Thread: 2016 NHL Draft
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Old 05-31-2016, 09:04 AM   #4610
Lanny_McDonald
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Menace View Post
The answer is 1985 and Joe Nieuwendyk at #27
The Flames have picked in spots #21 to #30 17 times since they moved to Calgary, and the large majority of those picks have been busts.
Niewuendyk, Backlund, Matteau are the only ones who really made it. (so far)
The rest of that list is pretty ugly:
Jason Muzzatti, Kent Manderville, Tim Erixon, Emile Poirier, Leland Irving, Matt Pelech, Greg Nemisz, Mark Jankowski, Morgan Klmichuk, Kris Chucko, Chris O'Sullivan, Dave Reierson, Nicolas Perrault, Mike Perovich

Your sentiment is bang on, don't trade down to the 20's for extra picks when you have a top 10 pick, use it...those opportunities don't come around too often (hopefully) and your chances of success are much much higher.
A little premature on a few of those names? Poirier, Jankowski and Klimchuk are still works in progress. Also, who gives a rip about players drafted 20+ years ago. Scouting and player development has changed so much in the past decade that it is almost a completely different game. For the Flames I think things changed with the departure of Sutter and the commitment to improving the scouting and player development departments by management. To me, the most important hire made was bringing in Michel Goulet, who has an incredible eye for talent. The Flames now have nine guys scouting the various amateur leagues, which is a massive improvement from years gone by.

I don't disagree with your sentiment of being hesitant to trade down, but I would not base that decision on information from 20 years ago. I would leave that decision to the scouts and what their confidence level is on the particular draft and quality of player available. If the player available at 20 is projected to be just as good as the player at 6, I support the move trading down. This may be one of those drafts where the best player, outside of the top three, comes late in the first. I trust the current crop of scouts to make the correct decision.
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