1969 Redraft

[Professor What]

So, I was just watching a video of The Hockey Guy on YouTube doing a redraft for 1993, and it got me wondering what other drafts would look like if they were redone. Since the NHL sponsorship of junior hockey ended before the 1969 draft, I decided to start there.

The rules I went by are that I only looked at players actually drafted, so no free agents or European players that might have made it into the NHL if not for the Iron Curtain. I considered both NHL and WHA careers, so there could easily be some differences in how some of those WHA seasons are perceived by various people. If comparing positions is tough any time, I think it's even tougher here. Basically, that's to say that I have no problem with disagreements, and I'd like to see how others would have done this. Finally, I just redrafted the first round, rather than the whole draft. A couple of reasons for this: One is that some of these guys didn't/barely made it to the big leagues, and would be very difficult to rank, plus the fact that the larger the drafts get, the harder it would be to do a full redraft. Anyway, all that given, here's my effort at the 1969 Draft.

1. Bobby Clarke (Montreal)
2. Marc Tardif (Montreal)
3. Butch Goring (Boston)
4. Ivan Boldirev (Boston)
5. Andre Dupont (Minnesota)
6. Ron Stackhouse (Philadelphia)
7. Rejean Houle (Oakland)
8. Dick Redmond (New York)
9. Jim Rutherford (Toronto)
10. Gilles Gilbert (Detroit)
11. Dennis O'Brien (Boston)
12. Don Saleski (New York)
13. Pierre Jarry (Chicago)

One obvious Hall of Famer here. Three other guys that I might put in the HOVG. You can definitely see how the talent pool was shallower back then than it is now. Guys making the top 13 here aren't guys that I'm sure would make a larger first round in more recent drafts. I'm interested in what you guys think I got right, and what I got wrong. I'd love to see others post how they see the draft playing out with 20/20 hindsight.

 

[Staniowski]

It's more interesting to look at the whole universe. Talent actually starts to really pick up around that time.

Maltsev, Martinec, Vasiliev, Lutchenko, etc...

 

[Johnny Engine]

So, I was just watching a video of The Hockey Guy on YouTube doing a redraft for 1993, and it got me wondering what other drafts would look like if they were redone. Since the NHL sponsorship of junior hockey ended before the 1969 draft, I decided to start there.

The rules I went by are that I only looked at players actually drafted, so no free agents or European players that might have made it into the NHL if not for the Iron Curtain. I considered both NHL and WHA careers, so there could easily be some differences in how some of those WHA seasons are perceived by various people. If comparing positions is tough any time, I think it's even tougher here. Basically, that's to say that I have no problem with disagreements, and I'd like to see how others would have done this. Finally, I just redrafted the first round, rather than the whole draft. A couple of reasons for this: One is that some of these guys didn't/barely made it to the big leagues, and would be very difficult to rank, plus the fact that the larger the drafts get, the harder it would be to do a full redraft. Anyway, all that given, here's my effort at the 1969 Draft.

1. Bobby Clarke (Montreal)
2. Marc Tardif (Montreal)
3. Butch Goring (Boston)
4. Ivan Boldirev (Boston)
5. Andre Dupont (Minnesota)
6. Ron Stackhouse (Philadelphia)
7. Rejean Houle (Oakland)
8. Dick Redmond (New York)
9. Jim Rutherford (Toronto)
10. Gilles Gilbert (Detroit)
11. Dennis O'Brien (Boston)
12. Don Saleski (New York)
13. Pierre Jarry (Chicago)

One obvious Hall of Famer here. Three other guys that I might put in the HOVG. You can definitely see how the talent pool was shallower back then than it is now. Guys making the top 13 here aren't guys that I'm sure would make a larger first round in more recent drafts. I'm interested in what you guys think I got right, and what I got wrong. I'd love to see others post how they see the draft playing out with 20/20 hindsight.

Those first two picks are French Canadian Rule picks, so if you're sticking the team name in front rather than just ranking the players, Tardif would go first, Dupont second, and Clarke to Boston by your ranking.

 

[Professor What]

Those first two picks are French Canadian Rule picks, so if you're sticking the team name in front rather than just ranking the players, Tardif would go first, Dupont second, and Clarke to Boston by your ranking.

I did not realize that was still in effect in 1969. I thought it went away with the junior sponsorship, but I now see that it went away the next year. You make a fair point. What I was trying to do was to do a redraft based on the hindsight that we now have. Maybe I should have started with 1970.

 

[Johnny Engine]

I did not realize that was still in effect in 1969. I thought it went away with the junior sponsorship, but I now see that it went away the next year. You make a fair point. What I was trying to do was to do a redraft based on the hindsight that we now have. Maybe I should have started with 1970.

There's a couple of fun ways you could approach what the Habs had to do there:
- assume the Habs get a mulligan on the two picks they used (Tardif they'd do every time, Houle isn't that far behind Dupont that you'd ever say they regretted it, but I'm using your order and it's not a bad one)
- assume the Habs get a new choice to take as many French Canadians as they have use for, and order the picks accordingly. I think adding Dupont to the two they already had would have been worth doing, though I don't think Gilles Gilbert would have been of any use given the young goalies they had. I'll admit I know nothing about Pierre Jarry.

 

[Professor What]

There's a couple of fun ways you could approach what the Habs had to do there:
- assume the Habs get a mulligan on the two picks they used (Tardif they'd do every time, Houle isn't that far behind Dupont that you'd ever say they regretted it, but I'm using your order and it's not a bad one)
- assume the Habs get a new choice to take as many French Canadians as they have use for, and order the picks accordingly. I think adding Dupont to the two they already had would have been worth doing, though I don't think Gilles Gilbert would have been of any use given the young goalies they had. I'll admit I know nothing about Pierre Jarry.

