I would never say a person not scoring goals has a great shot. If you think that's back tracking, then whatever.
To the larger point, if you draft a guy who has no elite skills, then you're drafting a 3rd or 4th liner. I think you aim higher than that in the first round.
Tracey probably had a lot of very good skills across the board, which makes him a two-way scorer (goal scoring and playmaking).
Here's a snippet about Tracey from
AllAboutTheJersey:
Tracey was somewhat of a latecomer to the party. Many higher draft prospects, especially in terms of Canadian juniors, play two full seasons of major junior hockey before being drafted. This was not the case for Tracey. He had a full season for Moose Jaw this year, logging a solid 66 regular season games plus a couple of playoff games. Last season, however, he spent most of the year playing Midget AAA hockey, only jumping up to major junior to play 5 games for Moose Jaw.
But if you think that would be a major detractor against this kid, think again. He absolutely dominated this year in the WHL, and given that league’s reputation for a tougher brand of hockey, that is saying something. Had he done that well for Moose Jaw for two years in a row, we would be talking a first round selection here, but as is, even with just one full season in the books for the Warriors, there is a chance you could see him go in the second round.
Central Scouting makes it clear just how much Tracey has jumped with his strong year. He was ranked as the 73rd North American skater at the midterms, but is now at #21 for the final rankings! It makes sense given his strong year, but also his lack of experience heading into it.
Because Tracey has only one year in the CHL, he's still an unknown quantity compared to other prospects with at least 2 seasons in the CHL to build a consistent report. Murray decided to take a chance on the longer term project in Tracey. It's no different than when Murray decided to draft Zellweger over Raty, where Zellweger was a fast riser too in the draft.
The point isn't how fast a prospect develops, but how he looks like at the end of that development. Case in point, Rakell:
People say “look at Rakell”, and ignore/forget that he had 4 NHL points in his first 3 seasons post-draft, was a sheltered 3rd/4th line center who couldn’t win a faceoff in his 4th season (8:57 TOI), got 20+ goals in his 5th season, then 30+ in his 6th.
Here's Rakell's EP page:
link. He was drafted in 2011 and you can count how many years development it took.