..but Lombardi has a track record for knowing how to pick talent. it's hard to doubt the guy.
part of the track record is his legendary 12th overal pick in 1995: Teemu Riihijarvi.
Cruel11 said:
"I found out for sure that he wasn't getting by eight,'' Lombardi said, referring to the eighth overall pick, which was held by the Boston Bruins. "That's why I knew we couldn't drop down too far.''
So DL knew or had a reason to believe Boston would pick Hickey at the 8 spot.
i have doubts he knew that before the draft considering his previous chat:
LOMBARDI-> "I drew a line under a certain number that I can’t go below or I’ll lose him..
That means you can only deal with the teams who were above where I wanted to go, which was a little above ten, but it wasn’t there.
..I was concerned that he was not going to fall too far, and my instincts were correct, as a team just came up to me that was picking in the 10-13 spot, and they said he was their guy.”
http://www.kingshockey.com/articles.cfm?id=212
so what he said here is
after his pick he was informed by another team between #10-#13 that they were targeting him.
and btw, all of this is coming off his mouth..we have no confirmation from anyone else..
(anyway, he could have still traded down to #7. he still had washington, edmonton and columbus.. hard to think none was ready to give up anything to move up to #4)
This limited DL's options in trading down. He tried to get it done, even went so far as attempting a 3-way deal, but in the end it wasn't working out so he took the player he wanted at #4 anyway.
actually, from the same previous link:
The Kings did receive a trade offer to move down involving a near-NHL-ready prospect, but it was not enough for Lombardi.
LOMBARDI-> “I had one bona fide proposal,” he said. “It wasn’t a veteran, it was a good prospect who was probably closer to playing [in the NHL] than an 18-year-old, so that was something we considered. He’s a good player, but we thought the upside for Hickey was greater.
With Johnson and Hickey now, these are both kids with top four potential"
Yeah, so greater.. top four potential, wow…
YEAH..who cares about the potential first liners out there, right?
what's wrong is that he acts like if, losing Hickey (by trading down), he could have not picked up anything else good.. to go along with the bona fide proposal comprising the good prospect..
I guess Cherepanov, Backlund, Eller, Couture, Blum etc.. don’t have the potential of an eventual top 4 defenseman, lol.