(This can be read on its own, or you can ponder it in connection with the general angst felt about the loss of the Kessel Picks.)

 

How to draft

For your consideration, I submit a list of players drafted outside of the top half of the first round. Where drafting can really build your team is in the meat & potatoes rounds. So lets look at the top 60 players picked every year (give or take the end of the round), excluding players from the middle of the 1st round or above. On recent years, this will be approx #15-60, and in older years this was #11-60 (as there were only 21 teams in the league).

 

 

I whittled through all the drafts from 1986 to 2007, using my own criteria for determining a players worth. If your favourite chump missed the cut, sorry 'bout that but it was a subjective first pass. There were also players who were just inside or outside of this player range (just above the bottom half of the 1st round or just outside the 60-spot)

 

This left 153 players. 153 guys who I considered fit into one of the following categories:

 

• high quality prospects or young guys with upside (recent years)
• players who seem to form the young core of their teams (less recent years)
• players who have become quality NHLers (2002 drafts or older)
• young players who are steadly developing into quality roster finds
• decent NHLers who had flashes of potential and may or may not have had a better chance in the post-lockout environment
• depth players who logged a lot of games and/or points over their tenures.

 

Don't cry over one or two flashy picks at the top of the jungle gym. The way to build your team is by finding the franchise players hiding in the rest of the top-60. Most teams had one or two (or three) chances to take guys like Adam Graves, Nik Lidstrom, Patrik Elias, Brad Richards, Paul Stastny, or Shea Weber. Smart picks make teams good.

The List

 

2007

1, 24 - Mikael Backlund

1, 26 - David Perron

2, 43 - PK Subban

2, 52 - Oscar Moller

2, 61 - Wayne Simmonds

 

2006

1, 18 - Chris Stewart

1, 22 - Claude Giroux

1, 23 - Simeon Varlamov

1, 28 - Nick Foligno

2, 34 - Michal Neuvirth (in the same gawd-daymn year?? sunovabitch...)

2, 44 - Nikolai Kulemin

2, 50 - Milan Lucic

2, 54 - Artem Anisimov

2005

1, 17 - Martin Hanzal

1, 21 - Tuukka Rask (I know, I know, sorry to bring it up)

1, 23 - Nicklas Bergfors

1, 25 - Andrew Cogliano

1, 28 - Matt Niskanen

1, 29 - Steve Downie

2, 33 - James Neal

2, 35 - Marc-Edouard Vlasic

2, 41 - Ondrej Pavelec

2, 44 - Paul Stastny

2, 45 - Guillaume Latendresse

2, 51 - Mason Raymond

 

2004

1, 15 - Alexander Radulov

1, 20 - Travis Zajac

1, 21 - Wojtek Wolski

1, 23 - Andrek Meszaros

1, 26 - Cory Schneider

1, 28 - Mike Green

2, 31 - Dave Bolland

2, 33 - Chris Bourque

2, 53 - David Booth

2, 56 - Nicklas Grossman

2, 60 - Brandon Dubinsky

2, 61 - Alex Goligoski

2, 63 - David Krejci

 

2003

1, 15 - Robert Nilsson

1, 17 - Zach Parise

1, 18 - Eric Fehr

1, 19 - Ryan Getzlaf

1, 20 - Brent Burns

1, 21 - Mark Stuart (Thanks, Owen Nolan!! Good thing we didn't draft any of the next couple of names...)

1, 23 - Ryan Kesler

1, 24 - Mike Richards

1, 28 - Corey Perry

2, 33 - Loui Eriksson

2, 45 - Patrice Bergeron

2, 47 - Matt Carle

2, 49 - Shea Weber

2, 56 - Patrick O'Sullivan

2, 62 - David Backes

2, 64 - Jimmy Howard

 

2002

1, 18 - Denis Grebeshkov

1, 24 - Alex Steen (not great, more as a reference for the next pick)

1, 25 - Cam Ward (sigh... if only this was what we got. C'mon Pat Quinn, you should have gone with the Alberta boy vs the Winnipeg legacy)

2, 36 - Jarret Stoll

2, 37 - TIM BRENT???

