How come Adam Boqvist busted so hard while the other Dman chosen from 1-12th overall have all done pretty well if not excellent in the league

[Bjornar Moxnes]

Dahlin, Hughes, Boqvist, Bouchard, and Dobson were drafted from 1st to 12th overall respectively. While Dahlin hasn't seen the best success so far, he's done very well with his situation. Hughes is clearly an elite 1D and Dobson is doing great in his situation as well. Bouchard might not be elite per se, but he's still the backbone of the Oilers deadly offense, and has been the best offensive Dman the Oilers has seen in a long time, with an underrated defensive game.

Then we go to Boqvist, who has well been extremely disappointing to say the least. He can't defend well, he's poor in transition, and even his offensive skills are relatively overrated. What exactly happened here? How come he busted while the other Dman have all done well?

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[thaman8765678]

Some players become good and some end up being busts.

 

[Malaka]

His elite skill is shooting

When you don’t have the puck on your stick it makes it hard to do that

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[majormajor]

The Hawks brought him to the NHL several years too early, so there wasn't much opportunity for him to hone his skills.

Then he's had significant injuries every year, missing about half of the season each time. A significant number of "busts" are players who can't keep their bodies healthy vs NHLers for long enough to develop their game.

But it's also fair to wonder if his skills merited a top ten pick, certainly his defensive ability was too far behind. Boqvist is just now getting to the point where he can defend okay at an NHL level. His technique, his commitment and defensive awareness, it was all terrible until his fourth season.

He tends to have okay playdriving results and surprisingly Werenski had his best results with Boqvist. The pairing outscored opponents 21-13 this year. At this point it's probably just injuries keeping him from being a top 4 D, though I won't disagree with folks who think he was drafted too high based on his skillset.

 

[Reddawg]

I pulled a pretty rare Boqvist rookie auto so that's probably the reason he busted. Sorry.

 

[Cubs2024WSChamps]

Said he was a bust when he was drafted and was proven correct.

Bowman rushed him so Stan looked like the smartest guy in the room. The guy was limited.

 

[Treb]

Development is not linear, you have to make projections. Sometimes those are wrong.

Haydn Fleury was drafted 7th overall and is a 7th D journeyman.
Griffin Reinhart never played a full season on a NHL roster as a 4th overall.
Slater Koekkoek didn't do much as a 10th overall.
Same with Duncan Siemens as 11th overall.
Dylan McIlrath and his 7 career points were drafted 10th overall, two picks before Cam Fowler.

Still time to turn it around, but Victor Soderstrom isn't looking like a great 11th overall.

 

[Ezekial]

Been pretty injury plagued. Iirc he had a pretty bad concussion in his d+1 then some wirst problems. Hawks moved on from him due to this and injuries have continued - he's never been able to gain traction.
It's the nature of the sport some players just don't turn into the players they were projected to be.

 

[Frank Drebin]

Simple answer for any pick that didn't work out.

His skills didn't translate to the NHL; scouting is not an exact science

 

[Mrfenn92]

Rushed to the NHL too fast

 

[Madap]

He plays on Columbus lol.

 

[Fatass]

Not good defensively and not a bruiser. Must be an offensive puck mover to be successful. Isn’t able to do that in the nhl. These types of D are boom or bust picks. They’re very risky because if their offensive game doesn’t translate there’s no spot for them on a winning club.

 

[theslatcher]

Simple answer is: He's injury prone.

 

[ijuka]

In his case, the main reason is that this is his 5th season in NHL, when it should be his first.

Yet another prospect ruined by getting rushed.

 

[Kobe Armstrong]

Pause?

 

[PaulD]

Dahlin, Hughes, Boqvist, Bouchard, and Dobson were drafted from 1st to 12th overall respectively. While Dahlin hasn't seen the best success so far, he's done very well with his situation. Hughes is clearly an elite 1D and Dobson is doing great in his situation as well. Bouchard might not be elite per se, but he's still the backbone of the Oilers deadly offense, and has been the best offensive Dman the Oilers has seen in a long time, with an underrated defensive game.

