Entry Draft not an exact science

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

By Alan Adams | NHL.com columnist
June 16, 2004

If you had to sum up the NHL Entry Draft in two words, it would be risk and reward.

There are no sure things when you are projecting how teenagers will fare four to five years from now. And the reward comes if the prospects make it, and that is a big if.

Studies have shown that a majority of the players who will be taken in the 2004 Entry Draft in Raleigh, N.C., on June 26-27 will never taste the big-time at all.

- www.nhl.com/futures/2004draft/draft_science061604.html

[Habs_fan_in_LA]

M. said:

By Alan Adams | NHL.com columnist
June 16, 2004

If you had to sum up the NHL Entry Draft in two words, it would be risk and reward.

There are no sure things when you are projecting how teenagers will fare four to five years from now. And the reward comes if the prospects make it, and that is a big if.

Studies have shown that a majority of the players who will be taken in the 2004 Entry Draft in Raleigh, N.C., on June 26-27 will never taste the big-time at all.

- www.nhl.com/futures/2004draft/draft_science061604.html

Exactly right.

So when a draft choice makes it to the NHL and he plays regularly, and he becomes the leading scorer on the team, and is the leading scorer in +/- among the forwards, and he improves year after year, you don't trade him for a maybe and a bag of pucks.

Ribs and Dagenais have proved themselves.

[JFM]

They haven't proven themselves yet. They still haven't produced in the playoffs, and even more importantly their intensity and effort level left something to be desired (to put it mildly). Finally, Dagenais isn't exactly young or an improving player. The Habs are his 3rd crack at the NHL. Both players are temporary fixtures until better players displace them.