Which draft pick(s) cost your team a Cup or Cups plural?
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Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
Bruins draft Stephan Quintal with the 14th pick in the 1987 draft instead of Joe Sakic (15th pick).
vadim sharifijanov
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- Oct 10, 2007
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between 1989 and 1992, the canucks blew first round picks on jason herter, shawn antoski, alek stojanov, and libor polasek.
1989 was a bad draft but on the table at #7 were bobby holik (but it was still unclear when or if he could come over), mike sillinger (probably wouldn’t have helped), and kevin haller (would have been largely redundant with diduck/babych/murzyn there but still an upgrade on the likes of fellow big stiffs like robert dirk and jiri slegr, and buffalo did score petr svoboda for him). deeper into the draft were olie kolzig (would have been too far off to help), steven rice (a bust but had massive trade value for a while), and at the top of the second round adam foote.
the three picks immediately after antoski were tkachuk, brodeur, and smolinski to close out the first round. enough said, although part of me wonders whether quinn expected one of them to still be there five picks later (they weren’t, we took slegr). antoski was very late first rounder but that draft was absolutely stacked with talent.
the ten picks after stojanov (#7) included matvichuk, marty lapointe, brian rolston, kovalev, and markus naslund, whom he was eventually traded for but not soon enough to help the core he was drafted into.
polasek was another very deep first round pick, but everyone and their mother wanted valeri bure.
getting a couple players who could contribute something would have been huge to the pat quinn core that contended between 1992 and 1996. he did a great job to fill out that core with useful veterans and castoffs, but there were holes.
and what’s surprising is those years were good draft years, just with annual first round whiffs. bure in 89; nedved, slegr, odjick in 90; 91 wasn’t great but cullimore became a player and at one point was very highly regarded; and peca and aucoin (plus once heralded prospects brent tully and mike fountain) in 92.
that team definitely could have won.
there was a top five goalie back there (mclean was the vez runner up in 89 and 92, and was a consistent plus starter with game changing ability until the wheels fell off in 1996).
up front they had a superstar. and a big, deep forward group built around the pairings courtnall/linden and adams/bure, with ronning and momesso, plus a revolving door of larionov/semenov/craven, sandlak/fergus/gelinas in complementary and secondary scoring roles.
and a big, if star-less, D: lumme, diduck, babych, murzyn, lidster up to the expansion draft, brown and hedican replacing him.
plus useful kids of varying impacts coming up: in addition to bure and nedved, there was robert kron, gino, garry valk, dixon ward, slegr/oksiuta, and adrian plavsic. by 1995 peca and cullimore are knocking on the door, with aucoin joining them in 96.
there was just so much found money between 1991 and 1993 that turned a bottom feeder into a contender, and upgrading one or two more pieces with talented youngsters coming into their own could have meant a cup in 93 or 94, or hastening the decline beyond those years.
1989 was a bad draft but on the table at #7 were bobby holik (but it was still unclear when or if he could come over), mike sillinger (probably wouldn’t have helped), and kevin haller (would have been largely redundant with diduck/babych/murzyn there but still an upgrade on the likes of fellow big stiffs like robert dirk and jiri slegr, and buffalo did score petr svoboda for him). deeper into the draft were olie kolzig (would have been too far off to help), steven rice (a bust but had massive trade value for a while), and at the top of the second round adam foote.
the three picks immediately after antoski were tkachuk, brodeur, and smolinski to close out the first round. enough said, although part of me wonders whether quinn expected one of them to still be there five picks later (they weren’t, we took slegr). antoski was very late first rounder but that draft was absolutely stacked with talent.
the ten picks after stojanov (#7) included matvichuk, marty lapointe, brian rolston, kovalev, and markus naslund, whom he was eventually traded for but not soon enough to help the core he was drafted into.
polasek was another very deep first round pick, but everyone and their mother wanted valeri bure.
getting a couple players who could contribute something would have been huge to the pat quinn core that contended between 1992 and 1996. he did a great job to fill out that core with useful veterans and castoffs, but there were holes.
and what’s surprising is those years were good draft years, just with annual first round whiffs. bure in 89; nedved, slegr, odjick in 90; 91 wasn’t great but cullimore became a player and at one point was very highly regarded; and peca and aucoin (plus once heralded prospects brent tully and mike fountain) in 92.
that team definitely could have won.
there was a top five goalie back there (mclean was the vez runner up in 89 and 92, and was a consistent plus starter with game changing ability until the wheels fell off in 1996).
