Should the Maple Leafs draft a defenceman?

The Hockey Central at Noon crew contemplates whether or not it would be worth the risk for the Toronto Maple Leafs to trade their 4th overall pick to try and maximize such a deep 2015 draft class.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are over and the Toronto Maple Leafs, along with 13 other NHL teams, have had lots of time to mull over their upcoming selection at the NHL Draft.

It’s a given that Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel will go first and second overall respectively to the Edmonton Oilers and Buffalo Sabres. It’s assumed that Dylan Strome will be selected third by the Arizona Coyotes. Following that template, and in the era of hockey analytics, I thought I would apply some Gord-alytics or Stell-alytics to how the Leafs should use their fourth-overall selection. My “research” was to go back the last number of years and see which player was the first defenceman selected in the draft and who was the fourth forward selected in the same draft — the kind of scenario Toronto likely will be facing.


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2014 – Aaron Ekblad (1st overall, Florida), Michael Dal Colle (5th overall, New York Islanders)

2013 – Seth Jones (4th overall, Nashville), Elias Lindholm (5th overall, Carolina)

2012 – Ryan Murray (2nd overall, Columbus), Mikhail Grigorenko (12th overall, Buffalo)

2011 – Adam Larsson (4th overall, New Jersey), Ryan Strome (5th overall, New York Islanders)

2010 – Erik Gudbranson (3rd overall, Florida), Nino Niederreiter (5th overall, New York Islanders)

2009 – Victor Hedman (2nd overall, Tampa Bay), Brayden Schenn (5th overall, Los Angeles)

2008 – Drew Doughty (2nd overall, Los Angeles), Mikkel Boedker (8th overall, Phoenix)

Certainly the analysis weighs in favour of not letting the “defence rest”. Noah Hanifin, Ivan Provorov, or whomever the Maple Leafs rank as their No. 1 defenceman is who they should draft.

Prior to 2008, the evidence wasn’t quite so conclusive:

2007 – Thomas Hickey (4th overall, Los Angeles), Sam Gagner (6th overall, Edmonton)

2006 – Erik Johnson (1st overall, St. Louis), Phil Kessel (5th overall, Boston)

2005 – Jack Johnson (3rd overall, Carolina), Gilbert Brule (6th overall, Columbus)

2004 – Cam Barker (3rd overall, Chicago), Blake Wheeler (5th overall, Phoenix)

Then back-to-back quality defencemen:

2003 – Ryan Suter (7th overall, Nashville), Tomas Vanek (5th overall, Buffalo)

2002 – Jay Bouwmeester (3rd overall, Florida), Pierre-Marc Bouchard (8th overall, Minnesota)

Three consecutive defence draft selections never lived up to their expectations. Mike Komisarek was selected 7th overall by Montreal in 2001, Rostislav Klesla went fourth overall to Columbus in 2000 and Branislav Mezei went 10th overall to the New York Islanders in 1999.

Modern day history says take the top defenceman if you have the chance.

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