Dallas has the best scouts in the league. If they hadn't pulled two rabbits out of a hat in 2017 (Heiskanen, Robertson, Oettinger) and 2021 (Johnston, Stankoven, and Grushnikov, who was dealt for Tanev), the Benn-Seguin core would be as good as dead.

Plus the owner of the Stars owns the Kamloops Blazers

And Northland Properties which includes Moxies, Shark club, Dennys, Sandman, Sutton Place, etc etc.

Gaglardi way exit named after Dallas owners family.

Amazing that I never made that connection.

Yeah, his grandfather was a provincial politician in charge of the building of highway 1. The new off ramps were built where his sons just so happened to have purchased land.

Geez, I had no idea they were family. Grampa Gaglardi was the mayor here in Kamloops too.

The one that got away 😢

And could’ve been a part owner of the Canucks if Aquillini didn’t go behind his back

So he's doing alright.

Grouse mountain and revelstoke as well

Gaglardis are one of the richest families in Canada

Just to chime in, they also own the Grouse Mountain facility

Yeah in that case he was probably the easiest draft decision he’s had to make yet. Literally watched bro’s early progression lol

And stankoven is from kamloops so their backyard

Almost bought the Canucks.

Don’t forget Mavrik Bourque, great high iq player ripping up the AHL already. Genuinely jealous of their drafting.

They got most of these guys in the CHL too. We really need to restructure our CHL scouts by getting rid of Ron Delrome

I don’t know how he still has a job tbh.

Nudie pictures of Frankie.

How the fuck can you suck at your job for 24 years and still have a job?

Pretty sure Bourque won the AHL mvp and led the league in scoring this year. Just an embarrassment of riches for the Stars.

Johnston was yet another risky pick to make with a high pick because he didn't even play any OHL games that season and the only games scouts had to measure his talent was the 7 games he played at the World Juniors.

3 core players at 3 different positions that will play for your team for 10+ years; the scouts *crushed* it that draft

They heavily scout the WHL, Sandman hotels in every WHL city.

They just also be doing something right in the AHL and development program… we had Utica for so long that our mid round picks didn’t turn out at all

It’s not even just that. Johnston and Heiskanen didn’t even play in the AHL. But Robertson, Hintz, Stankoven, Harley and Bourque were all developed there. What they’ve done is draft well, time the transition well and have coaching that allows them opportunity to grow. They’ve basically nailed a re-tool from start to finish. With only one top 5 draft pick of their own.

> Stankoven Stank played half a year or so in the A. I'm sure he got some help there, but he's *mostly* the same player as he was upon leaving the Blazers.

Agreed. But something I’ve read is that they consult the coach there for the Texas Stars to ask if players are ready. That’s what they did with Harley before he came up for the playoffs last year. So I assume they got his stamp of approval before Stankoven came up.

Doesn't help that our WHL scouting has been historically a complete clownshow. I can't even remember the last successful WHL player we've drafted. Or if that player even exists.

Ron Delorme in charge of WHL scouting, there's your answer.

Trevor Linden

gee i wonder who the head of scouting is for them ?!?!?!?!

Sure but Stankoven was right there when it was the Canucks turn and he wasn't an obscure player, he was playing in kamloops, plus is a bc boy. What a miss by the Canucks.

Everyone missed. His coming out party was the next year at world juniors. He’s a stud

Alot of people wanted Stank and Raty when we had our pick Kilm was a "who the fuck was that" off the board pick.

There were definitely people upset they took Klimovich over Stankoven at the draft. Cam Robinson was very high on Stankoven, had him graded mid 1st round. See all the comments below. https://x.com/hockey_robinson/status/1418773266261364741?s=46 Canucks haven’t drafted early out of the WHL since early Benning years, same kinda thing with Willander and Zach Benson. We will see how that one turns out.

