Wennberg - bought out (a better pick here would have been Nikita Zadorov)
Center was a massive need at the time. Not sure Zadorov is a better player. Also say what you will about Wennberg, but not a single player drafted below him has played more NHL games than him, and only Jake Guentzel has more points than him. Wennberg's career trajectory is certainly frustrating, but I'm personally willing to chalk it up to a couple of bullshit Tom Wilson hits, and somewhat Torts. Wennberg was easily one of the best picks possible at that position.
Dano - played 35 games here in his first stint, 3 in his second, and is now out of the league.
Dano played great for us and got traded, so any reason he didn't ultimately pan out wasn't due to CBJ. He was definitely a reach at the time, and didn't work out, but if you're going to complain about Nutivaara being traded for nothing, then you have to only feel positively about the fact that Dano (nothing) was the main piece in a trade for Saad. As an aside, only 25 players drafted after him (13%) have played more NHL games than him.
Milano - bust, traded for 8 games of Devin Shore, the next six picks after Milano have all played 200+ NHL games, to say nothing of David Pastrnak at 25.
Milano didn't turn out for us. Yes, this is a bad pick, but 8 picks in the 2014 1st round were an even worse value than Milano was. He still qualifies as a hit, even though we didn't get "the guy". Pastrnak is irrelevant. 2014 was undeniably Jarmo's worst draft, but it was a pretty shit draft in general.
Werenski - hit, yes (but are we sure Mikko Rantanen - taken at #10 - isn't the better player?)
This is where you lose me. Keep in mind, outside of McDavid and Eichel, the 3 players we were targeting were Hanifin, Provorov, and Werenski. Defense was a
massive need this year, and it was addressed, via Werenski, in drafting a top pair, 20 goal scoring defenseman. Give me a f***ing break about Rantanen.
Nutivaara - traded for an ECHLer
Okay? And what does this have to do with Jarmo's drafting ability? Nutivaara is as big of a hit as it gets.
PLD - whined his way out of town
The PLD pick is only a positive in regards to Jarmo's drafting ability. He picked against
the consensus #3 player, was laughed at by other GMs for it, and ended up looking like a genius. Then he turned PLD into the guy picked one spot ahead of him, and another first round pick. But, none of that matters. PLD was a tremendous pick.
Texier & Bemstrom - Jarmo appears to have overhyped them at this point
Texier is a surefire NHL player. Jarmo traded a non-NHL prospect (Kolesar) for the pick to take Texier. Basically a bust 3rd rounder for Texier straight up. Jarmo "reached" to take Texier, but only
two players in the entire draft after him have more points than he does, and only one player has more games played than him. Texier is a hit.
As for Bemstrom, only one player taken after him (Batherson) would have been a better pick at this point in time. Only he and Batherson are even NHL players from rounds 4-7 in this draft. Bemstrom was a great value pick. To say Bemstrom is a bad pick because Batherson was taken just after him, or because he's
maybe not as good as Jarmo has claimed he would be, even though he's only 21, is BS.
Edit: Since others have mentioned Foudy, he's certainly a strange pick. He could still go either way, but in my mind his floor is a 3rd line speedster/elite PKer. Certainly not the type of player you want to take at #18, but keep in mind, it's still incredibly early. Only
five players taken after Foudy in 2018 have more NHL games than him, and one of them has already gone back to Europe. Only 13 players taken after Foudy have any NHL games at all.
3 years from now come and knock Jarmo for this pick if it doesn't work out, but Foudy should not be able to be used against Jarmo right now.
