Which NHL team can build the most impressive starting lineup of cap-era draft busts?

New York Times

6 hours ago

It's draft weekend in the NHL. A time for renewal, and replenishment, and metaphors about fresh sheets of ice. Optimism, you might even say. This may be the one day of the year when every team and its fan base can legitimately feel like their situation is about to get better.
We can't have that. Let's make everyone sad instead.
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Today's post is simple: We're going to go around the league and try to assemble the best six-man lineup of draft busts from the cap era. That's three forwards, two defensemen and a goalie who were good enough to be worth a high pick, but for whatever reason just didn't work out at the NHL level. We're limiting this to first-round picks for the skaters, and to the first three rounds for goalies (who rarely get picked in the first).
Sound fun? No? Good, that's the whole point. Let's remember some whiffs.
As usual, we'll do about 10 teams and then turn it over to you in the comments to suggest other contenders. Let's start with the Bruins, if only because all their fans know what's coming and we might as well rip the Band-Aid off right away.
Hey Bruins fans, did you know that your team once had three straight first-round picks in a draft with some extremely good players still on the board? Oh wait, it says here you did know that, because it gets brought up all the time. Cool, just wanted to make sure.
Forwards: Zachary Senyshyn (15th in 2015), Zach Hamill (8th in 2007), Jordan Caron (25th in 2009)
Defense: Matt Lashoff (22nd in 2005), Jakub Zboril (13th in 2015)
Goalie: Malcolm Subban (24th in 2012)
Total career stats: 430 games, 15 goals, 36 wins
As expected, the 2015 disaster is well-represented, with Senyshyn and Zboril falling just short of the Mathew Barzal/Kyle Connor/Thomas Chabot tier of players that went off the board immediately after. Still, the Bruins are far from a total disaster, especially when you consider that they've only had two top-five picks in the cap era.
I don't have the guts to list Kaapo Kakko or (especially) Alexis Lafrenière quite yet. Luckily, the Rangers still give us plenty to work with.
Forwards: Lias Andersson (7th in 2017), Vitali Kravtsov (9th in 2018), Brennan Othmann (16th in 2021)
Defense: Dylan McIlrath (10th in 2010), Bobby Sanguinetti (21st in 2006)
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Goalie: Antoine Lafleur (48th in 2007)
Total career stats: 336 games, 18 goals, 0 wins
Look on the bright side, Rangers fans, our cap-era cutoff means you miss out on Hugh Jessiman, Dan Blackburn and Al Montoya. It's still a tough group, with the back-to-back Kravtsov and Andersson picks standing out. The good news is that Othmann may be a late bloomer who didn't do much with an opportunity last year, but is still young enough that he might make me eat this pick in a year or two.
The good news for the Flames is that they tend to hit on their high picks, such as Sam Bennett and Matthew Tkachuk. The bad news is where those guys are now. The worst news is that once they get out of the top six, they're pretty much a disaster.
Forwards: Morgan Klimchuk (28th in 2013), Emile Poirier (22nd in 2013), Greg Nemisz (25th in 2008),
Defense: Tim Erixon (23rd in 2009), Juuso Välimäki (16th in 2017)
Goalie: Leland Irving (26th in 2006)
Total career stats: 401 games, 13 goals, 3 wins
Yikes. The career stats are almost all from Välimäki, who's actually turned into a decent player even if he didn't fully live up to the hype, and is now with Utah. He's on this team by default because the Flames apparently just don't take defensemen in the first round. That focus on forwards hasn't exactly been working out; their record with late-round picks has been so bad that I had to cut 2005 first-rounder Matt Pelech because he was too productive (one career goal). Klimchuk is the name that stands out here because he was the first-round pick they got in the Jarome Iginla trade, but they basically haven't hit on any forwards outside the top-six since Mikael Backlund way back in 2007.
The Sens have a reputation as a team that drafts and develops well, and a look at their history mostly bears that out. They've had their share of misses, though.
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Forwards: Logan Brown (11th in 2016), Shane Bowers (28th in 2017), Jim O'Brien (29th in 2007)
Defense: Brian Lee (9th in 2005), Lassi Thomson (19th in 2019)
Goalie: Mads Sogaard (37th in 2019)
Total career stats: 445 games, 20 goals, 11 wins
Given all their hits, I think you can handle this list if you're a Sens fan, especially if you're old enough to remember the days of Alexandre Daigle. The one that hurts most is Lee; the Senators lucked into a top-10 pick in the 2005 league-wide lottery, then took him two picks ahead of Anze Kopitar. Tyler Boucher may earn a spot on this team in a year or two. But this isn't a bad group, and we may even need to put an asterisk on the two 2019 picks — Sogaard is at least still in the organization, while Thomson just re-signed in Ottawa on a two-way deal after returning from Europe.
Our cap-era cutoff helps the Blue Jackets a bit here, as they avoid top-10 picks such as Pascal Leclaire and Alexandre Picard. That doesn't mean they can't put together a decent roster, though. And unlike some other teams we've seen, we can find some high picks here that a team really can't afford to miss on.
Forwards: Gilbert Brule (6th in 2005), Nikita Filatov (6th in 2008), Kerby Rychel (19th in 2013)
Defense: Gabriel Carlsson (29th in 2015), Corson Ceulemans (25th in 2021)
Goalie: Oscar Dansk (31st in 2012)
Total career stats: 482 games, 55 goals, 0 wins
