Did the Oilers make the right draft picks in the last 5 years?

[Bryanbryoil]

Absolutely

There wouldn't have even been a question in my mind. That 1-2 punch down the middle would be outstanding.

Back to my points about how the other guys would've been on our team, how about.....

Hall on Boston? He wouldn't have been traded and he would've won a Cup or 2 by now.

RNH on Colorado, how would he be being sheltered by Stastny and ROR and possibly playing easy minutes with Duchene on his wing and this year MacKinnon?

Yak on Columbus? Playing with Johansen and getting a starring role on the top PP unit.

We'd be drooling over all 3 of these players if we saw them playing on another team, I have little doubt of that.

 

[McJeetz]

I know Hall is super popular here, he should be, but IMO we would still have been better off if we had taken Seguin.

If we had Seguin then the next year we would have taken Larsson or Landeskog, I'd love to say that I would have gone for Landy but I don't know. I didn't really spend much time thinking about those guys because all I wanted was a center at that point (Huberdeau lol). Ideally Landeskog.

Yak's year we could have taken Ryan Murray.

Would Seguin, Landy, Murray be better than who we have? The Oilers would be better defensively and our offense wouldn't suffer.

Seguin would have been a brutal #1 pick. He has never had to be the best player and leader in the NHL. If hall was a bruin, there is no way boston would have traded him like they did Seguin.

As for RNH, if the oilers found a way to make him the #2 centerman these last 3 years, he would be twice the player he is today. See "Gagner"

As for yakapov. If you look up miss handled in the dictionary you would see his picture. He is pure offence. Let him develop his offence at the nhl level before trying to turn him into a complete player. See "Brett Hull". It should have been eberle RNH and yak as our #2 line all year. With hall #1 center not named Gagner and peron at #1 line last year.

Then this thread would even exist

 

[GretzkytoKurri9917]

Seguin would have been a brutal #1 pick. He has never had to be the best player and leader in the NHL. If hall was a bruin, there is no way boston would have traded him like they did Seguin.

As for RNH, if the oilers found a way to make him the #2 centerman these last 3 years, he would be twice the player he is today. See "Gagner"

As for yakapov. If you look up miss handled in the dictionary you would see his picture. He is pure offence. Let him develop his offence at the nhl level before trying to turn him into a complete player. See "Brett Hull". It should have been eberle RNH and yak as our #2 line all year. With hall #1 center not named Gagner and peron at #1 line last year.

Then this thread would even exist

If given the chance,I believe Tyler Seguin would do just fine at being a leader.Don't forget at how he put the Plymouth Whalers on his back, and got that team in the playoffs, when it was basically a team of nobodies but Tyler Seguin.


Is it just me or are many Oilers Fans very biased towards Hall.

 

[Spawn]

In hindsight Yakupov and perhaps RNH look like questionable picks. But I don't have much issue with them being taken at the time. We just seem to have gotten incredibly unlucky with those 2 first overall picks.

It's unfortunate that the team hasn't managed to get any real gems out of the later rounds though.

In the Blackhawks lineup tonight they had:

Ben Smith 2008 6th rounder
Marcus Kruger 2009 5th rounder
Joakim Nordstrom 2010 3rd rounder

and Andrew Shaw 2011 5th rounder is injured but a full time player.

That's one of the best teams in the league with 4 players playing on their team drafted in the 3rd round or later.

Conversely in that same time frame the Oilers have exactly 1 player who has spend any reasonable time in the NHL and that was Hartikainen in 2009 and he flamed out before heading to the KHL and being traded for Marc flipping Fraser.

The Oilers haven't found a gem in the mid rounds of the NHL draft in 10 years. And that was Kyle Brodziak who they developed and then gave away for nothing.

It doesn't have to happen every year obviously. But it should happen every once in a flipping while. You would think we would have lucked into it by now at least once.

 

[Oscar Acosta]

First round picks - absolutely.

Pick 31 and on is where it's a travesty. And picking 1st-7th isn't exactly a scouts merit.

2010 - 2nd round Tyler Pitlick over Justin Faulk
2011 - 2nd round David Musil over Boone Jenner (which many many of us saw coming), Brandon Saad...
2012 - 2nd round Mitch Moroz over basically anyone. He's an Edmonton Oil King though!!

 

[krazy kanuck]

It's easy to go back on a draft a few years later so I won't bother with that. I will say that I think last year's draft was brutal. There are a few research papers out there that demonstrate that trading down is generally a bad idea and the Oilers did that. Also:

- I'm not a huge Nurse fan. I think he'll be Schultz 2.0. There's a reason he wasn't invited to the Canadian WJC camp along with a 17 year old Aaron Ekblad. His defence isn't up to par. While I watch a ton of OHL/WHL, I don't get to see a whole lot of the Europeans live. Still, I would have gone with Ristolainen based on his size, what I'd heard of him and what I have seen of Nurse.

