He was. That was a horrible draft class, after our pick the best players were Subban in the mid 2nd and Benn that was selected by the Stars in the 5th round. Probably the best player that year after Kane. He was passed up by every team including Dallas 5 times
Oh for sure. Really, it just highlights how useless it is (for the most part) to try and evaluate drafts for those first few years immediately afterwards - it takes time (often
years) to see how things shake out.
Delve into the drafts from 2005-2007 and you begin to see how pointless a lot of the bickering is (as always, hindsight is 20/20, but that's the point):
[FIELDSET="2005 Draft"]
D
Brian Lee and
Luc Bourdon were top-10 picks for the Senators and Canucks, respectively; the Pens took
Kris Letang in the 3rd round (62nd overall), and before he signed here long-term, many thought that, should the Pens lose him, they should acquire
Keith Yandle, taken in the middle of round 4 with the 105th pick.
Some of the other D taken before Letang/Yandle:
14. Sasha Pokulok
26. Matt Pelech
28. Matt Niskanen (lol)
...and about a dozen more you've never heard of.
Florida selected G
Tyler Plante at the beginning of the 2nd round (32), but he has yet to play a single NHL game;
Jonathan Quick was taken 1 round and 40 picks later and is a Conn Smythe/Stanley Cup winner.
Patric Hornqvist was the last pick taken (230th overall) and had 3 straight 20+ goal seasons before the recent lockout shortened season.
[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET="2006 Draft"]
Tampa Bay made
Riku Helenius the 2nd goalie taken (behind Jonathan Bernier) at pick 15, ahead of Semyon Varlamov (23), Michal Neuvirth (34), Jhonas Enroth (46), and James Reimer (99).
Outside the top-5 picks, which featured Jordan Staal, Jonathan Toews, and Nicklas Backstrom, 5 more centers were chosen before the Flyers took
Claude Giroux with the 22nd pick: Derick Brassard (6), Peter Mueller (8), James Sheppard (9), Bryan Little (12), and Trevor Lewis (17).
I intended for this section to be longer, but this draft really was garbage, holy ****. Only other players of note taken in the 3rd round or later (so far)...
69. Steve Mason
71. Brad Marchand
72. Cal Clutterbuck
161. Viktor Stalberg
[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET="2007 Draft"]
Another weak draft...
Boston picked C
Zach Hamill 8th overall, 1 spot ahead of
Logan Couture. Couture had more goals (21) in this past lockout shortened season than Hamill has NHL games (20) since 2007.
P.K. Subban was taken in the 2nd round, 43rd pick overall. Some of the first-round defensemen taken ahead of him? Keaton Ellerby (10), Alex Plante (15), Ian Cole (18), Nick Petrecki (28), and Nick Ross (30).
As mentioned,
Jamie Benn was taken in the 5th round, 129th overall. [/FIELDSET]
Every draft is littered with first round busts and late round gems, but arguing about which camp our 18, 19, 20 year old prospects falls into is about as useless as a screen door on a submarine.