With Dylan James, he’s a guy who has a pretty solid trajectory. He jumped from the AJHL to the USHL and played his way onto the first line, putting up a point per game. I understand his second half was stronger than the first, and he was clutch in the postseason._sg_ wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 8:05 pm A lot of the picks have grown on me to some extent, possibly with the exception of James. I just don't see it (yet?), and I think in taking an older USHL prospect, you're already on your back foot in a way.
There have been a lot of things I like about the past few drafts, kinda some weird stuff too. I guess that's kind of the nature of the beast.
Sometimes it seems like nuance doesn't scale and that's how you end up with these simple, inefficient mantras driving draft strategy. If I'm being pessimistic, Yzerman's view of "we only want highly competitive players" is just as bad as Holland's view that if we get 2 players from each draft, it's mission accomplished.
Also if I'm being unfairly pessimistic, why do I get vibes that Draper would just be like, ok, understood, I'm just gonna pick the hardest worker now, here's Dylan James.
Statistically, getting two player per draft is a “success”, but I’m sure Draper would agree the quality of those players impacts how successful a draft was. Ideally, you can pull three or four out of a draft here and there.