2006 Draft

[WarriorOfGandhi]

I tried raising this question in the main forum, but (perhaps unsurprisingly) it turned into a trolling/prospect-overhyping fest. I figured I'd bring it here to see if I could get some intelligent discussion out of the more august posters on HF.

I was perusing some statistics on development of defensemen and happened upon the 2006 draft. I think it's soon enough to start judging the merits of the draft class, and there's plenty of fantastic talent in it; Toews, Backstrom, Giroux, Stewart, Staal, Kessel, Lucic, Kulemin, Okposo. Notice a trend? A bevy of great forwards...defensemen...not so much. It takes awhile longer for goalies to develop, so we'll give the netminders of the 06 class more slack. But the defensemen?

Erik Johnson looks good, though he's by no means setting the world on fire, and 6th round pick Andrew MacDonald has already registered 100 career NHL games. But those two, along with Theo Peckham, Jaime McBain, and Mike Weber are pretty much it. Maybe one or two hopefuls left, but it's not looking like anyone will be able to offer more than spot duty on a bottom pairing, if that. Quite frankly, that's absolutely pathetic.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl2006e.html

Total NHL games played by defensemen of that draft: 756. The 2007 and 2008 draft classes have already lapped that figure (the 08 draft did it in the first 11 picks). Hedman, OEL, Kulikov, and Leddy combine for nearly 400 from '09 alone. What happened here?

You can take the cop-out route and say it's still too soon to judge, but these players will be 23 or 24 this upcoming season, and if a player hasn't made the bigs during his prime years in the early/mid 20s he likely isn't going to be more than a fringe player for most of his career. Look at the 2005 draft -- it produced two Norris candidates in Letang and Yandle and they weren't even 1st rounders.

Was 2006 the worst? EJ could conceivably put it all together and become the franchise defender he had been touted as, but if he doesn't, it appears that the 06 draft will never even sniff so much as a sad-sack fifth place Norris pity vote.

Has there been a worse draft for blueliners?

Any thoughts?

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[Gobo]

Oilers picks were good for defenseman. Both Petry and Peckham will be/are NHL'ers and Petry looks to be a top-4 defenseman.

 

[Hardyvan123]

drafts go in cycles as the next 2 drafts are top heavy with Dmen.

It looks like another dozen or so Dmen might have some type of career from 06 but yes it could very well be the weakest class for Dmen in quite some time.

 

[MS]

I tried raising this question in the main forum, but (perhaps unsurprisingly) it turned into a trolling/prospect-overhyping fest. I figured I'd bring it here to see if I could get some intelligent discussion out of the more august posters on HF.



Any thoughts?

2006 was pretty bad for defenders, but 1999 was worse.

Branislav Mezei was the highest-drafted defender, Barrett Jackman is the best defender from that draft.

Only 4 defenders from 1999 went on to solid NHL careers (Jackman, Leopold, Boynton - who was a re-entry - and Doug Murray), as well was two older Euros in Frank Kaberle and Nicklas Havelid, who'd both been draft-eligible for years. Ugly, ugly group.

 

[God Bless Canada]

2005 was also a great year for defencemen. Canada built back-to-back WJC champions on their 87-born defencemen, and while some of those 87s haven't panned out like we thought they would (Parent and Russell), and we lost Bourdon, you're still looking at Staal, Franson and Letang for Canada, and J. Johnson for the U.S.

Entering the 2006 draft, we knew it would be top-heavy on forwards. E. Johnson was the top pick for a lot of scouts. The No. 2 defenceman was Ty Wishart. Not exactly J. Johnson and Marc Staal. Bobby Sanguenetti and Ivan Vishnievsky have yet to see his offence translate to the NHL. They have the ability to contribute offensively, but they might be guys who will have to look beyond the NHL if they want to be offensive defencemen. David Fischer and Dennis Persson have yet to play in the show. Erik Johnson and Matt Cornette are the only first round blue-liners from the 06 Draft who have exercised their rookie eligibility.

Drafts can be a funny thing. Sometimes they're strong. Sometimes they're weak. And sometimes they're loaded at one position. There were lots of fine young forwards to be had in 06. And it looks like it could be a really strong draft for goalies. But teams that were gunning for defencemen in 06 were disappointed.

 

[Stephen]

Also, 2008 seems to make up for the deficit of quality defensemen from 2006: Doughty, Pietrangelo, Bogosian, Schenn, Myers, Teubert, Karlsson, Sbisa, Del Zotto, Carlson, Hamonic, Voynov, Demers, etc. al