Personally, I prefer the shotgun approach with Dmen. Draft a lot of them a little lower down in the draft, and see what happens. If you try to be surgical about it, and put all your hope in one guy at the top, you may be disappointed more than you like. I do like that Buffalo has drafted so many good Dmen, and now can be patient to see which ones will pan out instead of having to put all the pressure on one guy.
Ideally you also try to target Dmen in their early 20s when trading, and piggy back onto a few years of development time. That and try to find the Gios and Krugs of the world that weren't even drafted. It seems like almost all the star forwards in this league are drafted very high, but there are quite a few Dmen that achieve success in unorthodox ways (look at the best Dmen in the league and it's quite amazing how many were drafted way below their value, if drafted at all). That's why you need that shotgun! They are a little too unpredictable.
Agree wholeheartedly. Look at the 2008 draft. Yes, Doughty went 2nd and lived up to billing. But Bogosian at 3 hasn't and Schenn at 5 is bad in hindsight. Karlsson went 15th.
Go for the sure thing forward with our first and if we can get another mid round first then go for a d (Honka).
I doubt it, MacT is all talk. They're too scared to even trade a decent player, you think they would trade a 2nd overall? A high draft pick is pretty much an Edmonton Stanley Cup to those fans now.
I agree ... I think a lot of the pre season talk about moving their first overall pick this year was based on the team moving up the standings and that pick being 12th or 16th overall, not 2nd.
Since they went backwards I doubt that pick is in play.
I agree ... I think a lot of the pre season talk about moving their first overall pick this year was based on the team moving up the standings and that pick being 12th or 16th overall, not 2nd.
Since they went backwards I doubt that pick is in play.
They would be foolish not to put that pick in play imo, sure they could get Ekblad but they are supposed to be 5 years into their rebuild, do they want to wait longer to be competitive again or do they want to start being competitive now? If they can get a 2-3 dman and maybe a couple decent filler players why not? Think that is what they need. Although they did just give away a 3-4 dman to us didn't they?
Yes the cap is going up but by drafting high for 5-6 or more years such as they may be doing will not help them long run as they will have to fit these high contracts in some how. They have already tied up a huge amount of money in some fragile kids, leaves little left for the decent sandpaper guys they need to toughen up their squad imo.
I wanted to go back and take a look to see how the Top dman picked each years compares to the rest of their defensive draft class. I looked at a period from 2000-2010 (2000 seemed like a nice place to start, and beyond 2010 seems too raw).
I looked at top point getters, highest amount of games played, and listed some other notable Dmen picked that year. Obviously points and games played are just one aspect of the game for a defenseman, but I feel like they give a good idea to how much a player can contribute to their team. If I screwed up some numbers or left anyone out, my apologies!
Spoiler!
2000
Top Drafted D: Rostislav Klesla (4th overall) 159 points in 655 games
Leader in Points: Lubomir Visnovsky (118th overall)
Leader in Games: Nick Shultz (33rd overall)
Other Notable D: Brooks Orpik (18), JM Liles (159th), Niklas Kronwall (29th), Paul Martin (62nd), Ron Hainsey (13), Kurtis Foster (40), Anton Volchenkov (21), Andreas Lilja (54)
Conclusion: Klesla has been a solid serviceable defenseman, but I don't think has every really lived up to potential considering where he was picked.
2001
Top Drafted D: Mike Komisarek (7th overall) 77 points in 532 games)
Leader in Points: Marek Zidlicky (176th overall)
Leader in Games: Dan Hamhuis (12th overall)
Other Notable D: Christian Erhoff (106), Fedor Tyutin (40), Kevin Bieksa (151), Dennis Seindenberg (172), Carlo Colaiacovo (17), Johnny Oduya (221)
Conclusion: The best dmen of this drafted were picked fairly late in the draft.
2002
Top Drafted D: Jay Bouwmeester (3rd overall) 334 points in 806 games
Leader in Points: Duncan Keith (54th overall)
Leader in Games: Bowumeester
Other Notable D: Joni Pitkanen (4), Ryan Whitney (5), Trevor Daley (43), Dennis Wideman (241), Keith Ballard (11),
Conclusion: While I think most would easily take Keith, Bouwmeester has had a solid career, and it wasn't the strongest draft overall.
2003
Top Drafted D: Ryan Suter (299 points in 635 games)
Leader in Points: Dion Phaneuf (!) 9th overall
Leader in Games: Brent Seabrook 14th overall
Other notable D: Shea Weber (49th), Brent Burns (20th), Matt Carle (47th), Braydon Coburn (8th), Dustin Byfuglien (245), Tobias Enstrom (239), Jan Hejda (106)
Conclusion: Lots of solid Dmen, but arguably the best of them (Weber) was picked in the 2nd round.
