How would you consider his draft record spotty? Remember a couple of things:
1. You can't really judge a draft until 5 years after it took place. That means we only have two on record for Jarmo.
2. If you get 2 NHL players out of each draft, you're doing fine.
2013 notables: Wennberg, Bjorkstrand
2014: Milano, Elvis
2015: Werenski, Carlsson, Stenlund, Bittner, Gavrikov, Nutivaara (Bittner looks like he's coming along again, so I included him)
2016: PLD, Peeke, Abramov
The 2014 draft is a little suspect, but I think we are going to at least come away with a goaltender. The 2015 draft has the potential to be far and away the best we have ever had, with two top-4 defensemen already coming from that class.
We can talk about the guys we "should" have drafted or things we "could" have done, but hindsight is 20/20. Any team in the league would take a drafting record like this and be happy. Jarmo has done a fine job of finding talent.
We had three firsts in 2013: with Wennberg being the only one of the three to be a full time NHLer. And you know as well as I do about peoples thoughts on him. He's an NHL player though. Dano showed sparks but can't stick. That's not an ideal haul in what was thought of as a deep draft. But like I said, he was able to sell high on Dano and make the best out of Rychel, so its not a huge deal. Bjorkstrand shows promise so we'll see where it goes. The rest of the draft has busted.
2014 like you said, is big whiff. Only Milano and Elvis remain as NHL prospects. We'll see what happens, but its not ideal.
2015 looks pretty good. Werenski, Stenlund, Gavrikov, Nutivaara all remain as solid players/prospects within the organization, and Kolesar is one for Vegas. You bring up Bittner, which fair enough, but I disagree with. All in all though, seems like an excellent draft year if at least one more of Stenlund, Gavrikov, or Kolesar hit, with at the very least being a very good draft year.
2016 is still TBD, but PLD is a massive hit. We'll see on the rest (Peeke, Abramov). Thome and Thurkauf aren't NHL prospects.
All of 2017 and 2018 are too early to tell. But I am in the business of being fair, so we'll look at the positives. Texier, Tarasov, Bemstrom, Davidsson, Foudy, Marchenko, and Vehvilainen all look like solid prospects. TFW is a nice late round gamble, and Berni had a solid WJC. We'll see how this crop develops.
In review: Jarmo seems to hit when picking in the top half of the draft with PLD, Werenski, and Wennberg (with the first two being potential home runs). Bottom half not so good (Rychel, Dano, Milano, and Carlsson). And a mixed bag in the 2nd-3rd round with some late round gems.
I think you put it best with "fine job." But when he was hired he was seen as some super scout. Without doing research I would assume we're in the middle of the pack/upper middle of the pack of drafting/development. So, yeah. He's been fine.
