Not joking, defending or saying we would have made picks like Kreider or Carlson. It's just that there was a period of time in the middle years of his tenure where our drafting was worse (this is undeniable) and we went with a lot of bigger but less athletic players than those who were picked during the bookend years at both the start and end of his tenure. Churla was put in a senior role in the scouting department during those middle years and was clearly given a lot of say by his cronies who all played as non-stars in the NHL during that same era.
We all know why Leblanc was picked. That was before Churla and the irony is we left Kreider on the board after years of taking several US High School kids.
We saw that at the table, it was Bergevin and Timmins right beside him. And then they do ask Churla his opinion to confirm. There is NO WAY that I,ll ever believe that if Timmins completely disagreed with a call, that they'd do it anyway. No way. Maybe sometimes they didn't pick his 1st choice....but that's what happens when you work as a group. Maybe sometimes he was convinced. But that's it though. He was.
Look at the vid when the Caufield pick was made. After Bergevin and Timmins had already agreed, Churla only said..yeah...we need a scorer. So Churla also was fine with picking an undersize one-dimensional scorer.
And while we don't know entirely what is in the inside, but the only thing we can say is what's out there.
Timmins comments on Crisp: “He’s a heck of an athlete and he’s tough. Yes, we addressed a need drafting him. At some point, you have to. He was out there to protect Connor McDavid and he scored a few goals as well”
and look at his comments on Lernout. It doesn't strike as somebody he didn't want...
