Most disappointing 1st round pick ?

[pappyline]

The Hockey News had high hopes for him. In fact he was once touted as a potential 100 point man by them. Sounds like a superstar to me.


By the way can't believe no one has said this yet.............Danny Geoffrion? 8th overall in 1978. Played basically two seasons. Had 0 goals in his rookie campaign. If his name is Danny Smith is he any better than a 4th round pick?

You had to take a chance on Danny geoffrion. Boom-Boom was his father & Howie Morenz was his grandfather. What bloodlines!

 

[Palinka]

Alex Volchkov (4th overall by Washington in 1996).

Washington also had Jaroslav (Yogi) Svejkovsky, who dominated the WHL, dominated the AHL, and looked like a budding superstar. I think he scored four goals in a game as a rookie with Washington, then pretty much fell off the face of the planet.

In the case of Svejkovsky, I look at it this way. He was a highly-touted prospect when he was drafted, and his dominant play fueled a "he's on his way" hype. It's one thing to be highly drafted and flame out, but Svejkovsky's play at all levels as a rookie made him look like he was going to be a perennial All-Star. I think that would double the disappointment.

 

[Passchendaele]

Alexander Kharlamov?

Was he even good?

 

[MS]

Washington also had Jaroslav (Yogi) Svejkovsky, who dominated the WHL, dominated the AHL, and looked like a budding superstar. I think he scored four goals in a game as a rookie with Washington, then pretty much fell off the face of the planet.

In the case of Svejkovsky, I look at it this way. He was a highly-touted prospect when he was drafted, and his dominant play fueled a "he's on his way" hype. It's one thing to be highly drafted and flame out, but Svejkovsky's play at all levels as a rookie made him look like he was going to be a perennial All-Star. I think that would double the disappointment.

Svejkovsky's career was ruined by concussions and post-concussion syndrome, IIRC. He missed most of the 1997-98 and 1998-99 campaigns, and was never the same player again.

Not really his fault, and belongs in the same category as Brett Lindros or Stefan Cherneski where they were just done in by injuries.

 

[hckyfan0099]

10th overall: Mikhail Yakubov
11th overall: Pavel Vorobiev

Fannnntastic.

Exactly what I was thinking.

 

[Gooch]

Stefan was an NHL player for almost a decade. I wouldn't even call him a bust. And IIRC, nobody expected him to become a superstar.

He was a first overall pick, so I can assume there was certainly more expected out of him than he delivered. He had roughly the same career a Alexander Daigle. You can dig out 1st round picks that never amount to much pretty easily but most of the time the 1st overall picks do.. in the cases of Daigle and Stefan though they are pretty famous busts.

 

[MXD]

I've gotta give this one to Jack Valiquette... Selected by the Leafs in the 1st round in 1974.... 13th overall....in his only year in the OHA he racked up 63 goals and 72 helpers in 69 games for the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, but Valiquette's promising career with the Leafs just never happened.

His bio on legendsofhockey is... well, funny.

 

[MXD]

Jason Ward

Sorry, but no. He was a disappointment, but he played, what, 400 NHL games? You could argue Ward was in the upper half of players picked by the Habs in the 1st round between 1980 and 2000.

I'm not so sure about that...


Jeff Ware. Nepotism at its best.

...Who?

By the way can't believe no one has said this yet.............Danny Geoffrion? 8th overall in 1978. Played basically two seasons. Had 0 goals in his rookie campaign. If his name is Danny Smith is he any better than a 4th round pick?

All skill, no work ethic... Is that it?

Alex Volchkov (4th overall by Washington in 1996).

.

IMO, bingo. Failure as a 4th overall isn't like failure at 13th overall.

I would also suggest Teemu Riijiarvi (sp...) but it was probably more of a bad pick than a disappointment.

The russian goalie the Bruins picked a few years ago goes more into the bad pick category as well. Ryabchikov... Something like that.

