[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Niemo

I'm quite sure that the Flames were looking to trade up to take Puljujarvi. At the time, Puljujarvi was looking like a world beater and the 'clear' no.3. We were also desperate for a RW with speed and size. Once Edmonton found out that Columbus was going to take Dubois, they said no to trading the pick because they wanted Puljujarvi. Vancouver wanted Dubois very badly. Flames lucked out.

As for last year, from the comments, Flames tried hard to trade up to take Demidov, but MTL wouldn't budge. They then tried hard to trade up to take Tij, but Utah wouldn't budge. They were expecting and wanted Catton, but he got taken (surprisingly) the pick before, so they took the next guy on their list - Parekh, which looks like we lucked out again.

I'm not sure if this means that Catton was clearly above Parekh or not, but due to positional need, they were prepared to take Catton.

Note - this isn't insider information. It's just what I deduced from all the interviews and reactions I watched multiple times after the draft.

I got it from Steinberg around the 2016 draft that it was always Tkachuk.