While I don't think that the Isles had the best draft last year in the league, I think this list is rather incomplete.
Seph said:
3rd round (82overall) C Sergei Ogordnikov in the RSL has put up 16 GP 2G 2A, and 20GP 8G 13A in the 1st League.
Ok, not outstanding long shot to make an NHL impact.
Seph said:
7th round (227overall) D Chris Campoli - as a rookie defenseman in the AHL, he's second on the team in scoring and is outscoring players like Pitkanen, Ehrhoff, Whitney, Seidenberg, etc, while stepping in immediately as the team's number 1 D.
I don't see him as noticably better than Dennis Wideman who's could very easily be a career AHL'er but he could also be a top 4.
Seph said:
8th round (244overall) LW Jason Pitton improved to 66GP 22G 15A in the OHL
Has an outside shot at making NHL as a fourth liner.
Seph said:
9th round (276overall) G Sylvain Michaud 56GP 27-18-6 2.89GAA 0.905 SV% while facing over 30 shots per game in the QMJHL and has won defensive player of the week at least once that I've noticed.
Long shot to make NHL even considering this year.
Your average team is going to graduate about 2 quality career NHL'ers a year and one of those will be a career 3rd and 4th liner. There's going to be a few surprizes but hyping alot of guy's who are longshot players doesn't mean you had a good draft.
I'd say Nokelainen(top 6), Comeau (3rd liner) and O'Neill (top 4 D) have a better than 50/50 chance of hitting the level I predicted. Everyone else (except maybe Chris Campoli) will being really good hockey players are longshots for having any NHL career.
NYI 1993 Draft (one of their best drafts in last 15 years).
23 Todd Bertuzzi
40 Bryan McCabe
66 Vladimir Chebaturkin
92 Warren Luhning
118 Tommy Salo
144 Peter Leboutillier
170 Darren Van Impe
196 Rod Hinks
222 Daniel Johansson
248 Stephane Larocque
274 Carl Charland
Why was it a good draft
23 Todd Bertuzzi
40 Bryan McCabe
118 Tommy Salo
170 Darren Van Impe (played 411 games and 115 points over nine seasons).