber might look good on the blueline as well?). However, as badly as they messed up that first pick in 03 they made the most out of their last pick. Montreal grabbed Jaroslav Halak in the 9th round. Good scouting indeed.
from about 1 month ago
I agree, I'm not going to praise Montreal for missing out on Getzlaf, Richards or Parise!
They are still complaining they need a big first line center...well they missed 2 right there. I do praise them for taking the risk to pick Kostitsyn though knowing he migh never play a game in the NHL. He's a late bloomer, took longer to develop than the others but I still like him better than Zherdev!
about 1 month ago
great read! credits to Trevor Timmins for the nice work going through the drafts!
they did good in guys like komisarek and Price I think. for the rest, need to wait ...
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