up front they had a superstar. and a big, deep forward group built around the pairings courtnall/linden and adams/bure, with ronning and momesso, plus a revolving door of larionov/semenov/craven, sandlak/fergus/gelinas in complementary and secondary scoring roles.
and a big, if star-less, D: lumme, diduck, babych, murzyn, lidster up to the expansion draft, brown and hedican replacing him.
plus useful kids of varying impacts coming up: in addition to bure and nedved, there was robert kron, gino, garry valk, dixon ward, slegr/oksiuta, and adrian plavsic. by 1995 peca and cullimore are knocking on the door, with aucoin joining them in 96.
there was just so much found money between 1991 and 1993 that turned a bottom feeder into a contender, and upgrading one or two more pieces with talented youngsters coming into their own could have meant a cup in 93 or 94, or hastening the decline beyond those years.
vadim sharifijanov
Registered User
- Oct 10, 2007
- 29,985
- 18,361
but actually the real pick that lost potentially myltiple cups for the canucks was luc bourdon (RIP) when everybody was yelling at the screen for us to take kopitar, who had miraculously fallen to us
imagine going into the 2009 playoffs with henrik sedin, kopitar on his ELC, kesler on his $1.75m bridge, and sundin down the middle
imagine going into the 2009 playoffs with henrik sedin, kopitar on his ELC, kesler on his $1.75m bridge, and sundin down the middle
HisIceness
This is Hurricanes Hockey
Zach Boychuk over Karlsson
Philip Paradis over Ryan O'Reilly
Haydn Fluery over William Nylander
2016 was a big whiff all-around. Jake Bean over Charlie McAvoy and then Juilen Gauither over Tage Thompson.
In the 90s and early 00s the team missed out on guys like RJ Umberger, Barrett Jackman and Alex Taungay. Maybe not the biggest whiffs but they missed on guys who could actually play in the NHL.
Hockeyville USA
Registered User
THG on YouTube mentioned that the Canucks didn't think Valeri Bure was a worthwhile 1st rounder. Instead they took a guy who never played lol
Hockeyville USA
Registered User
Imagine if the Canucks "reached" for Giroux instead of Grabner in 2006. Giroux was ranked in the 30s (but was a big time scorer in the Q) while Grabner was also ranked in the 30s (but a late birthday with below PPG production in the Dub).
Ceremony
How I choose to feel is how I am
- Jun 8, 2012
- 114,476
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There's obviously always a degree of context required for this sort of thing - if a draft was changed one year then it might lead to other players not being acquired later, etc. but there are some high quality Avalanche whiffs over the years.
Two notes: I'm only doing consecutive picks. Partly because there are a lot more of them than I realised and this post would be huge otherwise, partly because I think too much goes into it when there are several players between selections. With one exception.
The Avalanche have, really, only ever been contenders from 1996-2004 and from 2020 onwards. There are a few thought exercises worth making in the years inbetween but as far as the premise of the thread goes, I'll stick with players who were relevant during those periods.
1998: Ramzi Abid drafted 28th overall. Jonathan Cheechoo drafted 29th overall. Cheechoo isn't going to make the difference to the mid-00s Avalanche but Forsberg setting him up in 03-04 could have been something.
1999: Mikhail Kuleshov drafted 25th overall. Martin Havlat drafted 26th overall. Havlat could certainly have helped in 02, 03 and 04.
1999: Branko Radivojevic drafted 93rd overall. Chris Kelly drafted 94th overall. I didn't know we drafted him. Judging by Wikipedia we just didn't sign him. By the time Kelly breaks into the league post-lockout he's not going to change anything but it would still have been nice.
2002: Eric Lundberg drafted 94th overall. Valtteri Fiilppula drafted 95th overall. He's not making a difference to any Avalanche team over his career but I have to say I'm finding out about a lot more of these than I realised or was expecting.
2003: David Liffiton 63rd overall. Jimmy Howard 64th overall. If we have Howard maybe we don't trade for Varlamov in 2011 with the pick that became Filip Forsberg. He could be on the team and making a difference even now.
2003: Linus Videll 204th overall. Joe Pavelski 205th overall. Oh f*** off.
2005: Ryan Stoa 34th overall. Marc-Edouard Vlasic 35th overall. Judging from Vlasic's contract I doubt he would have helped much during the current era of contention but Ryan Stoa was fat and useless.
2008: Cameron Gaunce 50th overall. Derek Stepan 51st overall. Another who had maybe tailed off by the time the 2020s came but a few veterans were rejuvenated in 2022.
2012: Joseph Blandisi 162nd overall. Linus Ullmark 163rd overall. Hey how's the Avalanche goaltending been the past five years? Do we need him?