 

[Coyote_Fan]

Blake Wheeler. He vindicated his pick by the Coyotes by becoming a good prospect and looks to be a good player. But he stabbed the team in the back by running off to Boston to play with Kessel. ******!

 

[Shredder]

Every Blackhawks 1st rounder from 1989 until 2003 (with the minor exception of Dean McAmmond). What an unbelievable period of draft futility.

Indeed, shocking results. Although we shouldn't forget the fabulous Krivo!

Whats the deal with Vorobiev? I remember him scoring 10 goals in 20 games a few seasons ago and then he got demoted to the AHL. Why did he get demoted and is he in the KHL now?

He had a fabulous start to his Hawks career statistically in 2005-06, but the team was all kinds of awful. He had six goals and nine assists in his first thirteen games, but the team went 4-9. The he went hot and cold the rest of the way ending his stint with one measly assist in his last fifteen games. Just way too inconsistent. The demotion rubbed him the wrong way, and Uni-brow was off to Russia...

 

[Palinka]

I would also suggest Teemu Riijiarvi (sp...) but it was probably more of a bad pick than a disappointment.

Riihjarvi was, if I remember correctly, a case of the Sharks trying to outsmart everyone by jumping on a major project at an early slot. The only problem was that no one else was even looking at him until a heck of a lot later in the draft.

The funny thing is that the next year, the Flames did the same thing with Derek Morris. They picked him 13th overall, and I think his CSB rating was something like the 78th-ranked North American skater.

 

[Passchendaele]

Riihjarvi was, if I remember correctly, a case of the Sharks trying to outsmart everyone by jumping on a major project at an early slot. The only problem was that no one else was even looking at him until a heck of a lot later in the draft.

The funny thing is that the next year, the Flames did the same thing with Derek Morris. They picked him 13th overall, and I think his CSB rating was something like the 78th-ranked North American skater.

Morris turned out to be one of the best players of this draft.

 

[Palinka]

Svejkovsky's career was ruined by concussions and post-concussion syndrome, IIRC. He missed most of the 1997-98 and 1998-99 campaigns, and was never the same player again.

Not really his fault, and belongs in the same category as Brett Lindros or Stefan Cherneski where they were just done in by injuries.

I guess I'd forgotten the concussion part; I do remember that when he played after that partial rookie season, he looked completely lost out there.

To add to disappointing picks, I'd throw a bunch of guys from the late 1990s who were drafted for the reason of "You can't teach size."

 

[Palinka]

Morris turned out to be one of the best players of this draft.

He did indeed, but all I remember was Flames fans running for the hills.

It really was a baffling pick; he likely would have been there in the second round. It's entirely possible that they knew someone else later in the first round was coveting him, but the reaction to the pick was hilarious.

 

[MXD]

Riihjarvi was, if I remember correctly, a case of the Sharks trying to outsmart everyone by jumping on a major project at an early slot. The only problem was that no one else was even looking at him until a heck of a lot later in the draft.

.

That's it. The guy was like 6'6 and 230...

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Tons of 1st rounders don't even make the NHL. It's hard to differentiate between individual cases of zero success.

I'd have to go with Hugh Jessiman, though, simply because 2003 was the strongest draft year in history and Jessiman amounted to nothing.

anyone catch the j-man's sweet goal the other day?



as for my team, you could say alek stojanov and libor polasek were disappointments in that it was disappointing when pat quinn drafted them, but even on draft day no one thought they'd amount to anything. i have to admit that i did have high hopes for josh holden, though.

 

[RussianProspects]

As far as the Russians Alex Volchkov and Alexander Kharlamov absolutely come to mind, with Volchkov being by far the front runner. He is still playing but can't even cut it in the Belarus league now and for the past few seasons (like 5!). I still see him getting signed on try-out contracts here and there in the KHL/Super League, but never materializing to anything. Pretty pathetic for such a high pick - it was mostly in his head too - did not apply himself .

As far as others, Smirnov - absolutely - he did not really amount to anything impressive, though he is still playing in the KHL at least.

