Scheiflele

Worst of The Jets/Thrashers draft history.

Jun 23, 2015 • 2:07 pm

Before the rubber hits the road and we get into rumours and speculation it’s time to revisit the Jets draft history as it relates to the Thrashers lineage. It’s a case of ‘what could have been’ or not, but it will provide some context as to who has come and gone and why the franchise has lacked depth for so long.

In the beginning…

1999

The Thrashers had the first overall in pick in the softer than a baby’s bottom 1999 draft. The highlights of round one were the Sedins and why take one without the other and history proves Brian Burke made a shrewd gamble. The Thrashers took Patrick Stepan with the number one pick as that was the best option, or was it? It was a weak group but the Thrashers could have traded down (yeah right) and grabbed Barret Jackman or Martin Havlat, both of whom had much better careers than the first overall pick. Let’s not forget that Zetterberg went in the 7th round 210th overall.

2000

With the second overall pick the Thrashers took Dany Heatley. It would be a short-lived time with Atlanta with a tragic incident in the death of Dan Snyder in Heatly’s Ferrari. After the 2004-05 lockout Heatley would never play another game for the Thrashers. However Healtey was not the worst move for the Thrashers that year. The next 6 draft picks by the franchise would never play in the NHL! Not until the 6th round did the team find a player in Darcy Hordichuk who would play a meaningful amount of games. They passed on Vermette, Stoll, Visnovsky, Moen, Liles, and Lundqvist.

2001

The Thrashers drafted another potential pillar of the franchise in Ilya Kovalchuk with the first overall pick and without a second round pick they had 8 picks left in the 2001 draft. With those 8 picks they garnered at total of 205 games played, of which 125 were from the unheralded Pasi Nurminen. They missed on Patrick Sharp, Jordin Tootoo, Ehrhoff, Bieksa, Wellwood, and Jussi Jokinen.

2002

In 2002 there was still the belief that you could use a top pick for a goalie and make it matter so the Thrashers took Kari Lehtonen with the second overall pick. But like past years it was what happened after that pick which defined the draft although this year saw improvement with Jim Slater and Patrick Dwyer taken right after Lehtonen. Still the Thrasher had no 2nd or 3rd round pick this year but an extra first with #30 over all (Slater) But by taking Lehtonen, the Thrashers passed on Bouwmeester, Lupul, Semin, Steen and with Slater they missed Stoll, Duncan Keith, Stajan, Hudler, Filppula, and Lombardi.

2003

A draft class that history looks back on as one of the best ever had some interesting options for the Thrashers, as it did for every team. However, again the Thrashers had no 3rd or 2nd round picks in the draft after the 8th overall pick. That pick went to Brayden Coburn and the Thrashers would not realize anything meaningful from that class until their first late round success pick in the 8th with Enstrom. The other six picks would earn a total of 73 games played in the NHL. There are too many names to mention about who the Thrashers could have taken instead of Coburn but names like Matt Moulson, Pavelski, Stempniak and Dustin Byfuglien were all available to be taken among other less successful players.

The middle years…

2004

This year may be the most miserable of all the draft classes for the Thrashers- it was a train wreck. The franchise had 9 picks and garnered a total of 82 NHL games played and 7 assists from the players taken for their entire careers! Taken 10th overall was the acclaimed Boris Valabik, then in the 2nd round Grant Lewis and so on and so on it went. Available for the 10th pick were Drew Stafford, Travis Zajac, Andrej Meszaros, Mike Green and Cory Schneider. Going after Grant Lewis were: Bickell (next pick), Booth, Dubinsky and Krejci. It gets worse the deeper you go.

2005

If the 2004 draft was thought to be the low water mark for the Thrashers 2005 was not much higher on the tide line. Aside from Pavelec, there was no other player who made a dent past 4 games played. Take away Pavelelc’s 338 games played and the Thrashers only had 8 NHL games from 8 picks. The 2005 draft was a goofy one as it was a lottery system and all teams had the same chance at the top pick- Atlanta ended with 16th overall, not bad but not great. They chose Alex Bourret, not Hanzal (next pick), Oshie, Cogliano, Niskanen or Downie. When they chose Pavelec they missed on Abdelkader (next pick) and Stastny. They had a second 2nd round pick that year and took Chad Denny instead of Mason Raymond, Letang, or Quick or Franson.

