Stat of the day

I took at look at the past #6 overall picks a few weeks ago. Well today I figured lets take a look at the last 20 #1 overall picks:

1987 - Pierre Turgeon
1988 - Mike Modano
1989 - Mats Sundin
1990 - Owen Nolan
1991 - Eric Lindros
1992 - Roman Hamrlik
1993 - Alexandre Daigle
1994 - Ed Jovanowski
1995 - Bryan Berard
1996 - Chris Phillips
1997 - Joe Thornton
1998 - Vincent Lecavalier
1999 - Patrik Stefan
2000 - Rick DiPietro
2001 - Ilya Kovalchuk
2002 - Rick Nash
2003 - Marc-Andre Fleury
2004 - Alexander Ovechkin
2005 - Sidney Crosby
2006 - Erik Johnson
2007 - Patrick Kane

In 20 years I count just 2 busts - Daigle and Stefan - so teams that have drafted #1 overall have 90% chance at getting at least a player that can contribture for a long time. Man that would suck to be in that 10%.

Out of the 20 picks I count 11 surefire franchise players in Modano, Sundin, Lindros, Thornton, Lecavalier, DiPietro, Kovalchuk, Nash, Ovechkin, Crosby and Kane. I'd say the verdict is still out on EJ but he looks very promisoing.

Some careers have been cut short or severly hampered via injury in Lindros and Berard.

Out of the 20 players listed only 10 - Modano, Lecavalier, DiPietro, Kovalchuk, Nash, Fleury, Ovechkin, Crosby, Johnson & Kane - remain with their same team. Of course 9 of 10 of those have come over the past 10 drafts. So in other words, its pretty likely that even though you may be a franchise player and spend the majority of your career with one team, you will probably finish your career elsewhere (say it ain't so Nasher!!).

The Tampa Bay Lightning get their 2nd chance in a decade to draft a franchise guy in Stephen Stamkos.

-LTL