I don't care about a particular slot. Draftees around it (6-10) do about the same. I already posted those slot results before a few times.
My point is that there aren't a dozen first liners in any draft. There are 1-2 guys who can reasonably be projected as first liners. A few late picks will become surprises: Lundqvist, Savard, Messier. But after the first couple of picks, it's basically a crapshoot to get a star.
At 6-10 range, you can reliably get an average NHLer: a middle 6 forward or a mid-pair D. A minority of 6-10 draftees will bust outright, an even smaller minority will become stars, but the reasonable projection there is an average NHLer. If you get a quality second liner, you did well. As I said, if you look at hockeydb only 4 players drafted at #8 over the last 20 years scored more than 70 career goals, none over 140. Only 2 had a 600+ game career.
The difference between a #8 pick and a #28 pick is that #8 (or #6-10) can reasonably be relied upon to be an NHLer whereas most #28 picks are minor league busts.
This is not some big secret knowledge I discovered that nobody can confirm. Go look at hockeydb draftees by position. The idea that a 6-10 pick can be projected as a first liner is a wishful thinking fantasy by folks who refuse to look at basic research.
The belief that at #8 the Rangers will have a choice of multiple first line Fs and first pair D's is based on nothing. Just fans saying stuff. For that to happen, this draft would need to be the best draft ever by a long like. Go look up past drafts.
If you want to do a 20 year sample on players taken at #8 though--using 600 games as a criteria you should go back at least 8 years as the last 8 players taken would not have a chance to reach that mark simply because they wouldn't have had the opportunity to play that many NHL games--they'd be too young--but just so everyone knows what exact players you're talking about--the #8 picks are as follows:
2017--Casey Mittelstadt--
2016--Alexander Nylander
2015--Zach Werenski--off to a really good start on an NHL career--whether or not he scores 140 goals in his career from a defense position-- barring career ending injury I think he'll probably make 600 games given time.
2014--William Nylander--I suspect he'll surpass 140 goals and 600 NHL games barring a career ending injury anyway.
2013--Rasmus Ristolainen--doubt he'll get to 140 NHL goals as a defenseman but pretty sure he'll go past 600 NHL games barring career ending injury.
2012--Derrick Pouliot
2011--Sean Couturier--closing in on 500 NHL games already and I'd expect he'll score a lot more than 140 NHL goals.
2010--Alexander Burmistrov
Now we can use a 20 year sample of players who've had a chance to play 600 NHL games but we would have to go all the way back to the 1990 draft and it would look like this and you're right there's a lot of shit here but some of these years were really shitty draft years and teams draft a lot differently now than they did back in the early 90's:
2009--Scott Glennie--huge bust.
2008--Mikael Boedker 618gp--109g-179a-288pts-110pm
2007--Zach Hamill--another big bust.
2006--Peter Mueller--297gp-63g-97a-160pts-98pm
2005--Devin Setoguchi--516gp-131g-130a-261pts-177pm
2004--Alexandre Picard--bust.
2003--Braydon Coburn--850gp-44g-161a-205pts-656pm
2002--Pierre-Marc Bouchard 593gp-110g-246a-356pts-190pm
2001--Pascal Leclaire--173 games---he was a goalie so no goals.
2000--Nikita Alexeev--159gp-20g-17a-37pts-28pm or pretty much a bust.
1999--Taylor Pyatt--859gp-140g-140a-280pts-430pm
1998--Mark Bell--450gp-87g-95a-182pts-602pm
1997--Sergei Samsonov--888gp-235g-336a-571pts-602pm
1996--Jonathan Aitken--a bust.
1995--Terry Ryan--and another bust.
1994--Jason Wiemer--726gp-90g-112a-202pts-1420pm
1993--Niklas Sundstrom--750gp-117g-232a-349pts-256pm
1992--Brandon Convery--a bust
1991--Richard Matvichuk--796gp-39g-139a-178pts-624pm
1990--Derian Hatcher--1045gp-80g-251a-331pts-1581pm
All in all it's a pretty mixed bag when you're picking 8. Of recent years though--I'd bet that all of Mittelstadt, Werenski, William Nylander, Ristolainen and Couturier will have very good careers and possibly even Alex Nylander. That's 5/6 of the last 8 taken at No. 8 so that number has trended much better recently. The 20 year sample of players who could have reached 600 games yields at least one really excellent player Hatcher and one very good one--Samsonov and a few pretty good--Boedker, Coburn, Matvichuk and whatever anyone's particular feelings are on the likes of Bouchard, Pyatt, Setoguchi and Sundstrom. I would note that teams often in this time frame were looking for big and nasty and not always all that focused on overall hockey talent. Samsonov's 235 becomes the new goals scored threshold keeping in mind some years stay at home defensemen were picked at that spot and once a goalie.