Bad pick considering all of the options that were still on the board. Still should be a future top 9 forward for them, though.
"Bad pick"
SMH.
No need for that now. Good for him, and good luck to him.
Every year there are late round guys that develop into good players. Be it Barzal or Pasta or whoever. Were the picks above them "Bad" picks too? At the time of those drafts no one would have thought so for a lot of them. So it's really hard to say here so no need to knock the kid. The only real guy here that people will spin wheels on is Raty. He had a huge drop, and maybe he should have gone much higher. If he pops and ends up a steal, everyone will look back at it and say, that was clearly a possibility and a really dumb mistake. All be it a lot of those same people were probably the same one's saying, his production dropped and he didn't deserve to be there, they will instantly turn into "experts" who knew if he explodes. But the rest of these guys, it's not so easy to come to that conclusion.
The talent is relatively even across, and they still have to keep developing.
No need for that now. Good for him, and good luck to him.
Every year there are late round guys that develop into good players. Be it Barzal or Pasta or whoever. Were the picks above them "Bad" picks too? At the time of those drafts no one would have thought so for a lot of them. So it's really hard to say here so no need to knock the kid. The only real guy here that people will spin wheels on is Raty. He had a huge drop, and maybe he should have gone much higher. If he pops and ends up a steal, everyone will look back at it and say, that was clearly a possibility and a really dumb mistake. All be it a lot of those same people were probably the same one's saying, his production dropped and he didn't deserve to be there, they will instantly turn into "experts" who knew if he explodes. But the rest of these guys, it's not so easy to come to that conclusion.
The talent is relatively even across, and they still have to keep developing.
Doesn't take a genius to know that any pick like this can end up as a great player and a steal of a pick.
Maybe a poor choice of words calling this a bad pick, but there were several other great forward options still on the board at the time that I would've personally preferred over Stillman. Dean, Pinelli, Stankoven, Tuomaala, Chibrikov, Robertsson, and Pastujov to name a few. Not a bad player at all, but in my opinion they just didn't get the pick value that they could have gotten at the time. No need to fret about it, though.