To each their own but personally I never put any stock into the whole back yard thing. If Price were from Japan, would it matter? You draft the players you feel have the best upside and or will fit what you are trying to build. I know some feel the Habs should do a better job of drafting out of the Q, but to me I've never cared where anyone is drafted from, just hope the players they get progress into solid NHLers that can help the team win.
Now mistakes are always going to be made, scouts are going to miss out on lots of players since you have only a few chances each year as the Habs over the past 9 years have had on average a hair over 6 picks a year. But it's a two way street. For every back yard player that you miss out on like Duclair, you have a Subban or Price or Pac or McDonagh, etc... that you hit big on. I can understand though that fans of the Q would want to see the Habs draft more from their and do a much better job since they haven't done well drafting from there in some time. But to me it's just a poor way to go about things, just like only hiring a French speaking coach, when you limit yourself to a certain talent pool, you are selling yourself short imo. Now we can't say for sure but look at the '09 draft, at home and tons of pressure to draft a local kid. The Leblanc pick at the time made sense for where he was selected, and in hindsight Simon Després would have been a better local pick (I thought that's who they are going to take) but just think of the outcry had they opted to pick Kreider or John Moore etc... but it would have been the better outcome for the organization.
I don't know how you assumed that, but I'll try to be clearer, since some guys progress quicker then others, I think it's best to wait 10 years and see how things have gone over that entire 10 year period. So what Dulcair is doing now is great, but if say McCarron turns out to be a cup winning 3rd or 4th liner that is one of the top bottom 6 centers in the NHL, things are going to look very different. Sometimes 10 years isn't even enough time. Look at Pateryn, he's 26 and looking to play his first full season in the NHL in terms of games played I would think (since last year was a career high of 38 games) Now I'm not saying he's going to be anything special or not as I still don't know what he can do in the NHL if given a full time spot to play every night on a bottom pairing. But the point is, as an '08 draft pick, he's shown very after spending 4 years in the NCAA, 3 in the AHL and 1 NHL season where he sat half the time, but finally looks like he could be a decent NHLer perhaps. Now if he turns into a decent NHLer, of course it won't look as good as others that have been in the NHL for several years now, but the point is that it's impossible to know what the future holds for them so while someone might show good things now, it doesn't mean that others won't be better later on or at least close to it.
I don't think it's looking like a whole big fail for the 6 top 90 picks. The Crisp pick looks really bad but injuries have kept him to very limited ice time, Fucale is not looking great but played better then his numbers reflected, McCarron looks like he's going to be a beast for us, Lehkonen is about to become an NHLer, DLR should be a solid defensive forward, Ghetto has NHL speed and shot that's shown some good things last year. It's still early and we'll see how it ends up but no way would I say it looks like a whole big fail.
