The hype train has left the station!
We drafted 3 similar centers before in a similar spot - two of them at 7th overall and one at 8th overall: Malhotra, Sundstrom and Dahlen. All of them turned into 3rd liners. Sundstrom played on the second line a couple of seasons, but was much more a passenger there than a driver. Dahlen's reputation right now is viewed more than it ever was during his playing days, maybe because he had 3 seasons of high scoring, and then ran up points late in his career by playing with superstars Jagr, Bondra and Gonchar, but it was in a high scoring era and he never was on his team's top-3 scorers. Most of his career he was a very good third liner in his worse seasons or an average second liner in his better seasons except for 3 seasons when he was a good second liner. So let's be generous and count Dahlen as a career second liner. Malhotra, meanwhile, was a bottom-6 players every single season, often a 4th liner. He had fewer than .3 ppg (24 points per 82 games) over his career and his career high was 35 points.
Looking back, Duhlen, Sundstrom and Malhotra were all probably higher touted as prospects than Lias today. If Lias becomes anything more than a middle-6 forward throughout his career, it will be a surprise. Anything can happen, he can become a bust or a superstar, but at this point there's no reason to believe Lias becomes a better center than Hayes (different styles, but I'm talking about value).
Meanwhile Chytil is very unproven. Goneau had 10 points in 10 games, then collapsed. Vorobiev had about a point a game through his first dozen games, winning a spot on the RW with Messier and Graves, then disappeared.
