Taking a Defenceman 1st overall (or at least top 3)

Qvist

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Looking at the complete record, I don't know you can pick Chara ahead of Phillips. Chara was a non factor for so long.

No way. Not even close. Chara by a mile.

But that's really neither here nor there. The point is, Phillips was by far the best pick out of the players anyone would have even thought about for a potential 1st overall pick in that year. Hence, he was a good selection.
 

trentmccleary

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1- Jovo, Redden, and Bouw were either multiple all-stars or dominant (top 5 in their position) for consecutive years. While Hamrlik is a great player (1200 games), as a #1 pick he should have at least garnered Norris nods for a few years to merit his high selection.

6 x 40+ points seasons with a career high of 65 points as a very good two-way D-man with occasional physicality.

http://www.forecaster.ca/demos/hockey/player.cgi?1175

Played in NHL All-Star
2002-03, 1998-99, 1995-96
 

james30

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And Ottawa's downward spiral started when Ottawa got rid of Chara and Redden.
 
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zeus3007*

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Looking at the complete record, I don't know you can pick Chara ahead of Phillips. Chara was a non factor for so long.

Seriously? :shakehead Chara took a few years to develop, but is an elite d-man. Philips in his prime was a 2/3 shut down d-man.
 

Qvist

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I'm not sure that's entirely true, though I know that JR does prefer forwards in the first round when all other things are equal. That said, in 06 the team was debating Johnson and Marc Staal both as options at #3. 08, when it was assumed they were going to take a forward by everyone (including myself) it broke late that the guy they were really after at their spot was Teubert. LA snagged him right before they got the chance.

Biggest reason he's cited in the past is that he believes dmen take longer to be NHL ready then forwards more often then not. Not sure if that's true or not but it definitely reflects his drafting style.

Thanks, that's great info.
 

Qvist

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1- Jovo, Redden, and Bouw were either multiple all-stars or dominant (top 5 in their position) for consecutive years. While Hamrlik is a great player (1200 games), as a #1 pick he should have at least garnered Norris nods for a few years to merit his high selection.

Why is that? Hamrlik was arguably the best player in the top ten of that draft. His closest rivals - Yashin and Kasparaitis - weren't exactly major trophy material either.
 

Brodeur

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1996: Chris Phillips, Andrei Zyuzin

'96 was a weird draft. Even heading into the draft, scouts were very down on the class. Phillips more or less met his expectations of being a good stay at home guy. I definitely recall hearing one interview at the time where somebody described Phillips as "he'd be closer to #10 in a normal draft year."

Years later, Dean Lombardi would admit that he didn't want Zyuzin but didn't have the gall to go against the consensus at the time--He also mentioned this as a reason he did pick Thomas Hickey despite knowing it was off the board.

The forwards at the top of the draft in '96 didn't turn out that great either. Fellow top 10 picks Alex Volchkov, Boyd Devereaux, Erik Rasmussen didn't turn out much better.
 

txomisc

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'96 was a weird draft. Even heading into the draft, scouts were very down on the class. Phillips more or less met his expectations of being a good stay at home guy. I definitely recall hearing one interview at the time where somebody described Phillips as "he'd be closer to #10 in a normal draft year."

Years later, Dean Lombardi would admit that he didn't want Zyuzin but didn't have the gall to go against the consensus at the time--He also mentioned this as a reason he did pick Thomas Hickey despite knowing it was off the board.

The forwards at the top of the draft in '96 didn't turn out that great either. Fellow top 10 picks Alex Volchkov, Boyd Devereaux, Erik Rasmussen didn't turn out much better.
yeah it doesnt seem like very many players from that draft made a huge impact. Phillips has had a long career of very solid play.
 

BruinsBtn

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I would never draft a defenseman in the top 8-10. The real advantage of young players is that they can step in and provide value on cheap contracts. IMO, young defenseman often take 2-3 to develop and by that point you're paying full price.
 

Pyke*

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I would never draft a defenseman in the top 8-10. The real advantage of young players is that they can step in and provide value on cheap contracts. IMO, young defenseman often take 2-3 to develop and by that point you're paying full price.

???

Only if they're in the NHL during those 2 or 3 years. You can send them back to juniors, or to the AHL, or Elite Leagues in Europe.
 

