How was it possible that a bust like Yakupov went first overall?

[Voight]

Sarnia Stings happened. Double busts in him and Galchenyuk.

At least Galchenyuk is an NHL regular who's good for 40-60 points a year. Not what you want from your third overall pick but its better than nothing.

 

[CheldishGamibno]

At least Galchenyuk is an NHL regular who's good for 40-60 points a year. Not what you want from your third overall pick but its better than nothing.

Yeah I was mostly kidding, it's more the Oilers and the Habs fault, their development system is horrible.

 

[Voight]

Yeah I was mostly kidding, it's more the Oilers and the Habs fault, their development system is horrible.

Neither has done a good job of developing their top prospects. Last top Habs pick to reach all star levels is MaxPac, 11 years ago. Oilers, 8 years ago with Hall (I'm, not counting McDavid because he was going to be a star even if he was drafted by PHX).

 

[Fixxer]

This was a bad draft. Still I was never in love with Yak. I thought Oilers should have gone Alex Galcheynuk and wanted the Isles to take either Morgan Reilly or Forsberg.
Griffin Reinhardt never really stood out for me and I didn't think Ryan Murray had the offensive upside to be taken that high.
This is a fun redraft to do.

While I agree about going with Galchenyuk 1st overall, imagine the Oilers fans wanting a "savior" and the team drafting 1st overall a guy who had played only 2 games (apparently 6 playoff contests too). The criticism would have been HUGE! Can't imagine. Yakupov still had a good season despite Galchenyuk being out, so it didn't indicate that Yakupov wasn't a good choice.

 

[Ducks in a row]

This was a bad draft. Still I was never in love with Yak. I thought Oilers should have gone Alex Galcheynuk and wanted the Isles to take either Morgan Reilly or Forsberg.
Griffin Reinhardt never really stood out for me and I didn't think Ryan Murray had the offensive upside to be taken that high.
This is a fun redraft to do.

Lindholm
Reilly
Dumba
Trouba
Gostisbehere
Forsberg
Vasilevskiy

That is some pretty good players who had come out of that draft. How good the draft is has nothing to do with Yakupov being so poor as a NHL'er. His hockey IQ isn't that grood which is the problem with him.

 

[Soundwave]

That draft was simply poor. 3/4 of the top 4 are busts the other is a bit of a disappointment. None of the top 5 are franchise players.

Yakupov might have am excuse if McDavid, Draisaitl, Hall, Eberle didn't all have 70+ point seasons in Edmonton. Oilers issues are their 2nd/3rd round picks don't turn out.

 

[Scott Stevens]

It happens. See Daigle, Alex.

The same thing, not even close to.

Yakupov doesn’t hate hockey.

 

[Karl Eriksson]

The same thing, not even close to.

Yakupov doesn’t hate hockey.

No, he hates effort

 

[Martin Skoula]

No, he hates effort

Have you actually seen him play?

He's dumb as a bag of rocks, but effort certainly isn't his issue.

 

[Karl Eriksson]

Have you actually seen him play?

He's dumb as a bag of rocks, but effort certainly isn't his issue.

Do or do not. There is no try.

 

[McShogun99]

Look at all the scouting agencies lists. Almost all of them had Yakupov at number one. As for teams individual scouting lists we won't ever know unless they release the lists. The Edmonton rumor is that the scouting staff wanted Murray but Katz overrode them and forced them to select Yakupov. Maybe there was a feeling of resentment with the staff in Edmonton because Yakupov was never really given the same opportunities to start his career that Hall, RNH and Eberle had. He was benched for every mistake and forced into the role of a bottom six checker when they should have been nourishing his offensive game.

