Quote:
Originally Posted by sureLoss
Sorry but that is BS logic. If the scouts you are paying to rank prospects based on your own organizational criteria for best prospect available are telling you to pick a guy at #1, but you don't do it because a bunch of scouting services that have widely different criteria think another player is better... grow a set of balls and make the unpopular pick if you aren't getting fair value in trading down.
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While Pete Moss is correct - Yakupov was the de facto #1 'consensus' pick on all the major scouting services, Sureloss is absolutely correct here.
For instance, Flames had Galchenyuk #1 on their draft board. I don't know about you guys, but I think the Oilers would be looking way better with Gally on their team.
With that being said, Yakupov was a high-level prospect. There was no doubt about it. I think if he was drafted by a less dysfunctional team than the Oilers, there wouldn't be as much controversy today. I don't think there was anything wrong with selecting Yakupov. What they should have done (imo) would be to trade Eberle for a high-end defensive prospect and/or young established d-man. Eberle had loads of trade value. (However, I am of the mindset that Eberle really isn't that great of a player, and his numbers are inflated playing in a run-and-gun river hockey style).
I think you can look at that draft in a number of ways, and make logical arguments to support various picks and courses of action, but in the end it boils down to the Oilers being a dysfunctional team that lacks leadership, proper coaching and proper management.
Edit: To be clear, being the 'de facto #1 consensus pick' in any draft means nothing. Organizations have different priorities, projections, interview questions, and preferences. I don't think there is any consensus boards out there really, unless after the draft every NHL team would release their own full draft rankings and you can then rank each prospect accordingly.