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Scouting isn’t like throwing a dart at a board, but it is an inexact science.

Take John Klingberg, who has come out of nowhere the past two years to become that rarest of rare birds — a true No. 1 defenceman in a league where there might only be a dozen.

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Klingberg was a fifth-round draft pick of the Dallas Stars in 2010. Beer fridges are heavier than he was when they called out the Swede’s name, 131st overall.

“In his draft year, he was maybe five-10 and 155 pounds, and he’d been playing forward, not defence,” said Stars GM Jim Nill, who was in charge of Detroit’s draft table back then, and knows you have to take a step back as a scout. “People want to see them as finished products. They’re not. In Detroit, they picked (Pavel) Datsyuk and (Henrik) Zetterberg, who weren’t big.”

Klingberg chuckles at the memory of his draft days.

“I was pretty small,” he said. “They were taking a chance, for sure. Maybe the scouts were thinking I’d grow to be the size of my brother Carl (six-foot-two, 205 pounds) who was drafted 33rd overall the year before by Atlanta.