If LA really has their eye on Byfield and not Stutzle, the problem in prying this pick from LA is that Byfield has potential TO EXCEED Lafrieniere. Stutzle and Laf have both had their coming out parties, quite successfully, and both looked great. The only reason why Stutzle will go below Laf is not because he's not as good, it's because he has the big German pedigree/German league question mark where as Laf has the premium Canadian boy/CHL pedigree. Both are at least AHL-ready if not NHL-ready immediately. I heard Stutzle has put on like 15 pounds of muscle since the end of the WJC, which should only increase his draft stock.
Byfield being younger, his coming out party will happen next year, in theory. That means he has two big negatives...the team who drafts him has to both wait at least an extra year (and maybe LA can't wait) for his development to continue on track and it's unknown if he will continue to develop and exceed his current level of play. But that latter negative is potentially a huge positive too, if you're willing to gamble. All Byfield has to do is equal next year what Laf did this year and he will be more valuable than Laf. He doesn't even need to exceed Laf...being an equal or close-to-equal player but as a #1C will make him clearly more valuable.
And that would be insane.
So the question is...do we go for that gamble and delay, with Kopitar, Doughty, Brown, Quick and even a possible bounce-back Carter on the books (that's like 40 mil on the books)? Or do we go for the near-sure thing in Stutzle at #2?