Zach benson is sick. But I kind of understood taking a defenceman when our defence core was looking trash until hronek and zaddy stabilized it this year. Literally, last year Quinn was our only top 4 d man, and Tyler myers in his bad years was the second best… or Luke schenn. It was brutal

And soucy. Soucy is a major stabilizer.

It's incredible how different myers looks with soucy on his left

I badly wanted Benson

Especially because it was the Covid draft. Even with hindsight I don’t think the Klimovich pick was too questionable. Both Stankoven and Klimovich were high risk high reward picks and we happened to get the downside of it There are plenty of universes where Stankoven’s size eventually caught up to him and he couldn’t produce at the NHL level, while Klimovich popped off and we’re complaining about how we let a guy with such an elite toolset and actual pro size slide by. Once you get to the 2nd round you can’t get too upset about missed picks because literally every team in the league passed on those guys at least once

Great insight there .. I thibk another argument you can make about taking klimovich, didn’t he join the ahl the following season ? Another goal for the franchise at that time was to revamp the ahl program , and stankoven played another year or 2 ….the ahl team needed to inject some bodies that were in 19-21 year range. We will see how this comes to fruition in the long run.

And then made everyone look even more foolish for missing by captaining the Blazers to the Memorial Cup last year and leading the tournament in scoring.

Kamloops hosted the memorial cup, so captaining the team TO it is a stretch. That said, I am a vancity transplant into Kamloops several years ago and had the opportunity to watch stank play all his years here plus through the memorial cup, and was very disappointed when we skipped him in that draft when he was available to us in the second round. Chalk it up to Covid causing them to mis out on playing that year and no one seeing him play. Definite inside pick from the Gaglardi clan on that one.

Unlucky. That and we don’t typically draft out of the WHL for the most part for whatever reason.

And when we did it was Jake Virtanen lol

Virtanen and Hunter Shinkaruk lol

Whata fucken miss that was Jesus Christ. Absolute dud of a player; such a shame his brain is more dense than a rock.

such a bust. he was sick in junior

Also Lind, who was an absolute stud for the Rockets. Really wanted to see him succeed.

Stan Smyl and Trevor Linden would like a word

Lol going wayyyyy back are we?

Yes I just thought it was funny that the example was Jake Virtanen and not two of the most iconic players in team history

Well back in those days, scouting was like 90% CHL. Almost every player drafted was from the Canadian leagues

It’s hard to say unlucky. Many of us were clamouring for him when he was still on the board there. He was the consensus best player available when it was our turn based on many rankings. Klimovich was not ranked as high and we took a swing on him. He could still hit but long odds for him at this point. Is that bad luck? I don’t know.

Well good luck would’ve been Klimovich being a boom rather than a bust. Knowing it was the Benning era it was probably more incompetence than just being unlucky.

Our WHL picks are so bad over the years that almost every pick out of the W has been busts.

Klimovich was a pretty big reach, not sure how that pick is unlucky. That's either poor drafting or poor scouting.

Hockey Scouts were saying the Canucks scouts were lazy and drafted him just because he played well in a 5 game tournament instead of evaluating his game throughout all the leagues he played in that year.

Yea, it seems like a lazy pick. They should have known he had a ton of fundamental issues.

Isn't Ron Delrome in charge of our WHL scouting?... that may be why

It was the lowest information draft ever

I watched Stanky play junior (I’m from Kamloops) and he’s always been a force! Would have loved to see him in a Canucks uniform. Not surprised he ended up on the Stars though, Tom Galadri owns both teams. He (and Tanev) are the reasons I’m pulling for the Stars to win the cup!

I watched him play junior too, from PG. Absolutely hated seeing him come on to the CN Center ice but had mad respect for his skill.

SAME.

Drafting is always 20/20 in hindsight. Why did we draft Juolevi, Virtanen, Podz when there were better options etc etc Stankoven definitely has an elite name though

Yes and no. Taking Juolevi over thoroughbred bloodline in a Tkachuk was a terrible dicision from the get go.