2013: Nathan MacKinnon 1st overall. I wanted Seth Jones because we already had Duchene, O'Reilly and Stastny. Whoops.
2014: Conner Bleackley 23rd overall. Fat. David Pastrnak 25th overall. Quite good.
2014: Nick Magyar 93rd overall. Ville Husso 94th overall. Husso came in when Binnington got injured in 2022. Maybe we would have beat Saint Louis in 5 games rather than 6.
2014: Julien Nantel 204th overall. Ondrej Kase 205th overall. Could've been useful in 2021 rather than the corpse of Carl Soderberg.
2015: JC Beaudin 71st overall. Anthony Cirelli 72nd overall. Maybe our middle six centres wouldn't have been so diabolical the past two seasons.
2016: Nate Clurman 161st overall. Jesper Bratt 162nd overall. Hey scoring depth is useful isn't it.
2018: Brandon Saigeon 140th overall. Yegor Sharangovich 141st overall. I feel like I'm in f***ing Saigon going through these.
2019: Bowen Byram 4th overall. Alex Turcotte 5th overall. What a diddy Turcotte turned out to be.
2020: Justin Barron 25th overall. Jake Neighbours 26th overall. Because we have lots of defensive prospects and a stacked blueline we can trade Barron for Lehkonen who scores a conference and Stanley Cup final winning goal. Barron looks to have no future in the league just two years later.
This was a thoroughly depressing exercise and you've ruined my Saturday night. Thanks a lot.
Two notes: I'm only doing consecutive picks. Partly because there are a lot more of them than I realised and this post would be huge otherwise, partly because I think too much goes into it when there are several players between selections. With one exception.
The Avalanche have, really, only ever been contenders from 1996-2004 and from 2020 onwards. There are a few thought exercises worth making in the years inbetween but as far as the premise of the thread goes, I'll stick with players who were relevant during those periods.
1998: Ramzi Abid drafted 28th overall. Jonathan Cheechoo drafted 29th overall. Cheechoo isn't going to make the difference to the mid-00s Avalanche but Forsberg setting him up in 03-04 could have been something.
1999: Mikhail Kuleshov drafted 25th overall. Martin Havlat drafted 26th overall. Havlat could certainly have helped in 02, 03 and 04.
1999: Branko Radivojevic drafted 93rd overall. Chris Kelly drafted 94th overall. I didn't know we drafted him. Judging by Wikipedia we just didn't sign him. By the time Kelly breaks into the league post-lockout he's not going to change anything but it would still have been nice.
2002: Eric Lundberg drafted 94th overall. Valtteri Fiilppula drafted 95th overall. He's not making a difference to any Avalanche team over his career but I have to say I'm finding out about a lot more of these than I realised or was expecting.
2003: David Liffiton 63rd overall. Jimmy Howard 64th overall. If we have Howard maybe we don't trade for Varlamov in 2011 with the pick that became Filip Forsberg. He could be on the team and making a difference even now.
2003: Linus Videll 204th overall. Joe Pavelski 205th overall. Oh f*** off.
2005: Ryan Stoa 34th overall. Marc-Edouard Vlasic 35th overall. Judging from Vlasic's contract I doubt he would have helped much during the current era of contention but Ryan Stoa was fat and useless.
2008: Cameron Gaunce 50th overall. Derek Stepan 51st overall. Another who had maybe tailed off by the time the 2020s came but a few veterans were rejuvenated in 2022.
2012: Joseph Blandisi 162nd overall. Linus Ullmark 163rd overall. Hey how's the Avalanche goaltending been the past five years? Do we need him?
2013: Nathan MacKinnon 1st overall. I wanted Seth Jones because we already had Duchene, O'Reilly and Stastny. Whoops.
2014: Conner Bleackley 23rd overall. Fat. David Pastrnak 25th overall. Quite good.
2014: Nick Magyar 93rd overall. Ville Husso 94th overall. Husso came in when Binnington got injured in 2022. Maybe we would have beat Saint Louis in 5 games rather than 6.
2014: Julien Nantel 204th overall. Ondrej Kase 205th overall. Could've been useful in 2021 rather than the corpse of Carl Soderberg.
2015: JC Beaudin 71st overall. Anthony Cirelli 72nd overall. Maybe our middle six centres wouldn't have been so diabolical the past two seasons.
2016: Nate Clurman 161st overall. Jesper Bratt 162nd overall. Hey scoring depth is useful isn't it.
2018: Brandon Saigeon 140th overall. Yegor Sharangovich 141st overall. I feel like I'm in f***ing Saigon going through these.
