I always end up responding to the Ryan Wilson posts too, since I see him 15-20 times or so a year. At the end of the day, I usually bring it back to the mental/character question: I don't know the kid at all, don't know anything about his personality, etc. But if he impressed me in an interview and I heard good words from those in the know about his character, I'd definitely be taking a chance on him. When you start adding up what he does bring (hitting, fighting, great shot, natural offensive instincts), it'd be worth it to find out if he can show the determination and character necessary to work on his weak areas (skating, skating, defensive awareness, and skating).
And it does look to me like he has improved quite noticeably on his weaknesses in the past year. He doesn't fall every time when turns to skate backwards anymore. The frequence of his baffling defensive zone lapses has gone down noticeably. He still needs to improve everything about his backward skating, speed, balance, cross-overs, etc in order to have any hope of matching up against pro forwards. But skating can be improved IMHO. Past that, lots of guys in the NHL get by with some offensive instincts, a willingness to lay out hits, a heavy shot, and a general lack of defensive awareness (Jovanovski, McCabe, Souray come to mind). That's the role Wilson has in junior, anyway.
I'd say take a late round flyer on him, if you're satisfied that he has the determination and character to at least work on his weaknesses, because the rest of the package is certainly there in spades. It'd be a project, and probably the draft history says that very few such projects pan out, but the only way to find out for sure is to take the chance and see.
