It’s simple to see that the difference between Guhle, Reinbacher, Mailloux vs Levshunov, Silayev, Dickinson is not even close to being greater than the difference between Mesar, Beck, Roy vs Demidov, Lindstrom, Iginla.
Is that the deciding factor? At 5OA you want to get one of the 4-5 players who will drive the team and make everyone else better. Once the habs have those key guys they can sign some middle six forwards and go with who they have on D.
The overall team might be better next year if they take a forward but does it make sense longer term?
Suzuki is a key piece. They’re hoping some of Reinbacher, Guhle, Dach, and Caufield can be. If they take Buium they probably lose one of their lower ranked D and they have to find ice time for Guhle and him. No overlap at all if they take a forward, no ice time issues, no lost players. Is Buium or Dickinson or whoever that much better?
I suspect at least one of them will be, but we’ll see. Five years from now it will be pretty clear and everyone on this board will be saying “of course I wanted Parekh” or whatever.
Edit: left out Slaf.