Best GM At Drafting?

TysonBarrie

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Jun 30, 2018
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In your opinion, who's the best General Manager at the draft?

Here's an unpopular opinion: Peter Chiarelli.

Tyler Seguin 2nd overall
Dougie Hamilton 9th overall
Joe Colborne 16th overall
David Pasternak 25th overall
F Ryan Spooner, No. 45
G Michael Hutchinson No. 77
D Zach Trotman, No. 210
R Seth Griffith, No. 131
C Alexander Khokhlachev, No. 40

Promising Picks:
Caleb Jones 117th overall (4th round)
Ethan Bear 124th overall (5th round)
Stuart Skinner 78th overall (3rd round)
Kailer Yamamoto 22nd overall
Malcolm Subban (looked like crap in Boston, did alright in Vegas)
Evan Bouchard (10th overall)
Jesse Puljujarvi (3rd overall)

Note: Not saying PC is the best, just an under-valued GM at drafting.
 

boredmale

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Yzerman seems to be great 2nd round and beyond, his first round though not so great
 
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lawrence

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Kevin Cheveldayoff ,Doug Wilson , and George McPhee among good drafting gm's.
 

lawrence

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Kevin Cheveldayoff ,Doug Wilson , and George McPhee among good drafting gm's.
 

93LEAFS

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In your opinion, who's the best General Manager at the draft?

Here's an unpopular opinion: Peter Chiarelli.

Tyler Seguin 2nd overall
Dougie Hamilton 9th overall
Joe Colborne 16th overall
David Pasternak 25th overall
F Ryan Spooner, No. 45
G Michael Hutchinson No. 77
D Zach Trotman, No. 210
R Seth Griffith, No. 131
C Alexander Khokhlachev, No. 40

Promising Picks:
Caleb Jones 117th overall (4th round)
Ethan Bear 124th overall (5th round)
Stuart Skinner 78th overall (3rd round)
Kailer Yamamoto 22nd overall
Malcolm Subban (looked like crap in Boston, did alright in Vegas)
Evan Bouchard (10th overall)
Jesse Puljujarvi (3rd overall)

Note: Not saying PC is the best, just an under-valued GM at drafting.
I feel I see this mistake all the time around here. Do we just forget Puljujarvi went 4th? I also wouldn't really consider guys who became waiver fodder hits. They provided almost no value to Boston.

Chevyldayoff seems to be doing the best at the moment. Doug Armstrong in St. Louis always tends to do well with his pick range. Bob Murray has also done quite well.
 

WADEugottaBELAKthat

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Calls thread "Best GM at Drafting?". Opines Peter Chiarelli, specifically listing his picks. Retrogrades thread by saying Chiarelli is not the best, simply undervalued.

[mod]

Yzerman wins this hands down. Too many home runs in later rounds: Point, Kucherov, Palat. Plus some solid first rounders that help make the team who they are today (Hedman, Vasilevski).
 
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Doodootheclown

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In my biased opinion, Ronald Hextall and his staff.

Players that are already in the NHL or I feel have a very strong chance to become NHL regulars:

2014 - Sanheim, Lindblom
2015 - Provorov, Konecny, Vorobyev
2016 - Rubstov, Hart, Allison
2017 - Patrick, Frost, Ratcliffe
2018 - TBD, but I like the two first round selections of Farabee and Obrien

That's leaving out some players I like, but I'm not 100% on them making the NHL full time.
 
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WingsMJN2965

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Why? Just because Zadina fell to him? Wasn't a hard pick to make. Only genius pick he made was Berggren. That was a pure steal. Everyone else got drafted where they should have and most won't pan out.

You could argue that everything is luck... But you could argue that for every pick with every GM.

Just since 2013, we're looking at:

2018 - Zadina at 6. Consensus top 5 pick at 6, regarded by many to be top 3.

Veleno was ranked by most around #15 or just above. You could argue that many teams passing on him means something is wrong... With that being said, usually the reason for falling comes out immediately following the draft. For instance, when Vilardi dropped, everybody immediately knew it was for his skating.

Berggren at 33 was a great, great pick. I've seen some scouting reports claiming that if he were bigger he'd have been a top 10 pick.

McIsaac was ranked around the mid 20s. He's the least of the four and honestly don't know much about him, but consider that Detroit pretty much got four 1st round talents in that draft. With that being said, it's also worth mentioning that McKenzie made note several times that there were about 50 guys in the draft that could be considered for the 1st round.

I know nothing of Alec Regula but people seem to be high on that pick, so we'll see.