Missing on a pair of sixth-overall picks, especially just a few years apart, set the franchise back in a big way. The defense was the tricky part here; Ceulemans is still in the organization and is only 22, but his stock seems to be plummeting, even getting the dreaded 'prospect I was wrong about' treatment from Pronman. But if you wanted to, you could swap him out for David Jiricek, who's already been traded, or even Ryan Murray, who had a decent NHL career that was impacted by injuries but never came close to living up to the hype of being picked second. Maybe they should have taken that Islanders offer.
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This one's kind of fun, since the Lightning built one of the better rosters in the league largely through the draft, both by hitting on top picks such as Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman and by finding later-round gems such as Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point. If any team would be immune from putting together an all-bust squad, it would be them. And yet …
Forwards: Jonathan Drouin (3rd in 2013), Carter Ashton (29th in 2009), Nolan Foote (27th in 2019)
Defense: Vladimir Mihalik (30th in 2005), Slater Koekkoek (10th in 2012)
Goalie: Riku Helenius (15th in 2006)
Total career stats: 893 games, 121 goals, 0 wins
Yeah, that's an interesting group. Koekkoek has been open about his struggles, while Drouin has fashioned a solid comeback story in recent years. Meanwhile, Helenius is among the highest goaltenders picked in the cap era, and his NHL career lasted only one game. Luckily for Tampa, that experience didn't scare them off from taking goalies in round one.
The Sabres are the flip side of the Lightning — a team that's never any good, partly because they never seem to hit on any of their (many) high picks. Surely they'll have an unbeatable entry.
Forwards: Alex Nylander (8th in 2016), Mikhail Grigorenko (12th in 2012), Marek Zagrapan (13th in 2005),
Defense: Dennis Persson (24th in 2006), Ryan Johnson (31st in 2019)
Goalie: Jhonas Enroth (46th in 2006)
Total career stats: 572 games, 51 goals, 50 wins
Huh. That's nowhere near the mess I was expecting. While Zagrapan and Persson never made the NHL, they were picked back when this team was actually good. With Johnson still in the system, you could argue that Nylander is the only true first-round bust of the Terry Pegula era. (I'm thinking Matthew Savoie is too young to get that label yet, although Sabres fans may disagree.) But if anything, it feels like the Sabres tend to wind up with a bunch of mediocre picks instead of outright whiffs. Maybe they're playing it too safe? Hard to say, but I found their entry interesting.
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They've found some value over the years, especially with Kirill Kaprizov in the fifth. But their first-round record is a mixed bag.
Forwards: Benoit Pouliot (4th in 2005), Zack Phillips (28th in 2011), Colton Gillies (16th in 2007)
Defense: Tyler Cuma (23rd in 2008), Filip Johansson (24th in 2018)
Goalie: Kristofer Westblom (65th in 2005)
Total career stats: 780 games, 136 goals, 0 wins
No Marco Rossi, at least not yet. Pouliot had a better career than you probably remember, playing 12 seasons and counting for 130 goals toward the total here, but he never came close to living up to the expectations that come with being a fourth pick, especially when Carey Price and Anze Kopitar went off the board over the next few picks.
You can argue over whether this team of Coyotes picks is now the Mammoth or if they're just floating around in a weird liminal space of semi-existence, waiting to be revived. For our purposes, it doesn't matter, although JJ Peterka could tell you that yes, Coyotes picks became Mammoth prospects.
Forwards: Henrik Samuelsson (27th in 2012), Brendan Perlini (12th in 2014), Nick Merkley (30th in 2015)
Defense: Nick Ross (30th in 2007), Brandon Gormley (13th in 2010)
Goalie: Mark Visentin (27th in 2010)
Total career stats: 382 games, 54 goals, 0 wins.
Yeah, that's a tough look. I've focused on the late-round picks, which are a mess, although you could argue that higher picks like such as Kyle Turris and even Dylan Strome, hurt more. What really stands out is that there's about a decade where the Coyotes don't find anything resembling an impact player in the first round aside from Oliver Ekman-Larsson, a streak that's mercifully snapped in 2016 when they nailed two picks with Clayton Keller and Jakob Chychrun.
No, I'm not putting Trevor Zegras on the team, don't be ridiculous. We'll give him one more year.
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Forwards: Logan MacMillan (19th in 2007), Brayden Tracey (29th in 2019), Jacob Perreault (27th in 2020)
Defense: Mark Mitera (19th in 2006), Jacob Larsson (27th in 2015)
Goalie: Igor Bobkov (76th in 2009)
Total career stats: 174 games, 3 goals, 0 wins
Oof. We can defend the Ducks a little here, because they've spent most of the cap era as contenders, which means they picked late. And while Bobkov never made it, he's an outlier on a team that's actually really good at nailing its goalie picks, landing John Gibson, Frederik Andersen, Ilya Bryzgalov and Lukas Dostal with early picks. Still, when they miss, they miss big — pretty much all of those career stats come from Larsson, with the other five players on the list all playing in one or zero NHL games.
OK, now it's over to you. I went through just about every team, and some just won't work at all — either because they rarely miss, rarely have first-round picks to miss with, or in some rare cases can't fill out a full roster. (Did you know the only goalies the Leafs have taken in the first three rounds in the entire cap era are Tuukka Rask and Joseph Woll? Sorry, Tyler Biggs fans.) But I'm sure I've missed a few, so let me see what you can come up with. Or just remember some especially bad picks that your team made, especially if you knew all along that they should have taken the other guy.
(Top photo of Jakub Zboril, Zachary Senyshyn and Jake DeBrusk: Dave Sandford / NHLI via Getty Images)