Would not agree on Mikhnov, Morozov or Kryukov. Mikhnov is still an excellent player and wasn't really given enough of a chance or training to succeed here and Edmonton is still trying to bring him over. He is still just maturing and becoming a regular on the national squad. Morozov is pretty much the best player outside the NHL, so wouldn't argue he was not a good player....(if you judge on the quality of player and their career, not what they did for their NHL team). As far as Kryuko I would say it's more that Buffalo "busted" than he is a bust. Yes he had injuries, but when he came over to training camp - he did very well and while they tried to sign him, they didn't try hard enough and didn't try to bring him back afterwards either - which is quite sad. I think he would fit in the NHL - he definitely had and to some degree still has the potential.

 

[DaveG]

Volchkov immediately came to mind.

Sadly my team has some pretty epic ones dating as recently as 2001:
Igor Knyazev, 2001, 15th overall: played 2 seasons in the AHL never even coming close to the NHL or really coming close to anything resembling development. Returned to Russia, currently playing in the KHL. This guy is case in point as to why you don't draft a player simply because they had a strong tournament.

Jeff Heerema, 1998, 11th overall: played 34NHL games tallying 4 goals and 2 asists for 6 points. Was touted as an offensive winger or at worst a decent 3rd liner. Put up decent, though not spectacular, numbers in the OHL his draft year, although being that it was his rookie year in the O he was expected to keep improving. It never happened and he found himself as one of these AHL star/NHL bust types. Given the player taken immediately after him (Tanguay) and some of the others after that (Gagne, Regher, Kalinin, Jiri Fischer, Gomez, Cheechoo) the Heerema pick looks pretty horrid.

Nikos Tselios, 1997, 22nd overall: 2 career NHL games. It might be kindof unfair for me to have him listed here since he was considered more of a "boom or bust" type. Still, given some of the hype around the kid at the time I have to put him here. A lot of people figured his offensive game would translate to the pro level, but once he got to the AHL it was quickly figured out that he was relying on his physical gifts to put up points before rather then any actual hockey sense. He failed to develop at all and may have in fact regressed. I believe he's playing in somewhere like the UHL now.

 

[YEMELIN74]

pat falloon & brett lindros

 

[DaveG]

Lindros was due to injuries so I don't considder him much of a disappointment.

Falloon though, that's a great pick.

another one I thought of: Daniel Tkaczuk. He didn't even do all that poorly from what I remember in the few NHL games he did get with 11 points in 19 games. But he just kindof fell off the face of the earth after that.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Fred Arthur - 8th Whalers

Rocky Trottier - 8th Devils

Dan Gratton - 10th Kings

Scott Scisson - 6th Islanders

 

[Psycho Papa Joe]

well look at that year. they really could of done much better.

7th: Lars Jonsson
8th: Nikita Alexeev
9th: Brett Krahn
...
12th: Alexei Smirnov
14th Vaclav Nedorost
15th: Artem Kryukov
Marcel Hossa 16, Alexi Mikhnov.


Not sure why soo many russians were selected that year.. but they all busted.

Frolov and Volchenkov turned out pretty good.

 

[Crispy Crust]

Alex Daigle

Patrick Stefan

that was easy

Considering the hype for Daigle and the players selected behind him ( Kariya, Pronger) and how Ottawa allegedly lost games at the end of the season to pick him. Now thats disappointing.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

High on this list, though often forgotten has got to be Scott Kelman.

Chosen 15th overall by the Phoenix Coyotes with the first round pick they received from Anaheim for Oleg Tverdovsky (remember, he had a couple of great years with the Ducks after this trade). Kelman regressed so poorly that Phoenix lost all interest in signing him and when he went back into the draft 2 years later he wasn't even selected.

To go from 15th overall to not even being drafted. Yikes...

 

[JeffYear92*]

Sheldon Keefe

anyone remember him


his brother Adam is still kicking around in the AHL