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Meltzer's Musings:Draft Regrets |
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The Flyers have drawn criticism over the last 15 years for their inability to draft talent (outside of the first round) that goes on to have significant NHL careers; at least not at the same rate as some of the other perennial contenders in the league. On the flip side, only twice in the history of the franchise has the club spent a first-round selection on a player who wound up never playing a single game in the NHL.
That's an impressive accomplishment in light of the fact that the team has often drafted late in the first round. Scouting teenage hockey players and projecting their futures is an inexact science, to say the least.
Of course, that there have not been numerous first-round picks the Flyers wished in hindsight that they could have had back. Here's a look at the five most ill-fated selections in the organization's drafting history:
1. Ryan Sittler (1992, 7th overall): The Flyers did not expect to use this pick. The previous night, they had agreed to trade the selection to Quebec as part of the package for the rights to Eric Lindros. Then the Nordiques traded Lindros for a second time to the New York Rangers, and the Flyers were compelled to make a selection on the draft floor while the Lindros situation was in limbo. They huddled and decided on Sittler, the son of Hockey Hall of Famer (and ex-Flyer) Darryl Sittler.
The younger Sittler wound up being a marginal minor league player, who never came anywhere close to earning a callup to the NHL. Because this pick proved to be so ill-fated, it has become almost legendary as an example of a team screwing up on the draft floor. Like most legends, though, there are plenty of mitigating factors that get overlooked.
First of all, the Flyers were hardly the only NHL team that thought highly of Sittler. The Hockey News had deemed him "the safest pick in the draft" despite the fact that he had yet to make his collegiate hockey debut at the time of the 1992 draft.
Secondly, the 1992 draft class as a whole was a rather mediocre one. If you look at the remainder of the first round after the Flyers' selection of Sittler, there was a handful of players who went on to have lengthy and solid NHL careers but only one (Sergei Gonchar) who could be deemed an All-Star caliber player.
Finally, injuries played a huge role in Sittler's failure to develop after his draft selection. He sustained three major injuries in successive years, including a serious eye injury suffered in a fight during his first AHL season. The other injuries were to a shoulder and a knee. He eventually developed a substance abuse problem as a result of dependency on painkillers (which, thankfully, he later overcame).
Sittler probably never would have become an NHL star, even if he had stayed healthy. But there's a good chance that he would have proven to be at least a decent role-player if his formative years after the draft had not been repeatedly interrupted by torn ligaments, broken bones and blurred vision. His fate of never playing a game in the NHL was something that few if any hockey people ever would have predicted on draft day 1992.
When arbitrator Larry Bertuzzi ruled that the Flyers had made an enforceable trade for the rights to Eric Lindros, the rights to Chris Simon (the Flyers' second-round pick in 1990) were substituted for the rights to Sittler (who had an injury-plagued season at University of Michigan) at the preference of the Nordiques.
2. Bob Currier (1969, 6th overall): The Flyers, and every other team in the NHL bypassed Flin Flon Bombers star Bobby Clarke in the first round of the draft because of (completely unfounded) fears over whether Clarke's diabetes would prevent him from playing in the NHL.
Currier never rose above the AHL level. Fortunately, the selection Clarke in the second round and the subsequent selections of Dave Schultz (5th round) and Don Saleski (6th round) more than made up for the miss in the opening round.
3. Claude Boivin (14th overall, 1988): According to the book "Full Spectrum" and a Philadelphia Inquirer article written the day after the 1988 draft, Flyers' GM Bob Clarke had attempted to trade up into the top 10 in order to select either Rod Brind'Amour or Teemu Selanne. Unfortunately for the Flyers, no deal could be struck with St. Louis (drafting ninth) or Winnipeg (selecting 10th). As a result, the Flyers settled on Boivin, a projected power forward from the QMJHL's Drummondville Voltigeurs.
Boivin was a big man who could skate and was never shy about dropping the gloves. Unfortunately, it turned out that he lacked both hockey sense and the hands to be any sort of impact player in the NHL. The biggest blow to his career, however, was a torn ACL that nearly forced his retirement at the age of 21.
Boivin rehabbed the injury and returned to the ice. But he never found a regular role, except as a so-so fighter. He played 114 forgettable games for the Flyers, scoring 11 goals and 29 points while compiling 320 penalty minutes. He became a healthy scratch under coach Terry Simpson until he was traded to Ottawa for Mark Lamb in March of 1994.
At the time Boivin was traded, there was a widespread rumor that Simpson (having learned of the trade before the player) canceled Boivin's wakeup call at the team's hotel in Tampa Bay. Before receiving a phone call from general manager Russ Farwell informing him of the trade to Ottawa, Boivin allegedly first went downstairs to the lobby with his bags packed, and learned that the team bus had already left without him for the arena in Tampa. I have never been able to find out if this particular story was actually try or not, but it's a good example of the many "hockey is a tough business" stories that you hear.
