Which draft pick(s) cost your team a Cup or Cups plural?

[Brodeur]

Not my team but as I understand it, Anaheim wanted Erik Karlsson in 2008. He had been a late riser and most rankings had him in the early 20's by the time the draft rolled around.

Anaheim had pick #12 from the Dustin Penner offer sheet and they thought they could trade down and still get Karlsson. Anaheim had sent out a lot of draft picks to get Chris Pronger so they thought it was an opportunity to restock their barren farm system.

Anaheim traded #12 to Los Angeles for #17 and #28 then later moved #28 for #35 and #39. On paper that seemed like good "value." Unfortunately for the Ducks, Ottawa then traded up from #18 to #15 to snipe Karlsson.

Anaheim would end up with Jake Gardiner, Nic Deschamps, and Eric O'Dell (who they didn't sign). Ducks made the Conference Finals in 2015 and 2017, so I wonder if Karlsson might have put them over the top?

-------

Speaking of Ottawa, this is a fun cautionary tale with offer sheets. Later that summer 2008, Ottawa didn't have the cap room to sign Andrej Meszaros. Meanwhile Tampa Bay wanted to offer sheet Meszaros (1st+3rd round compensation) but had already dealt its 2009 3rd round pick to Pittsburgh for Ryan Malone. Tampa tried to get the pick back, but Penguins GM Ray Shero didn't want to aid in an offer sheet.

Eventually the two teams made a standard trade before training camp. But if Tampa hadn't dealt its 3rd rounder, they would have handed over the Victor Hedman pick to Ottawa. Or if Ottawa insisted on Tampa giving up its own first instead of San Jose's? Maybe Hedman puts Ottawa over the top in 2017?

 

[Killer Orcas]

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.

Yup we have him in 94 instead of against us we win.

 

[Brodeur]

Mattias Tedenby over John Carlson

WHO WANTED TO BE DRAFTED HERE

My off shoot for that is what if the Devils hadn't won the 2011 draft lottery:

- Devils pick Dougie Hamilton at #8 instead of Adam Larsson at #4. Hamilton goes back to OHL.

- Lou finally addressed our lack of RHD that offseason, brought in Anton Stralman on a PTO in case Larsson hadn't been deemed ready. But in a world where Hamilton is in the OHL, perhaps Stralman is signed instead.

- Larsson hit a second half wall and became a healthy scratch down the stretch. Eventually Peter Harrold becomes our 3RD for most of that playoff run. Would the difference between Stralman and Harrold been enough?

 

[SillyRabbit]

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

This one is pretty bang on because I vividly remember begging the Canucks to pick Kopitar through the TV.

The only "knock" against Kopitar was that he was from a non-traditional hockey country, which caused many "old boys" type NHL offices to pass on him like fools.

 

[Ceremony]

Hey I feel like ruining another evening, here's an assortment of Avalanche draft picks that happened one pick after someone good went. I'm also sticking with Avalanche picks who were genuinely terrible, rather than just not as good as the previous.

1996: Peter Ratchuk 25th overall. Daniel Briere 24th overall. Quality.

1996: Justin Clark 240th overall. Sami Salo 239th overall. I'm sure you can't really rue things that happened in rounds that don't exist anymore but a player would be nice.

1997: Kevin Grimes 26th overall. Brenden Morrow 25th overall. That's two for two in the first round so far.

1998: Ramzi Abid 28th overall. Scott Gomez 27th overall. Straddling the 1st/2nd rounds, but the streak is alive! In a non-salary cap world, do these first four picks make the Avalanche the team to beat from 2000-2004?

1999: Martin Grenier 45th overall. Jordan Leopold 44th overall. If we drafted him maybe we could have got a better return when we traded Tanguay.

2000: Vaclav Nederost 14th overall. Ron Hainsey 13th overall. He would certainly have been a Guy during the barren years.

2000: Jared Aulin 47th overall. Jarret Stoll 46th overall. Stoll might have mitigated the loss of Forsberg post-lockout.

2000: Agris Saviels 63rd overall. Paul Martin 62nd overall. A fine second pairing partner for Ron Hainsey. They could have had 1500 games between them and nobody would know.

2000: Brian Fahey 119th overall. Lubomir Visnovsky 118th overall. We're going to get a whole d-corps of Guys here aren't we?

2000: Aaron Molnar 221st overall. Paul Gaustad 220th overall. A lesser version of Stoll insulating the bottom six in Sakic's last years?

