Why did Michael Dal Colle Bust?

[PeteWorrell]

Too slow, no urgency in his game, no intensity or physicality. Just a big soft skill guy who wasn't skilled enough to overcome his deficit in all those other areas of the game.


One of those cases of a guy who had just enough of those elements to let his skill shine through at the Jrs level...but simply did not have "another gear" to elevate those things to at the NHL level. Fell below the threshold of functional ability in those areas to be any kind of effective player.

That description made me think of Rob Schremp except for the big part. If Dal Colle wasn't 6'03"; he would have never been drafted that high.

 

[dire wolf]

The draft rankings that year were terrible. Here's a link that collects about 13 different final draft rankings: 2014 NHL Draft Prospect Rankings

It's worth a read both for laughs and as a reminder at how hard it is to project 18 year olds.

Everybody had Dal Colle ranked between 3 and 8. Most had him 5. But the rest of the rankings are universally terrible too. Not a good drafting year.

 

[SwedishFire]

Was it this Pronman scout guy had him 1st overall in his rankings. Tjhat was 9 years ago. Time flies.

 

[Matty Sundin]

It just happens all the time

 

[maroon 6]

The draft rankings that year were terrible. Here's a link that collects about 13 different final draft rankings: 2014 NHL Draft Prospect Rankings

It's worth a read both for laughs and as a reminder at how hard it is to project 18 year olds.

Everybody had Dal Colle ranked between 3 and 8. Most had him 5. But the rest of the rankings are universally terrible too. Not a good drafting year.

Craig Button was onto something with not having Virtanen in his top 30. Interesting as Virtanen was in the top 10 on most lists.

Also only one of three lists to have Brayden Point, and he had him the highest among the 3 at 17th overall.

 

[Barrsy]

Craig Button was onto something with not having Virtanen in his top 30. Interesting as Virtanen was in the top 10 on most lists.

Also only one of three lists to have Brayden Point, and he had him the highest among the 3 at 17th overall.

Yeah, he really, really didnt like Virtanen.
At all.

 

[dire wolf]

This raises a question about whether the Isles are having some trouble developing prospects, or just missing on their picks. A few examples of guys that have severely underwhelmed:

• Nino Neidereiter - 5th Overall in 2010 -- Has only broken 50 pts one time. He's a 0.5 pt./game player
• Ryan Strome - 5th OA in 2011 -- only hit 20 goals 1 time. Has never hit 60 pts.
• Griffin Reinhart - 4th OA in 2012 -- played only 37 games. Bust.
• Michael Dal Colle - 5th OA in 2014 -- bust
• Josh Ho Sang - 28th OA in 2014 -- was ranked as high as 13 in some polls. bust
• Kieffer Bellows - 19th OA in 2016 -- ranked pretty highly. Bust.
• Oliver Wahlstrom - 11th OA in 2018 -- still young, but hasn't shown anything so far

Theories?

 

[Brookbank]

Who?

Har har... so funny. I took 2 years away from hockey and still knew who he is talking about

 

[lawrence]

there were signs when he got cut from The Wjc team as 19 year old.

 

[JTToilinginToronto]

Couldn't skate.

Probably the only two worst skaters I've seen for NYI were Griffin Reinhart and Mitch Fritz.

 

[Jorma Heart]

Dal Colle was rated as a top 5 pick. 2014 was an insanely poor draft in hindsight. It’s funny because at the time, it wasn’t considered to be weak at all.

It’s also funny because they called the 2017 draft the weakest draft since 99 yet it produced Heiskanen, Pettersson, Makar, Robertson, Oettinger, Hischier, Suzuki and 10+ more good players.

I remember that 2014 was considered a weak draft at the time, but clearly it wasn't. After those twho bona fide superstars there's Ekblad, Reinhart, Nylander, Ehlers, Fiala, Vrana, Larkin, Tuch, Sanheim, DeAngelo, Schmaltz, Kapanen, McCann, Kempe, etc. and thats just the first round! There's players like Point, Arvidsson and Montour after the first. It was very deep draft with superstar potential.

 

[John Mandalorian]

Maybe Florida can make room for him? It's interesting to see that Florida has 3 of the top 10 picks from that draft on their roster currently.

 

[BurgoShark]

Had a toolbox but no tools?

