Philippe Paradis/Tyler Biggs -- Why?

[joe dirte]

It was a different time and age. Players still fought but it was getting harder and harder to put a goon in your lineup. Players that could play a shift and provide some fisticuffs when needed were valued. Biggs was a late round pick that was tough as nails, and looked like ge might be able to add offense too.

As it turns out, he ciuldnt add much offense, and the other things he brought to the table became obsolete.

If he develiped into a modest 30 or 40 point player with the toughness he brought, 10 years ago he would be a great piece. As it turned out, he ended up bringing nothing more than what is completely unnecessary anymore.

Players are drafted based on what they do as a 17 year old. At 17 years old very few top scorers are even posting a point per game in juniors. Youll find a lot of players with less than impressive stats prior to draft.

 

[HisIceness]

I think all of the Caniacs were expecting Landon Ferraro with that pick.

I think that's who we wanted but Ferraros father didn't like the Hurricanes organization for some reason, I think. So that was a no go.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Because Tom Wilson.

/thread

 

[voxel]

Because Tom Wilson.

/thread

Drafted a year AFTER Biggs. #LogicFail

 

[Menzinger]

Not sure why teams employ amateur scouts when they can just search guys up on hockeydb.

Some teams honestly would probably see better results doing just that.

 

[Warden of the North]

Truculence

 

[Fenrirson]

Burke is a genius.

He obviously had the foresight to know that HF would see what everyone else couldn't, that the Leafs would be up against the wall in a "cap hell" with too many good players, so he drafted Biggs instead of Rakell and Gibson. It's a good thing, too. Otherwise the leafs would be totally screwed and the league would fold. You're welcome.

 

[tp71]

Truculence, Tenacity...I can't remember the rest. Yada yada yada, Burke got fired.

 

[FrozenJagrt]

Biggs was at one point that year considered as a potential top 5 pick, but plummeted due to a lack of scoring. The scouting report on him was that he was a physical presence, a good leader with a heavy shot. Skating was questioned, as well as offensive upside, but he was widely viewed as a safe pick.

While we love to lament the trade the Leafs made to get him, that was honestly a really poor draft all around. Outside of the top 10, that first round was mostly meh. The second round outside of three or four guys was also pretty rough. A lot of teams came away with less than stellar pickups. The Leafs just happened to grab the worst of. The bunch.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Drafted a year AFTER Biggs. #LogicFail

There's nothing faulty with the logic. I didn't say the Leafs drafted Biggs because they literally thought he could become like the actual Tom Wilson.

See the player Wilson became in spite of his pre-draft stats? That's exactly the sort of player the Leafs projected him to be. I used the reference because that's a comparable contemporary success story everyone would recognize.

#thingsthatshouldnthavetobeexplained

 

[Albus Dumbledore]

truculence.

 

[LeafsNation75]

While we love to lament the trade the Leafs made to get him, that was honestly a really poor draft all around. Outside of the top 10, that first round was mostly meh. The second round outside of three or four guys was also pretty rough. A lot of teams came away with less than stellar pickups. The Leafs just happened to grab the worst of. The bunch.

The only players the Leafs selected in 2011 that made their team was Josh Leivo who was selected 86th overall in the 3rd round and Garret Sparks who was selected 190th overall in the 7th round.

 

[Habsrule]

2006-2012 was the crusades for the next Lucic

Oh how times have changed

This was exactly what I was going to say. Every team wanted their own Lucic.

 

[pucksakes666]

At least going into that draft, Biggs was thought to be something similar to Tom Wilson (as others mentioned, but he was drafted a year later in 2012) and Zack Kassian (13th overall in 2009). If anything Biggs fell a little bit in the draft as perhaps other teams didn't want to use their pick on somebody whose upside might have been a good 3rd line power winger. The perhaps old school thought was that Biggs opened up the ice for smaller teammates like Rocco Grimaldi and Reid Boucher to operate.



As easy/fun as it is to pile on Burke, the rest of the table convinced him to trade up for Biggs. Burke's pet pick that year was Stuart Percy, who he proudly declared that he had personally scouted which was funny since Percy just happened to play for the OHL club closest to Toronto.

In the moment, Toronto trading up didn't feel like anything unusual. Allegedly Detroit was prepared to take Biggs at #24 but traded down after Toronto took him.

------------

As others mentioned, Paradis was an off the board selection. Sometimes we place unfair expectations out of the guy taken 27th versus the guy taken 34th.

the whole 2012 draft when they took was probably one of the worst in the modern era. A few gems but at the time everyone thought Yakapov was going to be a francise player as well.

 

[Dirty Dan]

I can give you ten reasons:

Truculence
Pugnacity
Testosterone
Muscle Mass
Androgens
Toughness


Now we have divas like Nylander, and kids like Marner

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

Biggs was always first round pick. That was where he graded out. I remember the Wings traded down because he went off the board. It is easy to run these things in hindsight, but that was far form a controversial pick at the time, it was really right where his draft slot was...

 

[NoQuitInNewMexico]

Paradis's statline was okay. The real charmer in this vein was Matt Kassian, who had proved in juniors that he basically couldn't play and got picked in the second round.

 

[sharks9]

Truculence, same reason Montreal drafted Mike McCarron. You're starting to see that thinking fade though with so many high-profile busts

 

[Cellee]

I don't know. Yakupov is one of the worst players I've ever seen and he went first overall.