Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post - [News] With the 21st overall pick Flames select C Mark Jankowski

sureLoss · 06-05-2015, 06:56 PM

At the time of the 2013 draft, Nichushkin could have been a defensible BPA pick for the Flames.

There was a consensus top "elite" 4 for that draft: MacKinnon, Jones, Barkov and Drouin. A lot of draft pundits also said you could probably include Nichushkin in that group. The Russian factor was a concern. There was a decent sized group of posters that wanted the Flames to take Nichushkin.

IIRC he interviewed poorly at the combine, which probably scared a few teams off. His KHL club also made it a condition that if he were to play in North America it would have to be NHL only (i.e. no AHL) or else he would have to be returned to Russia.

All things considered, picking a Russian, non-fluent English speaking RWer over a potential Canadian #1 center, might have been disastrous given that the Flames were essentially at the start of a rebuild. Nichushkin would have been the face of the franchise with no established core and under a microscope without a Seguin and Benn equivalent players to help shelter him. Throw in the fact he has been injured for a good chunk of his NHL career so far...

In 2015, with a core established you could probably argue that now is a time the Flames could take a risk on a player like Nichushkin.

06-05-2015, 06:56 PM	#1674
sureLoss Some kinda newsbreaker! Join Date: May 2004 Location: Learning Phaneufs skating style Exp:	At the time of the 2013 draft, Nichushkin could have been a defensible BPA pick for the Flames. There was a consensus top "elite" 4 for that draft: MacKinnon, Jones, Barkov and Drouin. A lot of draft pundits also said you could probably include Nichushkin in that group. The Russian factor was a concern. There was a decent sized group of posters that wanted the Flames to take Nichushkin. IIRC he interviewed poorly at the combine, which probably scared a few teams off. His KHL club also made it a condition that if he were to play in North America it would have to be NHL only (i.e. no AHL) or else he would have to be returned to Russia. All things considered, picking a Russian, non-fluent English speaking RWer over a potential Canadian #1 center, might have been disastrous given that the Flames were essentially at the start of a rebuild. Nichushkin would have been the face of the franchise with no established core and under a microscope without a Seguin and Benn equivalent players to help shelter him. Throw in the fact he has been injured for a good chunk of his NHL career so far... In 2015, with a core established you could probably argue that now is a time the Flames could take a risk on a player like Nichushkin. Last edited by sureLoss; 06-05-2015 at 07:00 PM.