Quote:
Originally Posted by hockeyboy14
I completely agree.
The best player should be taken. However, as we have seen in the past, theirs too many veritables between using the best and a lot of talented players, end up in the later rounds because people pass up on them (i.e Bergeron).
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I think that happens
because some GMs draft for need, and I can cite three of Vancouver's recent first round picks as examples.
In 05, Nonis took Bourdon over Kopitar because apparently he felt the club
needed defensemen.
2004 may be the best example of all. The Canucks used their first round pick at the time to address an immediate need with goaltender Corey Schneider. While it was probably the best decision at the time, 2 years later the Canucks had Luongo and went from being one of the best offensive teams in the league to one of the worst. And the barb in the this sting? The next three players taken in that draft were Jeff Schultz, Mark Fistric and Mike Green, all of whom are defensemen playing a regular role with their respective NHL clubs. Meanwhile Bourdon is still only an injury call up on the Canucks.
The team now has a serious lacking at centre, which could have been fixed by drafting Kopitar, which would have been possible by taking any of three defensemen that went after Schneider, and with Kopitar here Nonis wouldn't have had the
need to draft a project centre out of high school in Patrick White and could have added a scoring winger directly to the lineup by taking David Perron. Would this team be better right now with Kopitar, Perron and Green instead of Schneider, Bourdon and White? You bet your ass it would.
All that mess because Nonis drafted for need, which in turn left better players available later on for other teams.