Did the Pens miss drafting Pouliot over Forsberg?

[Mister Hockey]

At the draft, I was screaming for Forsberg. What do you think?

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[wolffy66]

This is clearly an obvious yes.

And the fact that FF has been better than we could have expected is not the reason.
Everyone knew we had no business drafting defensemen, but hey Ray Shero.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

These sort of gripes work better when the guy we took ends up being lousy...while I'd obviously prefer Forsberg, Pouliot has held up his end of the bargain to this point and looks like a legit potential top pairing PPQB...he's going to hold immense value in this league. I'd prefer Forsberg, but Pouliot has made it hard to hate the pick.

We also stole Määttä at 22nd so...yeah. There's about 15 teams kicking themselves over that one.


At least we didn't take Forsberg and trade him for the dessicated corpse of Martin Erat.

 

[Clatartar]

At the draft, I was screaming for Forsberg. What do you think?

Is that air you're breathing?

 

[Jules Winnfield]

At the draft, I was screaming for Forsberg. What do you think?

Top international ranked player falls to us. Projected top 5 player falls to us. A forward at that, which we had none of in the organization at the time. I was ecstatic thinking we were getting FF. I watched him dominate a few games in int'l play thinking we hit the lottery.

Don't get me started on this one.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

At the draft, I was screaming for Forsberg. What do you think?

I don't know why you guys keep doing this when it was never going to happen.

I explained back then, the Pens board is not what you see on public rankings.

Shero never took a Euro with a first rounder. In his tenure, he picked 50 players. He took 5 kids out of Euro leagues. 5. The highest was Sundqvist in the third. You guys who keep getting upset over Forsberg need to let the reality of these numbers sink in. He loathed drafting out of Euro leagues.

It was never going to happen.

If we are going to lament a realistic option, it should be Trouba.

 

[The Greatest 101]

I'm still not convinced Pouliot is a legit top 10 pick...

 

[penguins2946*]

I'm still not convinced Pouliot is a legit top 10 pick...

Well you mustn't know what you're talking about.

I'm perfectly happy with Pouliot, he has Letang-lite upside. You can already see flashes of it, he's gifted offensively and can control the play already in the NHL. Forsberg would have filled a much bigger hole, but I'm perfectly fine with Pouliot. People need to stop dwelling on the past and look towards the future. Just get over it, that pick was nearly 3 years ago. I don't know why people just can't be happy with what we have in Pouliot and focus on how to make this team better now.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Shero never took a Euro with a first rounder. In his tenure, he picked 50 players. He took 5 kids out of Euro leagues. 5. The highest was Sundqvist in the third. You guys who keep getting upset over Forsberg need to let the reality of these numbers sink in. He loathed drafting out of Euro leagues.

It was never going to happen.

Here's a big one, and one of Shero's fatal flaws.

If Forsberg were a London Knight or Dubuque Fighting Saint (with a scholarship to Northeastwestern Michigan Polytechnical Institute - Omaha) he'd have been a Penguin...but you just can't trust those Swedes. Nobody can win with a bunch of Swedes on their roster. Nope, absolutely no one could ever do that.
*insert 2008 Red Wings/2010 Olympic Team Sweden picture here*

 

[DearDiary]

If the Pens picked Forsberg, they may not have gotten Maatta.

Looking at the draft order, if the Pens picked Forsberg then Shero would have drafted a defensemen for sure at 22. That could very well have been Mike Matheson.

I'd take Maatta+Pouliot, 2 defensemen with #1 potential over a top 6 winger and a nobody

 

[Big McLargehuge]

If the Pens picked Forsberg, they may not have gotten Maatta.

Looking at the draft order, if the Pens picked Forsberg then Shero would have drafted a defensemen for sure at 22. That could very well have been Mike Matheson.

I'd take Maatta+Pouliot, 2 defensemen with #1 potential over a top 6 winger and a nobody

I'm failing to follow your logic here.

 

[penguins2946*]

No one knows what would have happened had we picked FF at 8. Maybe the Caps would have taken Maatta at 11. No one knows. I'll take Maatta and Pouliot over Forsberg and a complete unknown.

 

[Michael8771*]

No one knows what would have happened had we picked FF at 8. Maybe the Caps would have taken Maatta at 11. No one knows. I'll take Maatta and Pouliot over Forsberg and a complete unknown.

Why?

 

[penguins2946*]

Why?

What do you mean "why?"? I laid it out really clearly there. No one knows what we would have got at 22, so acting like it's Maatta and FF vs Maatta and Pouliot is just being narrow sighted. Maybe Maatta was the 2nd highest player on someone's list, and drafting FF would mean they would take Maatta over who they would have normally picked.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

No one knows what would have happened had we picked FF at 8. Maybe the Caps would have taken Maatta at 11. No one knows. I'll take Maatta and Pouliot over Forsberg and a complete unknown.

Oh I get that, but the way he laid that out made it seem like we'd definitely gone defense there and Määttä wouldn't have been an option. We don't know that. One pick changing could throw half of the draft out of whack.


