The other issue is that not all drafts are created equal. 2015 had McDavid and Eichel going into it. That gave you two shots. In 2016 you could make the case for Matthews, Laine and Puljujarvi pulling ahead of the pack at this time in 2015. Of course Puljujarvi fell a spot and hasn't amounted to anywhere close to his peers.
But 2019 right now has Hughes, and then some really good - but I believe yet to separate themselves - prospects in Kakko, Newhook, Cozens and friends.
So if the Senators looked at it as, if they don't get Hughes which may be a 10% chance at best, who are they looking at in that top 2-5 spot and are they better than Tkachuk (who evidently they were more high on then Zadina and friends). Maybe they just decided they liked Tkachuk more at this point. Hardly unreasonable.
Add on the extra year of development, the idea that they're going into a rebuild and likely will have a plethora of talent (they hope) from the 2019 (once/if Karlson and Stone traded), 2020, 2021 drafts, that having Tkachuk from the 2018 draft will stagger the talent a bit.
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