If you want to play the hindsight game and compare your GM skills against Nill's, you have to pick just one horse, can't place bets on both. Who was your pick?
Before the draft I had Tolvanen as BPA then Kostin, so Tolivanen. FWIW here's the list of first rounders I would have picked in previous drafts at the time of the drafts. Actual picks in parenthesis.
2017 Miro Heiskanen & Eeli Tolvanen (Heiskanen & Oettinger) - I had Miro and Vilardi evenly ranked and went back and forth on them.
2016 Rasmus Asplund (Tufte) - I didn't love anybody at where we picked to be honest so didn't really cared who we picked.
2015 Kyle Connor (Gurianov) - Had Travis Konecky and Mathew Barzal ranked after Connor. Gurianov wasn't even a consideration.
2014 Robby Fabbri (Honka) - At the time I didn't like the Honka pick. I think small skilled D men have a much tougher time than small skilled forwards. Fabbri is already ahead of Honka but if Honka can be a similarly effective offensive player in the NHL, while being a defensemen, I'll have no problems giving Nill the win here. Btw, I would have been fine picking Josh Ho Sang here, had him ranked not far behind Fabbri, but get why Dallas didn't consider him.
2013 Valeri Nichuskin (Nichuskin & Dickinson) - Loved the Val pick at the time. Didn't have a second pick since everyone I wanted was selected right before the pick, so was fine with the Dickinson pick.
2012 Radek Faksa (Faksa) - Although I wanted Grigorenko who was picked right before Dallas. I think GMJN would have made the same mistake if given the opportunity.
2011 Nathan Beaulieu (Oleksiak) - Had Oscar Klefbom ranked next. Lots of highly ranked D in this draft and thought we would get one of them, but instead we went off the board.
2010 Vladimir Tarasenko (Campbell) - Had Cam Fowler ranked next and pretty much everyone else ahead of Campbell. Didn't think we would be the team picking a goalie in the first round of any draft unless it's a consensus top of the draft type / once or twice in a generation type goalie.
2009 Missed the draft that year, traveling. (Glennie) - I remember there being some concerns about him being a product of the line he was on or if he was really that good, but other than that didn't have anybody better I saw prior to lead me to think it was a bad pick at the time.