1st overalls performance vs. expectations 2004-2024
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Luigi Lemieux
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Did you mean to say exceeded expectations under Kane?
NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
Hall is a tough one because he did win an MVP and his status as #1 overall wasn’t set in stone unlike a lot of the other guys on the list.
I remember it being a bit of a weak draft and he’s still #2 in career points for that year behind Tyler Seguin.
I guess you could say he underachieved compared with other #1 overalls but I’m not sure if expectations were that high for him.
I remember it being a bit of a weak draft and he’s still #2 in career points for that year behind Tyler Seguin.
I guess you could say he underachieved compared with other #1 overalls but I’m not sure if expectations were that high for him.
JackFr
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I think you're really underrating Tavares' career. Top 5 in points since entering the NHL, top 5 during his prime as well. His prime happened to be in a low-scoring period but he was one of the league's elite players for a while.
JackSlater
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I agree with almost all of this. I'd say that Crosby actually slightly underachieved relative to expectations, in the same way that McDavid arguably only met expectations. I would not as of yet say that Matthews has exceeded expectations or that Hughes has either. Lafreniere has thus far underachieved. Tavares probably did attain the level that was actually being predicted of him just prior to the draft, but based on the whole picture stretching years before his draft then yes he clearly underachieved.
I felt like his production didn't change that much AFTER the league became more wide open. I feel like even with the Islanders he wasn't quite a superstar and with the Leafs he was kind of overshadowed by Matthews and all of their talent.
JackSlater
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The NHL opened up and scoring rose but in terms of style it moved away from what Tavares was best at. Tavares was a great player for ~1998-2015 hockey, but then still a good scorer thereafter. Have to remember too, even by the 2008 draft there was talk that scouts (certainly the ones McKenzie interviews, for the most prominent example) often had Stamkos above him and it was Stamkos who played on Canada's top line at the 2008 WJC while Tavares was mainly a PP specialist.
NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
Unlike someone like Malkin or Draisaitl, you never saw Tavares suddenly take over the game in Matthews’ absence.
He’s a fine player, and I think he’s almost getting underrated at this point, but he’s not looking like one of those #2Cs who is actually a superstar #1C on any other team.
He’s sort of in that Toews tier of guys.
I agree that Tavares’ stock dropped over the period from being an underager to being drafted.
Really? I felt like the hype was higher for Tavares during the draft year than Stamkos but maybe my memory is failing me.
JackSlater
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The general hype was higher but there were some definite signs that Tavares was slipping while Stamkos was coming on strong. I don't think that McKenzie's draft preview is still online, but this is an OHL related post from September 2007 that references McKenzie's preview before the 2008 season:
A lot to look forward to this OHL season
Key part; "In a recent survey of NHL scouts by Bob McKenzie of TSN previewing the 2008 draft class, McKenzie sought scouts opinions on the upcoming draft class. Most scouts were convinced that Stamkos was the top player available, hands down.
McKenzie also asked scouts, “If John Tavares were eligible for the 2008 draft and it was being held on Saturday, where would he rank on the lists they just submitted?”
On the survey, three scouts did say they would select Tavares with the top pick though Stamkos was rated first on seven others."
Which is basically what I remember. And again when Canada took to the ice for the 2008 WJC team, Tavares was a depth player who was mostly a PP specialist while Stamkos was a winger on the top line. The hype was still there for Tavares, but the more "serious" voices seemed a lot cooler on him than Joe Blow hockey fan.
By the time of Tavares' actual draft there were definitely people who had Hedman ahead, which would have seemed unthinkable a few years earlier.
McGarnagle
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For 2006, if I'm remembering right for most of that year up until the spring Kessel was the projected #1, but character concerns and caused a slip, while Toews and Backstrom quietly rose up the rankings and Staal had the better than his brother hype going on. I don't remember a lot of buzz on Johnson other than best defenseman on the board, safe top three pick. I think his offense was hyped to be better than it actually planned out to be. St. Louis just picked him because they wanted the D-man more than the centers in the end.
McGarnagle
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It is tough. I think Hall and Seguin were both supposed to be better than the #1 picks in the years surrounding them. Though they didn't live up to that hype in the end, they were still very good and could meet expectations for a normal year's #1. Hall had the one random MVP season, Seguin played a role in the cup run as a rookie.
I've always had this theory that if the lottery balls fell the other way and Hall started his career in Boston and Seguin in Edmonton, both would've had better careers and reached their full potential.
Hall is quiet and introverted, Edmonton expected him to be face of a franchise and to take on leadership. He needed structure that the Oilers didn't have. Seguin is the extroverted life of the party who loved the spotlight and wanted to be a freewheeling franchise #1 center and was a bit suffocated by Claude Julien's system, a strong veteran core who didn't appreciate his behavior stepping out of line, and the demands of playing on the wing with Bergeron. In retrospect, Boston's structure, existing leadership, and core of centers with fewer natural wings was tailor made for Taylor, while the relative vacuum of Edmonton would have allowed Tyler to start from his natural position with more open play and prosper more. That's my pet theory I kick around every time this topic comes up, I wish we could see an alternate universe where the two flip draft positions.
JianYang
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I think ovechkin was a really big deal. I had him ranked 3rd most hyped since 2004. Perhaps a bit overshadowed because the guy in the following year was even more hyped, but enormous things were expected from ovechkin when he was picked, and he delivered.
Erik Johnson was the consensus #1 in what was considered a very strong draft and drew a lot of Pronger comparisons. I'd say the expectations were very high for him. He looked pretty good in his rookie season and then had a pretty gruesome injury which kept him out of year 2 and seemed to permanently set him back. He still carved out a pretty good career.
