The draft class was such a bad one that scouts started to look anywhere and everywhere for players. Wheeler literally came from not even being on the draft board in the first half of the season to one of the fastest risers in the last few weeks before the draft. He was generally around #35. That doesnt mean a lot, the other big riser was Kyle Wharton. Some teams like to take late developers.
I think it also came out that two other NHL teams wanted to take Wheeler at around 10-15, the Isles were definitely one and I think the others were Dallas and Minnesota. The Coyotes were heavily criticised for not moving down the board to select him later but it wasnt really much of an option nor was there much of a trade return in doing so.
This is pretty much spot on.
Through the 2nd half of the season, Wheeler was generally considered a high 2nd round pick, maybe on the fringes of the first round.
However, it turned out quite a few teams had him ranked much higher than that and were being very hush-hush about it. NYI in particular openly hinted they were going to take him in the #15 range.
I don't get singling out Blake Wheeler as a draft reach. After Ovi and Malkin it was a **** poor draft, that had a top 10 which included Barker, Motoya, and the minor league trio of Olesz, Picard and Valabik. Wheeler on the other hand is the Jets first line right wing, and top point getter last season with 64 points. There are a couple of players after him you can make an argument for being better but for the most part weren't that highly regarded either.
It was one of the biggest reaches ever at the time if you look at 'consensus pre-draft ranking' versus where the player was actually picked. Thomas Hickey is probably the only other pick in the last 15 years that's close.
But yes, obviously it's turned into an excellent pick and the Phoenix scouts nailed it.
It's just an odd thing to focus on now that you have to go about 15 picks to find a guy who looks like he could be a better player over their respective careers. Is it a reach when your pick pans out as well or better than the next 14 picks? IMO it ceased being a reach at that point and just becomes a good pick. But we've largely digressed to semantics now and that's never fun.
The whole idea is to pick who you think is the best player at a given spot. As it turns out, Phoenix did a pretty good job of that. In this case their scouting department was better-informed than the various fans and scouting services that had him ranked lower. Reach or good pick?
Yup.
Anyone saying someone isn't a great pick because another player who went 50 or 100 picks later turned out better just doesn't have a clue. Those players aren't relevent and 0 of 30 NHL teams would have picked the other guy in that position.
The guys being talked about most for that pick were Olesz, Tukonen, and Montoya. Most NHL teams would have taken one of those guys, and ended up with a bum. Phoenix took a risk and ended up with a much better player (who they eventually ended up losing for nothing, but that's not on the scouts).