Out of curiosity, I took a look at the top scorers in the league and where they were drafted.
Top 10:
1st overall: Crosby, Stamkos, Ovechkin, Kane
2nd overall: Eric Staal
3rd overall: Toews
5th overall: Kessel
45th overall: Ribeiro
Undrafted: St. Louis, Kunitz
Top 11-20:
1st: Tavares, Hall
4th: Ladd, Backstrom
7th: Voracek, Kadri
13th: Semin
19th: Getzlaf
22nd: Giroux
263rd: Moulson
top 21-30:
1st: Nash, Thornton
2nd: Daniel Sedin
3rd: Henrik Sedin, Duchene
5th: Wheeler
11th: Kopitar
51st: Stepan
171st: Datsyuk
264th: Parenteau
Now of course this is just one shortened season and points are not everything even for a forward, but basicly it seems that if you're looking for top 10 scoring talent, you pretty much need a top 5 pick. Funny thing though, the difference between 2-5 doesn't seem that big, but 1st overall seems vastly superior to the other picks. (My logic says that this has to be partly a statistical anomaly.)
Which actually makes me feel a little better about our recent winning streak, because it was never that likely that we'd end up with 1st overall.
(The undrafted and really low picks in forwards tend to be older guys, which I think is a clear indication that NHL scouting rarely misses out on talent anymore.)
On the other hand, all is not that grim, as when it comes to defensemen the story is vastly different.
Defensemen top 10 in points:
7th: Suter
9th: Phaneuf
29th: Kronwall
43rd: Subban
62nd: Letang
79th: Franson
156th: Campbell
162nd: Markov
250th: Timonen
262nd: Streit
Top 10 defensemen in TOI/G (who are not on the list above)
2nd: Doughty
3rd: Johnson
15th: Karlsson
49th: Weber
62nd: Martin
Undrafted: Girardi
Some other defensemen not on that list:
Seabrook: 14th
Chara: 56th
Keith: 54th
2/3 of those guys are not even first rounders. So while the downside of drafting defensemen is that they are very hard to predict, the upside is that pretty much every team has a fair chance of drafting a future star defenseman.
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