Quote:
Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard
The Flames drafting has been bad but not abhorrently so, they have had more picks in the 20-25 range than most teams and haven’t really missed with their higher picks (Bennett being the exception, and even then it is questionable. It is easy to go through a list of players ten years after the fact is that most team drafting around the same area have the same busts that fans protest against.
I think that there is a massive element of luck involved in drafting, especially in later rounds. Perhaps the best thing that teams can do is to stop spending draft picks at the trade deadline in order to make the playoffs and instead horde as many as possible over the year. Get as many picks as possible in rounds 2-3 with the expectation that they have a 85-90% chance of not working out.
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A huge part of it is also development.
In fact, I would argue that prospect development is as important as drafting.
But it's potentially even more difficult to get right.
I think the Flames can draft goalies. Guys like Irving, Gillies, and Parsons were great out of the gate. They were probably good draft picks.
Development is where things went wrong. Like you said, a lot of it is luck. Gillies had a major injury. Parsons had other problems.