While we haven't develop as many forwards like we do defensemen, we do get talented forwards in trades such as Silf, Kesler, Rico, and Eaves.
Kase was turning out well until we discovered he was made out of glass in a Ducks uni. Ritchie was disappointing.
First round picks under Murray
2009: 15th C Holland and 26 RW Palmieri (We traded Holland. Kase was drafted due to a return on Holland. Kase was traded. We drafted Perreault at 27th in this year's draft.)
2010: 12th D Fowler and 29th RW Etem
2011: 30th C Rakell (Then converted back to wing.)
2012: 6th D Lindholm
2013: 26th D Theodore
2014: 10th LW Ritchie (traded for F Heinen last year)
2015: 27th D Larsson
2016: 24th LW Jones and 30th C Steel
2017: no first round pick (part of Eaves trade)
2018: 23rd C Lundestrom
2019: 9th C Zegras and 29th LW Tracey
2020: 6th D Drysdale and 27th RW Perreault
I think it's too early to tell about the development of prospects from the 2015th draft to today. Between 2009 and 2014, Lindholm, Ritchie, and Fowler were our highest draft picks. Surprisingly, Palms and Rakell did develop. Outside of the first round, our scouts are great at identifying defensemen and goalies. Kase is the only forward not drafted in the first round of note, which he was drafted in the 7th round.
Larsson is 23 years old. Terry just turned 23 years old (a 2015 draftee like Larsson). Steel is 22 years old. They'll need time to develop as they're all lower picks. Zegras is a top-10 selection and possesses that top-10 talent. He ranked #1 overall prospect for this past year. We're gambling to get high end talent at the bottom of the first, but sometimes those talents have limitations. Zegras is uber-talented that he's banging on the NHL door after one-year in the NCAA. That's why I wanted a forward at 6th overall because most talented forwards are drafted higher than defensemen. In this year's draft, in the top-15 picks, only two were defensemen and one was a goalie. That means 12 forwards were taken in the top-15.
If we use the contracts of Perry, Eaves, and Kesler, then there would only be one spot open to a prospect forward starting this coming season. Unfortunately, health took them away from us. This coming season was when the youth movement should have started to see signs at the NHL level. Instead, we were forced to push up our forward crew in 2018-19 season. We might have delayed or done worse with the development of Steel and Comtois. Thank goodness Comtois got injured to where we sent him back to juniors in 2018-19 season!
Losing talents of Perry, Eaves, and Kesler far too early are devastating to the franchise. We had to sell defensive prospects for offensive help such as D Pettersson for F Sprong and Montour for the 29th pick in 2019, which turned out to be LW Tracey.
So give our youth some time to actually develop to their respective curve.