At least a lot of these guys panned out. And guys like Seider, Berggren, and Raymond have thus far provided enough evidence to warrant putting them in the top tier of those guys at worst. Rasmussen and Zadina have shown more NHL progress at a younger age than those in the prior class too. I think our skilled players end up a little more productive and our seemingly underwhelming youngsters end up very complete all-around players.
Just seems like there are more dimensions to the players we’ve drafted in the past few years than we did previously.
P.S. If you want to see some bad drafting, look at what Montreal pulled out of the draft after their ridiculous steals in 2007. From 2008-2015, they arguably got the equivalent of like 1.5 good NHLers. No one from their 2008 draft class ever played an NHL game. It’s almost creepy. Like it didn’t happen. Like they paid some otherworldly spirit to give them 2 years worth of draft luck in one go.
That last happened to the Wings in 1968. When the draft was 2 rounds deep. And the Wings picked just 2 players.