Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
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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Darryl Sutter was GM that got management to start opening up the purse strings, and even invest in their own AHL team to better control the development of their prospects, as well as start (I believe) a developmental side of their hockey ops.
Michel Goulet is a pro scout, not an amateur scout. He goes to the draft every year, but he is there as an advisor when trade scenarios pop out involving established players. He has absolutely no say on the amateur side.
I do agree that the entire scouting of the draft - and the prospect draftees themselves - are a totally different animal than what it was back then. Still, I imagine the odds of 'hitting' and 'missing' inverse at some point in the first round. At the very least, I would still expect players in the 2nd half of the draft to have generally have less of an impact to their team than a player taken earlier in the draft, as well as requiring more time to even start his career.
I, too, would trust the scouts if they chose to draft down as the last 7 or 8 years of drafting has shown a continual improvement... but I would be disappointed if that happened. I would be all for dropping a couple of spots, but not into the middle - third of the 1st round.