Quote:
Originally Posted by Caged Great
The only reason why I have Ekblad 3rd, has little to do with Ekblad.
I am not a huge fan of needless risk. Defensemen by in large are riskier picks in the top 5, so I bias toward the forward if they are equivalent talents to the D-man.
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I know that is a strong belief around here and people will trot out history to support it but a lot of the highly taken defensemen in recent history have turned out just great (Doughty, Pietroangelo, Hedman, Ekman-Larsson). Even some more recent guys like Trouba and Rielly look like they have bright futures ahead of them. Even Erik Johnson has really turned his game around this year after having some injury problems earlier in his career and having a couple disappointing years. There are some spectacular busts at forwards in the top 5 too, let's not forget about them.
Take a look at 2008 for example (
http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl2008e.html) which was strong on defenseman and the defensemen taken in the entire first round look a lot better than the forwards overall. You'd be kicking yourself for turning some of them down based on past history. This kind of thing can change year to year so we shouldn't be too quick to generalize or assume that history will always repeat itself.
There is a reason why most scouting services have Ekblad #1 at the moment. Frankly this forward crop is underwhelming compared to previous years so it's possible that Ekblad is just the best player available. And he might be the best player available without being a franchise defenseman because none of the forwards may be franchise forwards either. This does look like a weaker draft.
I know people love to look backwards and then project history forward but mistakes can be made using that methodology. Let's evaluate Ekblad vs Reinhart vs Draisaitl vs Bennett on their own merits and not blame Ekblad for the disappointment that some defensemen in the past may have been.