It's the NHL Draft... On The Ocho!

As a final primer for the 2009 NHL Entry Draft -- and the Stars' first-ever Draft Party* -- here's a run-down and some half-assed analysis of eighth-overall picks in the modern era. The Stars will be drafting eighth overall, picking in the top 10 for the first time since 1996.

*Am I excited about a draft party? Depressed? Thirsty? "Yeeeeeaaaahhh! We stank last year!" *glug glug*

The NHL Draft was a crapshoot in the Original Six era, mostly because the Montreal Canadiens had outright ownership of every youth hockey team in Canada. So we'll start in the expansion era.

Again, these guys were all taken with the eighth overall pick.

1969 - Andre 'Moose' Dupont: tough guy who played in over 800 NHL games, won 2 Stanley Cups with the Flyers

1970 - Darryl Sittler: Hall of Famer and perhaps the greatest Toronto Maple Leaf ever.

1973 - Bob Gainey: Hall of Famer, greatest defensive forward of all time. Selke Trophy invented for him. (Note: Picks 8-10 that year were Bob Gainey, Bob Dailey, and Bob Neely. Huh?)

1974 - Pierre Larouche: Two-time 50-goal scorer played in over 800 NHL games.

1979 - Ray Bourque: Hall of Famer, one of the 10 best defenseman ever and probably the best I ever saw.

1981 - Grant Fuhr: Hall of Famer, five-time Stanley Cup winner.

1984 - Shayne Corson: Over 1100 NHL games, mostly as a quality checking-liner; Cup winner in '93.

1988 - Jeremy Roenick: Future Hall of Famer, 500-plus career goals, one of the 5 greatest US-born players ever.

1989, 1990 - for two consecutive years, the Stars -- then the Minnesota North Stars -- had the No. 8 overall pick in the NHL Entry Draft. In 1990 they drafted Derian Hatcher. In 1991 (the Lindros/Forsberg draft) they drafted Richard Matvichuk.

Hatcher and Matvichuk went on to comprise perhaps the NHL's best shut-down defensive pairing for several years, and in 1999 they were the Stars' top defensive pairing when they won their only Stanley Cup. (Hatcher is still the only US-born Captain to win a Cup.) Both No. 8 overall picks.

1995 - Terry Ryan: Okay, I have no idea who Terry Ryan is, unless he's the former General Manager of the Minnesota Twins. And he's not. I checked. The reason I mention this one is because the Stars had a fairly high draft pick in 1995, at 11th overall. They drafted Jarome Iginla, whom they later traded for Joe Nieuwendyk.

1996 - Johnathan Aitken: Again, no idea who this guy is. I mention this year's draft because it was the last one in which the Stars had a top-10 pick. In what was then thought, and now known, to be an atrociously weak draft, the Stars took the immortal Richard (Dick) Jackman 6th overall. At least Jackman played in 231 NHL games -- a few first-rounders that year never made the NHL at all.

1997 - Sergei Samsonov: Rookie of the year who cratered in Montreal after signing there as a free agent, now enjoying a renaissance in Carolina. The Bruins, who drafted him, traded him for Marty Reasoner and a second-round pick that turned out to be Milan Lucic.

1998 - Mark Bell: Spent the summer of 2008 in a work-release program after getting half-crocked and running over some pedestrians with his car. Oooops.

1999 - Taylor Pyatt: Not a standout, really, but deserves mention simply because he is a functional NHL player. The 1999 draft was the weakest of all time: of the 28 players taken in the first round, EIGHT are still in the NHL. That's astoundingly bad. And of those eight, only three are anything resembling All-Stars -- the Sedin Twins (nos. 2 and 3 overall) and Martin Havlat (no. 26).

(Here is a way to tell the difference between a bad organization and a good one: In the abysmal 1999 draft, the New York Rangers and New York Islanders each had TWO top-10 picks. The Red Wings and Stars had no first-rounders at all. Colorado, Philadelphia and New Jersey each had only their own picks late in the round. Good teams don't compile worthless draft picks. They try to liquidate them and turn them into assets.)

2001 - Pascal Leclaire: Looked like a promising prospect for Columbus before blowing out his knee and being supplanted by Calder Trophy winner Steve Mason, Leclaire will likely start next season in Ottawa.

2002 - Pierre-Marc Bouchard
2003 - Braydon Coburn
2005 - Devin Setoguchi
2006 - Peter Mueller
2008 - Mikkel Boedker

Five of the last seven drafts have featured "keepers" at the eighth spot -- Setoguchi scored over 30 goals last season and Coburn and Boedker are potential All-Stars.

There's no quantifiable reason for it that I can perceive, but that's a pretty impressive track record for eighth picks. Hopefully the Stars end up with someone who fits in nicely with that last group of five players, and maybe even fits in alongside some of the illustrious names way up there.

And regarding the "medium-term replacements for creaky Stars legends" mentioned here, here's a look at those players:

1) LW Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson
Pierre McGuire (aka "Captain Pushback") writes that LW Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson reminds him of Lehtinen, except with a better name. (OK, that last part was me.) Svensson was eminently noticeable on Sweden's World Junior team in January, and of the three guys I'll mention here, he is the most likely to be off the board by the time the Stars pick. He could go as high as fifth to the Kings. McGuire: "He's a younger Jere Lehtinen -- he gets it offensively, works well in his own end and is strong as a house."

2) D Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Former Stars front-office exec Craig Button writes that a fellow hyphenated Swede, defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson, reminds him of Sergei Zubov, one of the most unique players I have ever seen. Button called him "one of the smoothest players in the draft." Well, Zubov is nothing if not smooth, I guess. From International Scouting Services: "Ekman-Larsson is a very confident skater with excellent offensive skills."

3) D Dmitry Kulikov
Fellow defenseman Dmitry Kulikov also reminds me of Zubov based on what I've read. Most scouting services rank Ekman-Larsson a little higher, and some would consider a Kulikov pick a mild reach, but the Stars desperately need a defenseman to pilot their transition game in Zubov's (eventual? imminent?) absence, and if this is the guy they prefer, I'm excited to see him play. Like current Stars minor-leaguer Ivan Vishnevskiy, Kulikov grew up playing in Russia but came to the Quebec Major Junior league as a teenager to learn the North American game. Plus, unlike Ekman-Larsson, Kulikov may be able to jump to the NHL immediately. Says NHL Central Scouting, "He's a great skater; he can carry the puck and shoot the puck well. He's strong too, he can take big hits and they don't seem to bother him."

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