By Dan David, HockeyDraftCentral.com
The year 1973 marked the NHL Amateur Draft's 10th anniversary, but it was
only the fifth with eligibility for every major-junior graduate, as all
players born in 1953 were up for grabs.
The draft was hardly a fan
favorite back then. It was held on May 15, just five days after Montreal had
won the Stanley Cup and three days before the upstart World Hockey
Association was set to select amateurs for the first time in bulk.
Since the NHL's draft was a private affair, most picks would not even
realize they had been drafted until their home phones rang, and many were
unaware the draft was even happening that day. NHL teams' biggest concern
was not the draft itself, but a determination to sign drafted players before
the WHA could.
Hockey's bible, The Hockey News, ran only one
draft-preview article -- the only national news coverage available to fans
in both the U.S. and Canada. In that article, writer Bob Strumm explained
why Ottawa 67's "brilliant defenseman" Denis Potvin would be the inevitable
No. 1 pick:
"The Ottawa graduate can do it all and is tabbed as pro
hockey's next Bobby Orr," Strumm wrote. "... From his defense position,
Potvin scored 35 goals and added 88 assists in regular-season OHA play.
What's more, the kid is tougher than a Russian bear on skates. The six-foot,
195-pound rearguard compiled 232 minutes in penalties in his final junior
season and has become somewhat of a legend across the country."
This
was surely the first time that a draft-eligible junior defenseman was
referred to as a "legend" in print. Orr had missed being draft-eligible by a
couple of years, since he was playing for the Oshawa Generals and was
therefore Boston Bruins property. In the years leading up to 1973, Orr was
already an NHL legend and remains one of the most transformative hockey
players of all-time. To compare Potvin to Orr in 1973 was almost blasphemy.
In Potvin's case, it was a fair comparison. Orr had changed the
definition of an NHL defenseman by dominating the ice in all zones and
skating with a fluidity the game had never seen. Potvin offered another
possibility -- Orr-like offensive production with old-time-hockey toughness
in his own zone. For his first few years in the league, which coincided with
Orr's all-too-rapid decline, Potvin turned heads with his raw talent alone.
Llike his emerging Islanders team, Potvin made it clear that he could thrive
in any style of game. He gave that team its identity.
Forget about
the his five postseason First Team All-Star selections, his four Stanley Cup
championships, and three Norris Trophies. These are just the spoils of a
Hall of Fame career. What mattered most -- particularly in his early NHL
years -- was the rate at which Potvin scored goals. It was a rate never
before seen. Orr had come into the league and scored 45 goals in his first
three seasons. Potvin had 69 over that span, including his career-high 31
goals in 1975-76. He retired as the only NHL defenseman to score 300 goals
and 1,000 points.
Just as Orr's magic was his ability to take over a
game, Potvin's was his ability to put up points at the same time he was
shutting down the opposition's top forwards.
In the 45 years since
Potvin came into the league, 11 defenseman have been picked No. 1 overall in
the draft, and none has come close to having the impact that either Orr or
Potvin had on their position. And while players such as Ray Bourque, Paul
Coffey, Nick Lidstrom, etc. were certainly great, they were only following a
trail blazed by both Orr and Potvin.
The only current player who has
offered new ways of thinking about the defenseman's role is Erik Karlsson,
who takes risks that no one else in his skates would have taken and often
manages to take over games because of it.
Karlsson has opened a door
to a style of play that can be as revolutionary as Orr's and Potvin's. But
he did not come into the league with the size and skill necessary to develop
that style to its full potential. As great as he is, he leaves the sense
that a player with better physical tools could do even more -- particularly
in terms of scoring goals.
And now, in 2018, that player appears to
have arrived in Karlsson's countryman Rasmus Dahlin.
It is not a
stretch to project that Dahlin will revolutionize his position in the same
way that Orr and Potvin did. He will be all over the ice like Orr. He will
be a physical force like Potvin. Best of all, he will take all of Karlsson's
risks and make the vast majority of them pay off. Dahlin has a hockey sense
that might be greater than that of a young Orr or Potvin.
Karlsson, meanwhile, has already declared Dahlin a better player than he
was at the same age. Comparing defensemen to forwards is not fair, but
Dahlin's hockey sense rivals what Wayne Gretzky brought to the NHK. In other
words, this is a player who will think the game two or three steps ahead of
everyone else on the ice, which gives him a huge advantage.
The
Buffalo Sabres won more than a draft lottery in April. Just like the
Islanders in 1973, they won the privilege of having a legend wear their
uniform. It might take him a couple of years, but he will get there and
inevitably become the keystone of great Sabres success. Buffalo's long wait
for the Stanley Cup -- an even longer wait than Washington's -- should end
within the next 10 years if the Sabres figure out how to grow a team around
Dahlin in the same way the Islanders did it with Potvin.
Is all of
this praise for Dahlin way over the top? Perhaps. But there has not been No.
1 pick defenseman since Potvin who has merited such confidence in future
stardom. Watch his highlights below over and over again, and then remind
yourself that he is doing this at age 17.
When Wayne Gretzky entered
the NHL, no one could conceive of what he would do in his career. Everyone
knew he was special, but he went beyond all expectations. Consider Dahlin
the defenseman's version of Gretzky -- a player who is special now and
capable of achievements we can't even imagine.
We are in a different
world from 1973. The draft is a huge deal, and the world will be watching
it. But in some ways it feels like 1973 all over again. We know that a
generational defenseman will go No. 1 to the team with the previous year's
worst record. That feels just about right. Hockey fans should be both
excited and thankful that a player with such potential has arrived at a
moment that has not seen his like in at least 45 years.