Either way it's hard to be too disappointed in a haul of Pouliot & Määttä and whatever the circumstances I'd rather have Määttä over Forsberg anyway. As I said on draft day, if the picks had been reversed this board would have been ecstatic, and rightfully so. I still can't think of a reason as to why Määttä fell out of the top 10, to say nothing of all the way to 22, especially not in a draft where defenseman were basically all that was being picked. For all we know Määttä could have been #2 on everyone's board (except Buffalo's)...we just happened to have 2 first rounders.


I still can't stop laughing at the Flames drafting Jankowski...I was terrified that we'd lose out on Määttä by a single pick and the Flames went completely off the board. You gotta lock down those sub-PPG Providence College guys ASAP.

 

[Michael8771*]

What do you mean "why?"? I laid it out really clearly there. No one knows what we would have got at 22, so acting like it's Maatta and FF vs Maatta and Pouliot is just being narrow sighted. Maybe Maatta was the 2nd highest player on someone's list, and drafting FF would mean they would take Maatta over who they would have normally picked.

Maatta has already had health issues including two shoulder surgeries. I'd take a definite FF over our current scenario. I like both DP and OM quite a lot. But FF is a hell of a player himself.

 

[roquay]

Isn't Forsberg too small to be on the Penguins?

 

[Mister Hockey]

Is that air you're breathing?

I was. I guess you like hitting the the nitrous. No offense, but I don't get the point.

 

[T1K]

Maatta has already had health issues including two shoulder surgeries. I'd take a definite FF over our current scenario. I like both DP and OM quite a lot. But FF is a hell of a player himself.

So would you take Forsberg over Pouliot and Maatta?

Too bad we couldn't have Forsberg and Maatta. We'd be set.

 

[Michael8771*]

So would you take Forsberg over Pouliot and Maatta?

Well, we'd be getting someone at 22, no one can conclusively know who. It could be Maatta or Pouliot or some other player. But yeah I'd take FF and the 22 pick.

 

[Speaking Moistly]

I like Pouliot, Pouliot will be damn good and you can see the talent there, but Forsberg hurts because Shero loved defensemen so much. Joe Morrow is still worse, though.

I don't know why you guys keep doing this when it was never going to happen.

I explained back then, the Pens board is not what you see on public rankings.

Shero never took a Euro with a first rounder. In his tenure, he picked 50 players. He took 5 kids out of Euro leagues. 5. The highest was Sundqvist in the third. You guys who keep getting upset over Forsberg need to let the reality of these numbers sink in. He loathed drafting out of Euro leagues.

It was never going to happen.

If we are going to lament a realistic option, it should be Trouba.

Yeah, but that means it's still something people can be pissed about, Shero's problem with Euro players costing this team just like his obsession with defensemen did. God, Forsberg was a double, maybe a triple, 'no go' for Shero, it's still a major failing.

 

[T1K]

Well, we'd be getting someone at 22, no one can conclusively know who. It could be Maatta or Pouliot or some other player. But yeah I'd take FF and the 22 pick.

Yeah it's tough to say. I'd assume that Pouliot would have been picked then Maatta still would have fallen to us. However if Pouliot fell to #22 then obviously we would have taken him over Maatta.

 

[Riptide]

At the draft, I was screaming for Forsberg. What do you think?

Same. Then was going WTF when PM was talking about how Pittsburgh was going to take DP.

As for your question, easy yes. And this has nothing to do with FF's breakout season this year. Based on our needs and what we had at the time already in the system - Morrow, Despres, Dumoulin & Harrington, plus the Pens 2012 1st (#21), the need was clearly an offensive forward. And with Forsberg and Grigs still available, based solely on the above, one of them should have been drafted. Now maybe you don't get Maatta at 21, but if you look at the forwards drafted between 17-30 there's some very good picks there (Hertl, Teravainen, Gaunce, Samuelsson, Pearson), and they would have gotten at least one of those players.

Now I'm not complaining about Derrik Pouliot. He's a great prospect, and by all accounts will be a very good NHL player (likely a top #3 PPQB D). But he wasn't what we needed - then or now. Now if you want to go with the philosophy that you draft BPA every single time, then look at moving back 4-5 spots. Maybe you don't get FF/Grigs, but get Faksa or Girgensons and then get a late 2nd/early 3rd.

 

[Riptide]

If the Pens picked Forsberg, they may not have gotten Maatta.

Looking at the draft order, if the Pens picked Forsberg then Shero would have drafted a defensemen for sure at 22. That could very well have been Mike Matheson.

I'd take Maatta+Pouliot, 2 defensemen with #1 potential over a top 6 winger and a nobody

Honestly... I'm okay with that. And Mike Matheson is still a very good prospect for Florida. And his combination of size and skating means that as long as his defensive game isn't complete ****, he should be an NHL caliber D at some point down the road.

 

[cygnus47]

Forsberg was a better pick at 8 and would be amazing to have. The issue with these things as people have already said is we have no idea how the rest of the draft would have gone if we had. We may have missed out on Maatta AND Pouliot and been left with a dud at 22. Pouliot was a worse choice in a vacuum, but it may have worked out better for us this way.