The Flames didn’t have many draft picks at the 2017 draft, so they had to make them count.
Adam Ruzicka is one of the late round picks that could certainly be a high value payoff, though his projections are all over the place. When CanucksArmy looked at him for our Nation-wide prospect profiles, Ruzicka’s season had 90% or more similarity to players like Ron Francis (great), Todd Bertuzzi (pretty good), Bryan Bickell (okay), Scott Thornton (ehhh), and Mike Blunden and Nikita Alexeyev (who?).
That’s a pretty wide net to cast, but it echoes his entire draft year experience.