The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted an article in which she examines the “hits and misses” of the Red Wings’ amateur scouts between drafts 2008 and 2017:
6. F Tyler Bertuzzi
Age: 24.
Drafted: 58th, 2013
Has a special blend of skill and and in-your-face style; he’s effective around the net and in the corners. Coming off a 20-goal season, he ranks 30th in draft class with 71 points in 128 games.
7. D Filip Hronek
Age: 21.
Drafted: 53rd, 2016
This second-rounder (acquired from Arizona in Pavel Datsyuk contract trade) is emerging as top-four material with potential to be a significant factor offensively. Ranks fourth among defensemen in his draft class with 23 points in 46 games (everyone ahead of him has played at least 100 games).
St. James continues, and I’m a little confused as to what the arbitrary dates coincide with (they span both the Jim Nill/Joe Mcdonnell draft administration and the Tyler Wright administration), but her article’s interesting nonetheless.
I’d like to vote that this article isn’t interesting at all. It’s classic HSJ babble. There is no logic at all. So Cholowski and Rasmussen and Lindstrom are already considered draft “successes” whereas Sheahan is labelled as a failure. So what exactly is interesting or insightful about this article?
Additionally, Svechnikov has better career numbers per minute than Rasmussen but because he spent a year on IR, he’s a bust? GM used the right word: arbitrary.
He used arbitrary to refer to her date range, not her player assessment. In fact, he called the article interesting. I fail to see how. It’s total garbage. Her rationale for the misses is to look at the gems picked after, yet doesn’t do so with the successes. For example, Tatar was a nice player but I’d rather have Tyson Barrie, but HSJ doesn’t apply that same impossible criteria to her “hits” . Cholowski was a success, since she ignores DeBrincat picked later.