- I would have never traded down the 2nd rounder. If anything, I would have traded up to get Bigras, who I think will be effective in the NHL before Nurse (Nurse does have a higher ceiling though). I don't think they're goaltending woes are solved with "The Professor" and I like Fucale or Jarry with this pick. Also, Zach "Nasty" Nastasiuk is exactly the type of player that most of the fans at Rexall wish the Oilers had. Three years from now, many of you will be sour the Oilers didn't draft him.

- I would have taken Nick Baptiste or Spencer Martin (only if I hadn't used the previous pick on a goalie) instead of Roy. I don't like Yakimov or Slepyshev not so much because of who they are (haven't really seen them play) but because of what they gave up to get them (see above). Even considering trading the picks I would have preferred Bjorkstrand.

Beyond the third round even the best drafting teams are starting to grasp at straws so I won't bother commenting there too much, other than to say again that it's a bad idea to be trading down into that range.

 

[MPStoEberletoHall*]

First round picks - absolutely.

Pick 31 and on is where it's a travesty. And picking 1st-7th isn't exactly a scouts merit.

2010 - 2nd round Tyler Pitlick over Justin Faulk
2011 - 2nd round David Musil over Boone Jenner (which many many of us saw coming), Brandon Saad...
2012 - 2nd round Mitch Moroz over basically anyone. He's an Edmonton Oil King though!!

5 yrs from now.. Moroz will be exactly the kind of player we need on our 3rd line. Just wait for it

 

[Up the Irons]

I still say they should have traded the Yak pick for a need, because they didn't need that player, and time has shown that building should have started back then (not now). They took him just because.... Will he be good? Probably. But they still have huge holes that they are finally trying to address years later. Poorly played, as usual.

They only picks they clearly blew were Pitlick because he always hurt (more bad luck, then anything), and Musil for what they passed up.

 

[Up the Irons]

Cant wait until next year when Yak scores 25/25/50 and all the haters are back on his jock talking about limitless potential and what a great pick he was.

Key word being 'when'. As in future, or hasn't happened yet. See the significance? And for the 1 millionth time, it's not disbelief in the player, it's need vrs flash. We r a terrible team, therefore, it follows that mistakes were made. Could 'not addressing needs' be one of them?

 

[Tarus]

I still say they should have traded the Yak pick for a need, because they didn't need that player, and time has shown that building should have started back then (not now). They took him just because.... Will he be good? Probably. But they still have huge holes that they are finally trying to address years later. Poorly played, as usual.

They only picks they clearly blew were Pitlick because he always hurt (more bad luck, then anything), and Musil for what they passed up.

The building should have started in the Hall draft year, not whenever Lowe and friends decided they collected enough star talent. End result is some talented players on the roster, and mostly junk in the supporting ranks. It's not a terrible team because of anything done at the drafting table, it's a terrible team because player acquisition outside of the drafting table has been both neglectful and horrible.

It's also one thing to speculate the picks were wrong in hindsight, it's quite another to suggest they should have traded the pick. There is absolute zero way to assess what could have been offered or the return they might have gotten.

They may have even tried to trade it, and simply couldn't find a compatible match, there is simply no way to evaluate that type of thing.

 

[Oi'll say!]

I won't send personal shots at you, but I do think it would have been stupid to choose anyone over RNH in the 2011 NHL Draft.

All I need to do is look at his rookie season pre-injury to know that he's the best player available. If he got derailed for a couple seasons because of shoulder complications stemming from junior hockey, that's fine as long as he ends up being the best player in his draft.

Landeskog's build and style will always have meant that he was able to get off to a better NHL start, but I don't think that there will be any comparison a few years from now. RNH's skillset and intelligence just outstrip everyone else's in his draft--he just needs his body to catch up to everything else.

I can understand the appeal of Landeskog-Seguin-Eberle with Murray as our top pairing defenceman, but we'd have been rolling a second line of Perron-Gagner-Hemsky this past season. We'd still be having the "we can't have a small second line centre who's not good enough" discussion, we'd be worried about our future for secondary scoring, and we'd be kicking ourselves to watch players like Hall, Yakupov, and RNH go on to be more successful because they got to be in the right team environment.

Our problem is development first and foremost.

That's not true.

RNH does just fine playing against people like Getzlaf, Toews and Kopitar because of his intelligence, balance, and stickwork. The problem is driving play forward again, and you can start to look towards the Edmonton Oilers having far worse system play and execution than other teams.

You talk like RNH's size isn't a factor and then use injuries as an excuse that he doesn't do well. People were worried about RNH's size for that exact reason.

