Our prospect pool is horrendous but a lot of the blame also falls on the shoulders of our horrendous drafting. Over the last few years we've reached for large, slow players and they've pretty much all been misses. Yakemchuk himself was a bit of a reach and there are glaring holes in his game that could result in him being a bust.
If we get a couple hits instead of the bouchers we've been drafting then the pool looks much better despite trading top picks away. IMO it's ok to trade to keep top picks if you think you can contend.
We seem to be allergic to picking the BPA or drafting high end skill.
I don’t know if this is fair.
Our 2023 draft was pretty good considering our first pick was in the 4th round. Stanley and Andonovski both have a real chance to play NHL games. I don’t know if there is anything much to complain about there.
In 2022 our first pick was 62nd overall. Odds of an NHL player in these ranges is low as it is. Halliday, Pettersson, Donovan, Wallberg and Reidler all seem like good prospects so far for where they were taken.
In the end these are all long shot picks, and probably only a couple of them make it in the end, but that’s what you expect relative to draft position.
This year is too early to get a read on. I think only 2021 was actually bad.
Sens need to be more open-minded and creative at the draft table and expand what they focus on, but I don’t think they’ve necessarily been bad either. If we had kept the 5 first and second round picks we gave up in the DeBrincat/Chychrun trades it doesn’t mean our pool would look good, but I don’t know how much more we can expect out of the 2022/2023 drafts given how late we were picking.
