Draft Thoughts Follow-up

Just as a brief follow-up to my post on drafting Couturier over Hamilton in 2011, I was struck by an article on ESPN today.  Now the article is concerned with NFL drafting, so it's only loosely analogous, but there's one passage that stood out to me:

"...as a collective entity, the league does an acceptable job of putting guys in buckets.
When it comes to valuing draftees at the same position who are clumped together in a similar tier, I'm skeptical. I wonder whether the margin of error in analyzing those players is larger than any advantage a particular franchise has in scouting talent."
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9202430/bill-barnwell-inconsistency-nfl-draft

It's also worth considering that NFL drafts are for guys in their early 20s for very specialized roles.  If anything, scouting NFL draft picks should be much easier than NHL teams drafting 18-year olds.

I guess I just come back to the question of with what degree of confidence can any NHL team say two very closely ranked prospects is better than another?  Could the Flyers really conclude that Couturier is simply a better prospect, so forget about position?

I can't really slag on the Flyers too much, as they have generally done an excellent job with their first round picks, which are generally in the latter portions of the round.  But by trading away so many picks, and then inordinately drafting centers with the picks they do keep, clearly the Flyers have made their own bed with an empty cupboard of defensemen.