If Im remembering it correctly, Hughes was Detroits guy potentially to the extent that they told him they would pick him if he was available at 6. Zadina was not expected to be available at 6, and his drop from the top 5 made DET reconsider. I can see why they chose him, but time has not been kind to that decision.

One problem hes gonna be on the 4th line so thats not gonna help him with the scoring as I doubt he plays ahead of Bertuzzi, Raymond, and Kubalik

mid player gets mid money

Thought this would be a one year deal at that AAV, Stevie Y working his magic again

Ha, if Benning had scored in the 2016 1st round the team likely wouldn't have been able to draft Hughes, or Podkolzin down the line. When looking in retrospect at how a draft class turns out, there eventually has to be a trade off when projecting theoretical outcomes

Zadina won't play 4th line, he'll play 3rd line with Kubalik, likely centered by Suter. It will be Rasmussen who will drop down to the 4th line

Outperforming this new contract isn't very a high bar though

In general to me if we look losing out on Podkolzin but having someone like Ehlers, Nylander, Larkin, Vrana, Kempe,Tuch, Sanheim would have been better

True but then they would have had say Larkin in 2014, McAvoy in 2016, and who knows for 17, 18, 19 and beyond

No guarantee that Podkolzin pans out to be an inferior player to all of those guys. Yeah, if the scenario you suggested played out, who knows, but they most likely take inferior players in those drafts compared to whom the team actually took. Can say that with a good amount of confidence

Could be a huge value contract if Zadina gets his stuff together. If Zadina is a late bloomer, I could bet money that Tampa will pay an exorbitant price to get him.

this guy is such a bum cant do anything

That makes sense and matches my memory too! Lol

That's not mid money

True. $82.5mm/23 = $3.59mm

STEAL! Zadina is highly underrated

so much revisionist history going on in this thread... a lot of fans wanted Quinn, but Holland and Co. were known to be targeting Evan Bouchard at 6. Zadina was consistently ranked top 4 in the class, so when ARI and MTL chose to address positional needs (centres Hayton and Kotkaniemi respectively) over consensus best player available, Zadina fell into Hollands lap and was considered a steal.

Hindsight is always 2020 when drafting 18 year old prospects, right now Zadina is not the 6th best player to come out of the 2018 draft, but he's still young and has shown us glimpses of what his ceiling is. I'm giving him 2 years under Lalonde's system to figure out his game before I make any final judgement on what he'll be as a player.

So glad my memory holds true. He was the other European winger with svech then?

" I can see why they chose him, but time has not been kind to that decision."

correct