Player Discussion Draft History: better available players

[Hammer79]

Here's a look at the Canucks draft history under the past two GMs. Better or other players that were available at that pick are shown in brackets. It was becoming a depressing list to cut-and-paste. I didn't do the two recent drafts because most players are too young to have played significant NHL games to do comparisons. In general, I'm looking at players who are still in the league now, have played a significant number of games. In some cases, I just skim over the best statistical players between two Canucks picks, but there are several others available in that range who may have played games.

2018 Draft
Quinn Hughes (BPA)

2017 Draft
Elias Pettersson (BPA)
Kole Lind (BPAs: Mario Ferraro, Alexandre Texier, Maxime Comtois, Nicolas Hague)
Michael DiPietro (Also available: Cale Fleury)
Jack Rathbone (Also available: Emil Bemstrom, Drake Batherson)
Kristoffer Gunnarsson (Also available: Jonathan Davidsson, Sebastian Aho)
Petrus Palmu
Matt Brassard (Also available: Cayden Primeau, Dylan Ferguson)

2016 Draft
Olli Juolevi (Also available: Matthew Tkachuk, Mikhail Serg)achev, Alex DeBrincat)
William Lockwood (Also Available: Adam Fox, Joey Anderson, Josh Mahura)
Cole Candella (Also available: Nicholas Caamano, Beck Malenstyn, Tim Gettinger)
Jakob Stukel (BPA: Jesper Bratt, Also: Maxim Mamin, Blake Hillman)
Rodrigo Abols (Also: Joachim Blichfeld)

2015 Draft
Brock Boeser (Also available Sebastian Aho, Also Travis Konecny)
Guillaume Brisebois (BPA: Anthony Cirelli)
Dmitry Zhukenov (BPA: Conor Garland)
Carl Neill (BPA: Markus Nutivaara, Also: Troy Terry)
Adam Gaudette (BPA: Markus Nutivaara, Also Andrew Mangiapane, Vladislav Gavrikov, Brett Seney, John Marino)
Lukas Jasek (BPA: Markus Nutivaara)
Tate Olson (None)

2014 Draft
Jake Virtanen (Also Available: William Nylander, Nikolaj Ehlers, Dylan Larkin)
Jared McCann (BPA: David Pastrnak)
Thatcher Demko (BPA: Brayden Point, also Marcus Pettersson, Christian Dvorak)
Nikita Tryamkin (BPA: Brayden Point)
Gustav Forsling (BPA: Kevin Labanc)
Kyle Pettit (BPA: Kevin Labanc)
Mackenze Stewart (BPA: Ondrej Kase)

2013 Draft
Bo Horvat (Also available: Max Domi)
Hunter Shinkaruk (BPA: Jake Guentzel)
Cole Cassels (BPA: Oliver Bjorkstrand)
Jordan Subban (BPA: Will Butcher)
Anton Cederholm (Also: Alan Quine)
Mike Williamson (Also: Dominik Kubalik, Andreas Johnsson)
Miles Liberati (BPA: MacKenzie Weegar)

2012 Draft
Brendan Gaunce (better available: Brady Skjei, Tanner Pearson, Chris Tierney, Colton Sissons)
Alexandre Mallet (better available: Jordan Martinook, Damon Severson, Devin Shore, Shayne Gostisbehere)
Ben Hutton (BPA Colin Miller)
Wesley Myron (better: Paul Ladue, Christian Djoos)
Matthew Beattie (better: Jaycob Megna)

2011 Draft
Nicklas Jensen (better: Nikita Kucherov, William Karlsson)
David Honzik , Alexandre Grenier (better: Johnny Gaudreau)
Joe Labate (BPA Johnny Gaudreau)
Ludwig Blomstrand (BPA: Ondrej Palat, better: Andrew Shaw)
Frankie Corrado (better: Josh Manson, Josh Archibald)
Pathrik Westerholm (BPA: Palat, better: Ryan Dzingel)
Henrik Tommernes (NONE)

2010 Draft
Patrick McNally (better: John Klingberg, Micheal Ferland)
Adam Polasek (better: Brendan Gallagher, Jesper Fast)
Alex Friesen, Jonathan Iilahti (better: Mark Stone, Frederik Andersen)
Sawyer Hannay (better: Zach Trotman)

2009 Draft
Jordan Schroeder (better: Marcus Johansson, Kyle Palmieri, Ryan O'Reilly, Jakob Silfverberg)
Anton Rodin (better: Dmitri Orlov, Tyson Barrie, Tomas Tatar, Brandon Pirri, Brayden McNabb, Reilly Smith)
Kevin Connauton (others: Cody Eakin, Craig Smith, Sami Vatanen)
Jeremy Price (better: Ben Chiarot, Mike Hoffman, Gabriel Bourque)
Peter Andersson (better: Marcus Kruger, Anders Lee, Darcy Kuemper)
Joe Cannata (better: Erik Haula)
Steven Anthony (better: Nic Dowd)

