Bosc wrote:
It sure as hell made sense and paid off. They've graduated a bunch of guys but also took advantage of their window. Shouldn't be any complaints, in my opinion.
Oh there's a legit complaint in that drafting and development were not handled properly in the formative years, and still isn't being handled well now. Well, the development part is doing good now, Greg Cronin and the Eagles are turning out legit NHL players, not impact players but players nonetheless, so no complaints there. The drafting part...still a very slow work in progress. And it's been way, way too slow to change.
Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have a team that absolutely NAILS their lottery picks and screws up everything else outside of that than a team that gets diamonds in the rough in the lower rounds but whiffs when the big pick comes up. Los Angeles is a prime example. They got plenty of good depth pieces but Alex Turcotte is a total bust, and it already looks like they may have made a mistake picking Byfield over Stutzle. Still, a good scouting department can find viable NHL players in those rounds, and they have not done so since 2009. Sakic/McFarland keeps changing the head scout (Pracey-->Hepple-->Klippenstein) but he should be taking a hammer to his entire amateur scouting staff. It's especially important now since the Avs will likely (hopefully) not be picking with a high first rounder, maybe NO first rounder, anytime soon.
Leave the pro scouts alone though, those guys are golden. They found Toews, Nichushkin, Lehkonen, Burakovsky, and now Rodrigues. Perfect fits, all of them.