Jesus christ.
Tied for 5th on his team in scoring.
Brink, F, age 20 - 14-43-57 - 34th overall 2019
Savoie, F, 19 - 23-22-45 - 100th overall in 2019
Guttman, F, 22 - 19-26-45 - 180th overall in 2020
Stapley, F, 22 - 18-25-43 - 190th overall in 2018
Benning, D, 19 - 15-23-38 - 95th overall in 2020
Mazur, F, 19 - 14-24-38 - 70th overall in 2021
Rizzo, F, 20 - 12-24-36 - 216th overall in 2019
Wright, F, 23 - 23-11-34 - Undrafted
Behrens, D, 18 - 3-26-29 - 61st overall in 2021
So I guess all these guys are steals too.
Not an NHLer.
Why would I eat crow over someone who does not look like an NHLer.
Simon Robertson at 71 looks like an NHLer, for example.
This is such a lame post hoc argument to justify your initial frustration over this pick.
Let's actually go through this list and see who outscored Mazur this year. To start off,
every single player who outscored him is older. Savoie and Benning are the only two that are from his draft class (counting 2020 as his draft class, not 2021 when we selected him as an overager).
Bobby Brink - junior winger taken #34th overall three years back. Widely considered to be a pretty good prospect, finished top three in Hobey Baker voting. As a 5'9 offensively-minded winger he pretty much lives and dies on how much offense he's generating, so I'm not surprised that he outscored Mazur. He's also a year older.
Carter Savoie - sophomore scoring winger. You can joke about all these guys being steals but Savoie might legitimately be one. If you could find a list of risers from the 2020 draft he would probably be on there, was a Hobey Baker nominee (albeit on a much longer list than Brink). Like Brink he's basically all offense. I've seen him listed at 5'10, seen him listed at 5'9. Probably considered a better prospect than Mazur, but I think NCAA fans would call it close. Mazur brings a lot more than Savoie does beyond production.
Cole Guttman - is literally older than Filip Zadina and Joe Veleno and still playing NCAA hockey, I don't know why I'm even typing this sentence honestly. He's a senior forward and captain of the team. He's a fine player, might get looks in the Lightning system, but no not a steal.
Brett Stapley - another senior forward older than Filip Zadina and Joe Veleno, another player who might get a look in camp, but no not a steal. Every good NCAA team has productive upperclassmen, no one reasonable uses that as a knock on the underclassmen's NHL upside.
Mike Benning - interesting player. Classic small productive NCAA defenseman question. Brings nice offense to the table but in my opinion probably not enough to justify his lack of size and strength. Decent flyer to take in the 4th round.
That's who outscored Mazur on the NCAA championship roster. Two legitimately good NHL forward prospects who are more or less glass cannons and two very old upperclassmen. He matched the team's highest scoring blueliner in points. And I feel like it's worth pointing out, he produced this playing a lot of the year on the third line. I linked a picture of Denver's standard lineup, you can see that Mazur was the only player not to lineup next to any of the four forwards who outscored him.
Most people would probably say - wow, our third round pick, who was drafted in large part for his forechecking, work rate, and two-way game, was the fifth highest scoring forward on the NCAA championship team? That sounds like good news. And everyone who actually watched the player would agree.
Instead of owning up to the fact that it was a bad take to write this player off on draft day, you continue to dig your heels in and talk down on a kid you pretty clearly don't even watch play with any frequency. He had a good year. I don't know why you're insistent on being frustrated that his good play clashes with your preconceived notion that he's a bad player instead of being honest and admitting that the Wings might have a solid prospect here.
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