The Preds are a triumph in my books, operating on a shoe string budget with a dimunitive regular season attendance. I can attest however, that when I was in Nashville during the playoffs a few years back I was blown away by the buzz in the city. People had painted faces just to watch the games on Food-Row's many bars, which were packed. It seems there's just no appetite for it during football season, but if the Preds are playoff bound then they have the attention of their fan base in the post season the same way Vanderbilt and the Titans have it year 'round.
Perhaps the best way to summarize Nashvilles draft prowess is that their only two possible misses would be Scottie Upshall taken 6th in 2002 and Ryan Parent who has yet to prove he's a full time NHLer, despite being highly coveted by many NHL teams. Upshall is a key player in PHX and Parent has had appearances with the Canucks this year who gave up Shane O'brien to acquire him.
We'll do Nashville Point form because there are so many
2001 -Hahuis, 12th, Tootoo 98th
2002 - Brandon Segal 102 (10 pt in 19 Gm with Dallas last year)
2003 - Suter 7th, Kevin Klein 37, Shea Weber 49, Sulzer 92 (basically drafted an NHL top four in 4 picks)
2004 - Radulov 15th, Pekka Rinne 258, Mike Santorelli 6th round (20 pt in 20 Game with FLA)
2005 - Cody Franson 3rd round, Cal O'reilly 5th round, Patric Hornqvist 7th round (all 3 on big club)
2006 - Blake Geoffrion 56th, power forward finding game in AHL
Mike Dekanic taken in the 5th has a .938 Sv Pctg, and 1.77 GAA in Milwuakee
2007-Jonathan Blum 23rd, has 22 pt in 39 games in Milwuakee
Nick Spaling taken 58th is already in the NHL
2008 is absolutely sick
-Colin Wilson 7th overall is fifth in team scoring
-Chet Pickard has horrible numbers and is demoted to the ECHL, but still a super talent that could develop
-Roman Josi at 38th has 14 pt in 33game with Milwuakee this season
Throw in Taylo Stefishen in the fifth and Anders Lindback who is backing up Rinne this season in the 7th
2009 has the star power of Ryan Ellis, a gift at 12th but also taylor beck and Michael Latta taken in the second round, teammates for the Guelph Storm that are dominating the OHL, Charles-Olivier Roussel was a nice take at 42nd and don't look now but Zack Buddish is finding his game at the U of Minnesota.
2010 -It's a bit early to tell with this draft year but one thing for sure is Patric Cehlin looked good at this year's WJC
The further I got in to this analysis the better the ranking got. This team has an absolute back-log of talent in the crease with Rinne, Lindback, Pickard and Dekanich, and easily the biggest stockpile of talent at D possibly ever in the history of the NHL. In the big leagues drafted this decade they have: Dan Hamhuis, Ryan Suter, Kevin Klein, Shea Weber, Alexander Sulzer, Cody Franson and coming up they have Jon Blum ,Roman Josi, Ryan Ellis and CO Roussel...insane.
A+ Early on I knew this would be a high ranking, but after examining you absolutely cannot give them less credit than Detroit or Chicago, arguably, they're even better, but we'll lay that out for y'all at the end of this research assignment.
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