Jovanovski = Norris said:
Who are these gems that Detroit uncover in the 1st round?
The love for Detroit in this thread is astounding.
I'm a Wings fan, and I've gotta say that we had some dog drafts.
Okay we had two HUGE drafts.
1983 had some winning picks
4 C Steve Yzerman
25 R Lane Lambert
46 L Bob Probert
68 D Dave Korol
86 L Petr Klima
88 R Joey Kocur
106 G Chris Pusey
126 Bob Pierson
146 Craig Butz
166 D Dave Sikorski
186 L Stu Grimson
206 Jeff Frank
226 Chuck Chiatto
Yzerman and some of the games best fighters.
And 1989 might be the best draft of any team of alltime
11 C Mike Sillinger
32 D Bob Boughner
53 D Nicklas Lidstrom
74 C Sergei Fedorov
95 C Shawn McCosh
116 R Dallas Drake
137 D Scott Zygulski
158 D Andy Suhy
179 Bob Jones
200 D Greg Bignell
204 L Rick Judson
221 D Vladimir Konstantinov
242 R Joe Frederick
246 G Jason Glickman
Fedorov/Lidstrom are HOFers. Konstantinov was great. Sillinger Drake and Boughner have had long, succesful careers.
But damn, we had some Dog Drafts between, say 84-98
Our first round picks have been spectacular flops in some cases.
I'll rank them on a 5 star basis, based somewhat on the draft position
83 Yzerman 4th *****
84 Shawn Burr 7th overall ** (decent career, but not for a 7th overall all guy)
85 Brent Fedyk 8th overall *
86 Joe Murphy 1st overall *
87 Yves Racine 11th Overall *
88 Kory Kocur 17th Overall ZERO STARS
89 Mike Sillinger 11th Overall **1/2
90 Keith Primeau 3rd Overall ***1/2 (Always hurt cause Jagr drafted right after him. Can you imagine what the Wings would have looked like had they drafted Jagr???)
91 Martin Lapointe 10th Overall *** (okay, but Kovy and Naslund and Tkachuck were there)
92 Curtis Bowen 22nd Overall ZERO STARS
93 Anders Eriksson 22nd overall **
94 Yan Gulobovsky 23rd Overall ZERO STARS
95 Maxim Kuznetsov 25th Overal 1/2
96 Jesse Wallin 26th Overall ZERO STARS
97 TRADE
98 Jiri Fischer 25th Overall ***1/2 (good pick late in first)
99 TRADE
00 Kronwall 29th Overall ***1/2 (ditto)
01 TRADE
02 TRADE
03 TRADE
04 TRADE
05 Jakub Kindl 19th Overall (I'd give this pick ***1/2 stars, but it's way too early)
IMO, 93-97 is one of the worst drafting periods by any team, anywhere. Tomas Holmstrom and Matthieu Dandenault managed to make it out, but otherwise, it's bad.
Since 98, when the team drafted Fischer and Datsyuk, it's become apparent that our Euro scouting, led by Hakan Andersson, is among the best in the business. Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Kronwall, Grigorenko, Hudler, Filppula, Fleischmann, and even older guys like Bykov and Franzen.
Only recently has our North American scouting begun finding players. Howard, Quincey, Oulahen, McGrath, Haskins, and now Helm and May and Abdelkader seem like legit prospects. Maybe not worldbeaters all, but still. Better than Curtis Bowen and Kory Kocur