The more I look at and think about the Kakko thing the more I start to think he was a good prospect who could still turn into a solid top 6 forward but that he was overrated because of his production and perceived readiness.
I think he just may have been more developed than other kids his age, had a pretty good skillset and produced well in his draft year. Just looking back as STI has said he really didn’t and still doesn’t have an elite skillset.
Without the production I doubt he was as highly viewed and necessarily goes second. If anything I think that maybe goes to the argument that production isn’t close to as important as other things when it comes to drafting.
I agree 1,000% with this.
Kakko will be a good NHLer, I think a very productive, two-way 2nd line guy. But I'm still embarrassed I had him ranked over Byram, and it's a mistake I learned from. I liked Byram better as a prospect, and the day I put out my final rankings I remember really wanting to rank Byram #2, but I actually did not care to deal with all the flak I knew I'd have to put up with as a result. I still would have had Kakko #3 with Turcotte #4 and Zegras #5. My ranking of Zegras was actually about 3-5 slots higher than the consensus, and we all know how that turned out. I need to stop listening to other people entirely, haha.
But yes, stats are extremely overrated for the draft, especially when they are cited by people who don't scout the prospects or know how to use stats in context. This is why I am constantly ripping on Byron Bader, whose rankings are universally the worst on earth every year and still people listen to him. Can you imagine anyone paying attention to Corey Pronman or Cam Robinson if they were standing on soapboxes screaming that
Ayrton Martino was better than Mason McTavish? But Bader pretends his snake oil is "science" so he gets away with it for his lemming-like followers.
There needs to be context. I understand a statistical argument saying Joakim Kemell is better than Brad Lambert, because they were the same age on the same team playing the same competition. It checks out that if one is producing significantly more, then -- at least for now -- they are the better offensive player.
But when I had to fight against a litany of lemmings claiming Lucas Raymond was overrated because his numbers in the SHL were poor, it was a very draining experience. And I'm finding the same thing this year with Slafkovsky, whose upside is probably a notch higher than Raymond.
I'm also increasingly disturbed with a seemingly palpable backlash against big and physical players in the draft. The leading goal scorers for the US-NTDP were not Cooley or Nazar, but rather McGroarty and Gauthier. Their stats match up very well with Cooley and Nazar, perhaps even better when you consider McGroarty was leaned one heavily in defensive situations while Cooley was usually sheltered more to the offensive, while Gauthier was shuffled from line to line in almost an "ignition" role. But some of the same "numbers"/"size means nothing" people who are arguing Cooley for the top 3 overall are ranking the extremely physical McGroarty and Gauthier as low as the 2nd round!
Now, I have Gauthier at #7 and McGroarty at #14. I love both these prospects. But I have them lower than my 5/6 of Nazar/Cooley, simply because I see Nazar/Cooley as
line-drivers and Gauthier as a power-forward/sniper. McGroarty is a bit different, I see him as middle six because his skating is only average -- but I do see him as an elite middle-six center who mixes scoring, physicality and two-way play. But when I see a guy like Will Scouching (I respect what he does, but his rankings are perennially quite poor) ranking McGroarty at #56 overall... well, I just have to laugh. But Scouching will admit to not using compete level or physicality or size even remotely in his rankings, while heavily relying on statistics without context, and this is a big part of where they fail every single year.
I agree with you that numbers are just a short cut for the draft-day Johnny-come-lately's to waltz in on May 10th and pretend they know as much if not more than people like yourself and myself and the great draft analysts like Steve Kournianos and Cam Robinson awho have watched the prospects all year long. Then, they push their invented narratives with platitudes about how size and physicality and character intangibles are irrelevant, as if we should be ashamed of ourselves for even thinking being 6'4 or having an elite compete level will somehow make a prospect more likely to succeed. And although it's kind of transparent and pathetic, it's also part of human nature.
