Quote:
Originally Posted by edslunch
It's conventional wisdom that D and even moreso G are draft crap shoots. Are there any statistics to back that up? Not disagreeing just curious since there seem to be stats for everything these days
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I think crapshoot is a little strong of a word and it certainly isn't as spread out as it is with goalies. I think Center is the position that seems most tied to draft position (with obvious outliers) and wingers higher as well but even with defensemen for the most part you get the studs in the top two rounds.
Looking at Canada's defense for the upcoming Olympics you have: Doughty (2nd overall), Weber (2nd round), Pietrangelo (top 5), Keith (2nd round) as the locks with Seabrook (1st round), Bouwmeester (top 3), Staal (1st round), Subban (2nd round), Letang (3rd round), Hamhuis (1st round) and Boyle (undrafted) as the likely other guys on the team.
Even fringe guys on the team are mainly first and second rounders (Phaneuf, Green, Vlasic, Hamonic).
Looking at non-Canadian Defensemen that are considered top level guys by some Karlsson, Carlson, McDonough, Suter, the crappy American on St, Louis are all first rounders. Chara is obviously a big outlier being drafted later but even he was a 3rd round pick.
So yes it is as clear cut as C (where most of the best are top 5 picks) but it certainly is as random as goaltending and you most likely need to draft a guy in the first two rounds to hope to get a guy who is at elite level (competing for a spot on team Canada).