Quote:
Originally Posted by mikephoen
You're vastly exaggerating how much drafting has improved. There are still plenty of first round busts and late round gems. The obvious Flames examples have already been provided, but also consider that while Lidstrom was drafted 53rd overall, PK Subban was drafted 43rd overall and Shea Weber was drafted 49th overall. If the exact player that Lidstrom was in 1988 as a 17 year old was playing now and being scouted for the 2016 entry draft he would probably still be picked in the same range of draft picks as he was then.
Heck, a lot of the same people who were doing the scouting in the late 80s are still active scouts now.
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A lot of what he was talking about (finding all stars late) was not due to poorer scouting back then but instead from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reluctance of clubs to take the elite Russians high. Detroit benefitted from this more than would be possible today.
All that said I do think scouting has improved, mostly due to better coverage due to increased budgets. More important than that is that worldwide talent has improved so there is a deeper talent pool to pick from.