The last three first round draft picks for the Philadelphia Flyers have been highly touted defencemen Sam Morin, Travis Sanheim, and Ivan Provorov. All three players will be vying for a roster spot come September, but the cards seem to be stacked against them.

Especially when you consider Ron Hextall's recent comments from the Courier-Posts' Dave Issac

While Flyers fans may not be able to keep from daydreaming about an entire homegrown defense corps, Hextall isn't getting the itch to push any of the prospects forward just because their pool is getting bigger. "No, it doesn't increase it for me," Hextall said Tuesday when the Flyers began their prospect camp and had all of those blueliners on the ice at once. "You almost want to pull back more. You guys want to do a project? Just go through the history of the game and young defensemen that have played at a young age and the path that they've gone on. It's dangerous. The history shows it. It's not just me saying things. If someone's gonna play, we're gonna be pretty damn sure they're going to play."

I thought right now would be a great time to do that project. There are three Flyers prospects at three different stages in their career that can be easily compared to their peers who began playing at that same stage. For this study, I will use defencemen from 2000 onward in the first round. The first season will be considered the first season that a player plays 20 games.

Ivan Provorov

Draft +1

Since the 2000 draft, 12 defencemen have gone on to play in the NHL directly after being drafted (8.6% of all those drafted). I have attempted to segment the players into four categories: very good, good, bad, and bust. Each player is judged differently. For example, Aaron Ekblad has only had one very good season, while Jay Bouwmeester has had a very good overall career.

This list includes two of the best defencemen in the game today (Drew Doughty and Victor Hedman), as well as two of the best young defencemen (Seth Jones and Aaron Ekblad). However, this list also contains three players who have turned out to not be very good NHLers thus far in Adam Larsson, Luke Schenn, and Luca Sbisa.

Adam Larsson has struggled up until part way through last season (when Pete Deboer was fired) when he seemed to turn a corner under Scott Stevens and Lou Lamoriello. However, he has not had a very good first 192 games to his career.

When Luke Schenn was drafted in 2008, scouts raved about his defensive and physical game. He was described as a stay at home defenceman and was drawing comparisons to Adam Foote. However, in todays NHL, that type of defencemen seems to be becoming less and less valuable.

Travis Sanheim

Draft +2

Of players drafted between 2000 and 2013, 22 players have had their first season in the NHL be two years after they were drafted (16.4%). Those players are:

The majority of the players to start their career in draft +2 have ended up being good players, with only two players who I would consider bad NHLers (and even they are debatable).

Samuel Morin

Draft +3

This is, understandably, the year when players start their career more than any other. 25 of 125 (17.6%) players drafted from 2000 to 2012.

This grouping is very similar to the previous ones. A lot of good players, a few very good players, and a couple bad ones.

Draft +4 and higher

For this portion, I will used the 66 defencemen drafted from 2000 to 2009. This allows us to eliminate players who have not had a chance to play in draft in the 5 years since their draft. 33 of those players did not play in their first three seasons after being drafted.

Most players in this category either have not yet played 20 games, or would be classified as a bad NHLer. This makes sense, because the only way to not have played 20 games is to be in this category. But even excluding that category, this is the only category where the majority of players would be considered bad.

Obviously, there can be a lot of debate about the classification of each player. But the overall theme of the exercise remains. Yes, it is dangerous to play young defencemen. But it is also dangerous to wait to play defencemen. Largely because prospects in general are a risky and dangerous thing to project. Do not let the Luke Schenns and the Steve Emingers scare you off. Because they were likely to become a Mark Fistric anyway. Just like Drew Doughty was probably going to be Drew Doughty even if he went back to junior for a year.