2006

This may be the turning point for the Thrashers as with the 12th pick they may have selected their best draft pick ever to that date and perhaps longer. Bryan Little was the pick from future Jets draft development team the Barrie Colts, but that was it for NHL games played from that class. Only Arturs Kulda played in any from the 8 picks the Thrashers had that year. Other than finding no depth again that year there could be no complaining about that Little pick unless you felt that getting Giroux was a better move back then. However with the second round pick used for Riley Holzapfel the Thrashers missed on Kulemin(next pick- see the trend?), Lucic, and Anisimov.

2007

It had all the makings of opportunity for the Thrashers after their first ever playoff appearance but the cost to get Keith Tkachuk and get swept int he first round was no picks until the 3rd round and 4 in total. This is the turning point the for franchise where all the bad decisions clearly caught up to the team. No depth in the system, three years of poor drafting and now no picks. Interestingly the Thrashers did find some depth if they ever decided to use it in the future, but Paul Postma never seemed to get a fair shake in either management group. Instead of taking Spencer Machacek as their first pick the Thrashers could have taken Yannick Weber, Alec Martinez, Matt Halischuk or even Jamie Benn.

The final run…

2008

The Thrashers returned to the first round of the entry draft with two picks in 2008, the 3rd and 29th overall. But once again the amount of games played by the depth picks for the team was next to nothing. In fact only two players from 2008 (the two Zachs Bogosian and Redmond) played any NHL games. While the Bogosian pick will always be overshadowed but Pietrangelo going next (that trend again) it is the second first round pick of Dautlan Leveille that hurt the team. Roman Josi, Derek Stepan, Travis Hamonic, and Justin Schultz all went after. The Thrashers had yet another wasteland of talent from the late first round pick until the 7th to show for their efforts, again.

2009

Aside from the fact that the pick the Thrashers took is no longer with the team, like the one from the year before and the year after, there may still be some upside from 2009. With Morin long gone the hope that Ben Chairot and his new two-year deal become valuable for the Jets determines whether the 2009 draft was a total failure or not. Kane was taken with the 4th overall pick and then Klingberg, then Morin before Chairot with second of two 4th round picks. But look again after Klingberg, Kyle Clifford (THE NEXT PICK AGAIN) was taken and soon after Jakob Silfverberg. Instead of Morin the Thrashers could have taken Pirri or Tatar or dug deeper to get Reilly Smith or Cody Eakin. Had they taken some lesson from Chicago they could have even drafted Kruger.

2010

This would be the last year the Thrashers regime would draft before the franchise relocated to Winnipeg and with the 8th overall pick they took from the Barrie Colts (suprise) Alexander Burmistrov. Imagine if it had been Tarasenko or Granlund (the next pick). After him the results of that draft have played one game thanks to Julian Melchiori. The Thrashers had no second round pick that year so by taking Melchiori at 87 overall they missed on John Klingberg and Brendan Gallagher. By the 6ht round they had taken Sebastian-Lance Owuya instead of soon to be very well paid Mark Stone, of Winnipeg ironically.

What you can see here is that there are two distinct trends with the Thrashers drafting history.

1. They had huge swaths of nothing from their picks in terms of NHL games played over many years. They simply did not find enough talent from picks and could be said to be very poor t identifying talent.

2. They often took players and then the very next pick would surpass their pick. While drafting is still a lottery in terms of luck teams do have an affect on how lucky they can be and it appears the Thrashers took no interest in increasing their odds.

While drafting is no exact science it’s hard to believe the Thrashers could not have been better at it. Pointing out that they missed on some players also means other teams missed too and that’s okay but the troubling part is where they missed and how often. Teams need to be able to find players that aren’t always obvious ‘best bets’ and the Thrashers rarely did. The Jets made a definitive statement when they came to building a team, draft it and develop those picks. The first chance to do so goes back to four drafts ago, take a look.

In 2011 under new ownership and management the Jets came to the podium with their first pick just weeks after relocating. The stock of heralded centre-man Sean Couturier was dropping and he was there for the Jets at 7th overall but instead they surprised everyone but themselves and chose Mark Scheifle. Philadelphia took Couturier with the next pick.