Well I didn't say they looked good in the NHL. I'm saying the fact they were, at one point, good performers at their age group post draft shows they had some redeeming qualities that could have been developed. David Fischer on the other hand was lost cause pick that couldn't be developed since there was nothing there.
What are you basing the impact on? Let's compare it to the previous regime, the 4 years prior to Gainey taking over. How much of 1999-2002 impacted core 7-10 years later? Out of Plekanec/Komisarek/Higgins, latter 2 were out of the organization by 2009 for little/nothing.
Gainey took over in 2003...let's look at the 4yrs prior to him becoming GM
2002 -
Chris Higgins, Tomas Linhart, Michael Lambert, Andre Deveaux, Jonathan Ferland, Konstantin Korneev
2001 -
Mike Komisarek, Alexander Perezhogin, Duncan Milroy,
Tomas Plekanec, Martti Jarventie, Eric Himelfarb, Andrew Archer, Victor Ujcik
2000 -
Ron Hainsey, Marcel Hossa, Jozef Balej, Tyler Hanchuck, Johan Eneqvist, Christian Larrivée, Ryan Glenn, Scott Selig, Peter Chvojka, Joni Purula, Jonathan Gauthier
1999 - Alexander Buturlin, Matt Carkner, Chris Dyment, Evan Lindsay, Dusty Jamieson, M-A Thinel, Matt Shasby, Sean Dixon, Vadim Tarasov, Mikko Hyytia, Jerome Marois
I'd say those drafts had a significant impact on the team under Gainey's regime...they could never land that premier forward we've been so desperate for, not by drafting or using their draft picks to trade for some.
I'm having trouble understanding how you can neglect how consecutive years of bad drafting have reverberating negative effects on the team 3,4,5,6,7 years later...
I mean, seems pretty matter of fact to me...you can't miss onn4 consecutive drafts. 4 consecutive drafts HAVE to produce more than 4 NHL'ers.
2008 to 2011 was even worse when you consider the only NHL players that came from those 4 consecutive drafts are Brendan Gallagher & Nathan Beaulieu (who let's be honest, is barely an NHL player at this point).
Brendan Gallagher is considered an important piece of the Habs...are you really suggesting this team wouldn't be a hell of a lot different if we had .....
Evgeny Kuznetsov or Charlie Coyle instead of Jared Tinordi?
Or Chris Kreider or Marcus Johansson instead of Louis LeBlanc?
Or Oscar Klefbom instead of Nathan Beaulieu?
Again, you can't strike out on 4 consecutive drafts and not feel the ripple effects down the line.