[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

I don’t believe Button surprised him at the draft table.

That's not what I said. But here's what Feaster said:

The most excruciating call, it would seem, came in the fourth round when the team started giving some real thought to drafting Gaudreau with the 104th overall pick. The pressure was really on because the Flames did not hold a fifth-round pick, making it a now-or-never situation.

“The guy who was very much in (Gaudreau’s) corner and felt we just had to take him was (director of amateur scouting) Tod Button,” Feaster said. “Tod felt very, very strongly about it. He kept saying, ‘I know he’s not very big, but I’m telling you this kid can play and he’s the most exciting player we’ve seen.’

“I said, ‘If you feel that strongly about him as a player, let’s do it right now.’”

Feaster said he was OK with it because they already drafted Baertschi (LOL) and Granlund.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...hnny-gaudreau/

see also:

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...inded-gretzky/

and this:

But Button had a plan.

Presiding over that draft had been Jay Feaster, whose work-the-list mantra had been well-established. But Button convinced him to leave Gaudreau and Russian winger Nikita Kucherov as wild cards. In other words, don’t include them in the team’s in-house rankings of prospects.

“I said to Jay, ‘I’d like the latitude of not putting them on the list. Then when it’s time to make the call, let me make the call,’ ” recalls Button.

The Flames merrily made their second-round shouts — Markus Granlund, 45th; Tyler Wotherspoon, 57th — then groaned when the Tampa Bay Lightning nabbed Kucherov at No. 58.

“I turned to Jay and said, ‘We’ve got to take Johnny with the next pick,’ ” recalls Button. “Jay said, ‘Go ahead. Take him.’ ”

Unfortunately for the Calgarians, Darryl Sutter had already peddled their third-round choice to the Edmonton Oilers in the Steve Staios deal.

So Button perspired his way into the fourth round and got his man, 104th overall.

And the Bruins, as it turned out, did have an eye on Gaudreau.

John Weisbrod, perched at the Boston table that day in St. Paul, Minn., verified that interest in a March 2012 interview: “Calgary beat us to the punch. There were people banging their hands on the table, like, ‘Oh, we should have taken him a round earlier.’ It’s a calculated risk. The Flames got Gaudreau in a really good spot.”

http://www.calgaryherald.com/sports/...624/story.html