Prospect Info: Tyler Boucher (RW/LW) - Don`t sleep on Tyler Boucher

[BondraTime]

Patrick was expected to go top 3, so its not a bad pick, its just a pick that did not work out, largely due to injuries. That cannot be predicted with much accuracy, although injury history with Patrick was present, and kept him from being drafted #1.

Boucher was, to my knowledge, the biggest reach ever in the top 10. Reaches in the draft very seldom work out, and doing it in the top 10? That makes it such a bad pick because there is no excuse for it. Its very hard to predict injuries, but its very easy to predict players ranked mid second round stand a 50% chance of having much of an NHL career.

Thats on management though, not on Boucher. Boucher does not make the pick, management does. I'd base the rating of a pick based on information available at the time and how it works out, injuries aside. Its not like Boucher was setting the world on fire before injuries set in. Before the inuries his body of work was not too far off of a mid second round pick. Nothing before the draft screamed top 10, nothing after the draft and before injuries screamed top 10. It was simply a bad move by management.


I also believe if Boucher would have been drafted in the mid second, which was a relative consensuses position, he would not have been under nearly as much pressure as he has been and quite honestly may be in a better position today. He is carrying unwarranted expectations that only had a minuscule chance of being realized and that really has to drain a player mentally. I think he'd be seen in a much different light here if he was a second round pick, much like Ostaphuk. Personally I've generally evaluated him as I would any mid second rounder with some hope (50%) that after 4-6 years could be a useful bottom six player.


This pick reminds me so much of the Reinhart pick by NYI in 2012. Go far off board at #4 (consensus rank ~12) to grab an offensively limited player (by NHL standards) because he fit a size profile/style they wanted.

Wheeler and Hickey without digging through were much bigger reaches

Won't count Svoboda, who went 5th while unranked

 

[Ice-Tray]

Was also the CoVID draft. Have to remember that while we lament another lost pick (Brown).

The kid still has time to turn things around, maybe we’ll hear about him coming out of nowhere at some point. Or maybe this is the last we’ll hear and he’ll sink into obscurity like Maidens did back in the day.

All promise derailed by injury.

 

[HSF]

Was also the CoVID draft. Have to remember that while we lament another lost pick (Brown).

The kid still has time to turn things around, maybe we’ll hear about him coming out of nowhere at some point. Or maybe this is the last we’ll hear and he’ll sink into obscurity like Maidens did back in the day.

All promise derailed by injury.

never understood the covid pick excuse

even better reason to go for a more known quantity with a top 10 pick.

Later on in the draft for sure it will be wonky but a number 10 pick should have been safe imo

Dude is a colossal bust

 

[dumbdick]

Let the guy consistently play some actual hockey before we all tar and feather him.

He's barely played since we drafted him.

He's got some nice tools. Let him get 20 games under his belt and we'll see what we've got.

 

[bert]

Let the guy consistently play some actual hockey before we all tar and feather him.

He's barely played since we drafted him.

He's got some nice tools. Let him get 20 games under his belt and we'll see what we've got.

Well thats the perplexing thing. Where is he?

 

[SquidNasty]

This post and posts like it don’t make you look very good. Just hold off a bit. Why focus on this one player/pick right now?
You actually believe he’s just gone? You don’t think anything is happening behind the scenes?
So because you don’t know what’s going on he’s the worst pick in nhl history? Have you seen him play live? Did you watch him play for team USA(2023)?

Who would you have picked at the time? What are their stats?

I’m just trying to encourage sanity here.

1. Of course I don't believe he's just gone. It's probably just the AHL LTIR equivalent where he isn't listed on the injury report anymore. I'm sure he's very involved with staff behind the scenes.

2. He's not the worst pick in NHL history because I "don't know what's going on". Nothing about his play pre/post draft has inspired any confidence and it was the biggest reach this league has seen in a while.

3. I have seen him play live for the 67s numerous times. He just floats around and doesn't look like he knows what's going on. Speed was meh and he didn't really drive play. Mintyukov on the other hand, picked in the same slot a year later, stood out every time he was on the ice and completely dominated every time I watched him.

4. I did watch a few of the USA games last year, wasn't overly impressed. His goals mostly came against brutal teams in blowouts and he clearly wasn't a go to go guy.

