To be honest, I don’t think it really matters if a late 1st busts as long as you get a player of similar perceived quality in later rounds. Late 1sts are really not that different from second round picks or early 3rd round picks. With that in mind, there’s only one draft that Jarmo did not do well in, which is 2014. Milano will likely never be a player for us, and the only other guy with NHL potential is Elvis. If we get an NHL starting goalie out of him though, I’ll call that draft a success. Other than that, there’s this track record
2013:
-Wennberg (NHL player)
-Rychel (non-NHL player)
-Dano (non-NHL player, might still need a chance
-Heatherington (looks like he might make it for the Stars eventually)
-Bjork (NHL player of late 1st quality)
Non-NHL players after that
In this draft, he took 2 surefire NHL players, and 2 more who will probably carve out an NHL career
2014:
-Milano (tweener, probable NHL player someday)
-Collins (non-NHL player)
-Elvis (probable NHL player, perhaps of late 1st round quality)
Non-NHL players after that
Overall, Jarmo’s worst draft without question.
2015:
-Z (Star defenseman)
-Carlsson (tweener, probably NHL someday)
-Bittner (probably non-NHL, but outside chance at bottom 6 role)
-Stenlund (soon to be NHL player)
-Kolesar (gone)
-Gavrikov (soon to be NHL player, by many indications, of late 1st quality)
-Nuti (NHL player, of late 1st quality)
In this draft, Jarmo netted an entire defensive core including a star defenseman, a known top 4 guy, another probable top 4 shutdown guy, and a probable 3rd pairing D in Carlsson. Along with an entire defensive core, he drafted a probable 3rd line center in Stenlund. This is an incredible haul for a single draft.
2016:
-PLD (star center)
-Peeke (probable NHL defenseman)
-Abramov (boom or bust)
Out of 5 picks, Jarmo netted a star center in the top 3, but picked much against the consensus, which makes PLD a very successful pick. Peeke looks to be an NHL player, and Abramov will probably crack the NHL at some point. So overall, 3 NHL players in 5 picks. Can’t argue with a 60% success rate.
2017:
Might be too early to judge this draft, but as far as I can tell, Tex, Tarasov, Bemstrom, and Davidsson will all be NHL players. So 4 NHL players in 7 picks, all without a 1st rounder. This is likely a very successful draft.
I won’t get into 2018. But overall, looking at this track record, I have no idea how anyone could be disappointed/frustrated with Jarmo’s draft record. By my count, he’s drafted 18 players (not counting 2018) who will at least make the NHL cut at some point, out of 36 picks. I’m not going to look at other teams right now, but I’d be shocked if many other teams have a 50% rate of finding NHL players since 2013. He’s probably a top 5 drafting GM.