2003: Dave Liffiton 63rd overall. The man followed up by Jimmy Howard was preceded by David Backes at 62. Very glad we didn't get him.

2004: Denis Parshin 72nd overall. Andrej Sekera 71st overall. There's our fourth Guy on the backend, but we couldn't lose the king of the draft memes.

2004: Ian Keserich 215th overall. Troy Brouwer 214th overall. Also one pick before Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond, and who wouldn't want to have drafted a guy with that name?

2005: Ryan Stoa 34th overall. James Neal 33rd overall. Our second sandwich of the list. Imagine his kneeing prowess vs. Matt Cooke in 2014.

2005: Chris Durand 52nd overall. Mason Raymond 51st overall. Again, 2014 might have been a bit better.

2006: Nigel Williams 51st overall. Milan Lucic 50th overall. Gee he would've been nice.

2007: Kent Patterson 113th overall. Colton Sceviour 112nd overall. Respectability by the start of the Bednar era? I'm not sure.

2008: Mark Olver 140th overall. Mark Borowiecki 139th overall. I enjoyed Wolverine but we're up to five D!

2010: Joey Hishon 17th overall. Vladimir Tarasenko 16th overall. You can't legislate for injuries and I'm just glad Hishon made it to the NHL. There's no chance we could have afforded him by this point but he had a career year in 2022.

2011: Duncan Siemens 11th overall. Jonas Brodin 10th overall. I love Duncan but there's the final piece of the defensive puzzle. A top six made of second pairing guys. The dream. I don't think he can skate well enough to keep up in the 2020-onward Avalanche and he probably precludes Toews Byram Manson actually never mind this one the Wild can keep him.

2016: Tyson Jost 10th overall. Mikhail Sergachev 9th overall. Jost is a waste of space. Montreal trading Sergachev was funny.

2016: Cameron Morrison 40th overall. Alex DeBrincat 39th overall. Goals! They're always good.

Turns out this list was much less depressing than the original one. We're not really missing much here.

 

[Section 104]

As a Rangers fan, people of my generation will point out the 1977 draft where John Ferguson selected Lucien DeBlois 8th and Ron Duguay (ooo la la Sassoon) 13th leaving the Islanders to select Mike Bossy 15th. Ferguson and his people soured on Bossy because he didn’t come off the bench to participate in a team brawl.

I hesitate to add selecting Don Murdoch 5th in 1976 when the Blues grabbed Bernie Federico 6th. Murdoch was a promising player before the cocaine got him and was 4th in scoring in the 1979 Rangers Stanley Cup finals playoff

2010 Dylan McIlrath 10th? He actually appeared with Washington this year. Cam Fowler for defense was #12 pick by Anaheim. For scoring, Vladimir Tarasenko went 16th

2017 Lias Anderson, the guy who threw his WJC medal in the crowd selected 7th. Sabres got Casey Mittelstadt with the next pick

 

[CharlestownChiefsESC]

As a Rangers fan, people of my generation will point out the 1977 draft where John Ferguson selected Lucien DeBlois 8th and Ron Duguay (ooo la la Sassoon) 13th leaving the Islanders to select Mike Bossy 15th. Ferguson and his people soured on Bossy because he didn’t come off the bench to participate in a team brawl.

I hesitate to add selecting Don Murdoch 5th in 1976 when the Blues grabbed Bernie Federico 6th. Murdoch was a promising player before the cocaine got him and was 4th in scoring in the 1979 Rangers Stanley Cup finals playoff

2010 Dylan McIlrath 10th? He actually appeared with Washington this year. Cam Fowler for defense was #12 pick by Anaheim. For scoring, Vladimir Tarasenko went 16th

2017 Lias Anderson, the guy who threw his WJC medal in the crowd selected 7th. Sabres got Casey Mittelstadt with the next pick

I'll add to this. Starting in 03.

2003 Hugh Jessiman > a few guys but the main 1 here was Ryan Getzlaf. The Rangers even told Getzlaf he was their guy before changing the course last minute. It's sad because he could have been another solid Messier type. Line 1 center captain plays in all situations. Most experts even had them taking him.

