Have we been spoiled by recent rookie classes?

[jmatchett]

Edit: The title should say "spoiled"

The 05/06 rookie class may be the best ever. Just try to wrap your head around it: Crosby, Ovechkin, Phaneuf, Lundqvist, Richards, Parise, and Getzlaf just to scratch the surface.
It was a bit of a downer in 06/07, but you still had Malkin, Staal, Kopitar, Stastny, and Kessel.
Last year was a step back up, with Toews, Price, Kane, Backstrom, Mueller, Lucic, and Gagner.

This year just seems stale. Maybe it's because the projected "big" names aren't producing like people thought. Stamkos is off to a slow start, Okposo isn't producing, Bogosian's hurt, Pietrangelo's back in juniors, and Giroux didn't even make the team. Is this normal and we're just spoiled by the last 3 years, or is this class lacking (so far)?

 

[sprague11]

Most RC crops take about 3-4 years to come around and truly show their worth. We all got a bit spoiled in 05/06, but some players it jsut takes longer to develop (or in some instances regress).

Look at 2005/06. During that season, Perry, Getzlaf, Carter, Richards, Steen, Penner and Prucha were all commanding roughly the same dollar amounts. The first 4 are among the league leaders in either goals, assists or points while the last 3 have found themselves on their teams' 4th line. All the players you mentioned have time to grow.

 

[es_19]

05-06 and 07-08 definitely spoiled us but i don't think 08-09 is that bad.

i think the main issue here is that most of the top names this year are D-men. it's one of the toughest positions to play, both mentally and physically. it takes more time to develop a young defenseman. doughty and schenn have been superb thus far (superb in terms of exceeding expectations). bogosian has a broken leg and pietrangelo was hit from behind before being sent down, so you can't really fault them there can you?

on the other side of the coin, stamkos has played less than an average of 12 minutes a game before melrose was let go while okposo is playing on the islanders who are tied for second last in the east. boedker (5-3-8) and tikhonov (1-2-3) are on a young coyotes team that are still gelling. it's still early in the season, they'll get it going soon.

 

[enforcersonly]

The 05/06 rookie class may be the best ever. Just try to wrap your head around it: Crosby, Ovechkin, Phaneuf, Lundqvist, Richards, Parise, and Getzlaf just to scratch the surface.

And Boogaard!

Youre right though - how can this years crop match any 05/06 or last years? I think this is just a "normal" year in terms of the players drafted and they will take longer to develop. 05/06 was just phenomenal, it'll be a long time before theres a rookie crop like that again.

 

[SkyFire47]

you can't really look at 05/06 as jsut one class though. it's really 04-05 and 05-06. imagine if you were to combine 06/07 and 07/08, then you'd have Malkin, Staal, Kopitar, Stastny, Kessel, Toews, Price, Kane, Backstrom, Mueller, Lucic, and Gagner. they look pretty even to me so far. perhaps it would be more fair to evaluate 08/09 and the 09/10 classes together down the road.

 

[es_19]

a little extra reading...

1st round of 2004 draft pick
1. ovechkin; 2. malkin; 3. barker; 4. ladd; 5. wheeler; 6. montoya; 7. olesz; 8. picard; 9. smid; 10. valabik; 11. tukonen; 12. thelen; 13. d. stafford; 14. dubnyk; 15. radulov; 16. nokelainen; 17. schwarz; 18. chipchura; 19. korpikoski; 20. zajac; 21. wolski; 22. kaspar; 23. meszaros; 24. chucko; 25. schremp; 26. schneider; 27. j. schultz; 28. fistric; 29. mike green; 30. rogers

2nd round, 60th pick - brandon dubinsky, 63rd - david krejci
3rd round, 91st pick - alexander edler, 97th - johan franzen
4th round, 99th pick - tyler kennedy
5th round, 134th pick - kris versteeg, 150th - mikhail grabovski
9th round, 287th pick - jannik hansen

1st round of 2005 draft pick
1. crosby; 2. ryan; 3. jack johnson; 4. b. pouliot; 5. c. price; 6. brule; 7. skille; 8. setoguchi; 9. brian lee; 10. bourdon; 11. kopitar; 12. m. staal; 13. zagrapan; 14. pokulok; 15. o'marra; 16. bourret; 17. martin hanzal; 18. ryan parent; 19. jakub kindl; 20. mcardle; 21. rask; 22. lashoff; 23. berfors; 24. oshie; 25. cogliano; 26. pelech; 27. finley; 28. matt niskanen; 29. downie; 30. mihalik

round 2, 30th - petr kalus, 41st - pavelec, 44th - paul stastny, 45th - latendresse, 51st - mason raymond
round 3, 62nd - kristopher letang, 67th - kris russell,
round 4, 100th - sigalet, 101 - boll, 105 - yandle
round 5, 132nd - darren helm
round 7, 200th - sergei kostitsyn, 216th - anton stralman

