Well, it's more interesting than this though. Goalies are tricky, but in general picks aren't just pass or fail. You have to look at them as investments whose values increase and decrease over time and can be bought and sold based on their current market value. You could conceivably take a late round pick, he puts up big numbers in junior and minors, you sell high and then he busts.
Hence a prospect who increases his value from draft day is a better pick than a prospect who is a clear bust a year in, even if they both ultimately end up busting (see: Tim Boyle, maybe the worst draft pick I've ever seen by the Sens).
I realize that, which is why I personally do not judge a prospect on draft day, however I can judge the pick itself....which I think is what happened here.
It is true that we had a ton of goalies in the system, and is true that at the time, we did not really need Soogard and it could even be argued that we still do not really need him right now if Forsberg stabilizes as the #1 and Gustavsson can back up.
Does it hurt to have a handful of good goalies in the system? Definitely not, but again, I think it should be ok to judge the selection as good or bad while still believing the player is good or bad too.
For example I could say that I disliked the Pinto pick at the time because I wanted Kaliyev who was ranked really high in the 1st round and dropped to round 2. Easy picking, but they decided to go with Pinto which
at the moment looks great, and everyone can defend the pick.
But hypothetically what happens if Pinto goes on to have a worse career than Kaliyev? At that point in the future you can go back and claim that it was a bad pick.
I do like your analogy with players being like a stock that could have high value and low value at any point in their career.