2008 Draft
Cody Hodgson (better: Erik Karlsson, Jordan Eberle, John Carlson, Roman Josi)
Yann Sauve (better: T.J. Brodie, Justin Schultz, Derek Stepan, Travis Hamonic, Marco Scandella, Michael Stone, Adam Henrique, Matt Calvert)
Prabh Rai (better: Mark Borowiecki, Matt Martin, Mark Barberio, Jared Spurgeon, Cam Atkinson, Luke Witkowski)
Mats Josten-Froshaug (better: Zac Rinaldo, Jason Demers)
Morgan Clark (better: Anders Lindback)

Click to read more...

 

[DFAC]

Cant win em all - the draft is a crapshoot most of the time and hardly a science

That being said we were absolutely atrocious at drafting from 08-12, though. Absolutely brutal years

 

[Guardian452]

You can put together a similar list every team in the league. And in 2014, 23 teams passed on Pastrnak with only 1 of those teams winding up with an equal or better player.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Cant win em all - the draft is a crapshoot most of the time and hardly a science

That being said we were absolutely atrocious at drafting from 08-12, though. Absolutely brutal years

So we had bad luck in the crapshoot during 08-12?

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

McCann over Pastrnak is oooooooooooooooooouch

 

[M2Beezy]

I think Im still happy taking McKenzie Stewart over Kase, solid organization player, knew his roll, wasnt a long term deal and cut him loose when we had to. Cant say the same for Kase or whatever his name is

 

[Hammer79]

You can put together a similar list every team in the league. And in 2014, 23 teams passed on Pastrnak with only 1 of those teams winding up with an equal or better player.

True, this isn't a 'pointing fingers' thread. This is for sure a "hindsight = 20/20" thread, but I wanted to see what we've missed out on during the last two GM's worth of drafting. Sure, we can point at the big misses like Karlsson or Pastrnak, who got passed on by several GMs, but there are some later round pieces there that we failed to convert.

The question is, given our development system at the time, had we picked these other players, would they have taken the same path with us? Is this a case of the Canucks scouting missing on these players, or did we pick good players but fail to develop them properly? Did players bust because of how we handled them?

 

[RandV]

So we had bad luck in the crapshoot during 08-12?

I don't see why there should be any issue saying yes here. Between 08-13 we took 6 forwards in the first round, none of them were a Patrick White or Nathan Smith type and there was a lot of promise shown along the way. Gaunce was the only underwhelming pick at the time being closer to Smith, but Schroeder, Jensen, and Shinkaruk generated hype at various points but ultimately didn't make it. Hodgson generated a huge amount of hype and did briefly make it only to fall flat on his face, but we know now in hindsight he had some obscure medical condition that sapped his career.

So in general considering that the draft is very much a crap shoot between Hodgson, Schroder, Gaunce, Jensen, Horvat, and Shinkaruk the fact that only Horvat made an impact for us I would say leans toward the bad end of the "luck" part.

 

[Catamarca Livin]

I don't see why there should be any issue saying yes here. Between 08-13 we took 6 forwards in the first round, none of them were a Patrick White or Nathan Smith type and there was a lot of promise shown along the way. Gaunce was the only underwhelming pick at the time being closer to Smith, but Schroeder, Jensen, and Shinkaruk generated hype at various points but ultimately didn't make it. Hodgson generated a huge amount of hype and did briefly make it only to fall flat on his face, but we know now in hindsight he had some obscure medical condition that sapped his career.

So in general considering that the draft is very much a crap shoot between Hodgson, Schroder, Gaunce, Jensen, Horvat, and Shinkaruk the fact that only Horvat made an impact for us I would say leans toward the bad end of the "luck" part.

ok yes there is luck involved however all our late first round picks had issues that could have been detected. Hunter S. was hurt, Gaunce had no upside, Jensen low work rate, Schoeder was propped up by teammates with no standout skills for small player, Hodgson skating issues. The worst point for all these players were some character issues. Horvat was likely a reaction to the character problems they had with others. Players make their own luck just like management does. Gillis was just off track. Benning made same mistakes 2014 - 2016. Character is everything at this level. Talent only gets you the opportunity. It is not easy to tell who will put in the work.

 

[RandV]

ok yes there is luck involved however all our late first round picks had issues that could have been detected. Hunter S. was hurt, Gaunce had no upside, Jensen low work rate, Schoeder was propped up by teammates with no standout skills for small player, Hodgson skating issues. The worst point for all these players were some character issues. Horvat was likely a reaction to the character problems they had with others. Players make their own luck just like management does. Gillis was just off track. Benning made same mistakes 2014 - 2016. Character is everything at this level. Talent only gets you the opportunity. It is not easy to tell who will put in the work.

