Best 2nd Rounders - year by year

[thestonedkoala]

I guess I'll do mine from the past 5 years:

1999 (aka the ugliest draft in history)
1. Martin Havlat
2. Jordan Leopold/Alexei Semenov
3. Mattias Weindhandl
4. Ryan Malone
5. Ryan Miller
6. Martin Prusek
7. Henrik Zetterberg
8. Garnet Exelby/Radek Martinek
9. Mikko Eloranta

2000
1. Alexander Frolov
2. Ilja Bryzagalov/Nick Schultz/Antoine Vermette/Paul Martin
3. Mikael Tellqvist/Josef Balej
4. Lubomir Visnovsky
5. Jean Michael Liles
6. Roman Cechmanek
7. Henrik Lundqvist
8. Reinhard Divis
9. Simon Gamache

2001
1. Alexander Perezhogin/ Jeff Woywitka
2. Noah Welch/Peter Budaj
3. Garth Murray/Stephane Veilleux/Patrick Sharp/Brendan Bell
4. Ray Emery/Christian Ehrhoff
5. Kyle Wellwood
6. Pasi Nurminen
7. Jason King/ Cristobal Huet
8. Martin Gerber
9. Ivan Majesky/Ales Pisa

2002
1. Hannu Toivonen/Anton Babchuk
2. Josh Harding/Dave LeNeveu/Mathew Stajan/Johnny Boychuk/Maxime Daigneault/Jiri Hudler
3. Lukas Mensator/Matthew Lombardi
4. Aaron Rome
5. Lasse Pirjeta
6. Matt Foy/Ian White
7. Josh Morrow/Marc Andre Roy
8. Maxime Talbot/ Tom Koivisto
9. Mika Hannula

2003
1. Patrick Eaves/Corey Perry
2. Patrick O'Sullivan/ Patrice Bergeron
3. Grigory Shafigulin/Alexander Sulzer
4. Denis Ezhov/Paul Bissonnette/Matej Trojovsky
5. Arsi Piispanen/Nigel Dawes/Thomas Morrow
6. Esa Pirnes/Mark Flood
7. Andy Chiodo/Georgi Misharin/Mike Brodeur/Jeremy Williams/Adam Courchaine
8. Tobias Enstrom/Darryl Yacboski
9. Jean Michel Bolduc

 

[nomorekids]

2003's second round is looking incredible for nashville. even if glazachev, the russian sniper projected to possibly be a late first round pick DOESN'T pan out...shea weber and kevin klein are both near the top of the CHL in playoff scoring, for the kelowna rockets and guelph storm, respectively...as defensemen. klein has 9 goals, 9 assists in the playoffs alone. personally, i'm excited about weber. everything i've heard has him as a scott stevens\rob blake style player...good offensive ability, but big, mean hitter as well.

 

[SpaceGhost79]

Top 5th rounders:

1990: Sergei Zubov
1991: Mariusz Czerkawski
1992: Adrian Aucoin
1993: Miroslav Satan
1994: Nils Ekman
1995: Jan Hrdina (Miikka Kiprusoff)
1996: Jesse Boulerice
1997: Magnus Arvedson
1998: Andrew Raycroft
1999: Niko Dimitrakos
2000: John-Michael Liles
2001: Jussi Markkanen
2002: Lasse Pirjeta
2003: Nigel Dawes

I'd take Marty Turco, 5th round 1994 pick.

 

[leafaholix*]

"Steals" over the last 5 drafts...

2003
R1. Mark Stuart (#21)
R2. Patrice Bergeron (#45)
R3. Konstantin Barulin (#84)
R4. Konstantin Volkov (#125)
R5. Nigel Dawes (#149)
R6. Bruno Gervais (#182)
R7. Jeremy Williams (#220)
R8. Tobias Enstrom (#239)
R9. Jaroslav Halak (#271)

2002
R1. Alexander Steen (#24)
R2. Matthew Stajan (#57)
R3. Matthew Lombardi (#90)
R4. Brandon Segal (#102)
R5. James Wisniewski (#156)
R6. Matthew Foy (#175)
R7. Derek Meech (#229)
R8. Jarkko Immonen (#254)
R9. Sergei Mozyakin (#263)

2001
R1. Dan Hamhuis (#12)
R2. Fedor Tjutin (#40)
R3. Patrick Sharp (#95)
R4. Christian Ehrhoff (#106)
R5. Kyle Wellwood (#134)
R6. Marek Zidlicky (#176)
R7. Marek Svatos (#227)
R8. Martin Gerber (#232)
R9. Pierre-Alexander Parent (#264)

