yes and no...Would Rielly be considered the best defenseman in the draft?...Ekblad is assumed to be the best D-man if he's going 1-2 overall.
I also wonder where he would be rated overall.
For some reason a big factor in D-men going 1st OA is how NHL-ready they are, which I've never understood...
Victor Hedman was 2nd OA because of how NHL-ready he was, despite evidence his ceiling wasn't as high as other prospects, for example.
So part of Ekblad's appeal is that he can join the NHL roster sooner, which may be a big deal if you like rushing prospects to the NHL in a trial by fire system, but I've never seen evidence to support this as a good model for development.
Rielly fell to 5th OA because he tore his ACL and missed
significant time rehabbing in his draft year. Similarly, Galchenyuk was in the same boat, though his injury occurred later in the year once he'd already raised a lot of eyebrows.
Without injuries to both those players, it is highly probable that AG and MR would've been higher than where they went.
So if we are looking at Morgan Rielly as a draft eligible prospect who just missed almost the entire season rehabbing a pretty serious knee injury that has a lot of impact on his speed, which is a major attribute, if it doesn't come back 100%, then I think Rielly would be 5th through 10th, or possibly lower.
If we're looking at Morgan Rielly now, then it's pretty obvious he would belong, at the very least, in the top 3. Since even the 1st OA has a risk element, I would bet a lot of GMs would take a guy they KNEW was a sure bet over a POTENTIALLY better MAYBE.
So maybe that answers the question...