Forget the NHL, MB. Who are these goaltending and forward prospects sitting in Springfield or Juniors that you think even have the potential to fill our glaring holes at those positions within the next 2 seasons.
Beyond that, are you seriously going to pretend that there aren't other players Howson could have drafted instead of those he did that would have turned out better?
That depends on if we're being realistic or not. Are we looking at it from the standpoint of picking up players who were more highly regarded at the time, or who look better now? Hell, we can run around in circles talking about how dumb the Rangers were in 1999 by taking Pavel Brendl when Ryan Miller (5th round) and Henrik Zetterberg (8th round) were still on the board.
You're telling me, for example, that in your opinion, if you had it to do over again, that taking Nikita Filatov was the best choice in 2008? Or that taking Derek Stepan in the 2nd round that year wouldn't have been a good move?
Let's see who went right after Filatov. That was Colin Wilson, Mikkel Bodker, Josh Bailey, Cody Hodgson, and Kyle Beach. None of them are All-Stars, and Hodgson is just now starting to do something. Beach is an immense flameout, and Tyler Myers (taken 12th) was regarded as a long-term project no matter where he was taken and was also a reach where he went. And the way he's played the last two years anyway....
Stepan? Here's what the NYR fans thought of taking him at that point, and notice the names they were clamoring for at that point. (
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=526627)
What happens if Filatov actually did close to what everyone expected him to do? He was like Zherdev on the ice, and the anti-Zherdev off it. Instead, he screwed a lot of people and a lot of teams by somehow fooling pretty much everyone he came into contact with.
You wouldn't take, I don't know, Logan Couture over Jake Voracek...as many people on this board wanted to do, in 2007? PK Subban over Stefan Legein? Wayne Simmonds over Will Weber? Alec Martinez (out of Miami of Ohio) over Max Mayorov? (Hey, looks like that Lombardi guy really does know how to draft in later rounds.)
Oh good, I have a 2007 THN Draft Preview right next to me.
Voracek was ranked 4th, and spent half the year at #1 and #2. Couture, in his draft year, had mono, a knee injury, and a leg injury. There had also been concerns over the OHL draft two years prior, when there was enough fear that he wouldn't report to certain teams that he ended up dropping...we live in a post-Lindros world, remember. Couture was also knocked for his skating, and he didn't impress in the U18.
Mayorov was ranked 14th overall. Simmonds, Subban, and Martinez weren't in the top-50.
What about Jeff Skinner over Ryan Johansen if Howson insisted on reaching in that draft?
Skinner at #4 would have been a reach of Thomas Hickey proportions. Johansen was ranked around 8th, Skinner around 20th. Skinner's play plummeted last year anyway, and no one knows if it was a sophomore slump or if teams figured him out and he'll have to adjust.
Then there is the Sean Couturier thing. Could have also had Dougie Hamilton since we all know he is God, which is why the Phil Kessel trade is such a giant disaster for Toronto, right?
I don't know that I've ever offered my opinion on Hamilton, so you're barking up the wrong tree.
And this ignores another problem with your thesis on Howson's drafting--he could have improved his draft position. Via trade or simply by being honest early in his tenure that a full rebuild was needed he could have drafted higher than he did in those drafts.
All speculative, since:
- We don't know what it would have cost to improve that draft position.
- We don't know what was going on behind the scenes. Don't forget that Mike Priest made his famous "win now" declaration at the hiring press conference, and it would have looked pretty bad to have the team president saying one thing and the new GM saying and doing another.
And would there have been the patience from the fans? 7 years of Dougie's crap, then being asked to sit through another rebuild that would have involved all of the known names being shipped out.
So, let's not pretend that Scott Howson hasn't had chances to draft any better players during the last 6 NHL drafts than what he has managed to draft. There isn't anything that is noteworthy about Howson's drafting. Not a thing. Which is problematic for a team that presently is dependent on the draft because of budgetary issues as well as problems recruiting free agents (made worse by the fact that no free agent is going to sign with a failed GM for anything less than a king's ransom).
Then do the study and prove it.