Sanderson is 22 yrs old, Stutzle is 22 yrs old, Greig is 21 yrs old, Kleven is 22 yrs old & others are under 25. Boucher hasn't developed because of injuries not because of where he was drafted, that's a myth started on here. People blame the scouting staff because he has been injury prone over the last number of yrs. Sometimes & you know this, players get hurt & lose significant development time & sometimes it ends their careers & injuries don't care where you were drafted or what team drafted you.
Thompson was a shit #1 pick, but Pinto clearly from the same draft could have been their #1 pick in hindsight. Boucher is injury prone, but Ostapchuk could be on the team this yr & looks like he could be a player from that same draft. Stanley & Andonovski could turn into players, so could Donovan, Halliday & Petersson. People are always talking about elite prospects which IMO is individual thinking & this is a team game. I much prefer to build a successful team & plug players in which improve the team. I don't care about elite because I think we have enough good young players who have elite potential already. Bowers was a shit pick, but Formenton & Batherson from that same draft turned out to be good & could have been 1st rd picks in hindsight, glass half full.
You can blame Dorion for trades where he gave away the first rders in trades in 2022 & 2023 which corelates to why we don't have anyone on the team from those two drafts yet & then Boucher in 2021 has yet to recover from his injury plagued career & may never. In 2023 Ott did not make a pick until the 4th rd that is on Dorion trading those picks away, it has nothing to do with the prospect pool or scouting, it's a fact. I agree that Dorion has hurt the pool in trading away 1st rders in drafts & made some shit picks that didn't turn out, but every team has made some shit trades & shit picks. There are players in our prospect pool that IMO will improve the team & most likely are all in our top 10 list, but again that's likely the case with a lot of teams. I would guess 80% of most team's prospect pools don't become full time NHLers, there are probably less than 800 full time jobs in the NHL & the bottom of the order is constantly changing.