How important is the draft?

[elocomotive]

I have to say that it's generally pretty impressive how well the top 5 or so guys in the draft work out each year. There are some busts, sure, but it seems like most of them become all-stars and superstars at some point.

 

[scottflyers88]

Pulled this from Calgarypuck - Let's compare notable Flames draft picks in the 80's and 90's

First the 80's

1980 9 181 Hakan Loob
1981 1 15 Al MacInnis
1981 3 56 Mike Vernon
1984 1 12 Gary Roberts
1984 6 117 Brett Hull
1984 9 180 Gary Suter
1985 2 27 Joe Nieuwendyk
1987 8 166 Theoren Fleury

Now the 90's (note: the following are all first round picks after the Flames won the Cup in '89)

Trevor Kidd
Niklas Sundblad
Cory Stillman
Jesper Mattsson
Chris Dingman
Denis Gauthier
Derek Morris
Daniel Tkaczuk
Rico Fata
Oleg Saprykin
Brent Krahn

 

[evolver115]

Penguins 1st Round Draft Picks

80's
1980 - Mike Bullard 9th overall
1982 - Rich Sutter 10th overall
1983 - Bob Errey 15th overall :p
1984 - Mario Lemieux 1st overall , Doug Bodger 9th, Roger Belanger 16th
1985 - Craig Simpson 2nd overall
1986 - Zarley Zalapski 4th overall
1987 - Chris Joseph 5th overall
1988 - Darrin Shannon 4th overall
1989 - Jamie Heyward 16th overall

90's
1990 - Jaromir Jagr 5th overall
1991 - Markus Naslund 16th overall
1992 - Martin Straka 19th overall
1993 - Stefan Bergkvist 26 overall
1994 - Chris Wells 24th overall
1995 - Aleksey Morozov 24 overall
1996 - Craig Hillier 23 overall
1997 - Robert Dome 17th overall
1998 - Milan Kraft 23rd overall
1999 - Konstantin Koltsov 18th overall

2000's
2000 - Brooks Orpik 18th
2001 - Colby Armstrong 21st
2002 - Ryan Whitney 5th
2003 - Marc-Andre Fleury 1st
2004 - Evgeni Malkin 2nd
2005 - Sidney Crosby 1st
2006 - Jordan Staal 2nd
2007 - Angelo Esposito 20th
2009 - Simon Despres 30th

 

[elocomotive]

What? Crosby and Malkin don't get a smiley face?

 

[evolver115]

What? Crosby and Malkin don't get a smiley face?

Yea, I'm old-school. I'll wait until Sid and Geno add to their legacy... they can continue it by winning tomorrow nite