1st round of 2006
1. erik johnson; 2. j. staal; 3. toews; 4. n. backstrom (caps); 5. kessel; 6. brassard; 7. okposo; 8. mueller; 9. sheppard; 10. frolik; 11. bernier; 12. little; 13. tlusty; 14. grabner; 15. helenius; 16. wishart; 17. lewis; 18. stewart; 19. mitera; 20. fischer; 21. sanguinetti; 22. giroux; 23. varlamov; 24. persson; 25. berglund; 26. irving; 27. vishnevskiy; 28. foligno; 29. summers; 30. corrente.

round 2, 44th pick - nikolai kulemin, 50th pick - lucic
round 3, 69th pick - steve mason, 72nd - clutterbuck

recognize more than half those names (especially the ones in the later rounds) from the 07-08 crop and some in this year's rookie cards?

young players take time to develop...of course, the generational talents don't, while others languish as career minor leaguers. but that just goes to show you that to be the worst player in the NHL, you are still pretty damn good to have made it through the system.

 

[2fnlo]

I think this years rookie crop is potentially one of the best since 05/06, however it just may take some time for them to produce. Which makes it a GREAT time to buy.

I think we should all remember alot of rookies from 05/06 started off very slow and took a year or 2 to become spot light stars. And from the last few years more will come.

In 05/06 how many Franzen RCs were in the common box? Every year is the same and when you can evaluate who is going to be good, but isn't good in the first few years it how people like me make alot of money. I love stocking the cupboards with the rookies who are supposed to be superstars, but faulter in their first few years. If you sit on them long enough it can be worth a fortune.

Anyone else remember buying Lundqvist Cup RCs for $100 or less? Everyone pretty much thought Al Montoya was the man in New York. Look how that turned out. But who is to say in 2 years Montoya's cup card won't be worth more than Lundqvist. It could happen, it might not. Its not a science but I have made alot of money from it.

 

[Chinner]

Alex Edler - Give him a few more years - he'll go down as one of the Canucks best picks in franchise history.

 

[missionhocky10]

compared to 06, every rookie class looks bad, but this years doesnt look too bad overall. only bad point from a hobby perspective is that most of the top rookies are d-men and dont get as much love as the goal scorers. stamkos isnt putting up #s like he was thought to(so far) and i might be a (only a little ) biased when i say that Doughty has been the most impressive of all the rookies this season. still the beginning so you know someone might emerge from the rest.

 

[Iceman]

Spoiled would be an understatement. The type of top end talent from the last three rookie crops is insane. I'm not so sure there is that the one big player in this years crop that everyone goes nuts over. Stamkos might but he hasn't put up the numbers for people to get excited over. After him, who is there? Brassard or Voracek? Defencemen? I apologize if I'm overlooking someone, but those are whom I've noticed so far. But who knows how some players will develop so it's way too early to call this a stinker of a rookie crop.

 

[jmatchett]

I want to reiterate that I have not called this a bad crop of rookies. Quite the opposite. There doesn't seem to be the same buzz around 1-2 players like there has been in recent years is all.

 

[GrimUSMC]

O we are definitely spoiled.

 

[Metrags]

Most rookie classes only have a handful of bonafide superstars, if that much. The lockout pushed 2 years together, mix that in with the NHL shift to faster, younger play. The 03-05 classes look amazing.

And yeah usually it takes like 2 or 3 years before a stud really shines. These first year allstars are very rare, and will probably be rarer as the nhl continues to shift towards defensive style play.

 

[TanguayFan]

I think it's not so much the lack of star rookies as it is the placement of the star rookies. The best rookies from this years crop are all playing in non-traditional hockey markets:

Vorsacek, Mason, Brassard in Columbus, Turris and Boedker in Phx, Stamkos in Tampa, Pieterangelo, Oshie and Berglund in St. Louis, Doughty and Moller in LA.

The lone exception is Schenn in Toronto.

 

[cburt]

Spoiled for sure. As some have basically said, we might not see this kind of a loaded rookie crop for sometime to come (considering 05-06 through to 07-08). But as the guy who mentioned Franzen's cards being in the common's bin for a few years until recently, we definitely have to give these guy's time. It's definitely been a good draft when it comes to defensemen though. We just haven't seen any high-powered, high-octane forwards light it up, or fly out of the gates. Stamkos so far hasn't lived up to all the hype. But with Stamkos there are a number of factors that probably contribute to his slow start.

But as it stands, and I know it is really early, but I think now might be a good time to buy up more wax from the 05-06 and 07-08 years to grab some more of the hot rookies in those sets.

 

[NickC]

Tanguayfan is right, most of the hot rookies this year are in hobby backwaters so to speak,now if some of these guys were playing for the Habs,Rangers or the Wings they would pretty much sky rocket

Nick