This whole debate over Ritchie/Virtanen/Ehlers in my mind comes down to risk/reward In MY OPINION and that's all it is, opinion 1. After Ekblad/Reinhart/Dal Colle/ Bennett the risk of flop increases dramatically 2. I think all those 4 players should find a way to become NHL players and contribute in some form or another to warrant why they were taken in the top 5-6 3. Draisaitl is one of those potential hit or miss players alot of risk because of his skating but he did put up alot of points alone. 4. Then we get out of the standard top 5 and our fine mess 5. In that fine mess, I look at this like I look at decisions as a business person. If I am taking a risk, I need to try and quantify that risk and the resultant return. I should if I am smart, want to minimize risk and maximize return. 6. Where most people debating here differ is simply in their assessment of risk amongst the players, we all have differing views based off what we categorize as more important (size, speed, hands, hockey iq, intensity, etc etc). 7. Since I don't see any way to accurately determine if any person's view of assessing risk is better or not since, drafting is a crap shoot, a simple assumption would be these players we're debating are all equally risky given different definitions of that risk. 8. Then I look at return, I ask who has the highest ceiling as this is a little easier to determine, still fraught with assumptions on what is more valuable to us (but this is where I pointed to the issue that our prospect pool has alot of size but lacks the upside gamebreakers). If you look at return from this perspective, this leads me say Ehlers is the best bet. Again, this is because I am of the opinion that: A - We have alot of size in our prospect pool B - Size/Projects are easier to find later in the draft and elite skill is not. C - We only have Shinkruk in that group that MAY or MAY NOT become an elite game changer. Kassian a maybe if he keeps developing but in a different manner (not the key goal but someone who may contribute to it). Jensen and Horvat, great support players who will be key parts but unlikely they will be the 'go to guy' That's the way I look at things and this is why absent a move up to get Reinhart/Bennett or Dal Colle we should go with most TALENT available, where size isn't an impediment. And we should consider the group when making the decision and lets remember Ehlers' not a munchkin/schroeder either.