Ekblad is sort of the same case where he had a concussion early on and some leg issues later that hurt his career. There was a fair amount of hype for him at the draft since he was the 2nd player given exceptional player status in the CHL after Tavares and had all the physical tools and offensive potential to be a star defenseman but it was considered a weak draft year.
Ekblad is sort of the same case where he had a concussion early on and some leg issues later that hurt his career. There was a fair amount of hype for him at the draft since he was the 2nd player given exceptional player status in the CHL after Tavares and had all the physical tools and offensive potential to be a star defenseman but it was considered a weak draft year.
Yeah, it's important to know that at the time he was the clear best prospect in a decade and he looked like an outright better version of Kovalchuk when Kovalchuk was a very big deal himself. Washington, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Columbus were icing some truly dreadful lineups while trying to get into #1 position for that draft.
McGarnagle
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Yeah, everyone forgets that when Pittsburgh shamelessly tanked, it was for Ovechkin, not Crosby. Washington just happened to win the lottery that year, and Pittsburgh won Crosby the following year in the lockout lottery.
JackFr
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I mean, he also was getting older. Most players' production peaks between 22 and 26.
Is this really true of superstar players? I feel like that's one of those stats contextualized for type of players would show the age range to be broader. I think Tavares's problem was that he was never the fastest skater and that's where the league moved.
Voight
#winning
There's a short time where Kessel was actually considered a threat for #1 in 2005 had he been born earlier. Like among 87 born players, he had a ton of hype in his early teens.
Depends on your definition of superstar. With the islanders he was Hart nominee twice, made the 1st AST once (over Crosby) and was a consistent point producer despite the lack of talent around him.
McGarnagle
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Crazy that Phil Kessel is only 8 weeks younger than Sidney Crosby but arbitrarily ended up a draft year later. On the other hand, while Ovechkin and Crosby went #1 in back to back drafts, Ovi is actually 23 months older than Sid. He was so close to the cutoff for the 03 draft that I believe Florida tried to draft him in the last round of the draft and present Bettman with a shit eating argument about how when you factor in leap years he had technically lived more than 18 years by the cutoff date of the draft.
#1 - Over Crosby?
#2 - I didn't realize this. I always thought with the Islanders he was THEIR star player but never a top top player. Maybe my memory is failing me.
#1 was something that Pierre McGuire claimed but I never heard anyone else say and it makes no intuitive sense. I don't think Kessel was a better skater or goal scorer than Crosby as a prospect, let alone everywhere else.
Tavares was nominated in 2013 and 2015. 2015 makes sense since he was second in league scoring and the leader was on a non-playoff team. 2013 was a bit of an odd choice since he was 3rd in goals and 17th in scoring while missing no games and being kind of a neutral defender.
The Panther
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Yeah, Tavares and Hall, in particular, have had sort of weird careers.
Tavares' best years were mostly with the Islanders, but his most high-profile years are now with the Maple Leafs. Far more hockey people are going to remember him with Toronto than those who will remember him earlier. If the Leafs win the Cup this year, that might end well enough, but otherwise I think the two fanbases are going to (rather unfairly) remember him like this:
Isles' fans: Good, but the bum who left us in his prime to sign elsewhere
Leafs' fans: Okay, but way overpaid; his contract held us back
Hall had his crappy-Edmonton years, when he did quite well sporadically, and then his Jersey years, most of which were nothing great, but which sandwich that one year he somehow won the Hart trophy. Then, he bounced around. I agree with the idea that if he had entered the League on an already successful, structured, veteran-leadership type club, his career would have gone smoother.
Also, looking back at these two players' careers and stats, you would probably guess that Tavares was the Hart winner, not the other way around. But that's how it goes sometimes...
On a separate note, I can see why Alexis Lafrenière is a disappointment overall (so far -- he's trending upward now), but again I think team context is a big part of this. Looking at his deployment in New York, he's only been getting between 13 and 17 minutes a game, before this season. And he doesn't get much PP time. Last season, he was 15th in the NHL in ES goals. Taylor Hall was getting 18-20 minutes a game in Edmonton right from the start, which is a big difference.
Tavares' best years were mostly with the Islanders, but his most high-profile years are now with the Maple Leafs. Far more hockey people are going to remember him with Toronto than those who will remember him earlier. If the Leafs win the Cup this year, that might end well enough, but otherwise I think the two fanbases are going to (rather unfairly) remember him like this:
Isles' fans: Good, but the bum who left us in his prime to sign elsewhere
Leafs' fans: Okay, but way overpaid; his contract held us back
Hall had his crappy-Edmonton years, when he did quite well sporadically, and then his Jersey years, most of which were nothing great, but which sandwich that one year he somehow won the Hart trophy. Then, he bounced around. I agree with the idea that if he had entered the League on an already successful, structured, veteran-leadership type club, his career would have gone smoother.
Also, looking back at these two players' careers and stats, you would probably guess that Tavares was the Hart winner, not the other way around. But that's how it goes sometimes...
On a separate note, I can see why Alexis Lafrenière is a disappointment overall (so far -- he's trending upward now), but again I think team context is a big part of this. Looking at his deployment in New York, he's only been getting between 13 and 17 minutes a game, before this season. And he doesn't get much PP time. Last season, he was 15th in the NHL in ES goals. Taylor Hall was getting 18-20 minutes a game in Edmonton right from the start, which is a big difference.
JackFr
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