RallyKiller said:
He's a fool. He should've taken jack johnson.
Remember last year, when everyone wanted AJ Thelen, and Ladislav Smid's name came up? Well, since then, Thelen's fallen quite a bit, and Smid is arguably a top 20 prospect.
Brian Burke loves his #1 defensemen, so if he thought Ryan was better, then that's more than good enough for me. We've taken many a prospect with skating issues, and every one of them has rosen quite a bit after. IMO, with Ovechkin, Crosby, Malkin, etc. in the NHL, Ryan might be very close, if not at the top of, many NHL-affiliated prospect lists. Every second I love this pick more and more, and while Johnson may have been the #1 defenseman we need, Burke obviously knows this, and will fix it later.
As for what Burke wanted, he said he only got one offer he'd consider legitimate, and it wasn't all that close, so I'm guessing some of those rumors didn't happen. I don't know what it was, but I'd probably be glad he didn't pull the trigger on it.