George McPhee orchestrated a strong first round yesterday.

Last year, he traded down to acquire two additional second round picks in this year’s draft, believed to be a much deeper draft than last year. He then recycled those assets, turning one of these second round picks, and the Caps’ 23rd pick last night, into the 21st pick, and with it drafted Bengt’s son, Anton Gustafsson.

He then dealt a third round pick and Steve Eminger to move up to take the Flyers’ 1st round pick (#27), and selected John Carlson. A strong first round haul in a good draft year, talent-wise.

Anton joked last night that he’s a better skater and has a better shot than his dad. Wouldn’t that be something? When asked if he enjoyed playing a physical game, he replied “Absolutely. I’m a real physical player.” McPhee said that he expects Anton to be at the development camp at Kettler next month.

Then there’s John Carlson. He’ll play for Dale Hunter and the OHL’s London Knights next fall. I thought, from what I read, that he was the best D talent available at #27. And he sounded collected and appropriately confident with the media last night.

As I like to loosely analogize, many GMs in baseball will tell you that you can never have enough good starting pitchers in the system, and so I think it goes in hockey with defensemen like Carlson. According to his scouting report:

He’s good on his feet and agile for a big kid. He’s poised at all times and just has the mind of the game. He never gets rattled.

I thought getting a defenseman in round one of this draft, with so many quality players at that position available (and going to other teams who are improving their own D corps), was important.

What’s more impressive about the move up to get Carlson is that, in doing so, McPhee managed to essentially trade Steve Eminger for a 1st round pick. (Yes, I know, he traded the #84 pick to the Flyers as well.) Imagine getting a 1st round pick for Eminger at this past February’s trading deadline. Wouldn’t happen.

I do have concerns that Eminger will now have a major chip on his shoulder, and skating in Flyers orange and black. And then there was this quote from Eminger on Tarik’s blog this morning:

It didn’t hurt that the Flyers were the last team I played against. If there was one team I wanted to go to, that’s it. It’s hard to leave the friends that I’ve made in Washington. But hockey-wise, I needed a new start. And Philadelphia is the perfect place for it.

Yikes. But, hey, the deal was worth the risk for a player who clearly did not fit into two different coaches’ systems in 2007-08.