Greatest Draft Ever?

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

On a related note, is 1965 the greatest birth year of hockey players?

Mario Lemieux
Dominik Hasek
Patrick Roy
Steve Yzerman
Pat Lafontaine
Cam Neely
Ed Belfour
Tom Barasso
Steve Duchesne

I think 1984 could be a good candidate for greatest draft ever.

First off, 1979 and 2003 dont count to me. 1979 is literally multiple years of draft eligibility folded into one, and 2003 is more about a crop of good players getting the perfect situation in their early career to develop and star in major nhl roles before turning 23.

1984 has:

-The only member of the Big Four to be drafted in Lemieux
-One of the top 3 or 4 goaltenders all time in Roy
-Good additional star power with Brett Hull, Robitaille, Suter, Richer, Muller, Roberts, McLean
-a very low bust rate at the top end. Only 14/42 players picked in the first two rounds played less than two seasons (160ish) worth of games career. Thats pretty good when comparing similar numbers of early round busts for other well regarded drafts like 1993 (20/52), 1988 (27/42), 1997 (36/53), 1971 (19/42 in the first 3 rounds of a smaller league). 1984s 20/52 ~= 38 % bust rate in the first two rounds is pretty close to the 26/68 for 2003.
-Lots of late round gems. Ronning, Sweeney, Robitaille, and Suter were all picked after the sixth round.

 

[shello]

Hard to not agree with the posts from 2008 about 79 and 1984 still. Granted, 2003 and 2015 can make a strong argument for deepest 1st round

 

[solidmotion]

Hard to not agree with the posts from 2008 about 79 and 1984 still. Granted, 2003 and 2015 can make a strong argument for deepest 1st round

2003 has a ton of depth but it's a little lacking at the top. like i'm not sure there's a single player who would make the HOH top 100. maybe even top 150. 2015 will probably end up better overall.

 

[MadLuke]

Maybe 2003 can have gone from overrated (we did not know about Richards, Phaneuf, Byfuglien, Parise, Kesler, Horton, etc... second half) to a bit underrated. With some like Fleury-Pavelski-Bergeron-Burns that aged better or healthier than expected.

DE: Burns, Suter, Weber, Byfuglien, Seabrook, Enstrom, Phaneuf, Methot, Carle, there a strong group of Ds

CE: Getzlaf, Staal, Kesler, Bergeron, Pavelski, Carter-Richard, O'Sullivan, strong center line

LW: Parise, Eriksson, Vanek, Michalek, Moulson, MacArthur, not as strong left wing but that not uncommon.

RW: Perry, Brown, Backes, Horton, Zherdev, Eaves, Stempniak

GO: Fleury, Halak, Elliott, Crawford, Howard.

38 drafted skaters played 600 games or more in the NHL, it was incredibly deep. There is more jobs than before too... but any way you turn it or look at it playing 600 pro games in the nhl that a great career, that Marc Methot, Steve Bernier, Maxim Lapierre barely doing it.

1983 and 1984 were really good one with 34, one way to look at it could be for the era.

1981: 24
1982: 30
1983: 34
1984: 34
1985: 26
1986: 19
1987: 24

----
2000: 24
2001: 27
2002: 24
2003: 38
2004: 24
2005: 22

I think there could be something about the league timing, lock-out extra year before the nhl and so on, but 2002 was in the same boat, even 2001 with Spezza generation having a nice year in an really high level and energized ahl in 2005. It was mostly a really strong draft from the start.

Relative to the number of spot of what a draft year look like 83 and 84 and not necessarily less deep, "low" in that year are nice career player like a Kevin Miller, Todd Gill, Svoboda, Sheppard, Pivonka, Corson-Lafrate level of player are clearly out of the top 10.

Roy-Lemieux give you a good headstart above anyone of 2003.