I couldn't care less about supposed character issues, I think Zegras (who they would have taken if not for Blake) has them as well, and not everyone in the NHL is liked by all their teammates or coaches and yeah alot of these guys are pricks. But it mostly comes down to hockey ability. Mike Richards came to the Kings with character issues, those character issues only began to matter when he couldn't play hockey at a high level anymore. Not everyone is going to be Kopitar and Brown, we were very fortunate to have guys like this with the Kings, guys who were both excellent players and excellent all around humans as well.
The problem with the pick was that from the moment he stepped up to levels above the USHL, Turcotte was never anywhere close to the type of player you would expect from a Top 5 pick. Just look at the top picks from the same conference over the last say decade. Turcotte was just nowhere near the caliber of prospect of Cooley, Beniers, Caufield, Fantilli, Power, L Hughes, Q Hughes, K Johnson. These are the types of players you should be expecting to get with a pick like that.
Obviously people will blame Blake knowing it was him overriding the scouts, and there is some validity to that. I assume the Kings scouts were regulars in Plymouth considering they had two 1st round picks that year and it was the best NTDP class ever. Maybe the scouts had concerns with the offensive upside of Turcotte much more than they did with Zegras, and this is probably being leaked to Rosen so some of these guys are looking to distance themselves from this massive blunder. The rumors were also that Blake was the deciding factor on the blunder the next draft as well, and knowing that picks outside round 1 are more on the scouting staff and round 1 is more on the GM, these guys probably want to make sure they get credit for Anderson, Faber, Kaliyev, Spence, Laferierre while distancing themselves from the Turcotte one and (to some extent) Byfield. Although it seems like Byfield was more of a tiebreaker vote by Blake than an override one like Turcotte is looking like.
The Tony Granato thing is hilarious and sad at the same time, hilarious that even guys from the Chevy Logo era team who aren't actively employed apparently have a say in what the team does. And sad that Granato coached Caufield, Miller and Frederic at UW, all three players would be huge young pieces to the Kings right now. The Kings passed on Caufield and Miller in the draft, and while Frederic was originally drafted by Boston while DL was GM of the Kings, he probably could have been had in a trade for what the Kings gave up for Lias. Granato couldn't have convinced them to take Miller over Kupari the year before? Thanks, Tony!!
