How many 1st round picks do we need to be competitive?

[Zaddy]

It's starting to get a bit ridiculous. If you look over our roster and thinking about how many 1st round picks we actually have on our team or who we traded straight up for another guy is kind of funny. We are basically in the 3rd wave of rebuilding through the draft. Not having any success yet is quite astonishing. It started in 2007 with Gagner, Plante and Nash from that draft, Eberle from 2008 and Pääjärvi from 2009. Five first round picks in 3 years should do the trick, but nope.

Then the next wave came with Taylor Hall (1st overall), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (1st overall), Oscar Klefbom and Nail Yakupov (1st overall). Three 1st overall picks in a row should do the trick, especially if you combine them with 5 from the 3 years before that, making it 9 1st rounders in 5 years, but nope.

Now we're in the 3rd wave of rebuilding through the draft and instead of actually being competitive by now we're pretty much hoping on the most recent wave of 1st rounders putting us over the top with Darnell Nurse in 2013 and Leon Draisaitl in 2014, combined with whichever top10 player we will get next summer. It's pretty sad stuff.

Anyway, that wasn't really the reason I created this thread. I wanted to put it on paper exactly how many 1st rounders we are icing or will ice as soon as next year. Keep in mind I'm counting Perron as Pääjärvi and Purcell as Gagner as those are the players those guys returned. Here it is:

Hall (1st overall) - RNH (1st overall) - Eberle (22nd overall)
Perron (Pääjärvi 10th overall) - Arco - Yakupov (1st overall)
Pouliot - Draisaitl (3rd overall) - Purcell (Gagner 6th overall)

If you modify our defense for what it might look like next year:

Nikitin - Fayne
Marincin - Schultz
Nurse (7th overall) - Klefbom (19th overall)

That's 9 first round picks, with 4 of them being in the top3, 7 in the top10, possibly 8 counting next year. How many more 1st round picks do we need to be competitive?

Click to read more...

 

[Gone]

Wow, 5 first rounders between 2007 and 2009 and today only 1 top tier talent of the bunch (Eberle). No wonder the re-build is a disaster, we simply cannot draft unless it is 1st overall, and even then ...

 

[Beerfish]

It's called 'Bold Patience'.

 

[Oilers10]

I've said it for years our drafting and development suck. We almost never find late round gems that other teams find. Last time I said this people thought they were cool putting up pictures of Hartikainen.

Its not only our 1st rounders that suck our 2nd round drafting is horrid. Colorado got Duchene 3rd overall and then followed that up wiht O'reilly in the top tier of the 2nd round. Rebuild is fast tracked. We pick Anton Lander, Tyler Pitlick, David Musil, Mitch Moroz. WTF is that.

I've stood up for KLowe long enough he's really got to be fired. How is it that Johnny Gaudreau looks better than some of our 1st overalls? Also, Detroit manages to get Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Nyquist late in the draft and develop them into stars. We get top 10, top 6 and 1st overalls and they barely develop. That is egregious.

 

[OilTastic]

our problem has been mediocre drafting plain and simple. even a couple of our 1st overalls, Nuge and Nail, are kind of just plodding along. and the other thing is we are still waiting for Nurse, Klefbom and Leon to develop, so we seem to be still in the middle of our endless rebuild.

 

[McJadeddog]

how anybody in our drafting department still has a job is ludicrous to be honest... stu needs to go, no doubt about it

but then again, even that will just be shuffling deck chairs until the real cancer is removed (kevin lowe)

 

[Tyrolean]

Many people feel the entire organization should be purged and replaced with more competent people. Lousy amateur drafting, pro selections and management hires kill this year consistently.

If you run the team like a business, then you cannot reward failure but we keep the losers here forever.

Unfortunately a long as Katz doesn't lose money and the fans keep coming, this will continue and it is no use complaining.

 

[McShogun99]

If day horrible drafting minus the obvious 1st overalls. If we picked the right players in 2007 and actually drafted NHL players in the 2nd round, we'd be so much further in our rebuild.

 

[Game 8]

We will never be competitive just getting good players in the first round do the math. We don't seem to be getting anything out of the other rounds. Hell we don't even have a good goalie prospect in the system and that should be a no brainer! Remember the old Burke Lowe fights? I wonder who won!

 

[McOvechking]

Our defense is horrible. All those top picks are forwards. Nurse and Klefbom next year should help us immensely.

 

[Gone]

We will never be competitive just getting good players in the first round do the math. We don't seem to be getting anything out of the other rounds. Hell we don't even have a good goalie prospect in the system and that should be a no brainer! Remember the old Burke Lowe fights? I wonder who won!

Burke was right. Cut out half his brain and he is still 10 times the manager KLowe is.

