GrandWazoo
Well-known member
They picked the BPA in the draft at the time, there is little question about it.
He actually had a decent season post draft, both in the KHL and the NHL.
But then they go the horrible Dallas Eakins as head coach and the next 2 seasons were disaster for both the Oilers and Yakupov. He was all over the lineup and never really got the coaching that was so critical at this stage of his development. And Yakupov needed a lot of work, he was a great goal scorer, but his defensive game was poor and his overall understanding of the game needed tuning. Once he lost his goal scoring bearings, he became mostly useless.
They should have brought him slowly and help him develop both his offensive skills and rounding up his defensive game in the minors instead of rushing him in the NHL. Maybe with a different coach than Eakins it could have worked but by the time he was 23, he was ruined. A goal scorer that shoots 7% and can't play defense is not really useful to any team.