2000
R1. Alexander Frolov (#20)
R2. Ilja Bryzgalov (#44)
R3. Josef Balej (#78)
R4. Stefan Liv (#102)
R5. John-Michael Liles (#159)
R6. Roman Cechmanek (#171)
R7. Magnus Kahnberg (#212)
R8. Reinhard Divis (#261)
R9. Simon Gamache (#290)

1999
R1. Martin Havlat (#26)
R2. Jordan Leopold (#44)
R3. Mike Comrie (#91)
R4. Ryan Malone (#115)
R5. Ryan Miller (#138)
R6. Martin Prusek (#164)
R7. Henrik Zetterberg (#210)
R8. Pierre Hedin (#239)
R9. Darren Haydar (#248)

1998
R1. Simon Gagne (#22)
R2. Mike Ribeiro (#45)
R3. Brian Gionta (#82)
R4. Josef Vasicek (#91)
R5. Andrew Raycroft (#135)
R6. Pavel Datsyuk (#171)
R7. Tyler Arnason (#183)
R8. Michael Ryder (#216)
R9. Karlis Skrastins (#230)

 

[Potted Plant]

4th Rounders: These are the best 4th rounders in my opinion.

1990: Alexei Zhamnov
1991: Alexei Zhitnik
1992: Jere Lehtinen
1993: Eric Daze
1994: Milan Hejduk
1995: Michal Handzus
1996: Toni Lydman
1997: Ivan Novoseltsev
1998: Josef Vasicek
1999: Juraj Kolnik
2000: Lubomir Visnovsky
2001: Ray Emery
2002: Matt Ellison
2003: Corey Locke

Jeez, from about 1998 and back, that is a REALLY good list of players. Perhaps it's too soon to tell on the more recent ones.

 

[thestonedkoala]

No respect for Fritsche and O'Sullivan...

 

[leafaholix*]

No respect for Fritsche and O'Sullivan...

Patrice Bergeron is clearly the best player selected in the 2nd round of 2003.

 

[CoolDude*]

I'd take Marty Turco, 5th round 1994 pick.

good point

 

[thestonedkoala]

Patrice Bergeron is clearly the best player selected in the 2nd round of 2003.

How would you know that? Simply because he made the team year?

Have you thought about the fact that maybe Fritische needs a little more time to learn or the fact that O'Sullivan couldn't make the Wild team because they already had who they wanted to have on their team? Or the fact they wanted him to go out and learn a little more defensively?

Until a couple years pass and a couple of the players make it, I'll reserve my judgement.

 

[Prussian_Blue]

"Steals" over the last 5 drafts...

2003
R3. Konstantin Barulin (#84)

2000
R8. Reinhard Divis (#261)

Thanks for the props for Divis and The Barulin Wall.

I think Konstantin Zakharov (101st overall in 2003) and Peter Cajanek (253rd overall in 2001) ought to be somewhere on the list as well.

PrussianBlue

 

[leafaholix*]

How would you know that? Simply because he made the team year?

Have you thought about the fact that maybe Fritische needs a little more time to learn or the fact that O'Sullivan couldn't make the Wild team because they already had who they wanted to have on their team? Or the fact they wanted him to go out and learn a little more defensively?

Until a couple years pass and a couple of the players make it, I'll reserve my judgement.

Patrice Bergeron is the youngest player in the NHL... he had a great season for Boston and was named to Team Canada's World Championship squad. As of right now, he's easily one of the top 3 players drafted in the 2003 draft.

He's accomplished a lot as the youngest player in the NHL and there's no reason to say Fritsche or O'Sullivan are going to be as good as him in the future. They couldn't make their respective non-playoff teams and Bergeron forced himself onto the Boston Bruins.

 

[leafaholix*]

Thanks for the props for Divis and The Barulin Wall.

I think Konstantin Zakharov (101st overall in 2003) and Peter Cajanek (253rd overall in 2001) ought to be somewhere on the list as well.

PrussianBlue

Konstantin Barulin beat out Konstantin Zakharov... they were both third rounders... and Martin Gerber beat out Cajanek on my list. Petr's numbers were off this past season.

 

[Classic Devil]

O'Sullivan is going to be a force in this league. What a great pick for Minnesota.

 

[Panopticon]

90 and 91 seem to have been great years because they have great players drafted even in the 5th round.

 

[WADEugottaBELAKthat]

If Fritsche is going to be ranked as one of the best 2nd rounders of his year, he's on thin ice.