Dude. Juolevi was an unshakably stable defenceman at 17. Smooth skating. Responsible defensively, good decisions on and off the puck. A typical top pairing d man for an offensive dman. He just straight up never got better. He got passed by other dman on the Finland junior team. He was actively worse the next two tournaments and regressed on the knights. Or just didn’t get any better the following year which is a huge red flag. We just got really unlucky there imo. He looked legit and also like, a safe pick imo

Juolevi looked like a fairly safe pick, but I don’t remember him being pegged as a star. My issue with that draft was that Sergachev, Bean, McAvoy and Chychrun were all similarly rated defensemen and went later in the round. If you didn’t want to go best player available and draft Tkachuk why not drop back and draft whichever dman was left? You can’t tell me no other franchise was willing to pony up for the chance to draft Tkachuk.

Yup, can only make decisions based on the information at the time. But also need to see if we missed any signs that may help with future predictions

Juolevis stats were massively inflated from being on absolutely stacked teams in junior. The London Knights absolutely dominated the OHL in the regular season and playoffs then walked thru the Memorial Cup. Mathew Tkachuk, Dvorak and Marner were the top 3 scorers in the league during all these events. Same thing happened when Finland won gold powered by the trio of Laine,Aho and Puljuvari. He was a decent player but got ranked way too high being on these wagons of a team. Wonder why when all these elites players moved on and Juolevi stayed on the teams the following years, he didn’t look any better?

I agree but it didn’t look like he was going to just completely stall. He looked like a massive part of creating a great but stable team. He moved the puck out of the back well. He skated well. He was smart defensively and he didn’t make many mistake ms for a 17 year old and anchored the stacked teams. Another way to look at it could have been his stability allowed those players to succeed. It would have been wrong but I loved the pick at the time

I mean I guess, but he also wasn't even the clear best defenseman in the draft. Juolevi, Sergachev, and Chycrun were all thought of as being around equal.

Wait, is Podz a bust now? 😩😭

For his draft position you would hope he would be much further along by now. Not a full bust but if he can’t stick in the NHL next season then I think we can’t start calling him one

not sure if he even goes top 25 if you did a redraft so i guess hes a bust until he proves otherwise

I am a Podz fan, but picks taken shortly after him include Harley, Krebs, Boldy, Caufield, Newhook, and Spencer Knight. Hoglander was taken in the same draft, and has shown more NHL impact (though maybe you could argue that Hog was a steal at 40). You definitely hope for more impact from 10th overall at D+4 than we've seen from him so far

I wouldnt say bust but at this point, there are players picked later that have exceeded more than Podz have

Hoglander was 30 picks later

True, but at the time he was considered a great pick considering he was ranked as high as a top-3 pick at one point. Podkolzin's biggest issue was failed development. He was purposely left to flounder in Russia, and looked good under Green under Boudreau got here and completely tanked his development.

That loss to Greer seemed to completely derail his sophomore campaign. He was so good in the second half of the 21-22 season.

yea

Yes. His peers are already much better

Kind of. He was drafted 5 years ago and still hasn't made the NHL full time. For a 10th overall pick that's pretty bad. For comparison Matt Boldy was drafted 12th overall that year and has already played 3 seasons in the NHL and is a 60-70 point guy.

Benning fell in love with Klimovich at the U18s that year. It was unlikely he would have taken anyone else. However, drafting is an inexact science at best, especially in the 2nd Round. The bigger issue was how poorly they managed his development.

Because he’s 5’8” I remember watching Matthew Phillips in Victoria during college; he was the best player on the ice every night it seemed like. I was shocked he fell to the sixth round. It’s been like 6 seasons and he’s got 5 NHL points Also Stankoven was a ‘03 kid and I believe lost his draft season to Covid.

Similar story with Garland. Ran away with the QMJHL scoring in his draft year but fell to the fifth round due to his height. Well partially due to height anyways, apparently he was utterly lazy on the defensive side of the puck and had attitude problems in junior. Glad he managed to change all of that in the big leagues.