 

[Oilslick941611]

Look at all the scouting agencies lists. Almost all of them had Yakupov at number one. As for teams individual scouting lists we won't ever know unless they release the lists. The Edmonton rumor is that the scouting staff wanted Murray but Katz overrode them and forced them to select Yakupov. Maybe there was a feeling of resentment with the staff in Edmonton because Yakupov was never really given the same opportunities to start his career that Hall, RNH and Eberle had. He was benched for every mistake and forced into the role of a bottom six checker when they should have been nourishing his offensive game.

lots of smoke around the Oilers that the scouting staff recommended another pick, but got overruled by ownership

 

[Butch 19]

Development is definitely a big part of these kids reaching their potential. Yak wasn't developed properly and that had a huge impact on his career. Edmonton deserves just as much criticism over how things went. There have been many players who weren't developed properly and it had a negative impact on their careers.

- No one knows if this is true - especially you. Unless you happened to be at every practice, game and road trip - and heard every conversation that Yak had with edm staff.

And then you made the correct judgement and assumptions from everything you learned!

 

[Soundwave]

Even as a rookie which was his one "successful" season.



There's not a lot of puck skill on any of his goals, ie: goals where he actually carries the puck and beats a defender and then a goalie.

Some of the goals you may say "nice one timer", but you also have to realize lots of those were stopped or went 10 feet wide in other cases.

And he had a hattrick against a Canucks team that iced their AHL squad for the last game of the season, that also inflated his stats in a lockout shortened season.

He simply wasn't ever *that* good. Weird/erratic passer to boot. He's not the first bust at no.1 and he won't be the last.

 

[Zenos]

RNH as well. He had the ceiling of a 60-70 pt top 6 C (like Staal) but he was waaaaaay too skinny to play in the NHL right away. He also had no business being a first line C right off the bat and should have spent another year or two in the WHL but he didn't cause Oilers.

Revisionist history. He came in and earned a spot at camp, scored a goal in his first game, a hat trick in his third, was named rookie of the month in both October and November, notched a 5 point game in his 3rd month of pro hockey, was named to the allstar game (missed due to injury), was a calder finalist and tied Landeskog for the rookie scoring lead, despite missing 20 games. If that's not considered NHL ready, I really don't know who is.

It's been a disappointment that he couldn't seem to build-off that rookie season, but I really really don't see how another two seasons dominating in Red Deer would have helped his NHL development.

 

[MikeK]

- No one knows if this is true - especially you. Unless you happened to be at every practice, game and road trip - and heard every conversation that Yak had with edm staff.

And then you made the correct judgement and assumptions from everything you learned!

What?

 

[Roof Daddy]

Just to play devils advocate. As a russian muslim maybe going out and partying wasnt his cup of tea. Ive heard lots of stories about the weird loner who didnt wanna hang out with those evil young western canadian kids, but didnt hang out veterans, or other euros either, if 22 other players wont hang out with him is it their fault or his? Apparently Hall can be blamed for everything. Amazing how Mcdavid lived with Hall and had no issues, NJ seems to be doing ok as well.

Agree with coaching as well. Eakins sent the team and every player and prospect back and sad thing is most never recovered or if they did took years.

Also didnt Yak have 6 goalsin his last couple games to really inflate what was up till those games a pedestrian season.

Hall is doing fine now because he finally matured due to a combination of embarrassment (traded away/deemed not part of the plan) and ensuing determination to prove the Oilers wrong.

And yes, he got along fine with McDavid - a generational talent from Canada. I don't see how that changes the narrative that Hall was the cause of a very divided locker room. I'm sure you're familiar with the Ference, Scrivens and Belanger interviews. The Hall fanboys tend to point out those guys are scrubs that accomplished nothing on the ice - as though that has anything to do with the fact they are all seasoned veterans who have been part of numerous locker rooms/teams. They know a rotten apple when they see one.

Maybe you're right and he was a loner in his own right. Maybe it was the unwelcoming environment that initiated it. We'll never know, but I think it's decent reasoning behind why his development faltered. It's equally fair if you don't see it that way.

 

[SteelerNation]

I bet the people of Edmonton had a blast at that draft lottery party though LMAO.

