I get all of it. It's still hard for me to get past the fact that we traded up to grab a guy who plays a position that is already such an organizational strength. Especially when there was such talent at Center still on the board. The move, in a vacuum makes zero sense. Now, if we go out and land a 2C for a package that includes some of our RD depth? Then this all starts to make a bit more sense.
It all comes down to whether one thing the talent is equal to or greater than the guy your scouts identified.
The challenge is that these things aren't a constant. If the medical reports don't look great for Lapierre, and if your guys think Zary is more of a third line type, or that the future lies at a different position for certain players, it might not be as close as some think.
I really think we have to careful about wanting to will solutions into existance. I think that approach is far riskier than having too much talent in one position.
If we're looking at center talent, it's pretty much three guys that we can debate at 22 - Lapierre, Zary and Bourque. Everyone else, based on results, is going to be available today.
Lapierre has the health issues. They didn't feel comfortable.
Zary might project as no better than the centers we currently have in the system right now.
Bourque's consistency and effort were a turn-off, his interview didn't go great, and there are questions about him remaining at center.
That's the hard part. You could ignore what you're seeing in a medical file, you could over-project Zary and hope he's a second line center, and you could hope that Bourque decides to put forth a more consitent effort and that the interview was just him having a bad day, but there's risk in all of those areas.
I just think it's not as much of a constant as we sometimes have it in our minds.