I’ll reiterate that had the draft board shaken out with Buium off the board, and our options were, say, Yakemchuk, Silayev, Eiserman, Luchanko, and Helenius, I wouldn’t feel terrible about the pick. Luchanko wasn’t a massive reach.
Buium being there is what makes this sting.
That said, Luchanko’s next year will be extremely telling. I don’t give him the benefit of being “one of the youngest draft eligible players”. That seems like cope. He’s a 2006 birth year like his draft classmates, and he’s been developing with that age group just like them. Suzuki was also a young draftee, and his resume was stronger. What I do give Luchanko credit for is being the driver of his team offensively without much support. There’s something to that indicating a player with better upside than his statistical profile would suggest. I have no clue what expectations are for Guelph next year, but Luchanko needs to have a 90+ point season for this pick to look reasonable, and he needs to be a 5v5 play driver as a D+1 player.
The Laughton comps are fair, and I think I was the first one to make it in the draft thread. But draft picks aren’t deterministic — Laughton’s range of outcome in 2012 had upside too that he never achieved. There’s a world where Luchanko turns into Dylan Larkin. And a world where he flames out entirely. He’s got a range of outcomes like every other prospect, so I don’t think looking at this pick as Laughton 2.0 is entirely appropriate. He’s an interesting player, and I would have been quite happy if the Flyers traded into the top 15 to get him. I’m just not happy about passing on Buium to get him.