He blamed it on the coaching and management, but also accounted part of the failure to the lack of development and rushing of the Oilers’ first-round draft picks.
“A bunch of first-rounders are good only if they play on the team and are playing right. In Edmonton, this obviously didn’t happen…” – Ben Scrivens
When it comes to prominent first-round draft picks that have positively impacted the team, it starts wth Jordan Eberle (selected 22nd overall/2008 NHL Entry Draft), and goes on with Taylor Hall (first-overall, 2010), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (first-overall, 2011), Nail Yakupov (first-overall, 2012), Darnell Nurse (seventh-overall, 2013), Leon Draisaitl (third-overall, 2014) and of course, Connor McDavid (first-overall, 2015).