Notably, Drew Doughty, Alex Pietrangelo, Erik Karlsson, Tyler Myers, Jake Gardiner, Mchael Del Zotto, John Carlson, Travis Hamonic, TJ Brodie, Jason Demers amongst others.
But the question is, how would you rank the 2008 dmen? Heres my list:
1.) Alex Pietrangelo
2.) Drew Doughty
3.) Erik Karlsson
4.) Tyler Myers
5.) John Carlson
6.) Travis Hamonic
7.) Jake Gardiner
8.) Michael Del Zotto
9.) T.J. Brodie
10.) Jason Demers
I place Pietrangelo above Karlsson and Doughty for the fact that he is superbly better defensively and is 3 pts off from leading his team in scoring, period. This guys a beast.
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"With Sid on your team, anything is possible" - Mario lemieux
Certainly not Tyler Myers, whom someone proclaimed would be better than Doughty and traded Shea Weber + to get him ;)
LOL, seriously if I had a vote and had to call their careers: 1) Doughty 2) Karlsson 3) Pietrangelo 4) Carlson 5) Myers 6) Schenn (DO NOT FOGET ABOUT THIS GUY) 7) Del Zotto 8) Gardiner
Brodie and Demers?? Seriously?? I havent even looked at the list but if you want to talk borderline NHLers, Kirk has some stories to tell about his past 2 drafts, hahahaah
-- Edited by philly on Tuesday 27th of March 2012 10:28:03 PM
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Get ahold of me soon, or my players will already be dealt!
Myers will catch up without a doubt. He is still extremely raw. The best part of his game is that he actually uses his size and will so even more as he becomes a man.
As for Schenn, I did forget to add him to the list. Id put him in at #9.
Trading Weber + was cause Webers sim results are horrible for how good he is and it was a salary dump of sorts. Wasnt pumped to make the move but sort of had to.
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"With Sid on your team, anything is possible" - Mario lemieux
Brodie doesn't make my list, and as many know, I'm a Colts fan, and he had his best year there. Or half I should say. But he just doesn't rank with these guys YET imo.
Doughty is at top because he can continuously make plays in either zone by himself. Karlsson's D game still needs time, Pietrangelo quite often shoots for rebounds and gets his points that way, as where Doughty or Karlsson can go end to end and do it themselves. We saw this in World Juniors when Carlson scored after Pietrangelo shot low and the rebound came out (whether he was shooting for a rebound, or trying to score, I don't know..but he had guys going to net). Karlsson behind him because of his Visnovsky-like defensive game, gets him by, and I like it, but realistically there are better ways to defend, but offense is un-matched. Pietrangelo 3rd because his hockey sense is through the roof, which is why the stats are inflated a little. Realistically probably the 6th best offensively on the list. That's not to say he won't become the consensus #1 on this list in a year or 2.
You could really make a case for any of the top 3, very much debatable. This is just how I'd rank them. Ask this same question in a year and I probably swap #1 and 3.
This comment is so dis-organized but I think it's clear where I stand at least...
Demers is better than Del Zotto or Schenn based on what criteria??? Put it this way... will Jason Demers have an NHL job in 6-7 years?? my guess would be if hes still around by then his defensive game has really made strides... hes in the NHL on perhaps the weakest organization of defenseman by quite some margin...
Im just gonna go out on a limb and say Schenn, Gardiner and Del Zotto will still be top 4 defensemen in that same time frame
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Get ahold of me soon, or my players will already be dealt!
Right now I have no problem with Demers defensive game, it isn't spectacular, but he's playing 3rd pairing, which doesn't help things. I mean throw him on the Rangers and he's a +20. It was tough to put him ahead of those guys, but right now I think he's more well rounded. I see a fair bit of SJ hockey and like his 2 way game over Del Zotto's and Schenn's right now (by that I mean at both ends, not one or the other). But I do see your point and you could very well be right, but for now I'm sticking to my list.