 

[OilTastic]

We will never be competitive just getting good players in the first round do the math. We don't seem to be getting anything out of the other rounds. Hell we don't even have a good goalie prospect in the system and that should be a no brainer! Remember the old Burke Lowe fights? I wonder who won!

the Oilers stubborn refusal to draft top goalies in the 2nd round when some are still there is the reason why we have no goaltending depth. i would like to see them bite the bullet and just take a goalie in the 2nd round and see if we have better luck than continuing to draft so-so prospects in later rounds.

 

[Fixed to Ruin]

Burke knows a thing or two about winning.... this decade.

 

[Fixed to Ruin]

the Oilers stubborn refusal to draft top goalies in the 2nd round when some are still there is the reason why we have no goaltending depth. i would like to see them bite the bullet and just take a goalie in the 2nd round and see if we have better luck than continuing to draft so-so prospects in later rounds.

This post is bang on. I'll take it one step further.

In the 2013 draft there were 4 excellent goalie prospects. Fucale, Desrosiers, Jarry and Comrie.

MacT after failing to draft Fucale proceded to trade two twice in that second round and ended up drafting Marco Roy. Passing on 3 top goaltending prospects.

Let's look at what the other 3 goalies did.

Tristan Jarry - Memorial Cup Champion. You all know him well obviously. I don't need to go into detail

Philippe Desrosiers - Went 31-14-7 last season with a 2.65 GAA. Broke the league record for longest shutout streak in the QMJHL. Plays on one of the best QMJHL teams and might be a goaltender on the WJC squad and has a good chance of playing in the Memorial Cup this year considering Rimouski is a powerhouse with many top prospects on the Oceanic.

Eric Comrie - One of the best goaltenders in the WHL currently. Injuries are a concern, probably why he slid down a few spots in the draft.

By trying to draft Fucale so desperately, that told me MacT identified that Goaltending Depth was an area of concern for him. However, he and the scouting staff failed to identify the value of the other prospects in the draft. He chose instead to trade Smid for Broissoit.

In hindsight, it would have been my preference to do both. Draft one of the remaining 3 goalies with the 2nd round pick and trade for Broissoit. Now with Broissoit and one of the 3 goalies in your system you should eventually have enough depth where goalies must compete for their jobs every night. I prefer that to whatever we are doing now.

 

[OilTastic]

^ah but apparently Stu and his staff and MacT know better than you do....i thought i had heard MacT say, after Fucale was taken, that the Oilers were only interested in Fucale and no one else as far as goalies go? the thing with the Oilers is that they seem to always want to sign/trade for goalies and not take a chance on finding and developing one of their own with a higher pick. not saying high 1st rounders should be used on them, but certainly 2nd rounders can and maybe it's time the Oilers start taking a 2nd round gamble on one instead of always passing on them?

 

[Beerfish]

The biggest disappointment is our drafting is after round 1. Aside from 1st overall in round one you have a huge advnatage in picking ahead of every one else in the other rounds and this is where your 2nd and 3rd liners come from, we have had utter failure after round one other than the odd pick here and there.

 

[OilTastic]

^but we got Mitch Moroz!!

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

All of them?

 

[DavidHasselhoffsFist]

Just this one

 

[EnthusiasticYak]

The LA Kings have ten, so just one more i guess. They also have a bunch of second and third rounders, so we'll also need to wait a while for ours to develop. Or just draft better, either or.

 

[Gone]

the Oilers stubborn refusal to draft top goalies in the 2nd round when some are still there is the reason why we have no goaltending depth. i would like to see them bite the bullet and just take a goalie in the 2nd round and see if we have better luck than continuing to draft so-so prospects in later rounds.

This. But the Oiler scouts are so pathetic, how could we expect any goalie they select to turn out anyway.

Case in point: Zach Nagelvoort - http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=144163
Case2 in point: Keven Bouchard - http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=169571

WTF. I cannot believe these scouts have a job. Fire the lot. Save your money Katz - send these guys along the road to ruin, and have your kid pick the next name off Redline's list every year. I assure you, that this would provide better results!

 

[oobga]

Need min UFA age to be 35. Then we could finally build an awesome team via the draft.

 

[Game 8]

This. But the Oiler scouts are so pathetic, how could we expect any goalie they select to turn out anyway.

Case in point: Zach Nagelvoort - http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=144163
Case2 in point: Keven Bouchard - http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=169571

WTF. I cannot believe these scouts have a job. Fire the lot. Save your money Katz - send this guys along the road to ruin, and have your kid pick the next name of Redline's list every year. I assure you, that this would provide better results!

Exactly the magnificent ******* is no better than Katz's kid! Scouting is the most important position in an organization. Clearly shows that there is no accountability and this team is not managed.

 

[McDreamy]

Our defense is horrible. All those top picks are forwards. Nurse and Klefbom next year should help us immensely.

Yeah. If there's one thing we've learned from these past 5 years it's that rookies are the solution.

 

[Joey Moss]

It's pretty astonishing to be honest. I look at the Tambo/Lowe era and think, "how the **** did they even accomplish this?" Our team doesn't have a single top player that wasn't acquired through the draft or college UFA. They haven't made a solid asset management deal since 2008.