Schmaltz (spelling) comes to mind although he was traded.. I think that was on of his last draft mind you.
Not an intensional rebuttal but rather just not seeing Spott's picks being blatantly a couple rounds out of order on purpose.
We could have done worse than Pedersen in the first round … in fact we iced three other teams’ 2011 first rounders Mitchell Dempsey, Scott Teskey and Brandon Robinson at times and only Pedersen ever went on to play pro (splitting ECHL/AHL this season). He was still worth 2x2nds and a 3rd (+ 2 potential conds) when we flipped him away to Oshawa where he won OHL Champs & Memorial Cup.
Matt Schmalz was like 6’5” when drafted and was a PPG+ Midget player. Spott only kept him 4 months so he wasn’t much of a 4 year plan kid. Got drafted, did OK with SUD/OS, played/playing minor pro AFAIK. Traded to Sudbury in a big multiplayer + picks deal and carried fair value. We could have had the uber drafter Knight’s 1st rounder Liam Herbst that draft instead I suppose and eventually we did ‘own’ that 1st round draft class' stud Robby Fabbri
I was thinking Davies was maybe one that could have been picked later though he was a big kid with solid Midget production and was eventually still valued 1 or 2 fifths higher than a 2nd round pick by Saginaw after a few years here. Later that draft we still managed to find Bracco, Opilka and Hendo avail (I think) too.
I think a 4 year guy vs two year guy scenario would be more like if Sarnia decided on a Maschrin over Chychrun than picking seeded 3rd round guys in the first because they wouldn’t be as likely to go anywhere. We had some hits, misses and bad luck but I don’t think we were ever too far off the usual ‘best available + team needs’ decision rationale when drafting 1st rounders and found value well down the order under Spott's watch.