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 2017, the only US high school hockey player to be drafted first-overall.\n', '

Lawton was ranked by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau as the top prospect for the 1983 Entry Draft. His NHL career included 266 career points in 483 games. Lawton played his first couple of years in Minnesota, and split his second season between the North Stars and their American Hockey League affiliate, the Springfield Indians. In 1983, Lawton was training with the U.S. National Hockey Team, but unlike other North Stars prospects, Lawton was encouraged to turn professional ahead of the 1984 Winter Olympics, and though he did later play in the 1984 Canada Cup, missed the extra experience playing in Sarajevo would have afforded him. Lawton also later played for the United States team at the 1987 Championships.\n', '

Prior to Jesse Puljujärvi, Lawton was the only NHL player to ever wear the number 98, which he chose during his rookie season but changed to number 8 after two seasons owing to unwelcome comparisons to Wayne Gretzky\'s number 99. Lawton set a mark for the North Stars franchise for fastest two goals scored by a rookie, at 19 seconds, in 1983. After five seasons with Minnesota, Lawton had not scored more than 44 points in any season, and the North Stars apparently washed their hands of him, attempting to assign him to their affiliate in Kalamazoo, Michigan. When Lawton refused to report, the North Stars traded him to the New York Rangers in October 1988. Halfway through the 1988–89 NHL season, the Rangers traded him again, to Hartford, and Lawton would go on to play in eight different cities over the next four years. Lawton would later say that being moved around as often as he was, was a factor in his performance over the years, and an aspect of the game that he never enjoyed.\n', '

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