He barely averaged a point-per-game this year w/Sarnia this year and was clearly overmatched with his defensive duties in CBJ.

 

[DownFromNJ]

Devils:

93 - Jay Pandolfo
94- Patrick Elias
96 - Colin White
00 - Paul Martin/Alexsander Suglobov
01 - Toumas Pihlman

 

[thestonedkoala]

Leafsaholix:

The Bruins were in desperate need of a center, they lost Stumpel and had Green, Hilbert, MacDonald, Rolston and Thornton, not much competition for Bergeron... Minnesota was deep in the center position (Walz, Dowd, Hendrickson, Zholtok, Bouchard, Choiunard) (and compared to the Bruins and how they play the game, this is deep for the Wild) and they thought it best not to bring in another one that they had little room for. (Gaborik and Dupuis were holding out yes, but what do you do with them if you got O'Sullivan playing?). Plus they thought O'Sullivan could learn a little bit more from playing with the IceDogs for another year, doesn't make him any less of a player and if it wasn't for his 'personal' problems that were way overblown by the media, he would've been a first rounder and probably on a team now. That and if you read any of the interviews with Riser, he knew it was a mistake continuing with the old men, so I believe he would've brought O'Sullivan on the team if we were going to a youth movement, which for some odd reason we didn't.

As of right now, yes Bergeron is one of the best players coming out of the 2003 draft but I believe in a few years, he won't be considered the best 2nd round. Top 5 picks in the 2nd round? Probably But not the best.

That's like saying Tim Gleason is going to be a better player than Carlo Colaiacova...Because he has played on a NHL team and has played better than Colaiacova.

 

[Slats432]

I guess I'll do mine from the past 5 years:
2002
1. Hannu Toivonen/Anton Babchuk
2. Josh Harding/Dave LeNeveu/Mathew Stajan/Johnny Boychuk/Maxime Daigneault/Jiri Hudler
3. Lukas Mensator/Matthew Lombardi
4. Aaron Rome
5. Lasse Pirjeta
6. Matt Foy/Ian White
7. Josh Morrow/Marc Andre Roy
8. Maxime Talbot/ Tom Koivisto
9. Mika Hannula

Are you suggesting that you would select Toivonen or Babchuk over Nash, Bouwmeester, Pitkanen and Lehtonen? If so, All I can say is WOW.

 

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Are you suggesting that you would select Toivonen or Babchuk over Nash, Bouwmeester, Pitkanen and Lehtonen? If so, All I can say is WOW.

Yeah that made little to no sense to me either.

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

Leafsaholix:

The Bruins were in desperate need of a center, they lost Stumpel and had Green, Hilbert, MacDonald, Rolston and Thornton, not much competition for Bergeron... Minnesota was deep in the center position (Walz, Dowd, Hendrickson, Zholtok, Bouchard, Choiunard) (and compared to the Bruins and how they play the game, this is deep for the Wild) and they thought it best not to bring in another one that they had little room for. (Gaborik and Dupuis were holding out yes, but what do you do with them if you got O'Sullivan playing?).

I'm not sure you're giving as much credit to Bergeron as you should. He won hands down a spot through training camp and preseason. They weren't expecting him to do so but he did. He played like a real NHLer all year, not a pampered rookie. All of his ice time was deserved, which is more than I can say for a lot of rookies who enter this league (I will take P-M Bouchard as an example here since you are familiar with him).

For the most part, he looked like a guy getting out of the AHL, not the CHL. He kept the pace all year. His play was satisfactory not just from a production standpoint but also by doing all the little things. He was one of the nicest blend of skills, coachability, adaptability, two-way play and grit I have seen from a guy this age and it even stacks up pretty well against regular NHL player. He slowed down a little on the production in the second half but continued to play very much a NHL-style game. Then he ended up being the 4th leading scorer on the Bruins in the playoffs.

I've gotta ask what more you want

He is one of the nicest surprises in years and by comparison, Brent Burns was handfed his limited ice time. There were more holes on this Wild team. Keep in mind that the Bruins had Nylander near the end of the season and still, Bergeron found a way to get lots of ice time in the playoffs.

I am not saying Bergeron is a supreme, dominating talent (he isn't, and I have debunked that fact earlier in the season) and I would agree he was put in an ideal situation if by that we mean he found himself on the right team, with the right mindset and "clicked" with his coach". The latter aspect is particularly important and for many players, is the difference between an awesome season and a crappy one. I think Sullivan found ways to utilize what he saw in him.