Jesus Toews*

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Defensemen taken in the top 10 from 2000-2006:

Rostislav Klesla
Lars Jonsson
Mike Komisarek
Jay Bouwmeester
Joni Pitkanen
Ryan Whitney
Ryan Suter
Braydon Coburn
Dion Phaneuf
Cam Barker
Ladislav Smid
Boris Valabik
Jack Johnson
Brian Lee
Luc Bourdon (R.I.P.)
Erik Johnson

Suter is the only one who can even remotely be considered a "franchise" blueliner while the rest of the results are largely scattershot. The odds of a No. 1 center working out with a high selection are astronomically greater than a No. 1 defenseman taken that high.
 

ponder

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I do think that the easiest players to scout are forwards playing in the CHL. Why?

1) The skills that translate best for forwards are very visible. Great skating/shooting/puck handling. For dmen things like positioning, consistency, first pass, etc. are more important, but these skills stand out way less and are much harder to measure/predict

2) As for CHL vs. Europe, in Europe a player is never going to dominate, they're just going to look decent or not, because they're playing against men. But does that mean they'll be a solid role player, or a star? Tough to say. In the CHL guys are playing against their peers, and against tonnes of other players who will be drafted high. If a player is clearly dominating the best of his CHL peers at 17/18, chances are he'll still be dominating those same peers when he's in his 20s, and thus he'll be a very good NHLer


If a forward seems like the best player in the draft, chances are very good that you're looking at a future star. If a dman seems like the best player in the draft, there's more of a risk that you're just getting a good, but not great player. If a goalie seems like the best player in the draft, chances are you're about to make a terrible pick.

Purely by numbers you'd think that 2 forwards would go 1st overall for every 1 dman that goes 1st overall, but because dmen are harder to scout/project, that's not how it goes. Look at all the 1st overall picks since the year 2000:

2010 - Taylor Hall (forward)
2009 - John Tavares (forward)
2008 - Steven Stamkos (forward)
2007 - Patrick Kane (forward)
2006 - Erik Johnson (dman) <- Staal/Toews/Backstrom/Kessel went 2/3/4/5
2005 - Sidney Crosby (forward)
2004 - Alex Ovechkin (forward)
2003 - MAF (goalie) <-Eric Staal went 2nd
2002 - Rick Nash (forward)
2001 - Ilya Kovalchuk (forward)
2000 - Rick DiPietro (goalie) <- Heatley and Gaborik went 2/3

Dmen really have not been popular 1st overall picks since the mid 90s, and we haven't seen a 1st overall forward come close to busting since Patrik Stefan (that was an attrocious draft year, and even still the next 2 picks were both forwards, Daniel and Henrik Sedin, and they turned out great). Meanwhile all the non-forwards picked are basically looking like poor to awful choices vs. the forwards they were picked over.
 

Brodeur

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Defensemen taken in the top 10 from 2000-2006:

Rostislav Klesla
Lars Jonsson
Mike Komisarek
Jay Bouwmeester
Joni Pitkanen
Ryan Whitney
Ryan Suter
Braydon Coburn
Dion Phaneuf
Cam Barker
Ladislav Smid
Boris Valabik
Jack Johnson
Brian Lee
Luc Bourdon (R.I.P.)
Erik Johnson

Suter is the only one who can even remotely be considered a "franchise" blueliner while the rest of the results are largely scattershot. The odds of a No. 1 center working out with a high selection are astronomically greater than a No. 1 defenseman taken that high.

A lot of the guys taken #5-10 on that list weren't really projected to be #1 D. Plus it's easy to forget that the forwards taken #5-10 aren't exactly sure things to be top-6 scorers either.

Lars Jonsson drafted before Nikita Alexeev, Mikhail Yakubov, Pavel Vorobiev
Joni Pitkanen, Ryan Whitney drafted before Scottie Upshall, Joffrey Lupul
Ladislav Smid, Boris Valabik drafted before Lauri Tukonen and after Alex Picard

I don't think anybody thought Cam Barker was a franchise type D. At draft time, most thought he was the consensus #3 but a long ways off from Ovechkin/Malkin.
 

Ward Cornell

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I'm not sure that's entirely true, though I know that JR does prefer forwards in the first round when all other things are equal. That said, in 06 the team was debating Johnson and Marc Staal both as options at #3. 08, when it was assumed they were going to take a forward by everyone (including myself) it broke late that the guy they were really after at their spot was Teubert. LA snagged him right before they got the chance.

Biggest reason he's cited in the past is that he believes dmen take longer to be NHL ready then forwards more often then not. Not sure if that's true or not but it definitely reflects his drafting style.

Maybe JR's way of thinking is that a player drafted in the first round the expectations is that he'll be a starter on the team.
A d-man has a 1 in 7 chance while a forward has a 1 in 12 and a goalie 1 in 2.
Drafting a forward makes it easier for a GM to be "not so much a success but less a failure"!
 

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