The NHL Draft's Wasted Years: The Worst First Rounds Since 1990

The 2003 NHL Draft might have been one the best of all time.

4 Draftees are now team captains.
6 Have lead their teams in scoring.
3 Have played major roles on Stanley Cup Winning Teams.
9 Have been All Stars.
2 Scored 40+ goals.
1 Was a Norris finalist
15 Olympians
5 Members of the 2010 Canadian Gold Medal Team

Phew! What a draft.

However, the drafts highlighted on the following slides are a dog’s breakfast. They are in no particular order as it’s difficult to measure one disaster against another.

So, without further ado.

2002

Top 5:

1. Rick Nash - Columbus
2. Kari Lehtonen - Atlanta
3. Jay Bouwmeester - Florida
4. Joni Pitkanen - Philadelphia
5. Ryan Whitney - Pittsburgh

Not bad but this draft really fell off the rails after the top 5.

Scottie Upshall, Joffrey Lupul and Pierre-Marc Bouchard are serviceable NHL pro's but if the Preds (6th), Ducks (7th) and Wild (8th) had a do over would they pass on Alex Semin (13th) or Cam Ward (25th)?

Or how about the teams who passed on those two for these future beer league stars: Petr Taticek (9th), Jesse Niinimaki (15th), Jacob Klepis (16th) and Jacob Koreis (19th)?

It's as if teams picked names out of a hat.

2 All Stars
1 Team Captain
1 Stanley Cup Winning Goalie

Blunder: Matthew Lombardi fell all the way to 90th.

1992

Top 5:

1. Roman Hamrlik - Tampa Bay
2. Alexei Yashin - Ottawa
3. Mike Rathje - San Jose
4. Todd Warriner - Quebec
5. Darius Kasparitis - NY Islanders

Like 2002, this top isn't that bad (although Warriner was a rare Nordiques draft blunder).

What makes this year so bad was that it was bookended by two great drafts.

In 1991 Eric Lindros, Scott Niedermayer, Peter Forsberg and Markus Naslund were drafted, while in 1993, Chris Pronger, Paul Kariya, Jason Arnott, Saku Koivu and Todd Bertuzzi were 1st rounders.

Yikes.

5 All Stars (in 17 seasons)
1 Team Captain (Yashin... shouldn't even count).

Biggest blunder: The Oilers drafted Joe Hulbig 13th overall. He went on to play 55 NHL games. The next pick went to the Capitals who selected Sergei Gonchar.

Someone had to have gotten fired.

1995

Top 5:

1. Brian Berard - Ottawa (traded to NY Islanders)
2. Wade Redden - NY Islanders (traded to Ottawa)
3. Aki Berg - Los Angeles
4. Chad Kilger - Anaheim
5. Daymond Langkow

If not for Berard's eye injury suffered in 2000, this may have ended up a much better draft.

Reddon was actually one the better all around rear guards during his prime and Langkow was/is solid second line centre most of his career.

However, Kilger was a career plug and Berg was at best a mediocre third pair defenseman.

4 All Stars
1 Calder
1 Team Captain (Iginla, also winner of Richard, Art Ross, King Clancy and Pearson awards)
1 Stanley Cup
1 Conn Smythe

Blunders: 10 teams passed on Iginla until Dallas selected him 11th and 12 teams passed on Jean Sebastien Giguere until Hartford (Carolina) took him 13th.

1998

Top 5:

1. Vincent Lecavalier - Tampa Bay
2. David Legwand - Nashville
3. Brad Stuart - San Jose
4. Bryan Allen - Vancouver
5. Vitali Vishnevsky - Anaheim

The first four picks, to varying degrees, all established themselves as legit NHL pro's. Vishnevsky, however, never developed as hoped.

What makes this draft so bad was that fact that it was so top heavy.

Alex Tanguay (12th), Robyn Regehr (19th), Simon Gagne (22nd) and Scott Gomez (27th) are really the only NHL players of distinction in this first round.

The rest were either career plugs or never made it.

4 All Stars
4 Stanley Cup Winners
1 Team Captain
1 Calder
1 Richard

Blunder: Pavel Datsyuk somehow lasted until the 171st pick. Oops!

1996

Top 5:

1. Chris Phillips - Ottawa
2. Andrei Zyuzin - San Jose
3. J.P. Dumont - NY Islanders
4. Alexandre Volchkov - Washington
5. Ric Jackman - Dallas

If based solely on that top five, this may be one of the worst first rounds ever.

Philips was actually a great pick considering the relative garbage that followed.

Volchkov never played a single game in the NHL and may be one of the biggest busts of all time.

If based on point production, Daniel Briere (24th) is the best of the round.

6 All Stars (misleading when you read the names Ruslan Salei and Marco Sturm)
1 Team Captain
0 Stanley Cups

Blunder: Defensemen Zdeno Chara and Tomas Kaberle went in the 3rd and 8th respectively. They have had slightly better careers than Andrei Zyuzin.

1999

Top 5:

1. Patrik Stefan - Atlanta
2. Daniel Sedin - Vancouver
3. Henrik Sedin - Vancouver
4. Pavel Brendl - NY Rangers
5. Tim Connolly - NY Islanders

1999 was actually considered to be one of the deepest in years prior to draft day.

However, Brendl and Stefan are two of the biggest busts in history and aside from the Sedin twins, Martin Havlat (26th) is the only All Star out of this first round.

3 All Stars
1 Team Captain
0 Stanley Cups

After the twins, the draft's best picks were Ryan Malone (115th), Ryan Miller (138th) and Henrik Zetterberg (210th).

Zetterberg is the lowest NHL Draft pick to win the Conn Smythe.