Yzerman SHOULD be judged on his draft record regardless and outside of the first round its been horrible. Thats partially why the rebuild has taken so long.
- wingz4life
Has it though? Has enough time passed to truly judge those kids yet? The GM is rarely the guy who's taking guys mid to late rounds in the draft, he is however the guy responsible for the group that does make those picks.
The 2019 draft was Yzerman's first draft, he was hired a month before it, roughly, obviously the Wings staff had a list before he got there. Taking Seider with the 6th overall pick was a homerun though. Franchise player.
Looking at 2020, Wallinder is an excellent prospect in my opinion, kid just turned 22 and he's a 6'4" mobile defenseman. His skating is tremendous, but big defensemen need time which the Wings have ALWAYS been about. Looking beyond Niederbach and Hanas, who's made a huge impact at the NHL level from that draft? No one, that's who. Those two are still developing.
2021 - Edvinsson looks like a great pick, another big, smooth-skating defenseman with outstanding puck handling ability, Cossa is a huge goaltender who's still delevoping, they always take more time. Looking into the second round Buium is another big defenseman who's still developing. Clearly they are targeting building a defense, which takes time. Again, look at the draft, no one has made an impact at the NHL level from that draft in the third round or beyond.
Kids from the 2022 and 2023 draft are still developing, just look at hockeydb, there's a lot of zero's from the second round and beyond on both of those. Too early to judge.
