Lol you actually believe this bullshit that Clarke said 4 years after the draft to deflect criticism away from his chosen one Fletcher?
There was NEVER a single rumor of the Flyers or their scouts having interest in Makar on draft day or in the 4 years after until Clarke's interview in January of 2021, when Makar was already an established star in the NHL and the entire fanbase was marching on the doors of the Wells with pitchforks because Fletcher turned them into a laughing stock.
There were rumblings that SOME of the scouts preferred Heiskanen to Patrick.
The pick was ALWAYS going to be Patrick if Hischier went 1st. How could it not be? He was the consensus #2 pick from every scouting source and the Flyers needed to draft a future 1C. He was seen as having that potential. It wasn't bad process to draft Patrick. It a combination of bad development and bad luck that he didn't work out.
This revisionist history about the Patrick pick by gullible fools that believe Clarkes lies is really quite sad.
No, of course I don't just believe anything Bobby Clarke spews. He's responsible for so much of the pain we've experienced as Flyers fans with his own horrible GMing. I strongly dislike Clarke. I included that point as an aside to the fact that I like the last 2 drafts and to add to the point that I don't think anyone here really knows if the scouts are any good or not because of the two eggheads we had running things in Hextall and Fletcher.
To your statement of "how could it be anyone else?" with respect to Patrick, I'd counter with "What about Shane Wright?" Similar circumstances to Patrick... consensus lock #1 entering his draft year, his status dropped a little on the basis of his play, but in Wright's case, he was still #1 on almost every scouting service's board. He slipped to #4 because 1-3 had the conviction in their scouts/process to ignore the "obvious" safe pick.
We could've and should've done the same.
Whether the scouts really wanted Makar or Heiskanen we will probably never know. I saw a few stories/sources mentioning the scouts liking Heiskanen well before the Bob Clarke teardown of Hextall (and to your point, I hadn't really seen Makar come up), but what I think has been made painfully obvious at this point via the numerous stories that have come out about Hextall in Philly and Pittsburgh is that Ron had little respect for others opinions and was committed to doing what he wanted, when he wanted, without explaining himself.
I'd find it difficult to endorse a statement like "the scouts suck" or "we need to clean house in the scouting department" when that was their boss.
The fact that those scouts then had to report to Chuck Fletcher directly after Hextall left is just even more icing on top of the cake.
Patrick had been played up by the Canadian press to be the #1 selection for two years. With the ties that Hextall had with the family there was no way that he was going to pass on making him the selection. He was hoping that the Devils would take Hischier and jumped on the Patrick choice as quickly as he could. Maker and Heiskanen were never on his radar.
Yeah, pretty much this. Hextall was never going to even consider someone else if Patrick was on the board. That's the very definition of a bad process. Didn't matter what any of his scouts or advisors thought.
