Drafting in the first round, while it seems as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, is still an inexact science. It requires in-depth scouting, long-term projection of both your roster and the player, and it also requires a bit of good luck. You would like to say that every team has a perfect drafting record in the first round, but that simply is not true. Even with a selection in the top-30, there are still plenty of questions marks, busts in waiting, and unforeseen circumstances that arise and challenge scouts and general managers.
The Kings, like any team, have had a mixed bag of results when it comes to first round picks. Let us kick this off on a positive note and highlight some of their best of the best picks of the 1st round.
2005 NHL Entry Draft
Anze Kopitar - No. 11 Overall
In hindsight, there are probably eight or nine teams that are kicking themselves that Kopitar fell as far as 11th in the 2005 NHL entry draft. Aside from Sidney Crosby at No. 1, Bobby Ryan at No. 2, and Carey Price at No. 3, the 2005 top 10 picks were below average at best. The big Slovenian center, who at the time was already playing at the top flight in Swedish hockey as a 17-year old, was passed on by several teams who could have used his tremendous skill-set. With names like Jack Skille, Gilbert Brule, Brian Lee, and Luc Bourdon (May he rest in peace) selected almost immediately before Kopitar, it is hard not to play the “What if?… card.
It all comes down to scouting on this one. More or less where you are scouting. Teams only have a certain amount of time and resources to allocate when it comes to player research and scouting. While Kopitar, was the No. 1 ranked European skater heading into the 2005 draft, it was an overall fairly weak European skater group. Behind Kopitar was Martin Hanzal, followed by Jakub Vojta, Denis Istomin (No not the tennis player!), and Niclas Bergfors. If you knew any of those names after Hanzal and Kopitar, then good for you, because they did not stick around long, if at all in the NHL. In the meantime, there was a ton of hype surrounding some of the OHL products of the 2005 draft, names that included, Bobby Ryan, Benoit Pouliot, Marc Staal, Ryan Parent, and Jakub Kindl. There were also some outstanding amateur league players making some noise in the U.S like T.J Oshie, Andrew Cogliano, and former King Jack Johnson. In an already unorthodox draft after a lockout lost year, it is easy to see how some teams overlooked the thin European draft class that was advertised.
While the whole draft was considered the “Sidney Crosby sweepstakes… the second overall prize may very well have been Anze Kopitar. Legit, franchise No. 1 centers do not grow on trees. The Kings surprisingly were able to get one outside of the top 10. TSN had Kopitar going as high as No. 5 , so it is again baffling that he fell as far as he did.
2008 NHL Entry Draft
Drew Doughty - No. 2 overall
The top five players in the 2008 NHL Entry draft featured four defensemen. After a dreadful season for Los Angeles, the silver lining was that they were going to have a shot at getting one of those four to five highly rated defenseman as a future cornerstone of their blueline. With an aging defensive group that included Tom Preissing, Lubomir Visnovsky, Rob Blake, and Jaroslav Modry, the Kings were full committed to turning over the reins of the defense to Jack Johnson and one of the young blue liners available. While Doughty seems like the easy choice in hindsight, at the time there seemed to be very little separating the top defensive players.
Alex Pietrangelo, Luke Schenn, Zach Bogosian, Tyler Myers, and Drew Doughty all brought something a little different to the table. All of them had outstanding junior careers. All of them were projected to be No. 1-2 defensemen in the NHL. The Kings had the pick of the litter at No. 2, and opted to go with the highlight reel puck mover in Doughty.
This is not to say there wasn’t debate about what the Kings should do.
Some felt that Kings were in need of a bigger shutdown defenseman, ala Bogosian, some thought that L.A. wasn’t actually in need of a defenseman! The Hockey News, in their mock draft of 2008, (http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/16676-The-Hockey-News-2008-Mock-Draft.html) had the Kings dealing the pick to the Islanders in order to move down and select Nikita Filitov. Safe to say they sidestepped a massive land mine with that one.
2012 NHL Entry Draft
Tanner Pearson - No. 30 overall
This one may be considered a bit premature. There is still a lot that Pearson has to prove, and his career may turn out very different than what we have seen so far. Nevertheless, from what he has shown the Kings thus far, and how important a piece he looks, it is a dynamite pick.
What may be the most impressive part of the Pearson selection is that the Kings did it with the 30th overall pick. As an overage player, and a player previously passed on in the draft, there was not a lot of talk about Pearson being a truly legitimate threat as an NHL top 6 winger. However, Dean Lombardi loves those overage picks, and he swooped on Pearson with the last pick in 2012. The 2012 first round draft class has turned into a fairly strong overall class, which may have helped the Kings get such a good player so late.
Again, it is still early in his career and a lot could still go on, but Pearson has almost perfectly slotted into what the Kings need right when they need him. It has been a fairly seamless draft/development with Tanner, and a lot has to be said for the organizational foresight from Dean Lombardi with this pick.
2000 NHL Entry Draft
Alexander Frolov - No. 20 overall
While Frolov did not finish his career with the L.A. Kings, and he played a fairly short NHL career at 579 Games, he gave them seven solid years of service.
Looking back at the 2000 draft, there are not a lot of names that pop out at you from the mid to late first round. The Kings, picking at No. 20, may have got one of the best players left in the draft. Outside of Frolov, only two players were selected behind him in the first round that went on to fairly significant careers: Justin Williams and Niklas Kronwall. Of course, in the same draft in the later rounds both Lubomir Visnovksy and Henrik Lundqvist were taken.
Nevertheless, it can be a little easy to forget the contributions of Frolov in his brief NHL career. He scored 20-plus goals for the Kings in five straight seasons, that includes two seasons in which the left winger had 30-plus. He had five straight seasons of over 50 points, and had two over 65. The Russian was a gifted and talented offensive player, and Kings fans did not get to appreciate him enough. Frolov and his lovely sweaters were in L.A. during the dark years of the mid-2000s. Success was hard to come by as a team, but that does not mean that Frolov was not a home run pick when he was taken back in 2000.