Drai's skating took time and Ekblad was seen as a very high end prospect because IIRC he got an exemption to play in the OHL a year early. In the end it was a strong draft class but Drai is the cream of the crop. His combination of size, skill and work ethic as well as playing with and being pushed by Connor has made him an incredible player.
Why even bring a body for that kind of ice time lol
Draisaitl was the highest scoring CHL player in the draft. The only reason people wanted Bennett was his “grit” which isn’t exactly something that will seamlessly translate to the NHL when you’re so small you can’t do a pull up. Bennett has actually panned out about as well as can be expected but he never had the high end talent Leon had.
Oh for sure. There were some people on this board who thought Bennett was going to be significantly better than Drai.
I'm sure there were. I liked Drai. Unfortunately Bennett played a major role last spring. He took allot of grief over that failed pull-up.
The main issue with Draisaitl was the skating. The league was moving more and more to skating, and that a player might be able to be slower and stack up points in the CHL but would bomb against NHL competition. Many who criticized the pick said that his skating would be his downfall and that it was likely always to be a problem with him.
I was full on Leon. (I was also full-on Yak and JP so there is that). And yes we were definitely in the minority. I would have taken Draisaitl over Reinhart but not over Ekblad.
I wasn't on the Yak train initially but came around late. I didn't do much "scouting" for the Jesse draft but I REALLY liked Laine and was hoping that we'd somehow get him.
Yah, I'd have picked Laine over JP but once JP fell I was big on the pick. Tkachuk was the guy I had my eye on as I watched him a lot in Junior, with Sergachev next on the list.
How much of that is PR though?
I will give Bennett a ton of credit, in that he reinvented himself during the course of his career and finally found his true hockey self in Florida. He knew he was never going to be a big time scorer, so he toughened up and became a physical menace while showing glimpses of his draft pedigree from time to time.
You certainly weren't alone. From what I recall, Yak was pretty much the consensus first overall pick by central scouting and pretty much everyone out there. from my viewings as well, he looked fantastic. (the most famous one against it was Brian Burke, who boldly stated that Morgan Reilly would turn out to be the best of the bunch) Had the Oilers went off the board (as they so often did), the howling would have been unbearable. For once, I wish they would have gone off the board in that case.
Bobby drank way too much of the local sewer water and it affected his thinking.
Laines career would be completely different if he were an Oiler. Drai - McDavid - Laine would score at an unreal level, never would have had confidence issues because he’d be a 40-50 goal scorer every year.
The problem though, is that he probably couldn't stay healthy. The guy is made of glass.
“Bruce there it is” turned into “Bruce there he goes”
The only thing Bobby Nicks seems to have ever done for us, was use his “connections” to get Holland…. Who we still had to pay him to the point of being the highest paid GM in the League and who can’t find a job immediately leaving Edmonton.
