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Draft Years that were considered weak at the time of the draft

Hockeyville USA said:
1999 was always considered pretty weak. 2012 was considered pretty weak at the time too
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I'd have to look it up, but I thought 1999 had the usual amount of optimism but most of the first rounders fell flat. One oddity was the amount of Europeans at the top.

1996 though for sure was expected to be weak. 2012 was expected to be weak, decent D depth but an odd lack of forwards. Vaguely recall the 2000-02 depth being average to below average. New Jersey took a wild swing on (injury riddled) Adrian Foster with the 28th pick in 2001 with the thinking they could get a compensatory 2nd in a deeper 2003 Draft if they didn't sign him.
 
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2011? I remember asking an insider on some NHL.com live chat about the consensus of that draft and was told most thought it was going to be weak and that 2012 was also weak but everyone was excited for Yakupov.
 
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truthbluth said:
People don’t remember, but 2014 was supposed to be a weak draft at the time. Doesn’t seem so anymore
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That would be my answer too only because it ended up being a decent draft. I remember people talking about how 2013 was loaded and 2014 was weak, but 10 years later I'd say '14 is the stronger draft overall. '13 had a bunch of guys in the top of the draft that were NHL ready which overinflated it's "goodness".
 
2021. That turned out to be a pretty solid year so far. 2017 was also looked at as a weak year that outperformed that expectation. (Makar, Pettersson when he feels like it, Vilardi, Suzuki, Heiskanen, Robertson, Oettinger, Necas, etc.)

1996, 1999 were thought of as weak. 2012 was underwhelming.

Was 2018 thought of as a bad year? I don’t recall tons of hype. Many of the D in the top 12 turned out solid but forwards from this year are pitiful.
It’s too early to fully know, but 2022 looks like a dud of a year. I can’t remember if it was billed as average or below average.
 
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OgeeOgelthorpe said:
2021. That turned out to be a pretty solid year so far. 2017 was also looked at as a weak year that outperformed that expectation. (Makar, Pettersson when he feels like it, Vilardi, Suzuki, Heiskanen, Robertson, Oettinger, Necas, etc.)

1996, 1999 were thought of as weak. 2012 was underwhelming.

Was 2018 thought of as a bad year? I don’t recall tons of hype. Many of the D in the top 12 turned out solid but forwards from this year are pitiful.
It’s too early to fully know, but 2022 looks like a dud of a year. I can’t remember if it was billed as average or below average.
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2021 was considered moderately weak, but the uninformed and some of the fairly informed thought it was shit in major part because most guys barely played & most of the O guys didn't play due to COVID.

2022 was seen as a weak top end, but a solid NTDP made the depth appear a lot better. Considering most of these guys didn't play much in 2020-21 due to COVID (especially in Canada), we had less of an idea of who was actually good. Once Shane Wright continued to be meh relative to the super high expectations, people became more and more sour about that draft.
 
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Gare Joyce had a book called "Future Great and Heartbreaks" where he rode shotgun with Columbus for the 2006 and 2007 Drafts. Both years were considered a bit below average at the top + depth. Off the top of my head, Columbus only had five "A" level guys [Kane/Turris/JvR/Voracek/Gagner] for 2007 and they weren't confident that any of them would drop to them at #7. They were prepping to decide between Ryan McDonagh or Kevin Shattenkirk. Then the Kings threw a curveball and took Thomas Hickey #4 and Columbus didn't seem particularly interested in Karl Alzner. Columbus was thrilled that Voracek landed in their laps.

I think Joyce noted that average draft years would have closer to ten "A" level guys but Columbus only had seven for 2006 [Johnson/Staal/Toews/Backstrom/Kessel/Brassard/Mueller] that they were considering at #6. They figured it'd come down to whoever Boston didn't pick between Kessel and Brassard. If Boston had gone Brassard, they would have begrudgingly gone with Kessel but at least one person at their table wanted to take Mueller over Kessel if it came down to it.

OgeeOgelthorpe said:
It’s too early to fully know, but 2022 looks like a dud of a year. I can’t remember if it was billed as average or below average.
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I think 2022 felt like a below average year going into it.

Nolan Patrick missed the cutoff for the 2016 Draft by just a few days. I had wondered if he had been eligible whether he would have been in the conversation for #2. But when Bob McKenzie released his preseason rankings for the 2017 Draft, he noted that Patrick was the consensus #1 but that scouts wouldn't have had him in the top 5 for 2016.
 
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2012 was the weirdest draft. It was considered on par or better than p3 early, and then it just dropped, and kept dropping, until it became one of the worst drafts.
 
OgeeOgelthorpe said:
Was 2018 thought of as a bad year? I don’t recall tons of hype. Many of the D in the top 12 turned out solid but forwards from this year are pitiful.
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It was viewed highly. Dahlin had a ton of hype, and so did Svechnikov.

OgeeOgelthorpe said:
It’s too early to fully know, but 2022 looks like a dud of a year. I can’t remember if it was billed as average or below average.
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It was viewed highly years in advance and then the lack of quality players at the top made that regress into an average, at best, draft. I would still call it average because the depth was there, but some people didn’t like the draft.
 
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