4. Maxime Ouellet (1999, 22nd overall): A lot of revisionist history has taken place over the years about this pick and the player's subsequent trade to the Washington Capitals as part of an ill-fated (and extremely pricey) rental of Adam Oates for the 2001-02 stretch drive and playoffs.
As the first round of the 1999 draft unfolded, the Flyers hoped to select defenseman Nick Boynton (who was originally selected with the 9th overall pick by Washington in 1997, but never came to contract terms and re-entered the draft in '99). The Boston Bruins beat the Flyers to the punch, taking Boynton with the 21st pick.
With Boynton off the board, the Flyers opted for Ouellet. They chose him on the basis of taking the best available player regardless of position.
Although the Flyers already had three highly regarded goalies in the pipeline (1995 first-round pick Brian Boucher, 1997 second-round pick Jean-Marc Pelletier and 1996 sixth-rounder Antero Niittymaki), Ouellet was widely considered the best goaltender available in the 1999 draft. The Hockey News and Central Scouting said that he might even have franchise goalie potential in the near future.
The early returns on Ouellet were actually quite promising. As a 19-year-old, he broke camp with the big club, and ended up on the Flyers' opening night roster for the 2000-01 season. He got one start and one relief appearance before being returned to his junior team (as it turned out, Ouellet never played another NHL game as a Flyer). He was named the starting goalie for Team Canada at the World Junior Championships.
However, over the course of the next year, negative scouting reports started to filter in on Ouellet. His ability to stop long shots without allowing juicy rebounds was questioned, as was his coverage of the angles on the short-side and wraparounds. He was still highly regarded at the time the Flyers dealt him to Washington (after all, goalies tend to blossom later than position players) but he was no longer untouchable.
The Flyers traded Ouellet along with first-round, second-round, and third-round picks in the 2002 draft in exchange for Adam Oates. The deal was made out of desperation. Centers Keith Primeau and Jeremy Roenick were both injured down the stretch and Bob Clarke felt the team needed to protect itself by landing another frontline center, even if it was just as a rental. The Caps demanded an extortionate return, and Clarke felt compelled to pay it.
The 39-year-old Oates proved to be of little help to a Flyers team destined for an ugly five-game loss to Ottawa in the first round of the playoffs (Philly scored a grand total of two goals in the series, one of which came in overtime of a 1-0 shutout win behind Roman Cechmanek in Game One). Meanwhile, Ouellet never developed. He turned out to be an average AHL goalie, and played just 10 more NHL games (six with the Caps, four with the Vancouver Canucks).
Among the 1999 draftees who went within 10 picks of Ouellet's selection, the most prominent NHL player has been Martin Havlat.
5. Glen Seabrooke (1985, 21st overall): Who knows what Seabrooke might have done in his career? In February 1989, he sustained a serious shoulder injury, incurring damage that was much more severe than team doctor John Gregg diagnosed. Seabrooke permanently lost stability in his shoulder and range of motion in his arm, ending his NHL career at age 22 after just 19 games (1 G, 7 points). The early returns on him in the AHL had seemed quite promising, as he quickly established himself as a point per game player. Seabrooke later sued Dr. Gregg and won.
But Seabrooke was probably not the best player the Flyers could have picked with the final selection of the 1985 first round. The club's scouts were divided between Seabrooke, collegiate forward Joe Nieuwendyk, Canadian junior goalie Sean Burke, and American defenseman Eric Weinrich. All of the other players went early in the second round and all would have better picks, even based on their demonstrated level of potential up to the time of the '85 draft.
The Flyers choice Seabrooke primarily because he'd played at a higher level of competition than Nieuwendyk or especially Weinrich. The difference: Seabrooke was a very good but never great junior player in the OHL but Nieuwendyk had absolutely torn apart the NCAA as a "true" (18-year-old) freshman recruit.
Honorable mention-- Jeff Woywitka (2001, 27th overall): In the 2001 draft, there were three defensemen whom the Flyers liked and rated about equal in ability: Tim Gleason, Woywitka and Lukas Krajicek. The Flyers actually traded down a few spots, figuring they'd be getting a future NHL defenseman regardless.
Woywitka never played a game in orange and black. In his rookie pro season, the AHLer was traded to Edmonton in the deal that brought Mike Comrie to Philadelphia. Since then, Woywitka has often struggled to hold down a spot in the NHL. He played decently on the third-pairing with the Dallas Stars in 2010-11, and even bumped former first round pick Mark Fistric from the lineup.
There was only one future NHL impact player picked in the vicinity of Woywitka in the draft: Derek Roy went 32nd overall to the Buffalo Sabres. However, there were numerous players who were chosen much later than Woywitka who have gone on to have much more significant NHL careers to date.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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