Barrett Hayton has signed a new contract with the Arizona Coyotes.

i still dont understand why they took him over zadina

you will soon

Because he's a center. But you really shouldn't draft for need when you have a freaking top 5 pick.

I understand they want a center but they did this because they don't know about strome and i still think it was dumb to take him over zadina

Exactly. Why draft a C, when they’re not the best available, and you already have Stepan, Dvorak, Strome, and Galchenyuk who can all play C.

Coyotes should of traded down if they really wanted Hayton so bad. I've heard this guy compared to Bergeron before so it may not turn out horrible, but Zadina will easily have the better career. Also not sure why they're signing a guy who is a few years away from cracking the roster.

Chicago was thinking about taking Hayton with the 8th overall pick, and Chayka didn't want to lose him:

Chayka suspected there was another team that wanted him in the top 10. Pronman thinks it may have been the Blackhawks at No. 8. https://t.co/t7yzrcog73

— Craig Morgan (@craigsmorgan) June 23, 2018

John Chayka says they wanted Hayton and didn’t want to trade down in fear of losing him.

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) June 23, 2018

I also saw somewhere that Vancouver may have wanted to take Hayton at 7.

You a Coyotes fan?

Based on all this interest maybe Hayton is better than we all think, then again they could of at least swapped picks with Detroit.

The Canucks were not interested at all at taking a middle round center at 7OA when 4 higher ranked defensemen were available. Thank you MTL and ARI for taking the guy you wanted and allowing lower drafting teams to feel like we won the lottery.

Ragardless of the long term outcome....Zadina has significantly more trade value at the moment.

If they wanted a Center....they really should have just drafted Zadina & then traded him for a more established young Center that's 1-2 years older.

Here's a contrast of 3 Sault St. Marie players that were drafted this year:

5th Overall = Barrett Hayton (CENTER) = 0.93 Points Per Game
29th Overall = Rasmus Sandin (DEFENSE) = 0.88 Points Per Game
118th Overall = Mac Hollowell (DEFENSE) = 0.89 Points Per Game

I get that points arn't everything....but that's two D on his team that basically matched his points per game.....and they didn't go anywhere near 5th overall.

And he's 6th on his team in points & also around 6th in points per game.....so he wasn't carrying a bad team on his back.....his stats are probably padded a bit.

Why am I wrong?

There must be something more to him than meets the eye. These teams look at far more than just points and surely take into account how much a player benefits from playing with older better players. Maybe Hayton played far less ice time, took on defensive responsibilities, and even kill penalties. Hard to say going by the slim offering of junior stats available to the public. But ya, going strictly by what we know, seems like a really dumb pick for the Coyotes. I'll draw a quick comparison to Ryan McLeod, who the Oilers drafted at #40 (2nd rnd): not only is he a center with the close to the same size, he also had more points, more goals, and all this on a much younger team that has no where near the talent of the Greyhounds to help pad his stats. But again, their is probably some ice time and usage metrics that should be considered here.

Montreal made a good choice because Jesperi Kotkaniemi has a great and diverse skillset. He only needs to improve his skating and put on some weight for one year and he's ready to go.
Arizona, on the other hand, picked a center who is not elite in his position. He is only elite defensively, and he doesn't have the hockey sense to make a team better on it's own. Sault Ste Marie was amazing.
Morgan Frost, Boris Katchouk, Taylor Raddysh, Rasmus Sandin and Conor Timmins all have much more potential. Hayton needs to prove me wrong next season and have an 80 + point season.

In hindsight, ARI probably would have grabbed Kotkaniemi at 5th but when you have so many bluechip prospects ahead of him one should develop that selection then flip someone for the needed center or get a cheap one in free agency.