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Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

This is a great point - grammar and spelling notwithstanding.

When was Lidstrom drafted? 3rd round. Chara? 3rd round.

I agree with you in that I wouldn't necessarily count on being able to sign #1 defenders in any given off-season (even though they do occasionally make it through - add Pronger, Niedermeyer, etc., to that list). However, few 'lottery-territory' defencemen ever live up to the hype of their draft, usually getting surpassed by lower round picks.

Defencemen are a crap-shoot it seems, better odds than goalies, but much less than forwards. I used to be in the 'time to draft a defencemen' boat as well, but as long as the Flames just continually draft BPA, you can always trade for defencemen, and hope you pick up a few diamonds in the rough in the 2nd rounds and lower.

Brodie is a 4th round pick, and he is developing quite nicely. In my opinion, he is a 'bonifide' top 4 on most teams, and could still develop into a pretty decent top pairing defencemen.

The first half of the first round are littered with defensive disappointments. Sure, if the Flames finish 5th or 6th overall, and if Ekblad is ranked first or second, and happens to fall to the Flames, I wouldn't be angry at all (opposite, actually), as long as the Flames really have him ahead of everyone else remaining on their list.

Successful teams have to draft for who they feel will be the best possible player down the road. It seems a lot murkier to distinguish who that is amongst defencemen. The great example is that Weber was selected in the second round by Nashville. However they had 3 second round picks, and picked another defencemen by the name of Kevin Klein ahead of Weber. There are so many such examples by so many different teams - even teams that have strong drafting reputations.

To add to this point.

On the Flames:

Giordano - undrafted.
Wideman - 241st overall
Brodie - 114th overall

On recent cup winners:
Keith - 54th
Seabrook - 14th
Oduya - 221st
Hjalmarsson - 108th
Chara - 56th
Seidenberg - 172nd
Ferrence - 208th
Letang - 62nd
Goligoski - 61st
Gonchar - 14th
Lidstrom - 53rd
Rafalski - undrafted
Kronwall - 29th

The only team that has a lot of high end d-picks are LA with Doughty and Johnson, both going top 3. Even then, Johnson was considered to be trending towards bust territory at one point. The overall point is that succesful teams rarely rely on top draft picks to draft future top 4 d-men.