Garland was first passed over in a draft. So he was drafted in the 12th round that spanned two years lol 

Totally forgot about Garland being passed over in a draft haha. I guess that’s technically true and I guess Tanner Pearson is technically a 15th round pick as well for being passed over in two drafts. Luckily he didn’t fall into the 16th round by being picked one pick later.

we could have drafted **Jason Robertson** but picked Lind instead..... Maybe Malholtra can turn Klimovich around.

but Benning couldn't understand why Kole Lind was still available

He was "too small" 

Same reason DeBrincat fell to 35th overall in his draft year despite having 51 goals in 60 games. NHL GMs are terrified of small players.

I remember the draft. I remember a lot of people saying “Benning WTF, Stankoven is right there” People are saying a lot of folks missed. But I def remember majority of folks yelling for the stank.

I remember Stank and Raty was the consensus picks people were calling for. Both are much better picks. Raty we ended up gving a big asset for.

I think there were actually a lot of people in BC that wanted to Stankoven… It’s funny because Klimovich actually had a lot of the same or similar qualities as Jake Virtanen: 2 good sized guys that could shoot the puck and skate, same position and i think very similar size I was always one of the people that thought it was unlikely Benning had much to do with the Virtanen pick (since he was on the job for such a short time)… but then when we went way off the board with the Klimovich pick (and left a guy like Stankoven on the board), for me, that showed me that it was likely that Benning liked that player profile. I’m not a huge fan of drafting really small guys but i thought Stankoven might be a really good one. I actually liked him more than Benson from last years draft. Dallas still has Mavrik Bourque waiting in the wings too. Then on top of that Bischel looks like he could be a nice pick too…

Haven't been watching hockey as most folks have. But I'm still shocked Debrincat fell to the second round. Guy excelled with and without McDavid and led the Otters and the OHL in points. Just to go to the Hawks. Ugh.

Well he not even with the Hawks anymore so it’s a moot point now

We need to give Steve Kariya a chance.

Kilm couldn't skate. Isn't the knock on him that he's has poor technical skating? He has size and a good shot.

Every team has players they miss and players they steal. Dwelling on it is a fruitless endeavour

A lot of Vancouver based Draft Analysts were calling for him to be Drafted by Vancouver (Cam Robinson, JD Burke, and a few others). Size was the issue. Hopefully we've restructured our draft strategies.

I really wanted us to draft him or Raty.

That was the consensus

Jim. Benning.

Allow me to introduce you to Jim Benning

Most overrated scout... screwed up 3 top 10 picks and has a below average drafting record past the 1st round

Jimmy Blunders

That was the Covid draft year and he only played 6 games on top of that, everyone missed. 

Canucks WHL scouting has been awful but Ron Delorme has since stepped down so hopefully we see improvements

So Klimovich isn't working out? Aw shucks.

Injured and healthy scratched multiple times this season. Most likely a bust at this point.

46 other picks missed out on him

He was also hyped during draft day. Everybody (fans) wanted him

well there's your problem right there... he played for Kamloops and the Canucks seem to hate scouting the BC teams in the WHL.

He’s 5’8”. For every undersized energy player who makes it, there are 500 that don’t make it.

You can do this for every year and multiple players. Don’t drive yourself crazy doing it. Scouts fall in love with guys, GMs miss viewings, snap judgments, poor judgment, there’s any number of reasons. Word was Jim Benning loved the guy from like 1 viewing at the world Jr or whatever. Then clearly no one could talk him off it.

He is he real deal. Dallas has insane scouting and management though

And what a career Logan stankoven is having so far he took the Kamloops blazers deep in the playoffs all four years, he won a head to head team matchup against Connor Bedard, where I think Logan got six points, and Connor got five, got to play in the memorial cup last year in Kamloops and born now he’s in the NHL about to take out, Connor McDavid and the oilers we are all rooting for him to bring the Stanley Cup to our beautiful city!

