And that would have been a perfectly fine response. But "lol Tampa secondary market" is a pathetic retort.
Also, it's not like people didn't know Kucherov was going to be good. They did. They were scared because he was Russian. But if you have THREE picks before he was taken (and no other team did) then take a shot. And it would be one thing if you got at least ONE NHL caliber player but we didn't even do that.
Yeah, it's just one example. Yeah you can do that with other picks too. But it does speak to a drafting failure to strike out 3 times in a row with relatively high picks when a known player like that was on the table.
I mean, yes... but also, if Kucherov never comes to America and Tomas Jurco goes to Tampa and turns out to be a superstud, you'd be saying the same thing. Valeri Nichuskin was thought to be a big time prospect, but he flamed out hard and has yo-yo'd over the Pacific Ocean. Pavel Brendl was a #4OA and he was straight garbage.
It's not a drafting "failure" that the Wings didn't roll the dice on Kucherov. Missed opporunity, sure. But it doesn't speak to a failure in their process. They could easily have given him a shot. It was a mistake to not do so. It was also a mistake to take Tom McCollum over Roman Josi. You can't go back and bemoan players missed because you're using information that they didn't have at the time.