I can across this tweet the other day and it confused me.
The Jackets most certainly have a weak prospect pool there is no denying that. Last season the system was graded by Corey Pronman as the
16th ranked system in the league. That felt like an appropriate ranking. The Jackets system currently lacks depth but it has two top prospects in Vitali Abramov and Alexandre Texier, both of whom were ranked as
top 50 prospects by Pronman at mid-season.
The Jackets system is light for two reasons neither of which has to do with the scouting department. The first is that their best young players are already major contributors in the NHL. Imagine if the Jackets system included Zach Werenski and Pierre-Luc Dubois. You would be talking about this as one of the best systems in the league.
Players from the 2015 draft just started breaking into the league this past season. Matt Barzal, Kyle Connor, Brock Boeser all had great rookie seasons and were all drafted in the same class as Werenski. Others like a Dyaln Strome, Denis Gurianov or Jakub Zboril have yet to fully break into the league and in the case of the latter two, would still be considered prospects for their organizations.
While Dubois was taking shifts on the Blue Jackets top line, his peers were in Buffalo playing at the World Juniors. Dubois graduated from prospect to NHL player very quickly. The system takes a hit for that, but that’s the goal of a prospect system, to produce NHL players.
The other is that in recent drafts the Jackets have lacked picks, and high picks. How much different is the appeal in the Jackets system if they have Kristian Vesalainen, the player Winnipeg picked at #24 last year with the Jackets pick. What if the Jackets didn’t have to give up their second round pick to Vancouver and picked Jonah Gadjovich, along with Texier in last year’s second round? The system looks a whole lot better and a whole lot deeper.
It’s not the scouting department’s fault the front office traded away so many picks. They did a good job with the limited resources that they had. They didn’t have a first this past draft and two years ago only had five picks. Even then the scouts were able to find a first round talent in Abramov in the third round and Calvin Thurkauf in the seventh in 2016. Jonathan Davidsson who was picked last year in the 6th round is already signed and looks like an intriguing prospect.
It hasn’t all been perfect. The 2014 and 2015 drafts standout as particularly poor. The 2014 draft thus far has yielded one part time NHL player in Sonny Milano. The 2015 draft, where the Jackets had nine picks including two firsts and two seconds has given the team two standout defencemen in Werenski and Markus Nutivaara and not much else. Still these drafts can be salvageable. If Elvis Merzlikins comes over and is as good as people think he can be, that makes the 2014 draft look a whole lot better. The Jackets were able to trade Keegan Kolesar who they drafted in 2015 for the pick that brought them Texier. Plus the organization remains high on Gabriel Carlsson and Vladislav Gavrikov.
Since Jarmo Kekalainen took over in 2013 the Jackets have made 36 draft picks, one more than would be expected. Of those 36 picks 10 have gone on to play at least one game in the NHL. The Jackets are one of just seven teams to have drafted 10 or more NHL players over that time frame. Their 27.8% success rate ranks ninth.
The Jackets definitely have a problem drafting defencemen but they just need to move away from the safe big body players and focus more on the Nutivaara types. Even with some misses the Jackets have been a very strong drafting team over the last five years. The Blue Jackets scouting department is far from perfect, but an overhaul is unnecessary, they have been one of the better departments in the league.
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