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NHL.com 1984 re-draft

Crazy draft year where 3 legitimate hall of fame superstars are drafted so low.
 
Their list is a lot better than their 1979 redraft:

1. Mario Lemieux
2. Patrick Roy
3. Brett Hull
4. Luc Robitaille
5. Gary Suter
6. Gary Roberts
7. Stephane Richer
8. Kirk Muller
9. Kevin Hatcher
10. Al Iafrate

_______________________

My list wouldn't look much different:

1. Mario Lemieux
2. Patrick Roy
3. Brett Hull
4. Luc Robitaille
5. Gary Suter
6. Gary Roberts
7. Kirk Muller
8. Kevin Hatcher
9. Kirk McLean
10. Stephane Richer
11. Scott Mellanby
12. Cliff Ronning
13. Al Iafrate
14. Jeff Brown
15. Shawn Burr
16. Petr Svoboda
17. Michal Pivonka
18. Ray Sheppard
19. Sylvain Cote

Then some mix of Doug Bodger, Don Sweeney, Shane Corson, Ed Olczyk, and Kris King

What a great draft class! And it was a natural class, unlike 1979, which actually had two years worth of players due to the changing eligibility rules.
 
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Staniowski said:
I think Nieuwendyk and Kamensky were eligible for this draft too.
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If so, then slot Nieuwendyk at #5 on my list (between Robitaille and Suter) and Kamensky as an HM (based on his NHL career only, if you want to include his time in the USSR, that makes him a lot more complicated)
 
kirk muller after roberts is just flat out wrong. kirk muller after richer is probably wrong. kirk muller after suter might be wrong too.

for the first ten years after the draft, muller is clearly the fifth best player in the draft, with an outside argument for #4 in a toews vs kessel way.
 
vadim sharifijanov said:
kirk muller after roberts is just flat out wrong. kirk muller after richer is probably wrong. kirk muller after suter might be wrong too.

for the first ten years after the draft, muller is clearly the fifth best player in the draft, with an outside argument for #4 in a toews vs kessel way.
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I came really close to swapping Muller and Roberts on my list. Probably should have. Still don't think Muller had the upside of Suter though.
 
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TheDevilMadeMe said:
I came really close to swapping Muller and Roberts on my list. Probably should have. Still don't think Muller had the upside of Suter though.
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i have a really hard time with suter. how do you evaluate a guy who was never ever the best defenceman on his team, or at least not until he was 35?

on the other hand, that's a top ten and top twenty dman all time that he had ahead of him the first fourteen years of his career.

i feel like i'd have a much better sense of just how good he was if he hadn't gotten injured in 1989.


from your list olczyk is another guy who probably should make the top 20 but because he peaked so early, vs mellanby, cliff ronning, etc, we remember him more as a washed up 20 goal journeyman than as a who averaged 35 goals and more than a point/game over a consecutive five year peak. he was a one-dimensional scorer, definitely, but so was ray sheppard.
 
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vadim sharifijanov said:
i have a really hard time with suter. how do you evaluate a guy who was never ever the best defenceman on his team, or at least not until he was 35?

on the other hand, that's a top ten and top twenty dman all time that he had ahead of him the first fourteen years of his career.

i feel like i'd have a much better sense of just how good he was if he hadn't gotten injured in 1989.


from your list olczyk is another guy who probably should make the top 20 but because he peaked so early, vs mellanby, cliff ronning, etc, we remember him more as a washed up 20 goal journeyman than as a who averaged 35 goals and more than a point/game over a consecutive five year peak. he was a one-dimensional scorer, definitely, but so was ray sheppard.
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That awkward moment when you miss the playoffs due to injury but your team wins anyway...and the other star defenceman on the team wins the Conn Smythe.

Was MacInnis rated that far ahead of Suter, if at all, going into the 1989 playoffs? Both had been second team all stars and neither had been a first team all star at that point. MacInnis certainly separated himself with the 89 playoff run and then finishing as a first team all star in the next two regular seasons.
 
vadim sharifijanov said:
i have a really hard time with suter. how do you evaluate a guy who was never ever the best defenceman on his team, or at least not until he was 35?

on the other hand, that's a top ten and top twenty dman all time that he had ahead of him the first fourteen years of his career.

i feel like i'd have a much better sense of just how good he was if he hadn't gotten injured in 1989.


from your list olczyk is another guy who probably should make the top 20 but because he peaked so early, vs mellanby, cliff ronning, etc, we remember him more as a washed up 20 goal journeyman than as a who averaged 35 goals and more than a point/game over a consecutive five year peak. he was a one-dimensional scorer, definitely, but so was ray sheppard.
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When I threw my list together, I looked at a player's entire career, like I would in the All Time Draft. You're right that an actual NHL GM would care more about the early part of a player's career than the later part.
 
