RoyalDude wrote:Uncle dans leg wrote:
Gillis seems to be having some success attracting free agents and this could be to compensate for his poor draft position resulting from on ice success.
You mean Justin Schultz???
What free agents you talking about? The real difficult to sway B.C. born and raised and living Dan Hamhius and Jason Garrison? Real difficult signings those were. Regarding Schultz, Gillis and his arrogance thought that like Hamhius and Garrison, Schultz was a lock to sign here so his hard nosed sales pitch was outmatched by the enthusiastic sales pitch done by the Oilers.
regarding poor draft positioning, where in the order did Nonis draft Schneider, Edler, Raymond and Hansen??????
I'm having trouble understanding exactly what you are accusing Gillis of not doing but given the lack of actual hockey discussion of late, I welcome the conversation!
In my opinion, it's only now becoming apparent exactly how good or bad these draft picks end up and it has been just over 5 years of development to gauge their progress. This hinders giving a clear judgement of latter drafts. The shitty teams that end up needing their young players earlier sometimes end up ruining budding young stars by rushing them into scenarios that destroy confidence or set them up to accept failure. See Edmonton, Islanders, etc...
Gillis has been preaching development since taking the helm and has used the Detroit model of success as his blueprint to build around veterans and bring along their young guys once they are more physically prepared for playing in the NHL.
First off, Gillis started drafting in 2008 if I am correct.
His significant picks were (1) Hodgson and (2) Sauve. CoHo is a good pick and Sauve is looking to be a dud.
Ok...not great but CoHo could pan out as a top line centre so I wouldn't call that a total failure. definitely Gillis's weakest performance.
Significant picks of 2009- (1) Schroeder, (2) Rodin and (3) Connauton...(5) Andersson is still hanging in there but a longshot
I really like what I've seen in Connauton. No, he's not in the show just quite yet but I watch all the games from Chicago and can say this kid will be definitely challenging for a spot when they return. He has a cannon and is the teams best D-man on the farm. Excellent depth pick in my opinion.
Schroeder....well, I can't say he's going to make it as 5'9" centre. He has skill for sure but his size is a huge disadvantage.
Rodin is likely never going to make the NHL in my opinion.
Andersson has NHL size but doesn't appear to have anything that suggests to me a breakout at this stage of his development.
I think we have a gem in Connauton. Definitely. The rest are disappointing but not a write off just yet. Schroeder could pull a Martin St Louis and find his mojo a bit later. He is definitely strong for his size so it's possible for him to succeed. Remember he is still pretty young.
Significant pick of 2010- (4) Pat McNally and Alex Friesen
Still early but considering McNally was a 4th rounder and has apparently shown considerable promise, I won't judge yet. Same goes for Friesen. Too early
The draft years of 2011 and 2012 are far from being able to evaluate. Waay too early.
I figure you can only judge Gillis on his first year (2008) as the other years players are still developing. So can you really judge him on the results of 1 year? That's pretty damn tough dude. There is always a certain degree of luck in drafting, especially in the later rounds. From what I have seen of his drafting, I think he's probably done no worse or better than any other GM in the league.