5. I was in love with Wallstedt and was losing my mind watching him drop.

6. He's been the best goalie in the AHL this year.

 

[Mookie McGee]

Rumour has it some guy in Kennebunkport, Maine thought he saw him on the roster of the Ice Capades when they came to town.....

 

[SquidNasty]

Also, not sure how you hold up Yakupov in the same vane as Boucher. Yakupov was a more or less consensus pick who busted whereas the argument for Boucher being the 'worst pick ever' is that he shouldn't have been picked there in the first place. Two different things.

Anyway, back to Nolan Patrick. Feel free to take a crack at why he at #2 was not a worse pick than Boucher at #10.

This makes no sense. I said Yakupov often gets labelled the worst pick ever which isn't true as he was consensus.

Your Yakupov argument is literally why Patrick wasn't a bad pick. Pretty much every list had him #2 and lots had him 1OA at the start or the year IIRC. He wasn't a reach, and yes it's sad injuries ruined his career.

Boucher was a massive reach and the injury thing isn't a total fluke considering he played 5 games in his draft year. The injuries were part of the risk but based on his play, I'm not even sure he makes the NHL if he stays 100% healthy going forward.

 

[HSF]

Let the guy consistently play some actual hockey before we all tar and feather him.

He's barely played since we drafted him.

He's got some nice tools. Let him get 20 games under his belt and we'll see what we've got.

hes missed a ton of a developmental time. It going to be tough

 

[PlayersLtd]

This makes no sense. I said Yakupov often gets labelled the worst pick ever which isn't true as he was consensus.

Your Yakupov argument is literally why Patrick wasn't a bad pick. Pretty much every list had him #2 and lots had him 1OA at the start or the year IIRC. He wasn't a reach, and yes it's sad injuries ruined his career.

Boucher was a massive reach and the injury thing isn't a total fluke considering he played 5 games in his draft year. The injuries were part of the risk but based on his play, I'm not even sure he makes the NHL if he stays 100% healthy going forward.

Except you're applying a double standard.

Nolan Patrick's pre draft injuries were well documented and although on talent alone he was a consensus top 3, there were debates about his injury history. You're holding that against Boucher but not Patrick and considering he was #2 and who went behind him (Heiskanen, Makar, Petersson...) ignoring Nolan Patricks' injury history ended up being a huge blunder by PHI.

Yes, Patrick was not the reach that Boucher was, but you can't criticize the SENS for overlooking Boucher's pre draft injury without acknowledging that PHI did the same, and with much greater consequence.

Admit it, you're being harsh on Boucher for his post draft injuries all the while the rational side in you gives Patrick a free pass for that. The pick deserves criticism as a reach there is no doubt about that but considering his post draft injuries have been bad luck (as you said for Patrick) he is far more of an unknown commodity than he is an all out bust. We simply don't know what we have in Boucher and to me it's ignorant to label him the worst pick of all time considering he is only 20 and nearly half the first rounders that year haven't played a single NHL game.

Just wait and see how it plays out.

 

[JD1]

Except you're applying a double standard.

Nolan Patrick's pre draft injuries were well documented and although on talent alone he was a consensus top 3, there were debates about his injury history. You're holding that against Boucher but not Patrick and considering he was #2 and who went behind him (Heiskanen, Makar, Petersson...) ignoring Nolan Patricks' injury history ended up being a huge blunder by PHI.

Yes, Patrick was not the reach that Boucher was, but you can't criticize the SENS for overlooking Boucher's pre draft injury without acknowledging that PHI did the same, and with much greater consequence.

Admit it, you're being harsh on Boucher for his post draft injuries all the while the rational side in you gives Patrick a free pass for that. The pick deserves criticism as a reach there is no doubt about that but considering his post draft injuries have been bad luck (as you said for Patrick) he is far more of an unknown commodity than he is an all out bust. We simply don't know what we have in Boucher and to me it's ignorant to label him the worst pick of all time considering he is only 20 and nearly half the first rounders that year haven't played a single NHL game.

Just wait and see how it plays out.

The 3 guys taken after Nolan Patrick are all franchise changers. All 3 are franchise level players. Makar has won a cup. Philadelphia choosing any of the 3 would have altered the history of 2 franchises.