2004
Top Drafted D: Cam Barker - 3rd overall - (96 pts in 310 games)
Leader in Points: Mark Streit - 262nd overall - 9th round!
Leader in Points: Andrej Meszaros - 23rd overall
Other notable D: Mike Green, Alex Edler, Chris Campoli, Alex Goligoski
Conclusion: Not an amazing draft, but the best dman was picked in the 9th round.
2005
Top Drafted D: Jack Johnson - 3rd overall (168 pts to date).
Leader in Points: Keith Yandle (105th)
Leader in Games: Marc-Edouard Vlasic (35)
Other notable D: Kris Letang (62nd), Marc Staal (12th), Matt Niskanen (28), Kris Russel (67)
Conclusion: Not a terrible strong draft for dmen, but again the best guys were picked out of the top.
2006
Top Drafted D: Erik Johhson - 1st overall (151 pts to date).
Leader in Points: Erik Johhson
Leader in Games: Erik Johhson
Other notable D: Andy MacDonald (160), Jamie McBain (63)
Conclusion: Erik Johnson was the best dman to pick this draft….but with Backstrom, Toews, Kessel, Giroux, Lucic, J. Staal, Okposo, Stewart, Berglund…there were lots of great forwards available after him that make it a pretty questionable pick overall.
2007
Top Drafted D: Thomas Hickey - 4th overall (15 pts to date and 84 games played).
Leader in Points: P.K Subban - 43rd overall (2nd round) (147 pts)
Leader in Games Played: Karl Altzner 5th overall (305 games played).
Other notable D: Kevin Shatenkirk (14), Ryan McDonagh (12),
Conclusion: Hickey was clearly a bust….but some decent options outside of the Top 10.
2008
Top Drafted D: Drew Doughty - 2nd overall (207 points and 408 games played)
Leader in Points: Doughty
Leader in Games Played: Doughty
Other notable D: Erik Karlsson (15), Alex Pietrangelo (4), Tyler Myers (12), Michael Del Zotto (20), John Carlson (27), Zach Bogosian (3), Luke Schenn (5), Vyacheslav Voynov (32), Tarvis Hamonic (53), Roman Josi (38), Jake Gardiner (17), T.J Brodie (114), Luca Sbisa (19).
Conclusion: What a great year for Dmen! The best one was picked at the top, but Karlsson and Pietrangelo are right up there too…and a ton of other solid guys behind them.
2009
Top Drafted D: Victor Hedman - 2nd overall (112pts and 295 games played)
Leader in Points: Victor Hedman
Leader in Games Played: Victor Hedman
Other notable D: Oliver Ekman-Larson (6), Dmitri Kulikov (14), Nick Leddy (16).
Conclusion: The top Dman picked leads in Games and Points…but there are many GMs' who would rather have Ekman-Larson (although he was picked pretty high too at 6).
2010
Top Drafted D: Erik Gudbranson - 3rd overall (19 points and 142 games played)
Leader in Points: Cam Fowler (12th)
Leader in Games Played: Cam Fowler
Other notable D: Justin Faulk (37th), Radko Gudas (66)
Conclusion: Hard to draw any conclusions this early, but Cam Fowler is making a strong showing to be the best amongst his peers.
Some observations I reached:
• Only 3 out of the 11 Top-dmen picked lead their defensive-class in Points.. I would imagine most people would hope for better than 27% chance of being the best point getter.
• 4 out of 11 (36%) lead in Games-played compared to their class. The three points leaders (Doughty, Hedman, and Erik Johnson), plus Bouwmeester who is also the current iron-man holder.
• 6 out of the 11 Top point-getters (54%) in each draft class were picked outside of the 1st round. 4 (36%) of them were picked outside the 4th round. This suggests that finding high scoring dmen is pretty damn unpredictable.
• 7 out of the 11 (63%) top Dmen in games played were picked in the 1st round...suggesting that a lot of solid dmen are picked in the first round, but they are usually not the top guy picked!
I'd be curious to see how this compares for Centers and Wingers, but I've already wasted an hour of the work day doing this, so I will leave that a mystery for now.
Last edited by Table 5; 01-09-2014 at 04:33 PM.
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This only jumped out at me because of the hype the iron man streak gets, but Bouwmeester leads his draft class in games played. He has 806 GP, which is 60 more than anyone else in the draft. Keith has 653 games played, which is 5th overall and second among d-men in that draft.