2017 - Picked Rasmussen even though everybody said don't do it. It's worth mentioning that I wasn't a fan of him being picked over Vilardi. This board seemingly loves to s*** on Rasmussen even though he had a great season and a ridiculous playoff performance after recovering from surgery. He didn't quite put up the numbers Vilardi did... But 6' 6" 230 lb. centers who can put up those kind of numbers don't grow on trees.

Rest of the draft appears to be trash.

2016 - Was heavily criticized for the trade that lost him Chychrun at #16. Keep in mind, that trade got $7.5M off the books and landed him picks #20 and #53. He used pick #20 to "Reach" for Cholowski, which was heavily criticized, and is now looking like a damn good pick. Then he used 53 to pick Filip Hronek, who may be the best of the three.

Givani Smith will probably be an NHL player, who knows to what extent. Safe to say he ain't setting the world on fire though. Filip Larsson is also considered a pretty good goalie prospect, but goalies are a complete crap shoot.

2015 - Took Svechnikov. Jury is still out. I wasn't impressed with him at all this last year, so this next year will be very telling as to whether they made a mistake there. Only other notable pick was Saarijarvi. Probably the worst draft of this period for them.

2014 - Picked Larkin at 15. He's their best player, pending Zadina, and is arguably a top 5 pick in that draft. Five, six, seven would be up to Larkin/Point/Nylander IMO, and they're all still so young and so close to each other that it's hard to rank. Larkin put some serious question marks on his actual ceiling this year.

Not much else to write home about. Dominic Turgeon will, at best, make the NHL as a 4C. Axel Holmstrom will probably be an NHL player, which isn't bad when you consider he was picked at #196.

2013 - Traded back from #18 to #20. 18 was Mirco Mueller, 19 was Kerby Rychel, 20 was Anthony Mantha. Mantha is looking like a fringe top 10 pick in that draft.

The compensation for dropping 2 spots was pick #58, which Holland used to pick up Tyler Bertuzzi. He got heavily bashed for this, as Bertuzzi was ranked to go in the 6th or 7th rounds... Turns out it appears to have been a very smart pick.

Also have to consider acquiring picks to set yourself up for the draft... Holland traded now AHLer Brendan Smith for a 3rd and OTT's 2nd, which ended up being Berggren. He traded Tatar for Vegas' 1st, (Veleno) and NYI's 2019 second, which will probably be pre-40, due to the Tavares loss. He traded 16 for 20 and 53 to drop Datsyuk's cap hit, and ended up with his top 2 defensive prospects out of it. He traded 18 for 20 and 58, and ended up with the best player in Mantha, and a pretty damn good 2nd round pick in Bertuzzi.

I didn't intend for that to be a TL;DR. Probably nobody's gonna read it, but it's good for reference.
 

93LEAFS

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Calls thread "Best GM at Drafting?". Opines Peter Chiarelli, specifically listing his picks. Retrogrades thread by saying Chiarelli is not the best, simply undervalued.

[mod]

Yzerman wins this hands down. Too many home runs in later rounds: Point, Kucherov, Palat. Plus some solid first rounders that help make the team who they are today (Hedman, Vasilevski).
He's been terrible in the top 10. He also didn't pick Hedman (That was Lawton). I'd say anyone who picks Connelly and Koekkeok in the top 10 is probably not the best drafter in the league. I'd also say Drouin over Jones (which was contested at the time), and even Monahan (would have been a reach similar to PLD over Puljujarvi) looks pretty bad in retrospect. I don't think he's hit a homerun with any top 10 pick, and in two cases I'd say he struck out.

While their late round hits off-set their misses, I also would wonder why a scouting staff can draft well outside the first but has a bad record in the top 10. It would make me question what exactly is flawed in the process early on, but is working later.

But, as pointed out, GM's are rarely heavily involved, especially outside the first round. Some GM's do have reputations for getting involved in the first, Doug McLean was notorious for this.

He is smart though in knowing when he has a bad asset and moving it in exachange for more chance. He did this with Connolly, and dumped DeAngelo (another bad mid-first rounder) early on.
 
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WingsMJN2965

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Ehhh... Drouin was considered the #2 guy much of the year leading up to that draft.

Probably still good be a great player if he wasn't such a prima donna.
 

boredmale

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He's been terrible in the top 10. He also didn't pick Hedman (That was Lawton). I'd say anyone who picks Connelly and Koekkeok in the top 10 is probably not the best drafter in the league. I'd also say Drouin over Jones (which was contested at the time), and even Monahan (would have been a reach similar to PLD over Puljujarvi) looks pretty bad in retrospect. I don't think he's hit a homerun with any top 10 pick, and in two cases I'd say he struck out.