Dallas has had real coaching this past year, and I don't think you should dismiss how huge of an impact that Jamie Benn, who can do everything including battle and play physical, has had for Seguin.

Hall is a pretty good linemate for RNH, and don't dismiss what Seguin does for Benn.

 

[Moose Coleman]

You talk like RNH's size isn't a factor and then use injuries as an excuse that he doesn't do well. People were worried about RNH's size for that exact reason.

Any proof his injuries are related to his size? Do big players not get injured too? Hall had the same injury comig out of junior as RNH: is he too small as well?

 

[Oi'll say!]

Seguin would have been a brutal #1 pick. He has never had to be the best player and leader in the NHL. If hall was a bruin, there is no way boston would have traded him like they did Seguin.

As for RNH, if the oilers found a way to make him the #2 centerman these last 3 years, he would be twice the player he is today. See "Gagner"

As for yakapov. If you look up miss handled in the dictionary you would see his picture. He is pure offence. Let him develop his offence at the nhl level before trying to turn him into a complete player. See "Brett Hull". It should have been eberle RNH and yak as our #2 line all year. With hall #1 center not named Gagner and peron at #1 line last year.

Then this thread would even exist

Nothing that you said is evidence that Seguin was a brutal pick, still waiting...

Do you think that RNH is better than Seguin?

 

[Oi'll say!]

Any proof his injuries are related to his size? Do big players not get injured too? Hall had the same injury comig out of junior as RNH: is he too small as well?

Did you see how easily he got injured? Try to prove that fragilty wasn't involved Moose...

And all that matters now is that he's still injured. He has a 170 lb body and his shoulders are already gimped. That's not exactly blue chip stock right there.

 

[Up the Irons]

The building should have started in the Hall draft year, not whenever Lowe and friends decided they collected enough star talent. End result is some talented players on the roster, and mostly junk in the supporting ranks. It's not a terrible team because of anything done at the drafting table, it's a terrible team because player acquisition outside of the drafting table has been both neglectful and horrible.

It's also one thing to speculate the picks were wrong in hindsight, it's quite another to suggest they should have traded the pick. There is absolute zero way to assess what could have been offered or the return they might have gotten.

They may have even tried to trade it, and simply couldn't find a compatible match, there is simply no way to evaluate that type of thing.

That's true.

 

[Up the Irons]

Did you see how easily he got injured? Try to prove that fragilty wasn't involved Moose...

And all that matters now is that he's still injured. He has a 170 lb body and his shoulders are already gimped. That's not exactly blue chip stock right there.

There's lots of evidence that overly muscular guys get injured often.

 

[McGlassbangers]

2010: Hall was and is better than Seguin. Right pick.
2011: Because we drafted Hall (LW), we needed a centre. RNH was the right pick, and once he bulks up there will be no doubt about it.
2012: Too early to say. Personally, I would've drafted Murray but Yakupov has great potential.

IMO 2012 is the only draft where argument can be made for drafting the "wrong player". Like I said though, it's still too early to say.

Our biggest problem has been drafting in later rounds. Lately it has looked a lot better though. Marincin, Gernat, Simpson, Chase etc.

 

[rboomercat90]

There wouldn't have even been a question in my mind. That 1-2 punch down the middle would be outstanding.

Back to my points about how the other guys would've been on our team, how about.....

Hall on Boston? He wouldn't have been traded and he would've won a Cup or 2 by now.

RNH on Colorado, how would he be being sheltered by Stastny and ROR and possibly playing easy minutes with Duchene on his wing and this year MacKinnon?

Yak on Columbus? Playing with Johansen and getting a starring role on the top PP unit.

We'd be drooling over all 3 of these players if we saw them playing on another team, I have little doubt of that.

No kidding. The grass is always greener on the other side, right?

 

[KCC]

I believe they did. The problem is they didn't surround the players with the talent needed to be competitive right away. But not all teams can be like Chicago. I strongly believe if MacT was in charge in the very beginning of all of this that the team would be miles better.

 

[Moose Coleman]

Did you see how easily he got injured?

What injury are you talking about? I'm referring to the shoulder injury he suffered in junior that bothered him for his first two seasons.

Try to prove that fragilty wasn't involved Moose..

Uh. I'm not the one claiming his size was to blame, so I'm afraid the burden of proof is on you here.

Regardless, lots of players suffer shoulder injuries and not all of them are twigs. As I said, Hall had tha same injury and has missed almost as many games to injury in the past two seasons as RNH. Clearly, he must be a weakling as well.

And all that matters now is that he's still injured.

What are you even talking about? He missed two games this season, both right at the start.

He has a 170 lb body and his shoulders are already gimped. .

What are you even talking about? His shoulder was surgically repaired, a common procedure that often leave sthe shoulder in better shape than it was before. Again: the same surgery Hall had prior to last year's campaign.