Even if you add in playoff games, Keith is still well below Bouwmeester.
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Need to keep stocking up on those Sieloffs and Wotherspoons. It's the 2nd-mid round defensive picks that seem to pan out more as top guys.
D-men seem to be half way between forwards and goalies in the unpredictability scale.
With forwards, usually the best ones are at the top end of the first round with a few in the second and usually just role players beyond.
Goalies, just throw a dart at the board blindfolded.
But D-men, seldom is the best defenseman right at the top. They however are usually located somewhere in the top 3-4 rounds somewhere. Because of their unpredictability, you never know who might become something great. If you need defensemen, you basically have to do what the Sabres did and just keep going back to the well.
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Awesome analysis Table 5! Picking a defenseman high in the draft gets you a good D-man but rarely the best D-man. It would be great to see this done for goalies and forwards just to confirm what we think we know anecdotally.
Nice one Table 5. All those great defencemen you listed and I think we drafted 2 of them . For shame...
I would take literally any of those defencemen listed in that analysis - especially if it meant I didn't have to watch Chris Butler cough up the puck anymore.
We need some solid young D or developing prospects on the blue line and I don't care how we acquire them. If Ekblad falls to us & he appears to be BPA, so be it. If we can unearth a gem D outside the first round, that's perfect. If we can acquire some D in the long-awaited UFA fire sale at the deadline, even better. I don't care, as long as the situation is addressed. The sooner the better.
Out of curiosity I looked at the top 15 NHL teams last night.
I looked at their top 2 Dmen by TOI/G and their top 2 centers by points.
Interestingly enough 43% of those defencemen were not drafted or signed into the NHL by their current team (i.e. they were traded for or were signed as a veteran free agent).
Compare that to 23% of centers who were not were not drafted or signed into the NHL by their current team.
Seems to suggest that minute eating defencemen are easier to obtain via trade or free agency than top 2 centers.
This was a quick 10 min analysis and doesn't take into account quality of the dmen or centres. I will take a look at wingers later.
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The only problem I see with the analysis Table 5 is that points aren't really the primary concern of most defensemen and there's certainly a lot more to playing defense than getting points.
Defencemen can be hard to quantify and there's very few stats that help.
Todd Cordell @ToddCordell 13m
One underrated aspect of Aaron Ekblad's game: zone entries. Very good at carrying the puck into the Ozone. Leads to a lot of chances.
Retweeted by Craig Button
Out of curiosity I looked at the top 15 NHL teams last night.
I looked at their top 2 Dmen by TOI/G and their top 2 centers by points.
Interestingly enough 43% of those defencemen were not drafted or signed into the NHL by their current team (i.e. they were traded for or were signed as a veteran free agent).
Compare that to 23% of centers who were not were not drafted or signed into the NHL by their current team.
Seems to suggest that minute eating defencemen are easier to obtain via trade or free agency than top 2 centers.
This was a quick 10 min analysis and doesn't take into account quality of the dmen or centres. I will take a look at wingers later.
I agree you take the number one center over the defenceman. But I don't see Reinhart, or any other player in the upcoming draft, as a number one center.
I agree you take the number one center over the defenceman. But I don't see Reinhart, or any other player in the upcoming draft, as a number one center.
Reinhart is the closest thing if he is not it.
Besides most of the reports have Reinhart and Ekblad almost neck and neck. If Reinhart isn't a #1 center, most likely Ekblad isn't a #1 dman.
Last edited by sureLoss; 01-09-2014 at 09:33 PM.
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Craig Button thinks Buffalo has nothing in their system at centre ice as good as Reinhart. So clearly he thinks Reinhart is a step up from Grigorenko and Girgensons
Similarly he also thinks Ekblad is a step up from guys like Myers, Zadorov and Ristolainen.
The only problem I see with the analysis Table 5 is that points aren't really the primary concern of most defensemen and there's certainly a lot more to playing defense than getting points.
Defencemen can be hard to quantify and there's very few stats that help.
Yeah, that's definitely the issue with defenseman, it's much harder to quantify their value.
However I would suggest that with the top-end guys, points are much more important than with your average Dman. Being able to quarterback the PP, or be a playmaker that gets the rush started (which often leads to assists), or just getting goals period, is an important part of being considered an elite Dman. Some guys (ie. Subban) win Norris trophies based purely on their offensive production, but even the guys who we consider rock-solid all around great Dmen (ie. Lidstrom, Keith, Weber) still have higher-than-average offensive numbers.
The top end guys are easier to measure in my opinion... where it becomes much harder is when you have someone like Robyn Regehr who has non-existent point totals, but so many other intangibles.
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