A few comments....
(1) No matter how many misses there were, in this cycle the Canucks drafted 3 core players and one just on the outside (Bieksa). The first two of those guys supplemented a competitive WCE team that was a piece or two away from being a legitimate Stanley Cup contender; then all 4 were key parts of the best performing Canucks teams -- a good 5 year crest that saw a SCF and 2 President's trophies. So yeah, lots of misses, and its nice to get average and decent NHL players in the draft, but really, anything lower than "good player(!)" can be acquired without terrible fuss by a good GM, which I think the AV years prove given that the prime age for those years would have been players drafted in this window (and a couple before and after). I think this shows that hitting well is far more important that missing less. Or to analogize, low average power hitters are better than high average punching Judys when it comes to team building.
(2) 1999 and 2000 were pretty bad drafts overall. It really puts in perspective how many misses there can be in a draft.
(3) Umberger wasn't a bad pick at 16 OA. He was a decent 2d line center caliber player for 6 or 7 years. The bad part for the Canucks wasn't the draft, it was what happened after when he refused to sign. Well, if memory serves, it started as the Canucks refusing to sign him, telling him to stay in college when he felt he was ready to come out. Then it was the battle of wills, Burkie and RJ, who was thought to be full of himself (or was that Burkie trying to build a narrative for why he was right to be stubborn with the player). Then Burkie immediately signs Umberger's teammate Kesler after the draft. Kes' (pre-draft) freshman year wasn't as productive on paper as Umberger's; and Umberger was Ohio State's top scorer every year he was there (this was RJ's third year).
I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back. RJ decides to sit out his senior year -- because he wants to be a pro and has decided he's not playing for the Canucks. Under the CBA in place at the time (or NCAA/NHL agreement), teams drafting an NCAA player had a full year after they left college to sign them. RJ decided he'd rather play video games -- fair enough....
He was traded after it was known he wasn't going to sign, during his video gaming year. If memory serves, Canucks would have received a sandwich pick between the 2d and 3d if they didn't trade him and then he signed with another team, and so that was really the value of the asset from their perspective. They used him because Bertuzzi cuddled Steve Moore and for whatever reason the NHL suspended Bert and the Canucks needed a wing badly. Umberger didn't sign with the Rangers, either, and signed with the Flyers as a FA.
Fun fact, the Flyers would trade Umberger and a 4th rounder to CBJ for a first and a third, taking advantage of RJ's very good playoff run that the Flyers correctly identified would be an outlier performance. That first was Luca Sbisa, 19th overall -- who would later be part of the Kesler deal.
(4) I think of Koltsov (Canucks first pick in 2002; 49th overall) as one that got away by virtue of misfortune. He spends a year in Manitoba; doesn't play poorly, and is developing as he should be. He's probably ready the next season for call ups when there are injuries, maybe he'd even have a shot at making the team in the Nolan Baumgartner spot. But that's the lockout season. Koltsov starts in Manitoba, but as the lockout grinds on, he decides to go back to Russia where he proceeds to have a very long and productive career in the KHL. For a few years, he's one of the best defensemen in that league, and he peaks as a player in that 5-6 year window where the Canucks were twin peaking. You have to wonder whether if the NHL had been playing games in 2004-2005, things might have been different. Blame Linden.
