That draft was on another level, imo. The whole first round was full of stars and the second round was no joke either. Kesler was a great pick too and Burke should get credit for it. He could have drafted Pouliot.
I think my point stands that Benning was a competent drafter regardless of what one thinks about every other part of his performance as GM.
2015 looks like it will be pretty close to on the same level as 2003 as more time goes on.
For your general point, I think the drafting was just as bad as the previous regime until the 2017 draft.
I omit 2014 from the analysis because there's so many confounding factors - according to the rumours, ownership wanted Virtanen and forced that pick, scouts wanted Pastrnak over McCann and got overruled by Benning, Demko and Tryamkin appear to be policy change picks, etc, it's a mess. Since Benning was hired in May, one month before the draft, when the draft is a year long process, it makes sense to me to omit 2014 because correct attribution is impossible and the rumours are as negative as they are positive.
2015 and 2016 were not noticeably better drafts than the previous regime. Since 2017 it looks improved.
Coincidentally the 2017 improved drafting timeline lines up with Brackett's promotion to scouting director... and Benning was overruled on the Pettersson pick.
Boston's drafting with Benning as AGM was also horrific for his entire tenure.
Personally, I give Benning credit for improving the drafting since 2017 due to Benning promoting Brackett, who I believe was the driving force behind our better drafting from 2017 onwards. I think GM's should always get full credit for the people they hire and promote when those people do good jobs. I don't confuse that with Benning actually being someone who personally improves our drafting and I expect our drafting to get worse the more time passes since Brackett left.