I'm not sure that I'd do anything different than what you said. As you say, Houle isn't exactly miles behind Dupont, so you could just leave those picks alone and then do the rest of the first round. I'll stick with what I did for the rankings though. (At least that's how I feel today.)

 

[reckoning]

1- Bobby Clarke
2- Butch Goring
3- Marc Tardif
4- Ivan Boldirev
5- Ron Stackhouse
6- Dick Redmond
7- Gilles Gilbert
8- Rejean Houle
9- Andre DuPont
10- Jim Rutherford
11- J.P. Bordeleau
12- Don Saleski
13- Dave Schultz

- For me, Goring is ahead of Tardif. It may be unfair to Tardif as he played his prime in the WHA and he had that horrible injury, but even if you give him credit for "what-ifs", I don't think it matches what Goring actually did. A long successful NHL career, and the third most important forward on a dynasty.

- I think Gilbert is clearly ahead of Rutherford. Playing his prime in Boston may have hurt him as Cherry didn't like him and never put any faith in him as the starter.

- I can't rate DuPont ahead of Stackhouse or Redmond. DuPont had a role in Shero's system and played it well, but he could never be the top defenceman on a team.

- Like it or not, Dave Schultz was an important presence on a team that won multiple Cups

 

[Dissonance Jr]

Wasn’t Jean Potvin eligible for the 1969 draft? I know you only looked at drafted players but seems like he’d be a late 1st/early 2nd round pick with the benefit of hindsight.

 

[Johnny Engine]

I'm not sure that I'd do anything different than what you said. As you say, Houle isn't exactly miles behind Dupont, so you could just leave those picks alone and then do the rest of the first round. I'll stick with what I did for the rankings though. (At least that's how I feel today.)

Yup, that's perfectly sensible. I was going to say it'd be interesting to run every year between 1963 and 1969 and see if there are any coups the Habs could pull off, but there was really nobody, and that's why the rule itself was so much less consequential than most fans realize.
Half on topic, one resource I'd love to have is a full database of sponsorship forms, either added to a place like hockeydb, or as part of a dedicated original 6-focused website. Both as a way to understand the business of the era a little better, and to construct "drafts" and redrafts for each year for fun over here.

 

[Hoser]

I did not realize that was still in effect in 1969. I thought it went away with the junior sponsorship, but I now see that it went away the next year. You make a fair point. What I was trying to do was to do a redraft based on the hindsight that we now have. Maybe I should have started with 1970.

Sponsorship didn't go away until 1970.

 

[seventieslord]

This seems like a really shallow draft class. This is just a redraft of who was actually chosen, but there must be some more players who were eligible (as in they were the correct age), but were not selected that year, right?

 

[reckoning]

Draft eligible players who were not picked, but later made the NHL:

Draft-Eligible NHL Players Not Picked in 1969

Rick Dudley and Jean Potvin look to be the best of the group.

 

[BadgerBruce]

Sponsorship didn't go away until 1970.

True, but the NHL froze sponsorship lists in 1966, and no new players could be added to any team’s list. 1970 is the official “end” of the NHL junior sponsorship system because existing junior age players signed under the sponsorship system prior to the 1966 freeze needed to age-out of junior hockey.

 

[Buffalowing1988]

1969 feels a little anticlimactic. Perreault, Lafleur, Dionne would come in the immediate years after.

Clarke was the better player in a lot of ways, but in terms of sheer talent, Quebec was a pipeline at that time.

 

[seventieslord]

Draft eligible players who were not picked, but later made the NHL:

Draft-Eligible NHL Players Not Picked in 1969

Rick Dudley and Jean Potvin look to be the best of the group.

Cool, didn't know that HDC put together lists like this!

Overall, a weak class I guess. You get a top-end HHOFer, a guy who's an ok HOVG, and no one else who's really close. Two players in total likely to be selected by the end of a normal-sized ATD, six more by the end of the follow-up MLD.

 

[JackSlater]

1969 feels a little anticlimactic. Perreault, Lafleur, Dionne would come in the immediate years after.

Clarke was the better player in a lot of ways, but in terms of sheer talent, Quebec was a pipeline at that time.

Always funny to think about if Pollock's near hits for the 1970s Montreal Canadiens. If Montreal's right to pick two Quebec players first extended to one more draft he gets Perreault, the story of how he apparently had a deal in place to get Dionne at the 1971 draft but squashed it because there was not consensus, the story of his walk aroundthe arena with Torrey and at least coming close to getting Potvin.

 

[Dissonance Jr]

Cool, didn't know that HDC put together lists like this!

Overall, a weak class I guess. You get a top-end HHOFer, a guy who's an ok HOVG, and no one else who's really close. Two players in total likely to be selected by the end of a normal-sized ATD, six more by the end of the follow-up MLD.

If you add in players who were born in 1949 but weren’t eligible for the draft (because they signed junior contracts with NHL teams etc) you do get several more decent midrange guys: Gregg Sheppard, Guy Charon, Dave Burrows, Randy Manery (a player I’d absolutely never heard of but who once played in an all-star game?) etc.

Nothing spectacular, but it would’ve filled out the class a bit.

 

[seventieslord]

If you add in players who were born in 1949 but weren’t eligible for the draft (because they signed junior contracts with NHL teams etc) you do get several more decent midrange guys: Gregg Sheppard, Guy Charon, Dave Burrows, Randy Manery (a player I’d absolutely never heard of but who once played in an all-star game?) etc.

Nothing spectacular, but it would’ve filled out the class a bit.

Manery was pretty good! And his name wasn't pronounced the way that you probably think. It rhymes with canary, not with Cannery.