Then we go to Boqvist, who has well been extremely disappointing to say the least. He can't defend well, he's poor in transition, and even his offensive skills are relatively overrated. What exactly happened here? How come he busted while the other Dman have all done well?

It happens with every new crop of players ...every season. Some blossom, some get by, some are a bust.
This is not a case for Columbo.

 

[BerthMania]

It happens with every new crop of players ...every season. Some blossom, some get by, some are a bust.
This is not a case for Columbo.

Even if we know it will happen, we can ask ourselves why in order to learn

 

[GeeoffBrown]

The NHL is a harder league than the other ones Adam played in

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

he’s played on 2 horrible teams which doesn’t help

 

[Mr Positive]

Even Bouchard had problems. He has arrived , but only after being stapled to Ekholm for a whole season. At the same time, they shipped off Barrie just to gift Bouchard a spot on the top powerplay. The team bent over backwards to support Bouchard's development. Perhaps Boqvist didn't have similar support?

 

[ijuka]

Even Bouchard had problems. He has arrived , but only after being stapled to Ekholm for a whole season. At the same time, they shipped off Barrie just to gift Bouchard a spot on the top powerplay. The team bent over backwards to support Bouchard's development. Perhaps Boqvist didn't have similar support?

Bouchard earned his spot, it was not a gift.

 

[BKarchitect]

I wouldn't quite give up on Boqvist yet and I don't think the Blue Jackets have - he worked himself back into the picture after being scratched at the beginning of the year a lot because the Jackets had 500 warm bodies vying for a couple of low-end roles on the blueline.

I think the injuries and bad teams make it seem like he's barely a fringe NHLer but the truth is before getting hurt again in March, he was getting pretty big minute deployment and was reasonably solid in it.

There's definitely a scenario for 24/25 where the Jackets keep Jiricek down in Cleveland to bake an extra year (a la Edvinsson having what amounted to an extra year of seasoning in Grand Rapids this year for Detroit), along with Mateychuk now and the NHL club rolls with Severson-Boqvist-Gudbranson on the right side, with Boqvist potentially getting regular top four minutes.

The health thin is obviously a ridiculously huge concern - he just seems a magnet for injuries...but fingers crossed, hope the guy can stay healthy and build some momentum next season.

 

[squashmaple]

I wouldn't quite give up on Boqvist yet and I don't think the Blue Jackets have - he worked himself back into the picture after being scratched at the beginning of the year a lot because the Jackets had 500 warm bodies vying for a couple of low-end roles on the blueline.

I think the injuries and bad teams make it seem like he's barely a fringe NHLer but the truth is before getting hurt again in March, he was getting pretty big minute deployment and was reasonably solid in it.

There's definitely a scenario for 24/25 where the Jackets keep Jiricek down in Cleveland to bake an extra year (a la Edvinsson having what amounted to an extra year of seasoning in Grand Rapids this year for Detroit), along with Mateychuk now and the NHL club rolls with Severson-Boqvist-Gudbranson on the right side, with Boqvist potentially getting regular top four minutes.

The health thin is obviously a ridiculously huge concern - he just seems a magnet for injuries...but fingers crossed, hope the guy can stay healthy and build some momentum next season.

The fact he managed to get injured while on the bench this year was something. A puck to the face while just sitting there is just mean from the universe.

 

[Mr Positive]

Bouchard earned his spot, it was not a gift.

The talk around him was not like that before the Ekholm trade when he was on the bottom pairing and bleeding defensively. He definitely had his moments, and showed potential but it was rocky and many thought he would bust. Barrie was better than him as a top PP guy, so getting rid of Barrie was a gift, in a way. Of course Bouchard quickly became better than Barrie ever was

 

[Castle8130]

He was really talented. He always flashed high levels of skill in camp. Great shot, great skating, and great puck skills. He was never really good at boxing out players and was below average defensively. He got outmuscled all the time. I thought that he would get strong enough to play efficiently in the NHL. His skating didn't seem to be as good as scouts thought it was. His strength just didn't develop

After the Hawks traded him, I haven't paid much attention to him.