Senator Stanley
Registered User
When it comes to Yakemchuk versus the other guys, any evaluation of the pick really should take into account that Yakemchuk is a big right-shot defenceman, and big right-shot defenceman who are actually good are among the most valuable assets in hockey. People can choose how much value they place on that fact, but it matters.
Something that we would often hear from Dorion-Mann was "you can't trade for guys like this". Early in the draft, they would put a real emphasis on the relative value of different types of prospects. My guess is that philosophy has carried over with Boyd.
Go through our history and it's clear we don't take small, skilled forwards high in the draft. One could say that's because our scouts don't value skill, and in my opinion they wouldn't be wrong. But I suspect Boyd would argue that it's not about not valuing skill, it's about prioritizing prospects who will play a role/fill a position that is harder to fill. Top nine centres are extremely valuable, and we've taken a lot of those types of prospects. Small, skilled wingers are relatively easy to acquire, and we never take those types of prospects high (or at all, recently).
I suspect part of the Yakemchuk selection was our scouts being really high on him as a player (obviously), but a big part of it was also the fact that he's a big RHD and the other options were not. If they're good, and our scouts clearly think Yakemchuk will be, those are extremely hard players to acquire. Like, if our scouts knew for sure at the draft that Dickinson would turn into an A- NHLer and Yakemchuk would turn into a B+ NHLer, I think they take Yakemchuk, because the B+ RHD is more valuable in their estimation than the A- LHD.
(This post isn't meant as a defence of our scouting staff. There is the philosophy, which makes some sense and is followed by other teams and in other sports, and there's the actual evaluation of prospects, where I don't trust our scouts at all.)