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Good thing It didn’t end up like this for Hull. He’d of never gotten off the ground with Keenan starting up his career. Probably would of been dealt away.
 
overpass said:
That awkward moment when you miss the playoffs due to injury but your team wins anyway...and the other star defenceman on the team wins the Conn Smythe.

Was MacInnis rated that far ahead of Suter, if at all, going into the 1989 playoffs? Both had been second team all stars and neither had been a first team all star at that point. MacInnis certainly separated himself with the 89 playoff run and then finishing as a first team all star in the next two regular seasons.
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Suter also missed the final two rounds when the Flames went to the finals in '86. Of course, in this case, his team won one series (against the Blues) and lost one series (against the Habs) without him.

----------------------

Suter was a very talented player...a good skater, very good with the puck, a great shot. He could certainly out-shine MacInnis sometimes.

But, really, MacInnis was always better. So, yes, going into the '89 playoffs, MacInnis was the better player.

I actually think the Flames might have been a somewhat better team without Suter.

Reinhart - who departed the Flames after '88 - was better than Suter too.
 
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looking back, this was a really really good draft. daigneault at #10, with his solid contribution to a cup winner and 900 games over a 15 year career, is probably the second worst player in the top 12.

anyone know the story with craig redmond? sixth overall, stepped into the league right out of the draft and scored 39 points as a dman. barely scored 39 points for the rest of his career and was done before he turned 24.
 
overpass said:
That awkward moment when you miss the playoffs due to injury but your team wins anyway...and the other star defenceman on the team wins the Conn Smythe.

Was MacInnis rated that far ahead of Suter, if at all, going into the 1989 playoffs? Both had been second team all stars and neither had been a first team all star at that point. MacInnis certainly separated himself with the 89 playoff run and then finishing as a first team all star in the next two regular seasons.
Click to expand...

you're right, suter and macinnis might have been pretty even before the '89 run, maybe even a rafalski vs niedermayer situation where rafalski might have been considered slightly ahead by some for a bit.

but then paul reinhart was there in suter's first two years too.
 
vadim sharifijanov said:
looking back, this was a really really good draft. daigneault at #10, with his solid contribution to a cup winner and 900 games over a 15 year career, is probably the second worst player in the top 12.

anyone know the story with craig redmond? sixth overall, stepped into the league right out of the draft and scored 39 points as a dman. barely scored 39 points for the rest of his career and was done before he turned 24.
Click to expand...

Bad knees, refused to report to New Haven in 1987, traded to Edmonton a day after the Gretzky trade for John Minor, who never played in LA.
 
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Nick Hansen said:
From a GM perspective, couldn't drafting Roy #1 be very defensible considering how his and Lemieux's careers played out?...
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Not really. And if you're The Penguins, you obviously draft Lemieux again if given a 2nd chance. If the Pens had drafted Roy, the franchise would have moved in about 1991 and would now be the Seattle Salmon. And they probably wouldn't have gotten Jagr.

I think this list is over-rating Gary Suter a tad. I would have Roberts and Muller ahead of him. (I guess Muller's longevity is somewhat in question, though.) That writer's list referred to him as "one of the greatest offensive defencemen of all-time", which is laying it on a bit. He was very much like Sergei Gonchar, but probably weaker defensively. We remember a few of his brutal hits / stick-swings, but actually he was quite porous defensively.
 
vadim sharifijanov said:
looking back, this was a really really good draft. daigneault at #10, with his solid contribution to a cup winner and 900 games over a 15 year career, is probably the second worst player in the top 12.

anyone know the story with craig redmond? sixth overall, stepped into the league right out of the draft and scored 39 points as a dman. barely scored 39 points for the rest of his career and was done before he turned 24.
Click to expand...

All I recall about Redmond was that he said he didn’t want to be drafted by the leafs. Was pretty adamant about it. Right off the bat the guy seemed to have an entitled attitude. He wasn’t a Mario or Lindros level talent who could get away with that type of crap because they were so damned good, so IMO he got the horrible attitude label right off the bat. The not reporting to New Haven stuff indicated above seems to support the crap attitude narrative. I’m guessing ultimately he was too big for his britches and he flushed his talent down the toilet.
 
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Nick Hansen said:
From a GM perspective, couldn't drafting Roy #1 be very defensible considering how his and Lemieux's careers played out?...
Click to expand...

Not defensible. Roy landed on a strong team that was still cruising on the exit ramp of a dynasty, and through his own sheer brilliance brought them a surprise cup in 1986, a finals appearance in 1989 and one more cup triumph in 1993.

If you put Roy on the 1OA Pittsburgh Penguins, we have no way of telling how his career with the Hamilton Steelers would have unfolded with that little to work with.

In the same timeframe, Mario Lemieux also delivered two cups to the Pittsburgh Penguins and we know he was iconic enough to save a franchise.
 
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