2008 draft class has yielded little for Chicago Blackhawks

[HockeySauce]

Potential and should are the key words here. Outside of Nyquist and Mrazek, who has seven games in the AHL under his belt, and is a smaller goalie, all the players you listed were 1st or 2nd round picks.

Smith is a going to be a good player and he was a 1st rounder.

Mrazek actually has 18 AHL games under his belt and he's not really that small, listed at 6'1".

But, like you said, most of the players listed are 2nd round picks. Chicago's had a pretty strong record when it comes to the 2nd round aswell, at least recently, with Johns, Saad, Clendening and Pirri all looking quite promising, especially Saad. I'm also a big fan of Fournier, despite his lack of production in the 'Q' this year and they've also picked up Morin and J.Hayes, who are both 2nd round picks, though obviously not drafted by Chicago.

 

[unbridledid]

Mrazek actually has 18 AHL games under his belt and he's not really that small, listed at 6'1".

My fault for going with wikipedia and not eliteprospects.com. My point being that such a small sample, whether 7 or 18 games is what it is. The trend is toward bigger goalies, and while 6'1" isn't Darren Pang, it is shorter than the size that teams seem to be looking for.

 

[Bubba88]

I did some research for an article I wrote in Germany. It's not a myth that you can find good players in the later rounds. You just have to look at players others don't.

Euro players taken in the later rounds seem to have more chances to make it because they aren't known as much as NA players. Sometimes, their development was hindered by older players still on the roster.

1/4 of the 2nd round picks play 100+ NHL games in the last 10 years or something like that. Can you find them? for the later rounds, it's possible too. Go with guys that have a strange style or guys that look to be "crazy" and "different"

 

[Nothingman*]

Holl on 3rd line RW for MN tonight against North Dakota.