More than a few scouting types have suggested that this year's draft class reminds them of the 2003 draft class, but the Globe and Mail's Eric Duhatschek's "ten years later" article about the '03 draft suggests that players like Nathan McKinnon, Seth Jones and the like have a long way to go to live up to what was an utterly "silly good" pair of days in Nashville:
The hometown Predators essentially built their defence for close to a decade around three players they landed that year – Ryan Suter, Shea Weber and Kevin Klein. The Anaheim Ducks drafted two cornerstones, Ryan Getzlaf at 19 and Corey Perry at 28, while the Philadelphia Flyers plucked Jeff Carter at 11 and Mike Richards at 24 and essentially helped put the finishing touches on the Los Angeles Kings’ 2012 Stanley Cup winner.
NHL draft gurus like to talk about draft years the way oenologists talk about wine vintages. Most of the hockey variety will say the 1979 draft, which was a double cohort because of the NHL-WHA merger was the deepest and most profoundly influential draft class in NHL history.
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