Last year the hot topic was Taylor or Tyler, and in the end it didn’t become much of a debate amongst the Oiler brass, and after one NHL season it seems clear the Oilers made the right selection calling Hall instead of Seguin. Seguin will still likely turn out to be a very good player, I just don’t see him being as dynamic as Hall. This year the debate isn’t as much about individual players, but more about their position. Do you take a centre/forward like, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Gabriel Landeskog, Sean Couturier or Jonathon Huberdeau or do you opt for a defenceman like Adam Larsson.

From where I sit, it seems clear they should take a forward.

If Larsson was a clear cut favourite, and he isn’t, then you could make the argument that selecting him is the right decision, but history shows the Oilers would be much better off selecting a forward, and likely a centre, because of the current void of an elite one in the organization.

I’ve been pumping the likes of Nugent-Hopkins or Landeskog for months over Larsson based solely on their position. History shows that elite D-men get traded more often than elite centres, and even wingers, although we’ve seen more great wingers moved in the past twenty years than centres, so why not draft a forward and then trade for a D-men when his team inevitably gets impatient with his progress.

To help illustrate the point, here is part of an email I received from Tom when I brought up the subject earlier this week.
 

In the last 20 years, the only true elite D-man chosen in the top five who spent  significant time with the team that drafted him was Scott Niedermayer. Mike Rathje, Chris Phillips and Rotislav Klesla have spent at least ten years with the team that drafted them, but none of them are elite.   

In fairness, in the past four years we’ve seen the likes of Doughty, Bogosian, Pietrangelo, Schenn and Alzner emerge as solid to spectacular d-men, but Bogosian’s name has already surfaced in trade rumours and only Doughty has had a true elite level season thus far.

If you look at the top 30-scoring D-men this from this season, only Pietrangelo (20th), Johnson (23rd) and Doughty (24th) were top-five draft picks.

Here are leading defenders from 2010-2011: 

Visnovsky… 4th rounder, 118th overall
Lidstrom….. 3rd rounder, 53rd overall
Yandle……..  4th rounder, 105th overall
Byfuglien….  8th rounder, 245th overall
Wisniewski  5th rounder, 156th overall
Enstrom….   8th rounder, 239th overall
Ehrhoff……    4th rounder, 106th overall
Boyle………    Not drafted
Letang……    3rd rounder, 62nd overall
S. Weber…   2nd rounder, 49th overall
Seabrook…  1st rounder, 14th overall
Rafalski…..    Not drafted
Kaberle…..    8th rounder, 204th overall
Burns……..    1st rounder, 20th overall
Goligoski..    2nd rounder, 61st overall
Liles……….    5th rounder, 159th overall
Karlsson…   1st rounder, 15th overall
Keith……….    2nd rounder, 54th overall
Chara……..    3rd rounder, 56th overall
Pietrangelo 1st rounder, 4th overall
Shattenkirk. 1st rounder, 14th overall
Giordano….. Not drafted
Johnson….. 1st rounder, 3rd overall
Doughty…… 1st rounder, 2nd overall
Corvo………. 4th rounder, 83rd overall
Fowler……..  1st rounder, 12th overall
Wideman…  8th rounder, 241st overall
Carle……….  2nd rounder, 47th overall
Suter……….  1st rounder, 7th overall
Subban…..  2nd rounder, 43rd overall

Only nine were 1st round picks, and only four of them were top-ten picks. It seems clear that you don’t need to draft a D-man in the top-five to improve your chances of getting an elite level defender.

Fourteen of them were top-five picks. The Sedins, Stamkos, Ovechkin, Staal, Toews, Marleau, Vanek, Kane, Ryan, Thornton, Tavares, Duchene and Nash.

One was a top-ten pick; Selanne 10th overall.

Nine of them were first rounders beyond the top-ten. Kopitar (11th), Carter (11th),Tanguay (12th), Iginla (12th), Getzlaf (19th), Giroux (22nd), Kesler (23rd), Briere (24th) and Perry (29th).

Two were 2nd rounders, Eriksson (33rd) and Ribeiro (45th), two were 3rd rounders, B. Richards (64th) and Sharp (95th), while Zetterberg was a 7th rounder and St. Louis was never drafted.

Larsson might turn out to be the best player in this draft, but the likelihood of him doing it while being an Oiler is minimal. If the Oilers want to continue rebuilding properly they will take a forward, preferably a centre named Nugent-Hopkins, and then try to move up in the draft by dangling a healthy body and the King’s pick. If they want to take a D-man, take him with that pick, just don’t use the first overall pick on a defenceman. 

Almost half, 46.7%, of the top scorers in the NHL were taken in the first five picks, while only 10% of the top-scoring D-men came from being a top-five pick.

The Oilers clearly have a void at centre and on the blueline, and they can’t fill both with one pick, so make the smart pick and take a centre.

Starting tomorrow at 2 p.m. MDT, you can follow the OKC Barons on the TEAM 1260 Edmonton Sports Radio. The TEAM will broadcast the remaining games of their first round series v. Hamilton. Game three to five go Tues, Wed and Friday at 6:05 p.m. on the TEAM 1260.