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Ever since the Canucks found themselves in lottery territory, it’s appeared as though Benning has intended to take a forward at that spot. In spite of somewhat contradicting statements in the past, however, Benning indicated yesterday that he believes there is a “clear cut defenseman” that has separated himself from the pack.

Because defence is a premium position, a defenseman selected in the first round is likely to be given every chance to succeed, and many of those that do manage to reach the 200-game plateau do so based on reputation, or because NHL general managers often overvalue things like size and physicality in defenders. For example, Cam Barker, Jared Cowen, and Luca Sbisa would all be considered successful by pGPS, but you’re unlikely to find someone who’d categorize any of those players as first-round talents. Depending on a team’s draft position, just selecting an NHL player could be considered a success, but since the opportunity to pick in the top 5 doesn’t come along very often, (unless you’re the Edmonton Oilers,) the player the Canucks select at #5 should be held to higher standard of success than just being a warm body at the NHL level.

Jack Johnson, Brian Lee, Luc Bourdon, Marc Staal, Erik Johnson, Ty Wishart, Mark Mitera, David Fischer, Bobby Sanguinetti, Thomas Hickey, Karl Alzner, Keaton Ellerby, Ryan McDonagh, Kevin Shattenkirk, Drew Doughty, Alex Pietrangelo, Zach Bogosian, Luke Schenn, Tyler Myers, Victor Hedman, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Jared Cowen, Ryan Ellis, Calvin De Haan, Erik Gudbranson, Dylan McIllrath, Cam Fowler*, Brandon Gormley, Derek Forbort, Adam Larsson, Dougie Hamilton, Jonas Brodin, Duncan Siemens, Ryan Murphy, Ryan Murray (benefit of the doubt?), Griffin Reinhart, Morgan Rielly, Hampus Lindholm, Matthew Dumba, Seth Jones, Darnell Nurse, Rasmus Ristolainen, Samuel Morin, Josh Morrissey, Aaron Ekblad, Haydn Fleury, Julius Honka, Travis Sanheim, Anthony DeAngelo, Noah Hanifin, Ivan Provorov, Zach Werenski, Jakub Zboril, Thomas Chabot. 

For comparison, here are the top 5 forwards from those same ten drafts: 

Sidney Crosby, Bobby Ryan, Gilbert Brule, Jack Skille, Benoit Pouliot, Jordan Staal, Jonathan Toews, Phil Kessel, Nicklas Backstrom, Derick Brassard, Patrick Kane, James Van Riemsdyk, Kyle Turris, Sam Gagner, Jakub Voracek, Steven Stamkos, Nikita Filatov, Colin Wilson, Mikkel Boedker, Josh Bailey, John Tavares, Matt Duchene, Evander Kane, Brayden Schenn, Nazem Kadri, Taylor Hall, Tyler Seguin, Ryan Johansen, Nino Niederreiter, Brett Connolly, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Gabriel Landeskog, Jonathan Huberdeau, Ryan Strome, Mika Zibanejad, Mark Scheifele, Nail Yakupov, Alex Galchenyuk, Filip Forsberg, Mikhail Grigorenko, Radek Faksa, Zemgus Girgensons, Nathan MacKinnon, Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Drouin, Elias Lindholm, Sean Monahan, Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Leon Draisaitl, Michael Dal Colle, Jake Virtanen, Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Dylan Strome, Mitch Marner, Pavel Zacha. 

It only takes a glance to notice that the former is a much less impressive list. The reason for this likely lies in the difference between how top forwards and top defencemen are evaluated. If you’re drafting a forward with a high pick, you’re likely doing so based on how well they’re able to produce offence. The value of a defender, however, is still measured in large part by their ability to suppress offence. As a result, scouts are more likely to rely solely on their observations, which are subject to large amounts of bias and randomness over the course of a relatively small sample size. Because defensive acumen is considered a more important quality in a defenceman than a forward, a team is less likely to veer away from a defender that failed to produce at an elite clip over his draft-eligible season, in spite of the fact that history shows us that this is unwise.