[driveway]

Do not want Seth Jones. DO NOT WANT. Drafting a defenseman in the top three is frequently a poor idea and drafting a defenseman 1st overall has not resulted in getting a franchise D in the last 20+ years. I'd argue that, of all the D selected first through 3rd since Chris Pronger (2nd overall in 1993) only Drew Doughty (2nd in 2008) has really lived up to the "franchise" tag, and there's still a whole bunch of time for Doughty to not live up to his potential.

Here's the list of defensemen drafted in the top three since 1990. Those who went 1st overall: Hamrlik, Berard, Phillips, Erik Johnson. None of those players have come close to being either the best player, or even the best defenseman in their draft.

DO NOT draft a defenseman with the 1st overall pick. Never, never, never.


1991- Scott Niedermayer (3)
1992- Roman Hamrlk (1)
1993- Chris Pronger (2)
1994- Ed Jovanovski (1), Oleg Tverdovsky (2)
1995- Bryan Berard (1), Wade Redden (2), Aki-Petteri Berg (3)
1996- Chris Phillips (1), Andrei Zyuzin (2)
1998- Brad Stuart (3)
2002- Jay Bouwmeester (3)
2004- Cam Barker (3)
2005- Jack Johnson (3)
2006- Erik Johnson (1)
2008- Drew Doughty (2), Zach Bogosian (3)
2009- Victor Hedman (2)
2010- Erik Gudbranson (3)

The only way I'd accept Seth Jones is if we end up with the 4th or 5th pick and he's still on the board, or if we somehow manage to trade up and get two in the top four or five.