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.