 

[ORRFForever]

There are so many busts over the years, why single out Michael Dal Colle?

 

[Breakfast of Champs]

This raises a question about whether the Isles are having some trouble developing prospects, or just missing on their picks. A few examples of guys that have severely underwhelmed:

• Nino Neidereiter - 5th Overall in 2010 -- Has only broken 50 pts one time. He's a 0.5 pt./game player
• Ryan Strome - 5th OA in 2011 -- only hit 20 goals 1 time. Has never hit 60 pts.
• Griffin Reinhart - 4th OA in 2012 -- played only 37 games. Bust.
• Michael Dal Colle - 5th OA in 2014 -- bust
• Josh Ho Sang - 28th OA in 2014 -- was ranked as high as 13 in some polls. bust
• Kieffer Bellows - 19th OA in 2016 -- ranked pretty highly. Bust.
• Oliver Wahlstrom - 11th OA in 2018 -- still young, but hasn't shown anything so far

Theories?

Nino and strome are par for the course, 5th OA isn't likely to produce a superstar that often and both of them became solid nhlers, which is pretty good, although they didn't accomplish it for the isles. Neither of them ever had realistic superstar potential, they turned out ok. Nino has six 20 goal seasons and Strome has become a 50 pt player, at 5th you can hope to get a star but its much more likely you end up with something like that

Ho sang was a massive boom /bust pick and many people projected him as a star or a guy who would be in Europe in 5 years - the latter were right.

The others are misses, I don't think it's the isles system, you just miss on picks sometimes. Look at NYR or mtl , their track records are just as bad or worse for picking 1st rounders, nyr had 4 top 10 picks in a row including a very hyped #1 OA that didn't live up , it could be situation, on the players, or a combination of both which is likely. They haven't been "good" at drafting but they've been worse at managing assets imo

 

[MS]

Too slow, no urgency in his game, no intensity or physicality. Just a big soft skill guy who wasn't skilled enough to overcome his deficit in all those other areas of the game.


One of those cases of a guy who had just enough of those elements to let his skill shine through at the Jrs level...but simply did not have "another gear" to elevate those things to at the NHL level. Fell below the threshold of functional ability in those areas to be any kind of effective player.

This is about it.

Poor skater (and somehow his poor skating seemed to slip past scouts) and not talented enough or high-motor enough to make up for it. Size/shot saw him get overrated.

With the benefit of hindsight, you can see that he was probably a similar prospect to Peter Holland (#15, 2009) who managed to get higher up the draft rankings than Holland did because he scored a ton of PP points on a lethal Oshawa PP with Cassels/Laughton.

Dal Colle was rated as a top 5 pick. 2014 was an insanely poor draft in hindsight. It’s funny because at the time, it wasn’t considered to be weak at all.

It’s also funny because they called the 2017 draft the weakest draft since 99 yet it produced Heiskanen, Pettersson, Makar, Robertson, Oettinger, Hischier, Suzuki and 10+ more good players.

2014 has turned out to be a terrific draft.

 

[saintunspecified]

Ehlers was my guy from a NYI standpoint. MDC, kid had the right attitude, just go swallowed up I guess as he progressed through the ranks.

Yeah. This was not hindsight. I was also for Ehlers. There was probably a bigger group on the NYI boards who were for Nylander. But Dal Colle's lack of explosion, which was evident from the jr videos for all to see, was his problem in the NHL.

I was hoping Dal Colle would have a career like Bailey - slow starting & frustrating, until he found a way to make his game work. But it became clear that Dal Colle didn't have either the skill or vision Bailey has.

There was nothing wrong with his drive either - the kid obviously worked/reworked his game to try to become a bottom-6 player. But besides making the generally correct reads, he didn't add anything.

 

[wej20]

Nino and strome are par for the course, 5th OA isn't likely to produce a superstar that often and both of them became solid nhlers, which is pretty good, although they didn't accomplish it for the isles. Neither of them ever had realistic superstar potential, they turned out ok. Nino has six 20 goal seasons and Strome has become a 50 pt player, at 5th you can hope to get a star but its much more likely you end up with something like that

Ho sang was a massive boom /bust pick and many people projected him as a star or a guy who would be in Europe in 5 years - the latter were right.

