As far as I'm concerned, only 3 factors should be considered with regards to evaluating draft picks:
- Historical expectation: What have players taken at that draft position historically done.
- Extreme circumstances: If your promising draft pick gets seriously injured and it stunts development, I'm not going to hold that against you. Things happen. As long as you control your end of it and do your part, that's all I can reasonably expect.
- Averages: If you strike out on every single 5th, 6th, 7th round pick for 5 years straight, I think something is wrong. Sure, each individual pick from those rounds are more likely than not to fail, but it's like rolling heads 20 times in a row. Things are really damn sketchy if it happens. And if you can't find a *single* NHL level player for 3 rounds in 5 years, I'm going to ask questions.
I have no idea how anything else could be considered. You can talk about swinging for the fences, or high risk picks, but that's all subjective. Some scouts can see "home run" potential in a player that doesn't actually have any. And you could reward him some points for courage if you agree that player had potential. I'm not a fan of subjectivity. As long as you meet or beat historical expectations, I'll be happy with your drafting and whatever pick you make.
There is a 4th pseudo factor.
Opportunity cost. If you went for another player and missed out on a greater player, that's a bad thing. But as I've said many times, I don't think you can really tell this past the 1st round. After the 1st round, the draft is very crapshooty in terms of even finding an NHL regular, much less an impact player. Hell, after the first 5 picks it gets pretty spotty very damn quick. Again, I don't think it's reasonable to do that outside of a very narrow range of picks.