In favor of drafting a defenseman in the first round:
1. Development time. Defensemen typically take longer to develop than forwards, peak later than forwards, and decline more slowly than forwards. See
Hockey metrics: Measuring when and why NHL players peak | CBC News. So all else being equal, if we're committed to a full rebuild, it might make sense to focus on drafting defensemen first, continue tanking for a few years, draft a few forwards, and then hit the ground running with our defensemen and forwards at the same time.
2. Team need.
3. Draft peculiarities. This draft has an unusually high number of defensemen (and comparatively few centers) in the top 10.
In favor of drafting a forward in the first round:
1. Statistical analysis. To be sure, it's harder to find good forwards
and defensemen in the later rounds. (See
Analyzing the value of NHL draft picks - Sportsnet.ca and
https://www.tsn.ca/playing-the-percentages-in-the-nhl-draft-1.206144.) But
comparatively speaking, it's
generally easier to find a good defenseman than a good forward in the later rounds (see
https://curve.carleton.ca/system/fi...n-miningnhldraftdataandanewvaluepickchart.pdf and the picture below).
View attachment 123873
This is especially true of European defensemen who are taken in the later rounds:
View attachment 123881
2. BPA. If the best player available is a forward, you can always trade for other needs later (ignoring any transactional friction / inefficiency). Or so the argument goes.
As a counter to this, though, the appeal of the BPA approach depends on how big the difference is between the two players we are considering. If our choice is between, say, a Connor McDavid and a Noah Hanifin, then sure, by all means, take the best player available, no matter what our team needs are. But if our choice is between someone like Aleksander Barkov and someone like Seth Jones, and we're not sure which player is better, perhaps team needs should play a bigger factor in the decision.