Okay, have digested most of what went down. I see the hunt for Morin and ultimate selection of McCarron as kind of "knee jerk" deviations from "value" (or strict BPA, certainly), but compared across the league, it's hard to give the Habs less than A-.
I might not have selected McCarron at 25th (mostly because of the potential NCAA commitment), but I WOULD have selected de la Rose at that spot. In that same vein, McCarron at de la Rose's spot would have been just fine. Look for a "better" combination of size/skill among forwards still available at that point. Getting both of them, regardless of the order, made for good picks, imo - even if I would have selected differently (a lot of skill with decent enough size available there - particularly among defensemen).
Don't think anyone needs to be told how I feel about somehow lucking into a chance to add Fucale to the organization, lol. Nothing about Price - it's just awesome to get the goalie with the most potential in the draft (imo). There may have been goalies who would handle an NHL season better if it started tomorrow, but I'm glad we've got Fucale's rights in the meantime.
Lehkonen and Andrighetto represent some of the skill that some might have seen as "sacrifices" to get the size earlier on. Lehkonen is pretty much Teravainen (18th overall last year by the Blackhawks, so there's part of a connection which has already been discussed in many places) only with more grit, work ethic, and reliable play in all zones. Two thumbs up at 55th overall. Andrighetto has been intriguing me all year. Good swing for the fence at 86th. Smooth and skilled, but can he be tough enough?
Crisp... well... we'll see. He was able to run shotgun on a junior team's top line, but I hope they're not banking on that experience to actually translate to a similar role in the NHL. Surprised he got drafted instead of teammate Harper (who might not have looked out of place if picked at Crisp's spot, imo), but I expect him to end up chucked into some deal before too long anyway.
So far the draft is a pretty solid A, imo... possibly A+. I think plenty of "better" players were available at Reway and Gregoire's spots, but as the last picks of the draft, that can only drag the overall grade to A- at the lowest. One or both of them might surprise me down the road, but I've seen both, and I'll be surprised if what they offer translates to the very top level by the time the organization will have to decide whether to keep them around or not. If one, or either, of these guys pans out, this draft probably stands to go down as anything from A to A+ (balanced for "value" league-wide).
