Except he wasn’t drafted solely because he fought and beat Lindros. At that time there was a premium on big guys who could score, battle for position in front of the net with behemoth defencemen, and beat up Eric Lindros. Stojanov might have done all this if it wasn’t for some serious injuries. Turns out we should have picked Tkachuk (x2)... but I put that more on the Antoski pick.
The thing is, there’s more sides to these arguments than many here will admit
Of course there was a premium on big guys who could score, as is always the case. It's extremely questionable judgment, though, to suggest that Stojanov should ever have been projected to fit that description at the NHL level.
In his draft year he scored 45 points (25 goals and 20 assists) in 65 games. That's not big junior production-not enough to even suggest he could be a scorer in the NHL. In his D-1 season he'd scored 8 points (4 goals, 4 assists) in 37 OHL games.
He was drafted 7th overall. His junior team also had Jeff Bes, the same age as Stojanov but listed as 6' tall and 190 lb. Bes outscored Stojanov in their draft year with 70 pts in 66 games (23 goals, 47 assists) compared to Stojanov's 45 pts but didn't get drafted at all until the following season, when he went in the 3rd round after a 102 pt season.
I looked at hockeydb.com and did a quick check counting players who were 16 and 17 years of age in Stojanov's draft year (his 17 year old season) and there were 31 players in the league who scored more points than he did, another 25 17 or younger who scored more in the WHL another and at least another 21 in the QMJHL (where the age of quite a few players is missing.)
That is at least 77 players in major junior alone who were draft year or younger and outscored Stojanov that season. Lindros and Falloon, the first two choices, both scored more than 3 x the number of points in fewer games. The last three picks in the 1st round from major junior that season all outscored Stojanov's 45 points by a large margin-Glen Murray (18th overall and a good size himself) got 65 pts and 82 penalty minutes, Trevor Halvorson (21st overall) 95 pts and Dean McAmmond (22nd overall) 68 pts and 108 penalty minutes. Two of those three had lengthy and productive NHL careers after being drafted much later than Stojanov.
It wasn't just that Stojanov's scoring at the major junior level didn't suggest he could be an NHL player. He was a slow skater and his speed clearly would need to pick up to play regularly in the NHL.
Which got Stojanov drafted 7th overall, his 45 pts in 65 games or size (listed on hockeydb at 6'4-232) and leading his team by a lot with 179 penalty minutes?
Picking Stojanov was selected by the Bleacher Report in 2011 as the worst first round pick in Canucks' history.
NHL Power Rankings: Worst First-Round Draft Pick for Each Team The article mentions he wasn't fast enough to play in the NHL. (I suspect that Patrick White has probably surpassed Stojanov as the worst 1st round pick in Canucks' history, but at the time of the article White had just finished his university career.)
It's completely reasonable to suggest drafting Stojanov was awful decision making and deserves to be questioned. Thinking he was likely to be a scorer or even reasonable player at the NHL level was questionable and, as it turned out, mistaken.
Imo 7th overall was ridiculously early to draft an enforcer who was going to have to greatly improve his skating to keep up at the NHL level.