When one of the biggest trades in recent history involves 4 players and they were all drafted by the same guy, I feel like that's significant.
You can argue that Hughes fell to him, but that doesn't change the fact that 7 teams didn't want him and Brackett's team did. They could've gone with Wahlstrom or Boqvist or whoever, but they didn't.
This argument:
doesn't make a tonne of sense to me either. You can always find players after the one your team drafted who are even better. But Ohgren is in the league and he was part of what allowed the Wild to get Hughes.
Podkolzin over Boldy was another clear miss, I'll give you all that. But the guy they picked is still in the league right now and was a point per game these past playoffs. It's not like Pod is a total bust. And he added Hoglander and Silovs in the same draft, who are both looking good relative to who went around those guys.
Rossi, Marat, Hunt was a strong draft. Getting Wally was awesome, no matter how much he might've fallen compared to public lists. Yurov, Haight, Spacek are still looking good.
I'm not a Wild fan and have no personal interest in whether or not Brackett is good at what he does. But every indication I have is that he is.
Final note: Yes, a scouting director has to be evaluated based on draft success. But first and foremost, he's the manager of the department. He may have a GM overruling him (which led to the public fallout in Vancouver) and he has a massive staff of regional and crossover scouts who do the work for him to make decisions. Which means that a) we don't have all the information to properly evaluate what he does or doesn't bring to an organization because there are too many people involved and b) organizing and leading his staff is at least 80% of the job – drafting players makes up a very small portion of a scouting director's responsibilities, even if it's ultimately the most important part.
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