That being said, I've got to praise Bergeron and he looks like he could perhaps develop into a sort of Brind'Amour or perhaps Damphousse (second half of career). He looks like an awesome find and every second rounder out there will be hard pressed to play at that level when they are 22 years old. Not saying it's impossible and for all we know, some obscure 6th rounder will emerge in a few years and be even better but I felt you dodn't give him credit.

I have followed Bergeron all season. Simply put, he was handling himself most of the time like a veteran. He deserved all his ice time (most rookies deserve only part of it, some deserve none). Most Bruins fans were amazed and I am too.

That being said I do agree that Bergeron's upside is probably not that of a dominant first liner. He had a much better rookie season than Thornton for instance, but won't develop into that kind of player. Still, he was invaluable. He is a better player than O'Sullivan right now and his game is extremely effective in the NHL. He is already carving himself as a proven *effective* NHLer. had he been on the Wild, he would have had the call over Brent Burns hands down, who himself got the call over O'Sullivan.

Heck, he was better than Bouchard.

Just saying, don't discard him too easily because of his apparent limited upside. He is very effective at what he does. He was invited on team Canada because he's already a better than average forward in the NHL. Right there, that's a huge achievement for an 18 years old and does bode well for the future.

I feel you are not giving him his dues when you say he'll "probably" be one of the top 5 second rounders in the draft. Hell, he's already making a case that he'll be one of the good players of the 2003 class.

 

[leafaholix*]

Are you suggesting that you would select Toivonen or Babchuk over Nash, Bouwmeester, Pitkanen and Lehtonen? If so, All I can say is WOW.

Nash went #1 overall.

That's not a "steal".

 

[EverythingSens]

Canadiens Drafts of the late 80's, early 90's that havent been mentioned and are all steals IMHO:

1984: 3rd Round, 51st overall: Patrick Roy
1987: 2nd Round, 33rd overall: John LeClair
1987: 2nd Round, 38th overall: Eric Desjardins
1987: 3rd Round, 44th overall: Mathieu Schnieder
1990: 6th Round, 123rd overall: Craig Conroy
1994: 2nd Round, 44th overall: Jose Theodore
1994: 9th Round, 226th overall: Tomas Vokoun

 

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Nash went #1 overall.

That's not a "steal".

Who said anything about "steals"? This was a thread about the BEST pick in a round...

 

[Flames Draft Watcher]

As of right now, yes Bergeron is one of the best players coming out of the 2003 draft but I believe in a few years, he won't be considered the best 2nd round. Top 5 picks in the 2nd round? Probably But not the best.

Hard to imagine him not improving tremendously over the next 5 years and he's already one of the best players from the 2003 draft. I think you are massively underrating what he did as an 18 year old in the NHL.

Generally players who do extremely well in the NHL as teenagers end up as star players in the NHL. Saying that he would "probably" make the top 5 2nd rounders in a few years seems overly pessimistic.

 

[thestonedkoala]

Fritische, Galazachev, O'Sullivan, Bergeron, Klein, Egener, Weber, Barinka (and he made it to the NHL!), and Jimmy Howard

1. Bergeron
2. Fritische
3. O'Sullivan
4. Klein
5. Galazachev/Howard

Hard to say how it'll all pan out and what'll happen. Klein and O'Sullivan are doing wonderful things in the OHL.
---
Vlad the Impaler

P-M Bouchard's ice time depends on how well he plays nightly. Lemaire doesn't play favorites. He benched Dupuis for a long stretch of the season and even benched Laaksonen and a couple others. Bouchard rarely saw any minutes (like 3-5 minutes) a night, so use someone else.

I'm not asking very much Vlad, I agree that Bergeron is a top player coming out of the 2003 draft but to say he is the best is a bit...hard to say. Right now? Bergeron is the best. But give a couple more years and we'll see how Klein works out, how Howard is playing, how O'Sullivan adjusts to the NHL before we can say who is the best. For the moment, I'll agree and say Bergeron is the best guy coming out of the 2003 draft but I have to keep saying the Bruins were missing a good 2nd line center.

Burns was given a bit of ice time, he looked good and the Wild were missing a big guy but Vlad, you have to realize this also at the end of the year we were missing a couple defenseman and Burns was moved back. He played extremely well and felt comfortable back there, even chipping in a point or two. He was given limited icetime though.

I wanted to write more, but I'm tired.

Also I thought this was the steal of the drafts, not the best...Sorry...misread.