Originally Posted by Textcritic
Hhhmmmmmm. That doesn't seem right to me...
Anaheim: Ryan Getzlaf, drafted #15
Arizona: Derek Stepan, drafted #51
Buffalo: Jack Eichel, drafted #2
Boston: Patrice Bergeron, drafted #45
Calgary: Sean Monahan, drafted #6
Carolina: Sebastian Aho, drafted #35
Chicago: jonathan Toews, drafted #3
Colorado: Nathan MacKinnon, drafted #1
Columbus: Jean Luc Dubois, drafted #3
Dallas: Tyler Seguin, drafted #2
Detroit: Dylan Larkin, drafted #15
Edmonton: Connor McDavid, drafted #1
Florida: Sasha Barkov, drafted #2
Las Vegas: William Karlsson, drafted #53
LA: Anze Kopitar, drafted #11
Minnesota: Marcus Johansson, drafted #24
Montreal: Phillip Danault, drafted #26
Nashville: Ryan Johansen, drafted #4
New Jersey: Nico Hischier, drafted #1
NYI: Matthew Barzal, drafted #16
NYR: Mike Zibanejad, drafted #6
Ottawa: Colin White, drafted #22
Philadelphia: Sean Couturier, drafted #8
Pittsburgh: Sidney Crosby, drafted #1
San Jose: Logan Couture, drafted #9
St Louis: Ryan O'Reilly, drafted #33
Tampa: Brayden Point, drafted #79
Toronto: John Tavares, drafted #1
Vancouver: Elias Pettersson, drafted #5
Washington: Nicholas Backstrom, drafted #4
Winnipeg: Mark Scheiffele, drafted #7
There are eight centres on that list who were drafted in the top-two of their draft classes. Now, of course there is a lot of poor players on this list—players that no one would classify as a top-line centre. But there are still plenty of elite-level top centres in the mix who also did not even crack the top-five. Patrice Bergeron, Sebastian Aho, Ryan Getzlaf, Brayden Point, Matt Barzel, Ryan O'Reilly, Anze Kopitar, Mike Zibanejad, Sean Cotourier, Logan Couture, and Mark Scheifele are (or were) all elite-level top-line centres who were drafted outside of the top-five. It definitely can happen, and it would seem to happen with some frequency.
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