Brian Lawton
| Brian Lawton | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Born |
June 29, 1965 New Brunswick, New Jersey |
||
| Height | 6 ft 0 in (183 cm) | ||
| Weight | 180 lb (82 kg; 12 st 12 lb) | ||
| Position | Centre | ||
| Shot | Left | ||
| Played for |
Minnesota North Stars New York Rangers Hartford Whalers Quebec Nordiques Boston Bruins San Jose Sharks |
||
| National team |
 United States
|
||
| NHL Draft | 1st overall, 1983 Minnesota North Stars |
||
| Playing career | 1983–1993 | ||
Brian Robert Lawton (born June 29, 1965) is an American former professional ice hockey player, agent and general manager, who played 483 regular season games in the National Hockey League (NHL) between the 1983–84 and 1992–93 seasons. During his career, Lawton played for the Minnesota North Stars, New York Rangers, Hartford Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, Boston Bruins and San Jose Sharks, and was the Tampa Bay Lightning general manager.
After playing for the U.S. Junior Hockey Team, at the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in 1983, and leading his high school, Mount Saint Charles Academy in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, to consecutive championships, Brian Lawton was the first-overall draft pick by the North Stars in the 1983 NHL Entry Draft. Lawton is noted for being the first US-born hockey player drafted first-overall in the NHL draft. He was also the first and, as of 2014, the only US high school hockey player to be drafted first-overall.
Lawton was ranked by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau as the top prospect for the 1983 Entry Draft. Despite a reasonable NHL career that included 266 career points in 483 games, Lawton is considered to be a draft bust. This is mainly in part because he was drafted ahead of players such as Steve Yzerman, Cam Neely, Tom Barrasso, and Pat LaFontaine, in a draft in which LaFontaine and Yzerman were expected by others to go higher than Lawton. Detroit Red Wings general manager Jim Devellano, who drafted Yzerman that year, later speculated that had Minnesota drafted Yzerman themselves, paired with Dino Ciccarelli, that might have saved the franchise from later moving and becoming the Dallas Stars. In 1985, Minnesota general manager Lou Nanne admitted that drafting Lawton first overall might have been a mistake, saying, "If I had it to do over again, I'd take Barrasso."
...
Wikipedia