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Originally Posted by d_phaneuf
If Guenther is a lot more of a sure thing why did he fall to 9?
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There was a consensus top 9 players, as has been widely reported. Other than Power and Beniers going in the top 2, it was not altogether clear who would get picked where with the next 7 picks. Most had Guenther going in the top 5, but it turned out that one of the teams likely to pick him wanted to take a swing at Johnson's higher skill ceiling, and the rest was largely positional. So, he fell to 9 by pure dumb luck - which would have worked out great for the Canucks, because they aren't in desperate need of center depth in their prospect pool (they don't have any, but they probably don't need anyone either for the next few years).
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Also just because he was pronmans number 2 prospect doesn't make him a sure thing.
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No one said he was. No prospect is a sure thing, other than McDavid-likes. But he is a better bet as a sure thing than most of the other guys who could reasonably have fallen to them. The most likely guys to fall to 9 were Brandt Clarke, Kent Johnson and Simon Edvinsson. The first two are much riskier picks than Guenther, and the latter doesn't have Guenther's ceiling as a potential impact player.
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The athletics analytics guy has garland as a top line player by gvsa right now
Guenther is a reasonable bet to exceed that value in his ELC? Really?
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I guess we'll see, but that Garland valuation isn't without risk either. He's a smaller guy who was playing high in a skill-deprived lineup. Someone had to produce offense for them. I like Garland as a player, but there's a real risk that he won't be as good with Vancouver next year as he was last year. The year before he was on pace for 47 points in 82 games - good, but not great.
Remember, Dom, the "athletics analytics guy" as you call him, had Timo Meier as one of the best RFA signings in the league two years ago, and that hasn't exactly panned out. Which doesn't mean he didn't have good reason to predict that Meier would be a top line quality player - all the evidence pointed to good outcomes, just like it does with Garland. But there's always a fair bit of risk involved. It wouldn't be at all surprising if he ends up being a 20 goal, 25-30 assist guy with the Canucks - which wouldn't be terrible, per se, but it wouldn't be worth 9th overall and certainly not worth taking on OEL.
The long and short of it is, when they made this trade, it looked very much like the 9th overall would be Clarke or Johnson. Guenther is probably a better prospect than either of them in a vacuum, and also a better fit for Vancouver's system. So the deal got worse for them due to the way the draft played out. Which was my point.
