Well, your first one is, at least. The St Louis Blues defeated the Nashville Predators 2-0 tonight. With the win, they have clinched a 20th overall finish (before the win, Minnesota could have been in a position to pass them tomorrow). This, of course, is significant because it gives the Blues the 11th overall pick in the upcoming draft while they get the Avs 2nd rounder (32nd overall) in return. St Louis could have deferred until next season had that pick been in the top 10 (although we've speculated the Blues might have opted not to defer anyway). With the win, the only chance of a deferral now is if St Louis wins the draft lottery on Tuesday to move up 4 spots in the draft order. There is a 1.5% chance of this happening.
With that in mind, here's a look at the recent 11th overall picks:
- 2010 G Jack Campbell (Dallas)
- 2009 D Ryan Ellis (Nashville)
- 2008 F Kyle Beach (Chicago)
- 2007 F Brandon Sutter (Carolina)
- 2006 G Jonathan Bernier (Los Angeles)
- 2005 F Anze Kopitar (Los Angeles)
- 2004 F Lauri Tukonen (Los Angeles)
- 2003 F Jeff Carter (Philadelphia)
- 2002 D Keith Ballard (Buffalo)
- 2001 F Fredrik Sjostrom (Phoenix)
Not a bad list...but I still think I'd rather have Shattenkirk back.
Oh, and murfreed (or something) posted the latest ISS standings in a fanshot. Since I'm deleting that, I'll cannibalize his work here:
ISS top 20 rankings, March 2011:
1. Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan, F 4/12/93 L 6.00.5 170 Red Deer WHL
2. Larsson, Adam, RD 11/12/92 R 6.03 209 Skelleftea SweE
3. Landeskog, Gabriel, LW 11/23/92 L 6.00.25 205 Kitchener OHL
4. Couturier, Sean, C 12/7/92 L 6.04 195 Drummondville QMJHL
5. Murphy, Ryan, RD 3/31/93 R 5.10.25 168 Kitchener OHL
6. Strome, Ryan, C 7/11/93 R 6.00.25 183 Niagara OHL
7. Hamilton, Douglas, RD 6/17/93 R 6.04 190 Niagara OHL
8. Biggs, Tyler, RW 4/30/93 R 6.02 210 USA Under-18 USHL
9. Huberdeau, Jonathan C/L 6/4/93 L 6'1.25 168 Saint John QMJHL
10. Siemens, Duncan, LD 9/7/93 L 6.03 197 Saskatoon WHL
11. Jensen, Nicklas, F 3/6/93 L 6.02.25 188 Oshawa OHL
12. Saad, Brandon, LW 10/27/92 L 6.01.25 208 Saginaw OHL
13. Armia, Joel, RW 5/31/93 R 6.03 191 Assat FinE
14. Zibanejad, Mika, C 4/18/93 R 6.01.5 191 Djurgarden SweJE
15. McNeill, Mark, C 2/22/93 R 6.01 204 Prince Albert WHL
16. Khokhlachev, Alexandr F 9/9/93 L 5.10 188 Windsor OHL
17. Musil, David, LD 4/9/93 L 6.03.5 200 Vancouver WHL
18. Grimaldi, Rocco, C 2/8/93 R 5.06 163 USA Under-18 USHL
19. Oleksiak, Jamie (Fr.) , LD 12/21/92 L 6.07 244 Northeastern H.E.
20. Catenacci, Daniel, C 3/9/93 L 5.09.25 180 S.S. Marie OHL