Quote:
Originally Posted by nik-
Oh definitely it's just crazy speculation, which is all we truly can do with in comes to their decisions.
But I mean this kid who could help us is sitting there, and they pass on him to trade down to take some kid from a bush league. The odd part is for a team focused on "now" they take a player who's so far from "now" it's not even funny. To me it's always come across as they think they see something that how many other scouts just didn't? Everyone in the NHL is pretty smart at their job, the scouts know hockey. The days of finding some kid in Sweden that no one knew about in these days of youtube and twitter? ... unlikely.
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The kid was playing in a "bush" league
at the time. The Flames knew about his plans to go to the USHL and then college or straight to college. The NCAA is a not a "bush" league, it is one of the best developmental leagues in the world. But kids who play at lower levels can be harder to project because you can't measure their progress against the best in their age group. So kids taken from Canadian high school, US high school, Junior A can sometimes be tricky to project. Opinions will vary greatly on these players. It has nothing to do with being cute or thinking you are smarter. It is watching a kid dominate a crappy league and using your scouting ability to properly project his NHL upside. Some teams may have scouted Jankowski significantly less than we did and thus weren't comfortable projecting him as a 1st rounder. There are still some great players coming out of obscure countries or leagues that aren't as heavily scouted.
You don't use the draft to get players for "now" unless you're drafting top 3-5. Most players taken outside the top 10 take 4-5 years to fully develop. Look at how many years it has been since we took Backlund and how it looks like he just now is developing into the player he was projected to be.
I think your expectations on the draft are a bit off. And I'm not sure Teravainen would be helping "now" either so your argument falls apart there.