turnbuckle said:
Just for a lark Woodlief should consider scouting the OHL.
I'm pretty confident that Sanguinetti will be one of the top four defencemen taken; in fact I think he'll be the second one. I'm not crazy about his play in his own zone, but he did have a strong showing in the playoffs, and scouts I've talked to see him as a definite top 15 selection.
It's a personal preference thing. He doesn't like him. It doesn't mean that Sanguinetti won't be drafted high, just means that if Woodlief were in position to draft him inside the top-20 or 30 picks, he wouldn't.
There were a few scouts and armchair GMs in 1999 who ripped Woodlief for having Radim Vrbata in his top-50. How'd that turn out?
Woodlief is going to be right and wrong. If he's wrong about Sanguinetti, he'll cop to it. He's done it before. But one thing he always says is that he's not out to run a mock draft. He ranks the players as he sees them. He specifically cited Sanguinetti in the '06 draft guide as going a lot higher than where he has him, but he simply thinks the guy is too soft and not willing to pay the price to offset his impressive offensive skills.
I know a NHL scouting director who told me point blank *he* wouldn't take Sanguinetti with his early second-round pick, so there you go. Some teams love him, others don't. And, until we see how Sanguinetti develops, I wouldn't rip Red Line too much for having him ranked 46th.