GM’s have a tremendous challenge in front of them. They can draft best available but more often then not, the best available or most skilled is smaller. Or, they can prioritize size but they will get many more hot and miss picks.
Here’s the rub. Do you want a good player with size? If so, you need to draft that player before the end of the 2nd round. After the 2nd round is finished, the returns on bigger players diminish. You are far more likely to draft a good skill player that is smaller outside round 3 than a big player that ends up being half decent.
At the OHL Level, 5’11” is average.They don’t all need to be 6’2”. But, when you draft 5’8 155lb players and hope they gain some size, it’s not often they reach 6’0”. The kids at 5’10” when drafted at 15/16, a lot of times do.
Boyd gets a bad rap for drafting small but what has he actually drafted int he 1st round:
2024 - Amidovski 6’1”
2023 - Brzustewicz 6’0” 200lb
2022 - Mews 6’0”
2021 - Barlas 5’11”
2020 - Moldenhauer 5’10”
2019 - Matier 6’3”
2018 - Tolnai 6’0”
Maybe we give Boyd a bit of a bad rap, right? Mostly, he drafts decent sized players in round one. And, in fairness, his teams have mostly finished high in the standings so he is picking most of his players late in round one after the really good big kids are already off the board.
So, do you continue to draft size in round 3-4-5? Or, do you draft skill and hope they develop into a spark plug or grow a bit more? I think Boyd obviously has drafted a bit smaller in the 3rd-5th rounds.