2, 38 - Josh Harding

2, 43 - Trevor Daley

2, 54 - Duncan Keith

2, 57 - Matt Stajan

2, 58 - Jiri Hudler

2, 63 - Tomas Fleischmann

2001

1, 16 - RJ Umberger

1, 21 - Colby Armstrong

2, 32 - Derek Roy

2, 39 - Fedor Tyutin

2, 49 - Mike Cammalleri

2, 55 - Jason Pominville

 

2000

1, 18 - Brooks Orpik

1, 20 - Alexander Frolov

1, 21 - Anton Volchenkov

1, 24 - Brad Boyes

1, 25 - Steve Ott

1, 28 - Justin Williams

1, 29 - Niklas Kronwall

2, 44 - Ilya Bryzgalov

2, 55 - Antoine Vermette

2, 60 - Dan Ellis

2, 62 - Paul Martin

 

1999 (28 teams)

1, 17 - Barret Jackman

1, 26 - Martin Havlat

2, 42 - Mike Commodore

2, 44 - Jordan Leopold

 

1998 (27 teams)

1, 19 - Robyn Regehr

1, 22 - Simon Gagne

1, 27 - Scott Gomez

2, 29 - Jonathan Cheechoo

2, 44 - Mike Fisher

2, 45 - Mike Ribeiro

(3, 64) - Brad Richards

 

1997 (26 teams)

(1, 12) - Marian Hossa

1, 25 - Brenden Morrow

2, 47 - Kristian Huselius

2, 48 - Henrik Tallinder

(3, 69) - Maxim Afinogenov

1996 (26 teams)

1, 21 - Marco Sturm

1, 24 - Daniel Briere

2, 35 - Matt Cullen

3, 56 - Zdeno Chara

3, 59 - Tom Poti

1995 (26 teams)

1, 13 - JS Giguere

1, 14 - Jay McKee

1, 16 - Martin Biron

1, 18 - Petr Sykora

1, 24 - Alexei Morozov

2, 49 - Jochen Hecht

 

1994 (26 teams)

1, 13 - Mattias Ohlund

2, 44 - Jose Theodore

2, 51 - Patrik Elias

 

1993 (26 teams)

1, 17 - Jason Allison

1, 21 - Saku Koivu

1, 23 - Todd Bertuzzi (think of the talent he had, not the incident)

2, 35 - Jamie Langenbrunner

2, 39 - Brendan Morrison

2, 40 - Bryan McCabe

 

1992 (24 teams)

1, 14 - Sergei Gonchar

1, 18 - Jason Smith

1, 19 - Martin Straka

2, 33 - Valeri Bure (he had 75 pts in Calgary one year)

2, 40 - Mike Peca

 

1991 (22 teams)

1, 11 - Brian Rolston

1, 15 - Alexei Kovalev

1, 16 - Markus Naslund

2, 23 - Ray Whitney

2, 26 - Ziggy Palffy

2, 27 - Steve Staios

2, 30 - Sandis Ozolinsh

3, 47 - Yanic Perreault

3, 54 - Chris Osgood

3, 59 - Michael Nylander

 

1990 (21 teams)

1, 19 - Keith Tkachuk

1, 20 - Martin Brodeur

2, 31 - Felix Potvin

2, 34 - Doug Weight

2, 40 - Mikael Renberg

3, 45 - Slava Kozlov

 

1989 (21 teams)

1, 19 - Olaf Kolzig

2, 22 - Adam Foote

2, 30 - Patrice Brisebois

3, 53 - Nik Lidstrom

3, 62 - Kris Draper

 

1988 (21 teams)

(1, 10) - Teemu Selanne

 

1987 (21 teams)

1, 15 - Joe Sakic

1, 16 - Bryan Marchment

2, 33 - John LeClair

2, 38 - Eric Desjardins

3, 44 - Mathieu Schneider

 

1986 (21 teams)

2, 22 - Adam Graves

2, 29 - Teppo Numminen

3, 57 - Jyrki Lumme