Quote:
Originally Posted by BK201
It wasn't couteriers skill level or style of play. There was loads of talk about consistency and compete level going into the draft and that is why he fell. I doubt if he was the BPA they would pass on him.
Plus a lot of people including myself think Zibanejad was as good or better pick than Couterier. He needs more developement but was also a year younger.He does things offensively I didn't see from Couterier but didn't watch Couts like crazy so maybe a grain of salt is needed. I still it's the better pick right now tbh but would probably have liked Hamilton in retrospect.
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Well, first off, we don't really know the reason. It's not like the team publicly discloses why they dislike a guy. They just say why they liked THEIR guy. But definitely compete level was part of it I'm sure. That and to a lesser extent, skating, are really the only two things that Zibanejad does better than Couturier (for the most part). The Sens basically opted for a high energy project with some scoring upside over a more polished and complete offensive player that was closer to being a finished product. It's a risky move, but you have to believe in your scouts.
And I'm not sure why you think "A lot of people" had Zibanejad ahead of Couturier. It was an off the board pick, not matter how you cut it. Of the 8 or 9 scouting services and rankings out there, absolutely none had Zibanejad ahead of Couturier. Not really even close. In fact, only one that I know of (PuckProspectus) had Z-bad ahead of Hamilton. This doesn't mean some individual scouts saw it that way, of course. Obviously the Sens brass saw it differently.
But in the end, it was the kind of Brian Lee move that made me cringe, albeit from a scouting staff everyone respects (so there is some faith there too). Going off the board in the top 10 of the 1st round though rarely works out. Couturier and Hamilton were by far and away the highest ranked guys on the board - both were supposed to be gone by our pick (Hamilton was iffy I guess), much like when Kopitar and Staal happened to fall to us the year we took Lee. Zibanejad wasn't even ranked in the top 10 by THN, ESPN, Redline and several others, while Couturier was ranked top 5 a half dozen different rankings (Zibanejad none).
I'm not totally crapping on the pick, because the jury is still out. But I have thought a few times about what keeping Couturier, Rundblad and a 2nd rounder would have resulted in, versus Z-bad and Turris. Will make for an interesting look back a few years down the road.