 

[blankall]

Lindholm
Reilly
Dumba
Trouba
Gostisbehere
Forsberg
Vasilevskiy

That is some pretty good players who had come out of that draft. How good the draft is has nothing to do with Yakupov being so poor as a NHL'er. His hockey IQ isn't that grood which is the problem with him.

How many of the list are forwards? None of those defensemen are good enough, even with hindsight bias, to be considered for the #1 overall.

Are you saying Edmonton should have gone off the board and picked the #78 pick, a defence man, first?

2012 was an awful draft.

 

[Jtown]

That 2012 draft was bad and was also very strange. There were just few premium forwards in the draft , and because of the dmen i believe some got overvalued and some got undervalued. All draft long yak was consensus number 1 so it made sense for him to go 1.

But since their rookie years dmen such as Lindholm , Trouba, Rielly , Parayko, Maatta, Murray have failed to take that next step since their promising rookie years.

Then you look at forwards such as Hertl, Girgensons, Yak and Glachenyuk. who have regressed during their careers. And its ssomething I have not seen. Its not like the players in the draft busted, its just that all the promise we saw in these young talents none of them developed.

Forsberg, Vasilevsky, and Ghost are the 3 studs in this draft. Everyone else has had very weird careers.

 

[THall4]

I understand that this could happen back in the 80's or even the 90's as there wasn't nearly as much scouting, coverage and video and so on. But Yakupov went #1 overall in 2012 and even played for two years in the OHL prior to the draft, so it wasn't like he was in some obscure Russian youth league. Now with yet another disappointing season for the Avs it seems likely he could be done in the NHL. How is it possible that a #1 overall pick in this day and age is so bad or underwhelming that he can't even stick in the league presumably? Baffling.

Because in Juniors he got away with being highly skilled. Him and Galchenyuk were left to just go and score in Sarnia, they played with no structure like the rest of the team was supposed to play with. IMO They werent given the tools to help them succeed in the NHL and its obvious thats its translated. In the NHL, you need as much IQ as you do skill. Yak just cant process the game quick enough to ever fulfill his potential.

I will maintain what i was yelling when the Oilers won that lottery pick...they shouldve traded it down and acquired more assets. But at the time a meddling owner got in the way. Management wanted Ryan Murray. Katz wanted Yakupov...and the rest is history. Also i recall the Oilers really liking Jacob Trouba

****ty draft too.

The Oysters are now working on destroying Puljujärvi in the same manner. The only prospects they don't mess up are ones that don't need development, eg. McDavid.

How are they destroying Puljujaarvi?
By not sticking him on McDavid's wing and playings him against top comp?

 

[tfong]

This question is like asking why all drafted players don't make the NHL, they just don't. Players can progress or not regardless of whatever tech you have.

 

[Fogelhund]

A little off topic but I am very worried about Nolan Patrick. With all of his injuries even before he was drafted I am dumbfounded why the Flyers would keep him in the NHL, even after all of his struggles. It really looked like the writing was on the wall but since Patrick is a #2 pick the Flyers ignored it and just left him to the wolves to fend for himself.

It just makes me sad organizations are still making this mistake.

Nail Yakupov (2012-2013): 48GP - 17g, 14a for 31pts
Nolan Patrick (2017-2018): 56GP - 10g, 10a for 20pts

Patrick has 7 points in the last 9 games though, and is really starting to play quite well. I too had noticed he wasn't playing as well as expected, but he seems to have come around.

 

[Cup or Bust]

Yakupov has terrible hockey IQ and instincts, something that cannot be taught or coached.

 

[Fogelhund]

Drafting is an art, not a science, and it's pretty difficult to tell how a Junior player will translate to the NHL. Yakupov looked very good as a Junior, and it was a relatively weak year, compared to some others.

An year earlier, Johnny Gaudreau goes 104th overall, and turns into a very good NHL player.

In that 2012 draft year, Shayne Gostisbehere goes 78th overall.