We all liked Ostapchuk skillset right away and the way "he looks" on the ice. But the results were not coming so it was normal to question his upside. He was still pretty young so he still had time on his side. Then towards the end of the season and most particularly in the playoffs, he had that huge coming out party before turning 19 y/o. Which kinda diminished the worry of him not being able to "materialize" his tools. He looks promising and comfortably more than Boucher, at least for now.
Regarding Ostapchuk, I think it's often downplayed that NHL teams also need to have guys who are good at preventing goals against. JBD could very well be that type of guy so that's pretty valuable. My personal comparison for him is a
lesser version of Jonas Brodin. If he does what Brodin but on the 2nd pair, it's already excellent.
Crookshank is getting underrated. I think he's going to be a very solid 3rd liner.
I like Crooks but it's a bit too early to vote him. There's still guys with Top-4 or Top-6 potential left to be voted, it's their turn
Prospect pool is looking pretty weak these days, especially after yet another horrendous draft.
- We had no pick until the 64th overall this year
- Last year draft looked like a "dud" until Ostapchuk gave us some hope
- we had several important graduations in the last 2 seasons (Batherson, Norris, Stutzle, Formenton, Zub, Brannstrom)
It's really far from the 2020 pool (I said back then that it will go down as the best in Sens history and most likely one of the best in NHL history) but considering all factors, it's actually still quite good and a bit underrated when you look at the list. We are voting for #7th and there is still guys with decent Top-4/Top-6 potential. And after a pretty decent Top-10 (Top-3 is still very very good), there will still be a lot of interesting guys like Kleven, Lodin, Crookshank, Kastelic, Hamara, Pettersson, etc
I think the reason why our pool is still good despite "meh" 2021 & 2022 drafts is because our 2019 and 2020 drafts were the opposite!