Wow, didn’t really remember that I wrote anything like that. Sounds really stupid I have to admit. It must have had to do with me not valuing Matthews as highly as a player then as how I have been doing later. I did see Matthews as pretty much an overhyped player. Very good, but not as good as was praised to be and become. And he is still kind of over praised and overrated even today in my opinion. But he sure is good at some things. Goal scoring and puck controlling mostly, but I don’t like him as a center that much, as he is not a great playmaker and even less concentrated in playmaking, which in my opinion should be always a top class center’s number one focus, as the center has mostly at least two passing options with his wingers, and thus makes it a bit harder for the opponents to shutdown that certain line. This emphasizes especially in the playoffs.
Anyway I was also at those times still probably believing that Pulju could still magically develop with his clear weaknesses (puck control, shot quality and hockey IQ), but seems like there hasn’t really happened much of developement for him in anyone those areas. And honestly those are areas that players rarely develop much after their junior years, so I was myself in fact probably buying a bit into the Pulju hype then, as he was anyway physically a very intriguing prospect.
He's been the best 5v5 goal scorer since he entered the league. His first year on the first PP and not having Hyman on his wing, he's putting up a pretty high assist rate. He also scores at a pretty elite rate on the PP. I don't know how there can still be any doubt about him going number 1 due to nationality bias. Which, seems to be the case being used here against Hughes. He did fine against Washington as a rookie and had issues against the best shut-down line in hockey (and still generated a high number of chances and didn't covert at the usual rate).
I would think Matthews success in spite of your doubts of his consensus #1 ranking, relative to the other players in the draft would make you somewhat back off what seem to be firmly held beliefs about it just being NA-Bias with Hughes too. Following prospects and the drafts for years, teams mess up for a variety of reasons or succeed for bunch of them. Even if you think the NA Media is biased due to who they cover, I don't think that extends to actual NHL draft rooms, outside of the cases of Russians which is IIHF transfer agreement related. The bias against Pettersson is pretty much the same that hurt other prospects. He was a late-bloomer (didn't emerge really until the end of his 17 year-old year as a top kid), overly skinny and didn't particularly wow at the WJC or at the previous Hlinka (although a very strong U-18's). I think that is much more the case than an anti-Euro bias. Patrick benefitted from dominating early on (and its still way too early to write him off), many of the same things that hurt Pettersson also hurt Cody Glass in comparison to Patrick, who are two Canadian kids from the same city born a year apart.
NHL teams may overvalue small sample sizes with Euro prospects, its why guys go very high after good WJC's or great U-18's or too low after sub-par ones. But, that is a problem with the process, and not an issue with universally underrating Euros. It helped guys like Puljujarvi, Gurianov, Nikushkin, Filatov and such boost their stocks, but hurt guys like Barkov (only played well, or at least put up points in the relegation round) and Pettersson. And still, Barkov appears to have gone roughly were he should have, and Pettersson's stock didn't overly implode.