Agree with a lot of what was said. If the Flyers selected Strome at 44, I would've chucked my laptop through the window, gone outside, and hurled it back through a different window. 3rd round I would have been unhappy too. 4th round? Once I got over my initial negative feelings towards a kid who has been the butt of a lot of jokes, the value is good.
I don't think anyone can say he's not a very bright player with and without the puck, with a good shot, and a willingness to use his size, and he gets it done at that level. Most of us are fans of smart players here. He's a good hockey player, plain and simple......only with the skating ability of a geriatric with a bad hip going on the ice for the first time in 20 years.
Can look at it this way: in recent drafts the Flyers had a habit of taking players like Twarynski and Dove-McFalls in that vicinity. While I'm still unsure what exactly his potential is, and it might just be bottom 6 too, Strome is far better than them as a player, more in line with someone like Bunnaman. I imagine they thought he wouldn't be there at pick 106. I know I didn't think he'd fall that far.....maybe to the early-mid 3rd at latest. A guy like Sushko was a reach/gamble pick on someone they obviously felt strongly about. It's arguable that every other pick in the draft, outside of Patrick, you could tell they were in love with a guy, whether through a have-to-have trade-up or a reach against consensus or an unconventional pick. Strome fell to value, and after looking at their list, they probably said, "OK." But there was still a handful of players taken not long after that I'd prefer to Strome, including Cates, but we snagged him too. And this talk of a guy like Mark Stone......Morgan Geekie, not Strome, was my pick for potentially the next Stone, and that goes beyond similar skating style. Just in general, guys with bad skating get lumped with each other too much. They're all different as to why they're bad skaters, and they're often completely different otherwise.