All one can judge on and after draft day is simply whether you got something that represented genuine slot value on draft day. Any value more than that is essentially impossible to predict unless the player is a Gretzky, a Lemieux, a Crosby or Ovechkin etc. So you can judge the drafts, just only on the basis of whether a given team appeared to get a player who represented genuine value (acquired player lower than or equal to the consensus scouting reports suggested he'd go, or drafted way higher than he was expected to go).
That's why you can rip L.A. Now maybe L.A. got a guy who will be special, and maybe someone else loved him and would have reached for him, however, the available information suggests that LA could have potentially traded down and still got there guy and added picks in the process. They didn't. Therefore they got poor slot value. The poor slot value is immaterial a few years from now if the player is a stud, or if it comes to pass that said player would be picked fifth or sixth or seventh or whatever. However at the very least we do know that my caps were going Alzner, or Gagner or trade down, they weren't going after L.A.'s guy, so ripping L.A. is absolutely fair game, just as getting dropping high value players like Esposito and Cherapanov represents outstanding slot value.
There are no definitive great or bad drafts right now, just decisions that can be relatively judged to have been wise, or unwise. L.A.'s pick looks unwise, other picks look wise, some are harder to judge like the trades my Caps made, harvesting several picks in the supposedly deep and good '08 draft as well as a third rounder, in exchange for essentially the 28th overall this year.
Looking at the quote from Lombardi, I may have been a bit harsh on them, but it does appear as if they could have moved down and still gotten him, and I'm not sure how reliable his info was, today GMGM was quoted as saying that he didnt leak any info on the Caps interest in no small part because the media was already spreading misinformation that helped his interest (apparently a team was going to trade up for Alzner, but decided not to because they figured the Caps were all about Cherpanov).
you should expect him to put up the same numbers.
for Sutter
