omg arty57 is that you
you could do this for every team in the league no team is a 100% in drafting . I mean how did every team from 3rd-14th in 2008 not take karlsson is everyone of those gm stupid or something. every team makes mistakes it just sucks that for a few years so many picks were traded for playoff help.
and there isn't anyway you can say that if we had drafted some of these players that they would have drafted in the same spot the next years. then again our gm seemed to know something what it came to drafting pettersson as he looks like he's going to be the best from that year.

Yeah it's not so much that our drafting isn't perfect, it's about how many times the player right next to us turned out to be far better than our pick. You mentioned Karlsson. Thirteen teams drafted before Ottawa took him 15th overall in that draft, and 16 didn't have the opportunity to draft him. The teams right before Ottawa (Chicago, Buffalo, LA, Vancouver, and Carolina) messed up worse than the rest because nobody thought he'd go in the top 8 and most didn't even get a shot. EK was expected to go mid to low first round so those gms are at fault. It's also worth mentioning that of those five teams, Chicago produced zero regular NHLers from that draft, LA drafted none as well, Vancouver's Hodgson was done after his second year, Carolina's efforts went dry, LA drafted terribly outside of Doughty who was an easy 2nd overall pick, and Buffalo was the only effective team but only developed two players and none outside the first round. So obviously those teams' GMs weren't great at drafting in the first place. Ottawa, in contrast, drafted five players in that draft who played in at least 150 NHL games and four who have played in at least 250.

If you had to pick, which player do you wish they had drafted from the above list? Erik Karlsson for me. He may have made a difference in the 2011 finals and beyond.

I'd have to agree. I'd like Pastrnak or Gaudreau now, but for 2011 EK would've changed a lot.

I think EK would work well with EP as well