Welcome back to Top Shelf Prospects, the daily column that brings you the next crop of professional hockey players. Each day LWOS will bring you a new player profile or topical article in the lead-up to the 2015 NHL Draft. Be sure to bookmark the site, and spread the word for the site that will bring you analytical and critical profiles and scouting reports! Last Word On Sports is your new headquarters for everything “Draft”! For a Complete Listing of all our 2015 Draft Articles click here.
Edmonton has had the ping pong balls go their way in the NHL Draft Lottery. After finishing 28th in the NHL, they had a 11.5% chance of winning the first overall pick. Fans were hoping for one of their 115 combinations of four ping pong balls numbered 1 to 14 to be drawn. One of those combinations showed up, which caused much glee among Oilers fans.
Getting a first overall pick is almost always a good thing (unless you’re the Oilers). You get the chance to pick whoever you want in the draft. However, this year was an especially excellent year for Edmonton to suck, because their misfortune put them on the path to get Connor McDavid.
Connor McDavid put up extremely impressive numbers in juniors. In 44 games, McDavid scored a video game-esque 44 goals and 76 assists. He would have won the scoring title in a landslide had he not missed time due to injury. This won’t be the first time that McDavid has to deal with the pressure of being a first overall pick. He was the first overall pick of the 2012 OHL Priority Selection.
Connor McDavid projects to be a once in a generation type of talent. The kind of talent that can have an immediate impact on the Oilers and change their future for the good. While Aaron Ekblad is certainly extremely good and will be a monster in a few years (perhaps as soon as next season), McDavid is different. McDavid is even better than Ekblad. He will make the kind of impact on Edmonton that Alex Ovechkin has made on the Washington Capitals. The kind of impact that Sidney Crosby has had on the Penguins. The kind of impact that John Tavares has had on the Islanders. The kind of impact that Patrick Kane has had on the Blackhawks. You could easily argue that each of those players helped to save their franchise, especially in the cases of Ovechkin and Crosby. McDavid has the skill to be able to do the same for the Oilers.
Connor McDavid immediately gives Edmonton an elite top line center to build around. The best part? He’s dirt cheap for at least the next three seasons and more than likely the next four to six. ELCs are like gold in today’s NHL. And Connor McDavid is the biggest haul in years.
Though Edmonton’s road to the first overall pick was one filled with despair, tears and sorrow, ten years from now, the Oilers will be grateful for all of that because it led them straight to Connor McDavid.
As a consolation prize, the Buffalo Sabres get the second overall pick, which they will surely use on American centre Jack Eichel. Eichel, who won the Hobey Baker Trophy and led the Boston University Terriers to the National Championship final, would be the first overall pick in almost any other year. While he’s not quite at McDavid’s level, he also has the potential to be a franchise changing number one centre.