Yes when you're picking in the late 20's typically the players are going to have some flaws, hat's why they didn't go higher. It's not like you could go back to the draft at the time and say 'we shouldn't pick x because he was y flaw so instead we should draft z'. Also with those late 20's picks the drafts weren't particular good, there was generally only 1-2 decent talents that got taken in the next 5-10 picks but rather than being some huge misses they were 2nd tier talents like Rickard Rakell, Marcus Johansson, Tanner Pearson, and Shea Theodore. There was no glaringly obvious miss like Bourdon over Kopitar or Juolevi over Tkachuk... well except for Horvat over Nichushkin which the Canucks heavily ripped at the time as if it was one of those but ended up being the correct call.

Also worth noting that at the critical development point for some of these guys Benning took over and was more interested in getting rid of them than working with them. Hard to say if that would have made a difference but still worth noting.

 

[Hit the post]

McCann over Pastrnak is oooooooooooooooooouch

Would it make it feel better to have traded Pastrnak for No-good-branson?

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

Not that Gillis’ drafting was good, but the further back you draft, the bigger the crapshoot. His first round picks in the 20s (Schroeder, Gaunce, and Jensen) are much more forgivable/understandable than Juolevi over Tkachuk, for instance.

 

[Pip]

I’d probably take Konecny over Boeser

 

[Flik]

That 2008 draft kills me, and Hodgson wasn't even a bad pick perse.

 

[Hit the post]

ok yes there is luck involved however all our late first round picks had issues that could have been detected. Hunter S. was hurt, Gaunce had no upside, Jensen low work rate, Schoeder was propped up by teammates with no standout skills for small player, Hodgson skating issues. The worst point for all these players were some character issues. Horvat was likely a reaction to the character problems they had with others. Players make their own luck just like management does. Gillis was just off track. Benning made same mistakes 2014 - 2016. Character is everything at this level. Talent only gets you the opportunity. It is not easy to tell who will put in the work.

I would argue Gaunce was a character over talent decision. It's up to the GM to decide the correct "mixture".

 

[I am toxic]

Umm, is Juolevi showing as better than MacAvoy?

Jus' sayin'

 

[Hammer79]

Umm, is Juolevi showing as better than MacAvoy?

Jus' sayin'

It wasn't an exhaustive list of every better player. When the BPA was in later rounds, I included some other picks that could have been had that weren't BPA.

 

[vanuck]

I’d probably take Konecny over Boeser

Same here.

 

[VanJack]

If you go through every team's draft board for the last six years, you'll come up with more 'misses' than 'hits', particularly in later rounds. That's just the way it is when you're drafting 18-year old hockey players.

For every Jack Rathbone, there are a bunch of Tate Olsons', Cole Candellas', Matt Brassards' and Carl Neills'. For me, the only time the draft causes serious heartburn is when you badly miss with a top-10 pick. So for me, it's still Oli Juolevi, until proven otherwise.

 

[F A N]

I would argue Gaunce was a character over talent decision. It's up to the GM to decide the correct "mixture".

I'm not so sure about that. Gaunce was highly ranked and was a bit of a faller in the draft due to concerns over his skating and ultimate offensive upside. Kind of like how Hodgson was Stamkos without the skating abilities.

 

[Uhmkay]

I'm not sure what the point of this list is. You could literally make the same list for basically every other team out there. Yes.... Canucks missed on a player. Guess what, so did every other team except the one who drafted that player.

 

[krutovsdonut]

the misses from 2012 and earlier are really painful, especially 2009.

 

[krutovsdonut]

I'm not sure what the point of this list is. You could literally make the same list for basically every other team out there. Yes.... Canucks missed on a player. Guess what, so did every other team except the one who drafted that player.

yeah, it's really not fair unless you repeatedly missed on multiple guys that other teams took right after.

 

[MadaCanuckle]

Boeser BPA with Aho available and Konecny playing almost at a PPG pace lately? Ok then...

 

[Breakers]

Even if Vancouver was deadset on Taking a dman in 2016
The discussion shouldn't have been Tkachuk vs Juolevi, thats BPA
it is Juolevi vs Sergachev as both were in the same league and conference.

Sergachev won OHL defenseman of the year selected by all Teams GM's and coaches.
Juolevi wasnt even freaking nominated. Hell even Chychrun was nominated.
I mean these are GM's and coaches that watch every game, and there is 6 nominee's and Sergachev won overwhelmingly.
It just seemed like people who were familiar with the OHL seemed surprised that he was chosen before sergachev.