I don't know if the Pastrnak story is accurate.
I am very confident the Heiskanen/Makar over Patrick story is accurate. It's been reported by way too many sources, reliable sources like Meltzer, and the reports came well before the Clarke interview, who mentioned on a tangent that "none of our scouts wanted Patrick."
I do know for a fact that Hextall was a control-freak dictator. That's been well-established. I even heard it from a bartender who was best friends with the brother of a player on the team. How everyone was relieved when Hextall was fired and they could finally eat pizza, and drink beer on the team bus or plane after a win. We all read the reports about how Hextall shut everyone out of communication except for Chris Pryor. We all know he moved the traditional Carnival date for some reason.
Hextall was also an awful talent evaluator. We know that from his many draft whiffs, his Weise and Gordon signings, his stupid Filppula trade, his stupid Hartnell for Umberger trade that had the league scratching its collective heads, as Columbus was about to waive Umberger, and the fact that the best NHLer he traded for in his 5 year tenure was Radko Gudas.
Then he takes over Pittsburgh and reinforces how terrible he is at talent evaluation.
So, yeah. When you combine Hextall's known control-freak natur this day its all e, known terrible talent evaluation skills, wide reporting that he overruled his scouts to take Patrick over Heiskanen and Makar, then I don't find it hard to believe he overruled his scouts to take Sanheim, his relative, over Pastrnak.
Maybe, just maybe, it's time for you to recognize that Hextall made monster mistakes that have repercussions to this day, and that these reports aren't all a giant conspiracy concocted by Dr. Evil, Bob Clarke.
