Nope. I didn’t say that. I say if the difference isn’t big or visible you are going for need between two or three who you think are BPA’s with no visible/obvious difference.
Every freaking one who said Sanderson isn’t top 10 pick last year, are eating shit right now. You didn’t answer my question about how can we pick between defenseman and forward without visible/obvious difference. But you choose Eklund because of his potential offensive impact. As I said, and I will repeat, you will never build contender or good playoff team. In your vision Tampa had to draft Duchene instead Hedman. You can answer “so what? They hadn’t to draft Stamkos year ago?” No. Difference was obvious. But you know what? 2ndOA doughty was two Stanley cup champion when Stamkos only try to dream about.
So you can never answer how can we understand what we must choose between forward and defenseman. But you know what? You need only six good defenseman to build great defensive line. And it helps to play in conference final or even Stanley cup final. Ask Montreal and islanders fans. If you will build the team in your way? You can ask about it some.. oilers fans. They drafted only one defenseman from 2007 to 2017 by their high pick. They drafted A LOT of BPA in your vision. And you know what? They svck. They svck so hard like no one before. Connor fockin McDaivad play there, best player of the generation. Two playoffs in six years. Leon Draisaitl - top-7 player in the last five years. In the year when oilers got Hall and played together with Eberle, #1OA Hopkins, #1OA Yakupov, with Patric Maroon who helped Devils to make a playoff, their goalie Talbot make 91.7%, backup goalie make 90.1%. And they didn’t make the fockin playoff! You know why? Because their defensive line svck.
Do you know why they are still svck for the team play with a couple of the greatest players of modern days? Because their defense is still svcks.
I could even agree with you. Eklund is very interesting and promising prospect. But when Devils have Hughes, Hischier, Yegor, Janne, Zacha and Bratt, Foote, Holtz and Mercer in their roster and prospect pull, and our future defensive line is looking like Smith and no one, may be Bahl may be not, may be “I will never become a really good defender” Severson may be not… your tactic for this draft svcks. Svcks so hard.
dissmiss!
(I want you to know that I have nothing personal against you. this is a great forum, and I'm sure you're a very nice person. my speech was intentionally emotional, although it is based on consistent logic and conclusions about modern successful teams. I just don't want our franchise not to develop, and it obviously needs a good defense for development as soon as possible, and without it the devils will not succeed. And I specifically added theatricality and rudeness)
Hedman was, statistically speaking, a complete monster. He scored 21 points (7 goals 14 points) in 41 games for MODO in the Elitserien (SHL) in his draft year.
At 18 he was in a five way tie for 13th among defensemen in scoring, with Hedman playing the fewest games among the dmen with 21 points.
And only 8 defensemen with more points scored at a higher rate. The players with more points and a higher scoring rate:
Victor Hedman, 18 (43GP 7G 14A 21 pt 0.49 pt/GP)
Marcus Ragnarsson, 37 (49GP 12G 25A 37 pt 0.76 pt/GP)
Pasi Puistola, 30 (54GP 6G 25A 31 pt 0.57 pt/GP)
Mikko Lehtonen, 30 (41GP 15G 15A 30 pt 0.73 pt/GP)
Kenny Jonsson, 34 (47GP 6G 24A 30 pt 0.64 pt/GP)
Teemu Aalto, 30 (47GP 11G 18A 29 pt 0.62 pt/GP)
Jaroslav Obsut, 32 (54GP 8G 21A 29 pt 0.54 pt/GP)
David Petrasek, 32 (52 GP 6G 22A 28 pt 0.54 pt/GP)
Per Gustafsson, 38 (49 GP 9G 18A 27 pt 0.55 pt/GP)
And Erik Karlsson, who was drafted in 2008, played 7 games in the Elitserien his draft year, scoring one goal. In 2008-09 in the Elitserien:
45 games 5G 5A 10 pt 0.22 pt/GP
God knows I don’t disagree with your point about drafting defensemen, I still complain about Shero under drafting defense (and we were in no way “set” at defense in terms of prospects at the time either).
And I’m really only pointing this out about Hedman not because of your post but because some people (not specifically this board, just in general) keep trying to force Hedman comparisons with Edvinsson and it’s not a very good comparison. Hedman wrecked the J20 SuperElit at 16 in 2006-07 and moved on to Elitserien at 17. Edvinsson is still splitting his time between leagues, he did get 10 SHL games (1A), 14 games in the HockeyAllsvenskan (5A) and 14 games in J20 (1G 5A).
Yes, they are tall and Swedish but Hedman was an offensive machine, to the point that people thought he was a borderline bust when he was only scoring 20-26 points in his first several NHL seasons. And, yes, that was genuinely disappointing considering what he did as a teenage prospect.
That worked out for Tampa in the end, his first contract after his ELC was dirt cheap 5 year/4m deal though.