It was EP or Gabe Vilardi for me, and I'm still worried LA has the perfect Kopitar-Carter-Vilardi succession plan in place
I didn't follow the draft much that year as hockey was hurting my heart too much, but I don't remember hearing a thing about Pettersson. I still knew about Glass and Vilardi and others, just
nothing about Pettersson. After the pick when I checked him out I was pretty happy.
I genuinely think that anyone who 'freaked out' about the Pettersson pick just didn't know much about Pettersson because he just wasn't talked about nearly as much as the other guys. There are far more casual hockey fans than me and I had no f***ing idea who Pettersson was and had to actually look him up.
I think people should stop trying to claim that everyone was freaking out about Pettersson, I think he just wasn't a name on anyone's radar at the time rather than anyone actually having a problem with the player selected. After I looked him up he seems like the kind of player I would have wanted ahead if Vilardi, I just didn't know he existed at the time. I'm all about boom or bust skill players in the top 10, especially in the higher end of the top 10.