Really how many Canuck drafts looked this promising the following season at this point?
Maybe 1 or 2 over their entire history perhaps?
Sure it's early but the progress looks good at this point doesn't it?
For sure it looks great ... at the moment. But this "moment" is still a long ways away from a productive NHL career, and many prospects can look great in junior and not translate that to the AHL, let alone NHL. I'm by no means down on this draft, I just see it as too early to say it has "saved Gillis' job" or anything like that.
As for other drafts looking great, ya there's been several.
2009 - Besides Jordan Schroeder, Anton Rodin looked great at the WJC's and many Canuck fans were convinced we had a steal on our hands. Kevin Connauton put up over a PPG in his first season in the WHL and again things were looking great. 4 years later and neither player is looking likely to play at the NHL level.
2006 - Besides Michael Grabner, Sergei Shirokov was looking good in the pre-KHL and eventually looked great at the AHL and had a cup of coffee in the NHL, but ultimately fizzled. Juraj Simek was about PPG with Brandon and made the jump to the AHL before stalling out there.
Other prospects who've dazzled right after being drafted and gotten fans excited include Fedor Fedorov, Brandon Reid, Jason King, Rene Vdareny.
The other thing to factor in with the 2013 draft is that we gave up a starting NHL goalie in order to add Horvat as a prospect, so the fact that he looks great this year - and I am most excited about him out of all our prospects - should be viewed in the context of a trade as well. Shinkaruk also looked great in camp and he likely will play at the NHL level, but I think lots of players taken in the late-teens and early 20's also look great so far too (Poirier, Theodore, Burkowsky, Klimchuk). Cassels has been a huge surprise and, even with his numbers likely being inflated by playing PP time with Laughton and Dal Colle, he's still looking like a great pick. Subban I still don't have a great feeling about, given his size and some inconsistencies this season. All others are still a longshot I think.
Anyway, I'm sure some posters will ignore most of what I've said and flame that I'm being a Debbie-Downer, but whatever, I've learned you can't say anything against the rah-rah crowd around here and not get crapped on ...