Wasn't Filatov supposed to be even better than him? Look what happened.
Not.A.Chance.
Nah but seriously, I don't know how many scouts were fooled by him or if it was just Columbus (and some don't always seem to be aware that Filatov actually did drop to 6 in a somewhat half weak draft; great players were picked after him but there were like what, 15 busts as big as him in that first round), but the writing was on the wall with this kid.
This is what I wrote of him before he even started to struggle in CBJ (I am not sure if he even had played in the NHL at the time):
I've always seen Filatov as nothing but a huge project. Extremely fleet skating so to speak but really not much more.
But I remember seeing a 17 y/o Pavel Bure, and he actually looked allot like Fila does now back then. But for every player like Bure who takes that steps goes like 50 Filatov's.
Anyway, that was a bit OT, Filatov really needs to pin down allot of things before he can start contributing in the NHL.
There were all kind of concerns as regards Cherepanov. But his last season Cherepanov really broke through, put it all together, and played extremely well in the KHL. I made several posts with that exact same content before his accident, and I was pretty suspect of Chere's play before that season.
And I take a player
type like Cherepanov 10 out of 10 times over a Filatov. Cherepanov had like the instincts of Brad Richards and the physical ability of say Voracek. Fila is and was a extreme breakaway floater. He could look like Bure II against weaker competition -- but there is extremely little room for a player like that in the NHL. He isn't 75% as talented as Gabby, but exactly the same player type. And Gabby disappears for long stretches as it is. People always go after a player like Filatov's honor and tear appart his attitude, which also was horrible in this case, but he just did not have the conditions to succed before he got to the NHL and when you play x games and realize that you have no business in the league you are playing, its also very easy to loose controll of your attitude so to speak. Had Fila come in and scored 35 goals his rookie year, for all we know he could have been a perfect citizen in CBJ.
