Leafs could have had Claude Giroux

[James_tanner123]

And other things that will make you sick

http://thehockeywriters.com/the-leaf...ve-had-giroux/

[dooley89]

"Now, I know this is ridiculous, because no one can realistically identify the best player available ever single year, especially the lower you pick."

[wendelclark17]

Meh, Hindsight is 20/20 ...... Giroux went 22nd (OMG, Pittsburgh could have taken him instead of Staal and had the best 1-2-3 centre punch in history!!), Karlsson went 15th (Chicago could have had him instead of Kyle Beach!! Imagine how good they could have been!!)

[rataylor22]

(Which while were on the topic, couldn’t they have easily matched the weak-ass package it took for Dallas to get Seguin?)

There is not one single package Toronto could have put together to acquire Seguin, from an in-division hated rival.

2006
The Leafs Select: Jiri Tlusty. He is mostly known for a series of hilarious naked photos, but he has become an effective player for the Hurricanes.

The Leafs Could Have Had: Claude Giroux. If you take away his rookie year, he’s a career point-per-game player, an annual scoring title threat and one of the best centres in hockey.

Or any of Riku Helenius, Ty Wishart, Mark mitera, David Fischer, Bob Sanguinetti, Dennis Persson, Leland Irving, Ivan Vishnevsky, Chris Summers, Matt Corrente. Fun fact. In 2006, Claude Giroux wasn't considered a top 10 talent by NHL central scouting. Jiri Tlusty was a top 3 European talent. And Tlusty is a 50-60 point player. That was a much better selection than anyone from 14-30 other than Giroux or Varlamov.

2007
The Leafs Select: Nobody. They had the 13th pick, but packaged it along with their second draft pick in exchange for Vesa Toskala and Mark Bell. San Jose promptly swapped those two picks for the 9th pick and took Logan Couture. It hurts to even type that.

The Leafs Could Have Had: Lets assume they kept their pick, and that Couture was already gone. Instead, the Leafs take Max Pacioretty. He scored 39 goals last year, one more than Phil Kessel’s career high.

Or Alex Plante, Colton Gillies, Alexei Cherepanov, Ian Cole, Logan MacMillan, Angelo Espositio, Riley Nash, Jonathan Blum, Patrick White, Nick Petrecky, Jim O'Brien, Nick Ross. Again, MaxPac was not even a top 10 rated talent in the draft. So it's unlikely he would have been taken this high, even if Toronto had their pick. Lars Eller or Kevin Shattenkirk would have been much more plausible names to suggest here.

2008
The Leafs Select: Luke Schenn. This was the Stamkos draft. It still makes me mad that the Lightning have had Lecavelier, Richards, St.Louis, Hedman, Stamkos and Drouin and won a Stanley Cup over the last decade. They are an expansion team. Comparing them to the Leafs will only make you cry.

The Leafs Could Have Had: Erik Karlsson

Or Nikita Filatov, Josh Bailey, Kyle Beach, Colten Teubert, Zach Boychuk. Chet Pickard, Luca Sbisa, Michael Del Zorro, Anton Gustafsson, Tyler Cuma, Mattais Tedenby, Greg Nemisz, Tyler Ennis, Viktor Tikhonov, Daultan Leveille, Thomas McCollum. I mean, at least for this year, props to you on picking someone who at least maybe could have gone in this draft spot for once. Then again, considering he went 15th, Karlsson probably wouldn't have been considered an option by any team picking 5th overall.

2009
The Leafs Select: Nazem Kadri. Great pick here for once. Kadri needs more ice time, and more PP time, but eventually Carlyle will be fired and he’ll get it.

The Leafs Could Have Have: No one. This was actually the best player available and time has not changed that. You could make a case for Ryan O’Reilly who was taken in the second round, but I think Kadri has a much higher ceiling than O’Reilly. Some will say O’Reilly is the better player, but Kadri’s never been on the kind of team he has been on, with players like Dushene. I remind you also that during the shortened season of 2013 Kadri put up a 75 point pace from the third line.

It's really super easy to spell Duchene correctly. Well like. For most people it is.

2011
The Leafs Select: They didn’t have their own pick here, obviously, and Boston used it to take Dougie Hamilton.

The Leafs Could Have Had: Without Kessel the Leafs would have finished lower and been able to make a an even better pick. They could have taken Sean Couturier at 8th.

They could have finished 4th and had Adam Larsson.

The real biggest issue is your complete lack of ability to grasp context and what these players were at the time they were drafted. I'm legitimately surprised that for your 2007 section you didn't mention they could have had Jamie Benn or P.K. Subban if they kept their pick. Context is important. Oh right, I forgot, it doesn't matter what you write as long as you get a ton of page clicks. Really hurt your own credibility as a writer and undoubtedly make it hard to advance in your field when you write things like this though.

[ericdaoust]

Leafs could have also had Riku Helenius who would have deflected some attention away from Justin Pogge.

[Magicstew]

I like to do that on some of my drafts, to go through it round by round to see if I picked the best player.
Like in my 2010 inaugeral draft where I took Jonathon Blum early in second round - instead of Corey Crawford, Nino Niederiter, Tomas Tatar, Ryan Johannssen, Logan Couture, Cam Fowler, Chris Krieder, Vladimir Tarasenko & Jeff Skinner.
Ouch, every time I think about it.
20/20 hindsight is always good.
Leafs aren't the only ones that would like to revisit some of their drafts.

[JagrBomb]

Good effort, but as a Leafs fan, I'm tired of these kinds of stories.
They've been beaten to death.

21 other teams passed on Giroux.
I expect this kind of stuff from Steve Simmons.
Don't be like Steve. You're better than him.

exactly, don't see the point of this article singling out the leafs when several teams made the same "mistake". leafs generally have had a poor draft record but you can't blame them for not having perfect hindsight by selecting the best player available.

[Dutch]

Who cares, if Giroux was on the leafs he likely would have been a 3d line checking center at best

HA HA HA HA

[Axeman33]

Every draft year there is always a "what might have been". It's always easy to look back and question picks.

[Mr. Guru]

It's funny how the author stops at the 2011 draft.

Any more recent and he might be the one who looks foolish.

[James_tanner123]

Most of you completely missed the point, which was that the it's next to impossible building a team the way the Leafs are trying to do it. The article was supposed to show that you'd have to be insanely lucky to pick where the Leafs picked and get a good team out of it thus demonstrating why they should be trying to get high picks as opposed to doing their classic 10th in the East finish. I could have been more clear I guess, though I do know a number of people who took it the right way.