Why did Ken Holland seemingly refuse to use Hakan Andersson/European scouts picks with the highest draft pick?

[Steve Yzerlland]

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Saw this floating around today. Not that we need the visual or anything but my god that’s a rough 4 years. I remember how pumped I was for all those picks they received in 17 and 18. What a let down lol.

I think it would be impossible to pick worse than this. Even just using mock drafts instead of his "scouting" departments would have gotten better players.

 

[Run the Jewels]

View attachment 1006014
Saw this floating around today. Not that we need the visual or anything but my god that’s a rough 4 years. I remember how pumped I was for all those picks they received in 17 and 18. What a let down lol.

When people ask why is the rebuild taking so long, this is the visual to provide them with. And we were capped the f**k out when Yzerman arrived back in Detroit. Still have one more year of paying Justin Abdelkader who last played NHL hockey in 2019-20.

This is Mike Milbury level s**t, SMDH.

 

[Gniwder]

Just remember, the bad picks are only Draper and the good picks are all Hakan.

Considering that Zadina only played in the Q for one year and the rest in Europe, you would have to assume that he was involved in the discussion. Plus the big miss was Hughes, who's a NA kid so having Hakan make the pick wouldn't have helped.

Draper is the head scout now, so both good and bad picks are all his. I liked the focus on scoring in the last draft, need to do that again this draft. No more Clevelands.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Considering that Zadina only played in the Q for one year and the rest in Europe, you would have to assume that he was involved in the discussion. Plus the big miss was Hughes, who's a NA kid so having Hakan make the pick wouldn't have helped.

Draper is the head scout now, so both good and bad picks are all his. I liked the focus on scoring in the last draft, need to do that again this draft. No more Clevelands.

 

[Henkka]

After seeing Yzerman picking out of Europe every draft he's been here for. I was thinking back how his predecessor Ken Holland never did it. Despite Hakan Andersson hitting big with gems in the late rounds in the late 90s/2000s surely he would've had some big mandate within the organization. Or was the hope he'd continue to get them in later rounds.

Would we possibly be in a better position in the post Zetterberg/Datysuk-era if he would've done this?

This is a very nice question.

I think there was a false hope, that we would always be getting late-round gems.

But when other NHL also started valuing drafting, the old competitive edge did disappear.

Still it's funny to check later on, how it's still Håkan picks being our best picks on many drafts...

2008
1st round - G Tom McCollum (3 career games) - highest NA pick
4th round - W Gustav Nyquist (858 career games) - highest EUR pick

2009
2nd round - RW Landon Ferraro (77 career games) - highest NA pick
2nd round - W Tomas Tatar (923 career games) - highest EUR pick

2010
1st round - C Riley Sheahan (637 career games, 194 points) - highest NA pick
2nd round - Calle Järnkrok (712 career games, 306 points) highest EUR pick
4th round - G Petr Mrazek - another EUR pick

After 2010, also Europe did "dry up". Håkan or not, I think the big thing is how others were scouting Europe well too, and we didn't get almost anybody from there (Janmark 2013, Hronek 2016 only exceptions).

Since the 2019 draft (Seider, Johansson, Söderblom), change for better happened. But Yzerman also had to hire some new scouts we were poached from Dallas (Nill took, and which Yzerman hired to Tampa). Also some old dogs just retired.

So it has needed some rebuild in the scouting system in general too. Thank god Håkan has stayed loyal for us.

I still think the biggest benefit in Håkan is how he could develop and educate out other scouts, also in NA, to become better scouts like him. That will be his final duty and legacy for us. He won't draft forever.