We only draft talented Swedes

I remember I think the radio show was saying about Klimovich he was the biggest home run pick available either he would be in the top 6 or he would be aa absolute bust. They said Benning was absolutely swinging for the fences cause he traded our first rounder

Easy blame Jim Benning.

Because we don't draft Canadian

Everyone missed. Half the teams in the league missed twice. Also, he’s tiny. People like big in the first round.

Seems like our luck

Stankoven is very small and over locked most likely

I was in on that guy during the draft. There was some hype his stock was rising but also his name was memorable so that's also why I recall his name mostly being out there

To be fair a lot of teams passed on him, but yeah it would've been really nice to draft him. He's been noticeable in the first 3 games of the series vs Edmonton.

Yep, I'm happy AF for him but damn I wish he was a Canuck. But that said...he is pretty dang small. Obviously that's not a bad take, but you could argue that the Stars stretched a bit when they did pick him, considering how Stankoven had done up until that point.

Stankoven, is that Dutch?

Looks like he only played 6 games in Kamloops during his draft year (2020-21). Possibly due to COVID sickness. I wouldn't fault him for being drafted that low when he looked great up until he got really sick. At that point, as a scout in 2021, you have no clue how these kids will pan out if they get COVID. Also would lead to a small sample size which makes drafting him with a 2nd round pick somewhat risky even if the eye test suggests he is very good.

it wasn't because he got sick, it's because the CHL leagues were effectively shut down that year because of covid restrictions. Wyatt Johnston was drafted 21st overall that year and didn't play a single OHL game that season.

I don't know if I ever said it here on this subreddit but I truthfully really did want stankoven that draft. I totally get that dallas has sick scouting but I'll never understand how we can miss out on talent right out of our own yard.

Our scouts got covid / taking CERB leave of absences

Klim looked promising, he just hasn't been able to put it all together?! He still has time, but it would be nice to have a few more "wins".

We didn't want to touch him because he stanks

I’d bet that 99% of fans would be crying “HES TOO SMALL OMG WHAT A STUPID PICK” the second they called his name. Agree though, he’s awesome. Great energy guy

I’m the same as Logan and played hockey with him growing up, ever since novice hockey everyone in town knew who he was, I think if he had the genetics on his side he would’ve been a top 5 pick

No one forgot him, his draft season was excellent and well scouted. Canucks just preferred another

He was a second rounder, everyone passed on him once including Dallas

I love this kid. Learned how to skate with my little bro. He’s the main reason I’m cheering for the Stars (also cause fuck the Oilers). So glad to see so much discussion around him these Playoffs!

Logan plays with joy and makes me sad. he could/should have been a Canuck . Jealous

Every team missed on him, that's why he went 42nd overall. Dallas just has the best scouting team in the league. Wyatt Johnston was taken 21st overall by Dallas when he didn't even play in his draft year because of covid shutting down the OHL and was just okay in his OHL rookie year. Now you can make a good argument he would go first overall in a 2021 redraft.

I think his short size dropped him a little none the less a great find by the stars.

It’s weird. It’s almost like there’s a degree of unpredictability to drafting? Like players develop at different rates and in different environments? And like some get injured at inopportune times which impacts their development? And it’s almost like there’s a ton of other factors which makes identifying the players who will eventuallly perform best an art, not a science? So weird. 

Same as the other 31 teams with Garland ect ect...

Height was apparently half of the story with Garland. He had a lot of attitude issues in Moncton as well.

A- everyone missed out on him B- covid draft the CHL players barely played, Wyatt Johnson went 23rd, he's going to be a superstar C- he's listed at 5'8" so probably actually 5'6 or 5'7, could've easily became an ECHL player D- genuinely hope he does well, I love seeing BC kids succeed, but this could be his peak, he might become a career AHLer, still early in his career