2004 Montoya ok not much else

2005 Staal ok not much else Oshie maybe.

2006 ughh this one again they go the fan route and draft Sangunetti who goes behind him Claude Giroux ughh. Now alot of people didn't think Giroux would go in round 1. But when the Rangers went up to the podium the Flyers were so sure they would take him that they were all in on Sanguenetti. The Flyers were so infuriated after they took Giroux out of spite. Now I can understand on the other side about Giroux, he was a smaller guy playing in the Q where stats can be inflated. But I played hockey in NJ growing up with kids who knew Sanguenetti and alot of them still couldn't figure out how he even got in the draft let alone in round 1 but he was ranked to go as high as 12 by some.

2007 It was unfortunate what happened to Cherepanov and what could have been but that might have influenced a later decision.

2008 Del Zotto > Carlson ughh. I think Carlson could have been another Leetch type too. Solid number 1 d and pp qb.

2009 Kreider ok

2010 ughh ok ughh. I know alot will talk about Fowler here but they had Del Zotto who at the time was showing alot of promise. But how do you not take Tarasenko how. Was it because of Cherepanov idk but this was an issue. A big one.

I'm gonna stop after 10 and just say those prime Hank years from 2012 to 2017 with a team containing Ryan Getzlaf,Claude Giroux, Vladimir Tarasenko and John Carlson in addition to guys like Lundqvist,Ryan McDonagh,Chris Kreider,Carl Hagelin,Marian Gaborik,Mats Zuccarello and Derek Stepan could have won a cup or 2. The not having those ppg fs and a true number 1 d were in my opinion why they never won in that era.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

I'll add to this. Starting in 03.

2003 Hugh Jessiman > a few guys but the main 1 here was Ryan Getzlaf. The Rangers even told Getzlaf he was their guy before changing the course last minute. It's sad because he could have been another solid Messier type. Line 1 center captain plays in all situations. Most experts even had them taking him.

2004 Montoya ok not much else

2005 Staal ok not much else Oshie maybe.

2006 ughh this one again they go the fan route and draft Sangunetti who goes behind him Claude Giroux ughh. Now alot of people didn't think Giroux would go in round 1. But when the Rangers went up to the podium the Flyers were so sure they would take him that they were all in on Sanguenetti. The Flyers were so infuriated after they took Giroux out of spite. Now I can understand on the other side about Giroux, he was a smaller guy playing in the Q where stats can be inflated. But I played hockey in NJ growing up with kids who knew Sanguenetti and alot of them still couldn't figure out how he even got in the draft let alone in round 1 but he was ranked to go as high as 12 by some.

2007 It was unfortunate what happened to Cherepanov and what could have been but that might have influenced a later decision.

2008 Del Zotto > Carlson ughh. I think Carlson could have been another Leetch type too. Solid number 1 d and pp qb.

2009 Kreider ok

2010 ughh ok ughh. I know alot will talk about Fowler here but they had Del Zotto who at the time was showing alot of promise. But how do you not take Tarasenko how. Was it because of Cherepanov idk but this was an issue. A big one.

I'm gonna stop after 10 and just say those prime Hank years from 2012 to 2017 with a team containing Ryan Getzlaf,Claude Giroux, Vladimir Tarasenko and John Carlson in addition to guys like Lundqvist,Ryan McDonagh,Chris Kreider,Carl Hagelin,Marian Gaborik,Mats Zuccarello and Derek Stepan could have won a cup or 2. The not having those ppg fs and a true number 1 d were in my opinion why they never won in that era.

2004: Rangers took Montoya (when they had Henrik on way), the pick after that may have made a difference is Radulov.

2006: Giroux went from low level Junior A to over 100 points in the Q in one year. That hype of production jump from a relatively shitty league to major junior (even if the Q isn't that great) is indicative of higher ceiling. Sanguinetti was an offensive defenseman in the O who didn't really progress offensively the next 2 years. He got to pro and was just decent in the A.

 

[CharlestownChiefsESC]

2006: Giroux went from low level Junior A to over 100 points in the Q in one year. That hype of production jump from a relatively shitty league to major junior (even if the Q isn't that great) is indicative of higher ceiling. Sanguinetti was an offensive defenseman in the O who didn't really progress offensively the next 2 years. He got to pro and was just decent in the A.

Knowing what we know now Giroux should have gone higher, but I looked at some of the draft previews I could find from that time and only 1 publication had him going in round 1 and it was low 20s.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Not my team but as I understand it, Anaheim wanted Erik Karlsson in 2008. He had been a late riser and most rankings had him in the early 20's by the time the draft rolled around.

