Tampa drafted Drouin ahead of him. LOL. Most people consider Yzerman as one of the best GM. But this was on his watch. A lot of scouting reports even listed him as the No 1 ahead of MacKinnon. But IMO MacK is still better. Not sure between Barkov or him. But how Tampa scouts failed to see Drouin was a by-product of MacK?
On the draft day interview, he said the teams would regret. How true that was in Tampa's case. Imagine having him instead of Sergachev. Probably would have turned the fate of Tampa CBJ series in the opposite way.
Drouin was not a byproduct of MacK at all. Drouin was a player who, imo, was obviously less NHL built than MacKinnon. Drouin was better than MacK at times at the Q level, in fact. And Drouin had high potential. But as for who was more likely to excell at the NHL level? MacK was already NHL ready and tailored.
Drouin was often racking up points by getting around people with moves that would not work so well against nhl calibre defense, and getting away with some cheating/bad habits that works in the CHL but not at the next level.
I was shocked he was taken when he was, also. I underrated Barkov a bit. But it was obvious to me, I felt at the time, that it was Jones & MacK as 1/2.
But yeah. Nope. MacK and Drouin benefited from each other, but def no one made the other. Just like Drouin and Ehlers or Ehlers and Meier were not products of each other.