There really isn't an argument that anyone chosen after Boucher would be much more than a serviceable NHL player

On that account, choosing Nolan is a FAR bigger f*** up

 

[GCK]

Well thats the perplexing thing. Where is he?

He will be back once he is ready to play. I won't get into specifics but he needs to get back into a place where he can join the team.

 

[Burrowsaurus]

He will be back once he is ready to play. I won't get into specifics but he needs to get back into a place where he can join the team.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s gone through a bout of depression here. The injuries. And in a few interviews with I THINK Wallace and Methot he definitely seemed to know that the fans were questioning the pick and this and that.

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

Boucher and Nolan Patrick are not even remotely comparable situations.

At the time of the 2017 draft, closer to the draft the consensus was that Hischier and Patrick were in the top tier. In the longer lead up to the draft, the 1st spot was Patrick's to lose. Hischier edged him out by climbing the ranks throughout the year as a riser.

The issue surrounding Patrick had to do with injuries and other concerns. So it put the Flyers into a tough spot where they had to choose whether to drop down a tier and take a player without those concerns, or to take the risk and gamble on Patrick. Yes, three other players taken have become superstars, and there are rumors that some the Flyers scouts wanted to take Makar. But I assume whoever had the final say must have had a similar opinion to the consensus, which was that Patrick/Hischier were tier 1 and anybody else was a drop to tier 2.

With Boucher, teams did not have the same level of information about the prospects as they would have for a normal draft. It wouldn't surprise me if Ottawa was further handicapped. Their draft position fell just below the tier of "top 10 talent" type prospects available. By consensus, there were 8 or so of them. They went for what was supposed to be a safe pick. Meaning, Boucher was never going to become a superstar, but his physicality was a unique and difficult to acquire trait that should have translated into him becoming a very important bottom six forward for the Senators. It's very difficult to find someone who is willing and able to play that role, but is also skilled enough to not be a liability in an NHL bottom 6.

If they took Boucher in the top 8, that would have been very questionable. People take public rankings too serious when dictating reaches. Like, just because a player was 30 or 40 on Bob McKenzie's list, a team could trade down to that spot. We know at least one other team had him around the top 15. The goal of a team is to get the best possible player based on their needs and internal scouting, not to take the player who will be most acceptable to the fanbase or to online scouting enthusiasts.

The pick didn't work out, but it made sense. Comparing it to Nolan Patrick makes no sense. Those were completely different situations.

 

[GCK]

I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s gone through a bout of depression here. The injuries. And in a few interviews with I THINK Wallace and Methot he definitely seemed to know that the fans were questioning the pick and this and that.

Let’s not speculate on the issue.

 

[Icelevel]

This thread is a good display of much of what is wrong with fans here.
It’s just some fans. But it’s enough to be really annoying.
Lock it up till there’s news.

 

[Bileur]

Don’t know how legit this is

 

[Icelevel]

Don’t know how legit this is

TLDW

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Don’t know how legit this is

I guess we'll see

 

[JungleBeat]

The guys is a bust, no doubt about it. Bad picks happen. Glad that Mann is gone though

 

[Senscore]

Don’t know how legit this is

 

[Burrowsaurus]

Let’s go kid

 

[dumbdick]

hes missed a ton of a developmental time. It going to be tough

For sure it will be. He's missed enough that it might totally submarine his playing career.

But if he gets a couple years of consistent play without injury he might turn it around.

 

[Xspyrit]

Pretty ignorant to award the worst pick in history to someone who has been hampered by injury. If that's fair than Nolan Patrick was obviously a way worse pick than Boucher. End of argument.

I don't mind being called ignorant but it's definitely one of the really bad picks in NHL history. Not because Boucher didn't "live up" to expectations due to injuries but more because it was one of the biggest reaches in history, particularly since scouting has evolved a lot.

Teams usually don't gamble like that with such a high pick for a guy with limited upside. The last pick like that I can think of in that wtf mold was Dylan McIlrath. Actually, I just looked it up and he was ranked 15th by McKenzie pre-draft... Not even close to a reach like Boucher was.


In comparison, the Logan Brown pick was much much better because he had real first line upside.

And sorry but Patrick is a really bad comparison... He had A LOT more potential than Boucher.

 

[Ouroboros]

HE HAS RISEN!