2015: Defenseman, Thomas Chabot
Forever known as the Connor McDavid draft, the 2015 year will go down as one of the deepest, and best, drafts in recent memory. Nine of the top 10 draft picks have already played 100 games and six have scored over 80 points. With that type of talent in one class, the 18th pick overall was bound to be an excellent pick.
The Ottawa Senator selected the offensive minded defenseman Thomas Chabot at 18th overall. Chabot played his first full season in the NHL this year and showed how high his ceiling is. On a terrible Senators team with more drama then an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. But the 21-year-old produced well for a young defenseman and played solid defense all year round.
Much like the 2015 draft, this year’s draft is stacked defensively. Drafted before Chabot were top pairing defenseman such as Noah Hanifin, Ivan Provorov, and our own Zach Werenski.
This year top defenseman such as Rasmus Dahlin, Evan Buchard, Quinn Hughes, and Adam Boqvist will be drafted early along with Noah Dobson. That will leave top end prospects like Ryan Merkley, Bode Wilde and Ty Smith to the 18th slot like Chabot did.
Much like the discussion around Marco Mueller though, I don’t think this will affect the Columbus Blue Jackets much. Although drafting the best player available philosophy is the right way to go, in this instance the Jackets have too much blue line talent in the system to draft a defenseman.
Next: Top 5 Games of 2017-2018
The 18th slot has been a hit or miss spot over the years. One common theme with all of these 18th overall picks is that they take some time to develop. Expect the Jackets to take a player thought that doesn’t make an impact for a few years.