Anaheim had pick #12 from the Dustin Penner offer sheet and they thought they could trade down and still get Karlsson. Anaheim had sent out a lot of draft picks to get Chris Pronger so they thought it was an opportunity to restock their barren farm system.

Anaheim traded #12 to Los Angeles for #17 and #28 then later moved #28 for #35 and #39. On paper that seemed like good "value." Unfortunately for the Ducks, Ottawa then traded up from #18 to #15 to snipe Karlsson.

Anaheim would end up with Jake Gardiner, Nic Deschamps, and Eric O'Dell (who they didn't sign). Ducks made the Conference Finals in 2015 and 2017, so I wonder if Karlsson might have put them over the top?

-------

Speaking of Ottawa, this is a fun cautionary tale with offer sheets. Later that summer 2008, Ottawa didn't have the cap room to sign Andrej Meszaros. Meanwhile Tampa Bay wanted to offer sheet Meszaros (1st+3rd round compensation) but had already dealt its 2009 3rd round pick to Pittsburgh for Ryan Malone. Tampa tried to get the pick back, but Penguins GM Ray Shero didn't want to aid in an offer sheet.

Eventually the two teams made a standard trade before training camp. But if Tampa hadn't dealt its 3rd rounder, they would have handed over the Victor Hedman pick to Ottawa. Or if Ottawa insisted on Tampa giving up its own first instead of San Jose's? Maybe Hedman puts Ottawa over the top in 2017?

Why would TB offer sheet coming off a season where they were the worst team in the league, the pick next year turned into the second overall pick in the draft , that makes zero sense

 

[Brodeur]

Why would TB offer sheet coming off a season where they were the worst team in the league, the pick next year turned into the second overall pick in the draft , that makes zero sense

No offer: Sens ship Meszaros to Tampa

www.sportsnet.ca

New owners with a misplaced sense of turning things around overnight.

 

[Golden_Jet]

No offer: Sens ship Meszaros to Tampa

www.sportsnet.ca

New owners with a misplaced sense of turning things around overnight.

Maybe, but ya dumb.

 

[FissionFire]

Not NHL, but the all-time biggest draft blunder that cost a team probably multiple titles was the Detroit Pistons 2003 draft. They had a championship caliber team and the #2 pick in arguable the best draft ever and took complete bust Darko Milicic over Hall of Fame/All-Stars Carmelo Anthony (3rd), Chris Bosh (4th), and Dwayne Wade (5th).

The Pistons won the 2004 Championship and lost the 2005 one in 7 games. Putting any of those 3 guys on the team over Milicic undoubtedly wins them the 2005 title and probably more.

This how close the Pistons were to being the dominant team of that era, which they probably would have been with any of Anthony, Bosh, or Wade over Darko.

2003 Draft: Darko (no contributions at all, known as the Human Victory Cigar for only getting mop up minutes his entire career)

2003: Lost in Conference Finals in 4 games
2004: NBA Champs
2005: Lost in NBA Finals in 7 games
2006: Lost in Conference Finals in 6 games (Wade)
2007: Lost in Conference Finals in 6 games
2008: Lost in Conference Finals in 6 games

You can’t tell me picking the biggest bust in NBA history didn’t cost them multiple titles for a team that made it to the final 4 6 years in a row.

 

[FissionFire]

As a Rangers fan, people of my generation will point out the 1977 draft where John Ferguson selected Lucien DeBlois 8th and Ron Duguay (ooo la la Sassoon) 13th leaving the Islanders to select Mike Bossy 15th. Ferguson and his people soured on Bossy because he didn’t come off the bench to participate in a team brawl.

I hesitate to add selecting Don Murdoch 5th in 1976 when the Blues grabbed Bernie Federico 6th. Murdoch was a promising player before the cocaine got him and was 4th in scoring in the 1979 Rangers Stanley Cup finals playoff

2010 Dylan McIlrath 10th? He actually appeared with Washington this year. Cam Fowler for defense was #12 pick by Anaheim. For scoring, Vladimir Tarasenko went 16th

2017 Lias Anderson, the guy who threw his WJC medal in the crowd selected 7th. Sabres got Casey Mittelstadt with the next pick

McIlrath over Fowler made no sense at the time either. Fowler was viewed as hands down the best defenseman in that draft and he fell far more than expected. For him to be passed over for McIlrath was a total head scratcher.