Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainYooh
Exactly. NOT picking Monahan was not in cards. Even with this forum’s collective very limited knowledge, Monahan was clearly a poll winner to be picked over Lindholm. If anything, Feaster did a lot more damage than good trading away Iginla and Bouwmester for the first round picks that turned out wasted on bad choices and for the lame prospects he was able to get along. No doubt, our scouting team f...ed up big time then (as they have been for the past 20 years), but Feaster, as a GM gets to share the biggest blame for that year.
As for Gaudreau - easy to credit Feaster now, but if he or anyone else had clearly seen Johnny’s potential then, Gaudreau would have been picked much much earlier. They didn’t. Pure luck. More like a Datsyuk or Zetterberg situation.
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Not necessarily.
It is fairly well known now that the Flames try and figure out who is interested in certain prospects, and try to guess at where they will be taken.
Of course, if they were 100% sure of Gaudreau's development, he probably would have been taken higher by the Flames, but the Flames were very high on him (and Kucherov). Button was thinking that Kucherov would have fallen to the 4th round, but once he got selected, he told Feaster that Gaudreau has to be selected with their next pick.
The same kind of thing with Jankowski. Flames wanted Jankowski long before draft day. Flames had often multiple scouts in attendance at his games, and they kept an eye out for how much other teams liked him. Apparently, that is why they felt comfortable dropping down in the draft and recouping a 2nd round pick, but they didn't want to drop down further in the round. Montreal, New Jersey and I believe Florida were the three other teams that showed a lot of interest in Jankowski (though I may be misremembering here).
I remember Weisbrod talking about the Culkin and Kulak picks, and how they personally had them in reverse order of how they were picked, and their reasoning was that they noticed some teams showing a lot of interest in one of them. They gambled that they could select both, and they got them both.