Don_Cherry said:
I don't want to rain on anyone's parade here but there is a reason why he was bypassed 16 times. NHL scouts are a little bit smarter than we are and if they would have felt Parise was a better pick than the guy they chose, he wouldn't have went 17th overall.
I think hoping for Chris Drury is realistic. Hoping for Joe Sakic is not.
If ALL NHL scouts really knew what they are doing why did Sakic himself go 16th? Why did Pat Roy go 44th? Why did guys like Pavol Demitra, Dino the Dinosaur Ciccerelli, Stumpy Thomas, Curtis Joseph, Theoren Fleury, go so late in the drafts or not drafted at all while stiffs like Jason Bonsignore, Brian Lawton, Alex Daigle, Rico Fata, etc, etc, etc, go so early?
The truth is, the scouts often know no more than the average hockey fan with a keen eye.
NOt only that, the scouts are so afraid to lose their jobs that they go for the safe picks, which translate into SIZE. As was said before on these boards a few years back, a small man has to prove that he can play while a big man has to prove that he cannot play!
When will scouts realize that most of the superstars in the league are small guys? Gretz, Sakic, Stevie Y, Dougie Gilmour, Theoen Fleruy, Sergei Samsonov, Paul Kariya, Ziggy Palffy, Saku Koivu, Martin St. Louie, the list goes on and on...it's just that they rather be wrong picking a 6'4" Jason Bonsignore than take a chance of 5'9" Daniel Briere.
I've seen alot of hockey for a lot of years...and believe me, Zack Parise was one of the very few who lifted me out of my seats when I first saw him play! At the WJC, year before his draft (or the winter before his draft) he was basically controlling the tempo of the games that he played against kids who were mostly 2 years older than himself.
I've been saying this for quite a while now and I'll say it again. This kid is gonna come back to haunt a lot of GM's for many years to come and many people in hockey are gonna lose their jobs because of this young man.
Mark my word!