That's not exactly blue chip stock right there

Loses an entire off season of training to surgery, comes back and still puts up 56 points in 80 games. Yup, must be a real dud.

 

[hawks889]

I believe they did. The problem is they didn't surround the players with the talent needed to be competitive right away. But not all teams can be like Chicago. I strongly believe if MacT was in charge in the very beginning of all of this that the team would be miles better.

in the current hawks lineup, almost half the team draft picks 2nd round or later . Problem with oilers is not there top picks, its the later rounds.

Bryan bickell 2004 2nd rounder
Duncan Keith 2002 2nd rounder
Corey Crawford 2003 2nd rounder
Niklas hjalmssoon 2005 4th rounder
Andrew Shaw 2011 5th rounder
Brandan Saad 2011 2nd rounder
Ben Smith 2008 6th rounder
Marcus Kruger 2009 5th rounder
Joakim Nordstrom 2010 3rd rounder

 

[Jumptheshark]

The first round picks were the correct ones, even Yakupov.

It's rounds 2-7 that are more of a problem.

^yup, although our scouts have gotten us players with size, grit and various levels of skill like McCarron, C. Hamilton, Chase, Yakimov, Moroz, Khaira, Roy and d-men like Musil, Marincin and Simpson, so we'll soon see what kind of job they have done in rounds 2-7 the last 4 or so drafts when/if some of these guys make the NHL club.

most first rounders were slam dunks. Problem is outside of the first

2007 draft-- we have only Gagner to show for it
2008 draft all we have is Eberle
2009-is a joke--MPS was trades with a second for Perron and only Lander is left after that
2010- After the first we have one player Marincin looking like a player and Pitlik who is injury prone so far in his career
2011-Hopkins and only questions marks
2012-More questions then answers
2013-Lot of hail marry picks and projects

 

[DethOfDragnz]

I know it's trendy to **** on everything Oilers management does, but I feel they have made good choices for their first round pics. I think Hall, Hopkins, and Yakupov were all great pics and will pay off eventually. I think Darnell Nurse will be a fantastic defencemen for our club in the long term. When you get to 2nd-3rd and later round pics it's pretty much a gamble most of those players don't end up making the NHL long term. I don't think it's fair when a late round pick turns into a dub that is to be expected. I am also happy with alot of their latest moves getting Perron for Magnus, getting rid of Horcoff and Hemsky. Getting rid of Dubynk bringing in Scrivens. I am also not a nut swinger of management I am not sold on Dallas Eakins but I am willing to give him at least one more year to prove himself. I like most fans do not like the good old boys mentality of giving positions to friends and buddies. I want to be fair though, there is good with the bad. I think that their drafting and building youthful talent is the right way to go it'll pay off eventually. I don't think management is the problem. The problem is we have a ****** team. Established players don't want to come here and are youthful players need time to get experience. Also we still have big gaps in defence and size strength and puck possession/movement. No decent players will come here until we start winning so we'll have to build through the draft. There is a light at the end of tunnel I think we could be like Chicago or Pittsburgh established stars and consistently making the playoffs. Maybe even a Stanley Cup. I still feel though we still have a few more years of losing and drafting to go. Now and the next 2-3 years is the hard part. After that the fun begins!

 

[Master Lok]

most first rounders were slam dunks. Problem is outside of the first

2007 draft-- we have only Gagner to show for it
2008 draft all we have is Eberle
2009-is a joke--MPS was trades with a second for Perron and only Lander is left after that
2010- After the first we have one player Marincin looking like a player and Pitlik who is injury prone so far in his career
2011-Hopkins and only questions marks
2012-More questions then answers
2013-Lot of hail marry picks and projects

2010. Yes Marincin looks like the real thing. First time in years that a non-first round draftee is able to play a significant role at the NHL level. I wouldn't count Pitlick out yet. He's at the point in development where he should be ready to be given a chance at the NHL level, if only he can avoid the injury bug.

2011. Klefbom looks less like a question mark. He played fairly well in the last big of 2013/14 season. Gernat and Dillon Simpson seems to be progressing well. Not yet ready for NHL but they will need at least another season of the AHL, if not two more.

2012 - Of course there's more questions than answers, its too early to tell. Next year will be Moroz and Khaira's first year in professional hockey. So its really too early.

2013 - Chase took a big step forward and it will be Yakimov's first profressional year in North America next year. Way too early to tell, but shows promise.

 

[Beatle17]

Just a question as this may be off topic, did the Oilers sign Daniil Zharkov to an ELC? If has been 2 years and if they didn't sign him doesn't he return to the draft this year, or does him going back to Russia change things?

If he goes back into the draft I wonder if another team takes a chance on him, big center that seems to be fairly decent.

Thanks for any responses.