Quote:
Originally Posted by Sidney Crosby's Hat
Hickey was also projected to go late first round, early second round.
If the Kings really did think that Hickey would be better than Gagner (debatable since he never even played a game for him then they lost him on waivers), Alzner, Voracek, Couture (heck, even Ellerby) why not trade down?
That's the difference for me between that pick and Barker. It reeks of the "I'm smarter than everyone else" attitude which I hate so much in hockey.
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Projected by who? Teams probably had a wide difference of opinions of where Hickey should go. The draft usually has very little consensus. Pretty sure I saw a behind scenes video of the draft where you saw a clip of a GM or scouting director acknowledging the pick as decent right as it happened. Undoubtedly some teams didn't like the player as much as LA did but thats the nature of scouting.
Couture went a bit ahead of where he was projected. So did San Jose think they were smarter than everyone else? What about a pick like Morris for the Flames. He was rated in the 80's-90's and we took him 13th. He was probably one of the top 5 players taken in that draft when you look back. Were they smarter than everyone else? Even a pick like Blake Wheeler isn't looking like a bad "reach" if you look back at that year. So is a team guilty of thinking they are smarter than everyone else if the pick is a bust but they actually get credit for being smarter than everyone else if the pick turns out?
Teams have to believe in their own convictions about players. They are trying to win at scouting. So yeah, most teams will believe they are smarter at it than a bunch of the other teams. And teams will have differing philosophies around the draft. Teams will see different players on different days. These are factors in why they will end up creating massively different draft lists. Just because Bob Mackenzie or Central Scouting thinks a pick is off the board doesn't mean the team's scouts are a bunch of mad geniuses.
Unless they botch the process of combining their list or the GM meddles, every team is making the best draft list they can and sticking to it. They have to believe in their process and evaluation of the players. So I don't understand this concept. of "thinking they are smarter than everyone else" and it being a negative idea.
As for why certain teams didn't trade down in certain years, that certainly is a different discussion and each case is up for debate. I happen to think teams should trade down when taking guys that probably would be available several picks later. I liked how we worked the Jankowski pick, getting Sieloff basically for free. I think Wheeler and Hickey both might have still been available 3-5 spots later.