blinkman360
Loyal Players Only
I like all the picks I've highlighted. BUT, the goaltending, the Isles ALWAYS seem to reach when it comes to them, leaving more talented and better valued players on the board, when MOST likely, those goalies would be available later on in the draft. IF the Isles had taken Buchnevich (or others) instead of McAdam or Fasching (or others) instead of Williams, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
Don't even get me started on Koskinen, for instance, Ryan O'Reilly was chosen 2 picks afterwards, I can go on and on who was available at the time. better players as well as better goalies available (Lehner for example).
I love the guys down at Bridgeport as well, excellent picks. Love Strome, Lee, Sundstrom, Pedan and Mayfield.
Problem is, the Isles seem to make smarter picks in the later rounds instead of the middle rounds. YET despite being very productive as late round picks, they never seem to sign them. I can see Burroughs, Graham, Russo, Bischoff and VCR all not getting contract offers from the Isles even though they are having good careers so far. Just like Theoret and Kitchton. So might as well make the SMART picks during the middle rounds, since they usually don't sign those SMART late round picks anyway.
I wanted Lehner, but every team can do this with pretty much every pick. Sometimes you miss, or you think you're taking a steal when everyone thinks you're taking garbage, and it ends up being garbage. No team has a 100% success rate. No team even has a 50% success rate. If you walk away from the draft with 3 NHLers, I'd consider that pretty successful. So far, IMO there is more good than bad. That's really all I can ask for at this point.
If you want to talk about not bringing in a UFA goaltender, or trading Nino for Clutterbuck, or a handful of other poor decisions by Snow, I'd agree 100%. The draft though, I think that's one of the few bright spots(re-signing core players at discount prices would be another).