While their late round hits off-set their misses, I also would wonder why a scouting staff can draft well outside the first but has a bad record in the top 10. It would make me question what exactly is flawed in the process early on, but is working later.

But, as pointed out, GM's are rarely heavily involved, especially outside the first round. Some GM's do have reputations for getting involved in the first, Doug McLean was notorious for this.

He is smart though in knowing when he has a bad asset and moving it in exachange for more chance. He did this with Connolly, and dumped DeAngelo (another bad mid-first rounder) early on.

I am guessing Yzerman makes it a point he wants the most skilled players possible. What made Kucherov and Point easy picks for him(both who I felt should have been drafted higher at the time) probably was the same thing that made Tampa pick Drouin over Jones

Ehhh... Drouin was considered the #2 guy much of the year leading up to that draft.

Maybe I remember the draft wrong but I remember it was Jones vs MacKinnon with Drouin and Barkov in the running. Jones actually did seem like the favorite going in

2013 NHL Draft Prospect Consensus Rankings

2013 NHL Draft Prospect Rankings
 

93LEAFS

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Ehhh... Drouin was considered the #2 guy much of the year leading up to that draft.

Probably still good be a great player if he wasn't such a prima donna.
Again, it doesn't matter where someone was viewed. It is measured against what you get. The Leafs drafted Luke Schenn 5th overall, it doesn't sting any less just saying that he was consensus pick there. For example, if Puljujarvi busts, a viable excuse for a scouting staff isn't that he was consensus pick there. It is a scouts jobs to figure out who to take and why, and if they missed character flaws on Drouin because of where other people viewed him, that is terrible. Groupthink isn't an excuse.

Although, if they went off who would have been the consensus pick it would have been Jones.
 

93LEAFS

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I am guessing Yzerman makes it a point he wants the most skilled players possible. What made Kucherov and Point easy picks for him(both who I felt should have been drafted higher at the time) probably was the same thing that made Tampa pick Drouin over Jones
Thing is, I get the MHL gamble with Kucherov, but I wouldn't say that was fully the draft strategy. I mean, before Point they also took a low-upside defender in Matthew Spencer. A significant aspect of the Point pick is luck. They also took Dennis Yan above him, but he had some higher-end upside.
 
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boredmale

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Again, it doesn't matter where someone was viewed. It is measured against what you get. The Leafs drafted Luke Schenn 5th overall, it doesn't sting any less just saying that he was consensus pick there. For example, if Puljujarvi busts, a viable excuse for a scouting staff isn't that he was consensus pick there. It is a scouts jobs to figure out who to take and why, and if they missed character flaws on Drouin because of where other people viewed him, that is terrible. Groupthink isn't an excuse.

In all honesty who do you feel like you missed out on that was rated in that area over Schenn? Sure it's easy to say we should have drafted Karlsson, but if the Leafs picked him there and he flopped that would go down as one of the worst picks ever.

Thing is, I get the MHL gamble with Kucherov, but I wouldn't say that was fully the draft strategy. I mean, before Point they also took a low-upside defender in Matthew Spencer. A significant aspect of the Point pick is luck. They also took Dennis Yan above him, but he had some higher-end upside.

My 2 cents on Kucherov, warts and all he should have been picked late first. If their was no Russian factor he should have been picked top 5(I remember him in the U18s and he was just that dominate). Point on the other hand probably should have went mid 2nd
 

93LEAFS

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In all honesty who do you feel like you missed out on that was rated in that area over Schenn? Sure it's easy to say we should have drafted Karlsson, but if the Leafs picked him there and he flopped that would go down as one of the worst picks ever.
Myers was higher on CSB and was a better player in the end, Bailey would have been better. I just don't think scouting staffs should be able to hide behind the crutch of "well it was consensus." These are million dollar operations that should be more informed than any other public list. They missed on a top 5 pick getting a bottom pairing D-man. I also don't think the Oilers should be able to hide behind Yakupov saying everyone had him there or the Isles with Dal Colle. In the end Schenn worked for us because we got JVR, and a bad pick like G. Reinhart because they turned it into Barzal, but the process that led to the initial pick should always be questioned.

A player being the consensus pick should give no fan comfort with a bad pick. Your scouting staff should be more knowledgeable than any public resource with the resources they have. A miss on a reach is no different than a miss on a consensus pick. Its still a miss. Cheveldayoff would have gotten bashed if Scheifele was a bust and Couturier hit, or Kekkolainen would with PLD over Puljujarvi.
 
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