The others are misses, I don't think it's the isles system, you just miss on picks sometimes. Look at NYR or mtl , their track records are just as bad or worse for picking 1st rounders, nyr had 4 top 10 picks in a row including a very hyped #1 OA that didn't live up , it could be situation, on the players, or a combination of both which is likely. They haven't been "good" at drafting but they've been worse at managing assets imo

It is impressive that Nino turned into anything given how badly he was developed by the Isles.

 

[lanceuppercut75]

There's some effective NYI scouting!

Ekblad and Reinhart were the top guys, with Ekblad probably going #1. Draisaitl by the draft was considered a top 4 guy, but he wasn't earlier in the year. Bennett was always a top 4 guy all year basically. Dal Colle was the consensus #5 guy... not as good as the top 4 but better than everyone else. Then after that, Nylander Ehlers and Ritchie were the next tier. So there was a top 8. Virtanen and Fleury were reaches that allowed Nylander Ehlers Ritchie to drop to 8 9 10.

A lot of teams, maybe even most would probably have drafted Dal Colle with pick 5. Still, you have a point. If their scouting was better, and a lot of other teams liked Dal Colle at 5, they should have simply traded down.

 

[CaptainUgly]

Saying he is worse then the average person on this site is a huge stretch. Colton Orr could’ve walked around players in any beer league

Colton Orr had a hard time skating with AAA guys in Winnipeg in the off season… not they best comparable but I get your point

 

[WarriorofTime]

There are so many busts over the years, why single out Michael Dal Colle?

No real reason, was going over that Draft that night for something and then he came to mind after having slipped from the mind a while ago... just seemed to be a guy that looked safe at the time and I checked through his profile and noticed there was never a big injury or something else that occurred that would naturally explain it, so wanted to reach out for insights from people that followed him with a more attentive eye.

 

[CraigBillington]

Because his last name has a ‘space’ in it. No decent NHL player has ever had that.

Martin St Louis says hi

 

[SwedishFire]

This raises a question about whether the Isles are having some trouble developing prospects, or just missing on their picks. A few examples of guys that have severely underwhelmed:

• Nino Neidereiter - 5th Overall in 2010 -- Has only broken 50 pts one time. He's a 0.5 pt./game player
• Ryan Strome - 5th OA in 2011 -- only hit 20 goals 1 time. Has never hit 60 pts.
• Griffin Reinhart - 4th OA in 2012 -- played only 37 games. Bust.
• Michael Dal Colle - 5th OA in 2014 -- bust
• Josh Ho Sang - 28th OA in 2014 -- was ranked as high as 13 in some polls. bust
• Kieffer Bellows - 19th OA in 2016 -- ranked pretty highly. Bust.
• Oliver Wahlstrom - 11th OA in 2018 -- still young, but hasn't shown anything so far

Theories?

Bad scouting on most. Strome and Niederreiter isnt bad, they are Ok. But not 5 overalls. Niederreiter looked incredible at jwc.

 

[53or8]

Draft rankings are more like a toss at the dart board.

 

[Strait2thecup]

This raises a question about whether the Isles are having some trouble developing prospects, or just missing on their picks. A few examples of guys that have severely underwhelmed:

• Nino Neidereiter - 5th Overall in 2010 -- Has only broken 50 pts one time. He's a 0.5 pt./game player
• Ryan Strome - 5th OA in 2011 -- only hit 20 goals 1 time. Has never hit 60 pts.
• Griffin Reinhart - 4th OA in 2012 -- played only 37 games. Bust.
• Michael Dal Colle - 5th OA in 2014 -- bust
• Josh Ho Sang - 28th OA in 2014 -- was ranked as high as 13 in some polls. bust
• Kieffer Bellows - 19th OA in 2016 -- ranked pretty highly. Bust.
• Oliver Wahlstrom - 11th OA in 2018 -- still young, but hasn't shown anything so far

Theories?

The writing was on the wall for the snipers (dal colle, bellows wahlstom) before they even got to the organization. Bellows and whalstrom absolutely floundered in college and dal colle didn’t even put up a point a game before being traded in the OHL in his D+2 season. The thing all of these guys have in common (except ho sang) is they are putrid skaters, and NYI didn’t put enough emphasis on skating when scouting is my observation