2019: Bowen Byram 4th overall. Alex Turcotte 5th overall. What a diddy Turcotte turned out to be.
2020: Justin Barron 25th overall. Jake Neighbours 26th overall. Because we have lots of defensive prospects and a stacked blueline we can trade Barron for Lehkonen who scores a conference and Stanley Cup final winning goal. Barron looks to have no future in the league just two years later.
This was a thoroughly depressing exercise and you've ruined my Saturday night. Thanks a lot.
Hockeyville USA
Registered User
Don't forget Phil Sauve ahead of Mike Ribeiro and Steve Moore ahead of Brad Richards and Brian Gionta in 1998
Ceremony
How I choose to feel is how I am
- Jun 8, 2012
- 114,476
- 17,785
More than one pick between them. If you want to dwell on anything from 98, some guy five picks ahead of Datsyuk is the choice.
Spearmint Rhino
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- Sep 17, 2013
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This has largely stopped being a thing since Bourdon died and wasn't able to ever show his potential, but while he was alive it was all anyone could say about him: should have been Kopitar. And growing up watching that team, I have a feeling that even if Bourdon was around and turned into a solid player I feel people would still have criticized him for not being Kopitar. Rough move by Nonis.
The don godfather
Registered User
Gregor Samsa
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- Sep 5, 2020
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Flyers are worst team in the league. Lost lottery to Chicago and they draft Patrick Kane. A few years later he scores the Stanley Cup winning goal against the Flyers
Not a situation of “they drafted x instead of y” but that draft pick situation really hurt
Not a situation of “they drafted x instead of y” but that draft pick situation really hurt
Still powerful Montreal picking Doug Wickenheiser over Denis Savard,Larry Murphy and Paul Coffey
seventieslord
Student Of The Game
Isn't the original post just a list of players who were drafted before players who turned out to be better?
The Racine/Sakic example could just as easily be Chynoweth/Sakic. Or Racine/Schneider. Couldn't it?
The Racine/Sakic example could just as easily be Chynoweth/Sakic. Or Racine/Schneider. Couldn't it?
BigBadBruins7708
Registered User
Picks 13, 14, 15 in 2015.
The Bruins took 3 big reaches with Zboril, DeBrusk and Senyshyn. The next 3 picks were Barzal, Connor and Chabot
The Bruins took 3 big reaches with Zboril, DeBrusk and Senyshyn. The next 3 picks were Barzal, Connor and Chabot
McGarnagle
Yes.
- Aug 5, 2017
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2007: Bruins draft Zach Hamill 8th overall, Logan Couture goes 9th to San Jose
If they had Couture in their top six they win another cup between 2010-2020
If they had Couture in their top six they win another cup between 2010-2020
seventieslord
Student Of The Game
Over Krejci, or over Bergeron?
I mean, Couture was pretty good, but was he a "difference between a cup and not a cup" player?
Hockeyville USA
Registered User
Couture would have put the Bruins over the top in 2013 or 2014, potentially 2018 or 2019 as well. Additionally, Couture on the Bruins means they don't miss the playoffs in 2015 or 2016, but butterfly effect could mean that Bruins Couture might mean no Pastrnak or McAvoy in Boston and even more cap problems eventually.
Andre Palot
Registered User
seventieslord
Student Of The Game
This is a salary cap league and Boston is a cap team. So even if he was an upgrade over Krejci, what ripple effect does that have on the lineup? Can you afford to have a 3rd center making what DK or PB makes? Do you dump your #2/3 defenseman to have Couture? This is no guarantee of anything.
reckoning
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- Jan 4, 2005
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The obvious one for the Canucks would be 1986, taking Dan Woodley (5 NHL games) #7 overall while the Rangers took Brian Leetch 2 picks later.
IIRC this could have been Bruins pick too. The first round pick in the Neele-Pederson trade was optional. Bruins decided to wait for a year even though the 7th was already a high pick. And got #3 and Glen Wesley with it from Canucks next year.
I remember that I once made a research about Doug Zmolek.
Adam Bennett and Jason Herter were the two biggest names of the Ds in the draft. According to media Canucks shortlist was Bennett, Herter, Marshall and Haller. They were after D.
Then when North Stars took a big reach on Zmolek, Herter dropped to Canucks. According to media they would have likely picked Jason Marshall who was higher on teams personal lists than CSB ranking if they had missed Bennett/Herter. So they would have got an actual NHL player, but still I doubt it would have made the difference on 1994 Finals for example. But ofcourse who knows what they have done.
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