I threw out the name John McFarland simply because he seems to fit the blueprint of the “enigma, gamble pick” that Holland was/is saddled as. McFarland’s size is close to Holland’s, I believe and both of them seem to have that “has all the pieces to the puzzle, but are they ever going to put it together” stigma to them.
Part of it is likely due to being highly touted at a young age, which for some players starts to affect the development and lowers the compete level.

As for Schroeder, I don’t follow much, other then what’s been shared by HF staff. He was close to being listed as an NCAA player “Trailing the Play” in HF’s recent “Leading the Rush” article. Any insight on his struggles?

Two quick things that sort of came to mind:

Size
The one thing with size, is usually, a forward who washes out/doesn’t develop into a scoring role can fill in lower in the lineup, perhaps as a defensive specialist or a checker. Witness guy’s like Rob Niedermayer. Now, it’s a lot easier for a guy who is 6-1 to become a checking forward then a guy who is 5-8 (witness Geoff Platt, Andrew Ebbett and Ryan Shannon). So if, in fact, the decision was purely down to Schroeder or Holland (which we’ll likely never know), maybe the Ducks chose to sacrifice a bit on the absolute top end to ensure they get a player who they think they can reasonably turn into, at the very least, an NHL player. But again, who is to say. Schroeder could have been below Palmeiri on Anaheim’s draft list for all we know as each team views things so differently.

The other thing I wanted to mention is the idea of preconceived notions. I guess this goes along with the Kool-Aid talk. I remember talking with a scout from Nashville a couple years ago, talking about 19 and 20-year-olds in the QMJHL. Usually, these guys, if they aren’t already drafted, likely aren’t going to be and maybe have a chance at a tryout or a contract after the fact. The Predators scout said that he always likes looking at them, to get fresh eyes on them (his reasoning was every team needed some guys to fill out their AHL team and things like that). He stated that one of the things that he sometimes saw happening was that knocks against a player would continue, merited or not, because that’s what was in the file. So there might be a weakness noted for a particular player in his draft year, that he doesn’t go into the corners first. As other scouts read the file and see the player, they’re just re-assuring that weakness, whether it’s as bad as it sounds or not, because they go to the game, see the player with that pre-conceived notion in their mind. I know I’m as a susceptible to it as anyone, when someone says something like “that goalie sure plays deep in his net” or “that defenseman sure gives the puck away a lot”, I start seeing it, even if I didn’t see it before, because now instead of looking at the player as a whole, I’m looking for that single flaw to appear. It’s one of those things. The next time (well in February) I see Kabanov play, I might end up focusing on his fiestiness and then all of the sudden, I’ll see it. Purely because I’m looking for it. It’s a dangerous thing to get caught up in and definitely something to try to be cognizant of.