Most controversial draft picks

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Psycho Papa Joe

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Hasbro said:
All of which would have been better choices. The fans sure had a favorite.

Upcomming: Sidney Crosby lottery
The point is Wickenheiser was the consensus #1 pick. For anybody who knew hockey, he was considered the best prospect and there was no real controversy at the time of the draft. Not taking Wickenheiser, the major junior player of the year, would be akin to the Bruins not taking Thornton.
 

thestonedkoala

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How are either one of those controversal exactly? When I think 'most controversal draft picks ever' PM Bouchard and Brent Burns don't exactly come to mind.

Controversial because Bouchard doesn't exactly fit a defensive team with his size, so why take him? He's a pure offensive talent, not a two-way player, his size doesn't really help him play defense. Gaborik at least had the strength.

Burns because he was a mid 2nd round talent AT best, Minnesota took him over:

Mark Stuar
Marc Antoine Pouliot
Mike Richards
Anthony Stewart
Brian Boyle
Jeff Tambellini
Corey Perry
Patrick Eaves
Dan Fritsche

And so on...

Kind of like Blake Wheeler, except lower.
Shea Weber
 

God Bless Canada

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Sheldon Keefe is one that immediately comes to mind. He was one of, if not the top scorer, in the OHL as an 18-year-old in his draft year in 1999. Scouts loved his offensive talent, intensity and rambuntuous play (116 points and 140 PIMs) and he would have gone in the first round, except for one very large hinderance: his association with controversial agent David Frost. Nobody wanted to deal with Frost, and Keefe plumetted. He continues to be associated with Frost, and that continues to hurt his career.
 

Jag68Sid87

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I remember being at the '88 draft when Mogilny was drafted 59th overall by Buffalo. There was a lot of ooh-ing and ahh-ing over that selection, since he was the highest-drafted Russian ever at the time. I also remember Tretiak was a big deal when he was drafted by the Canadiens in 1982(?). A lot of people thought he was going to come over to North America.

I remember in 1989 when the North Stars selected Doug Zmolek 7th overall...it was considered as big a reach as we had ever seen at the time...of course, the '89 draft was brutal.

I also remember the '92 draft, when fans were actually starting to boo because of the inordinate amount of players being selected out of Europe. I think what really raised their ire was when the Jets took Sergei Bautin 17th overall :biglaugh:

Of course, the fans booed again when the Canadiens did NOT draft a European, instead opting for D David Wilkie. The fans wanted Valeri Bure. Ironically enough, the Habs traded Andrew Cassels to Hartford to acquire another second-round pick and selected Bure with the pick. All was restored.

At the 1994 draft, what stole the show was the major trade between Toronto and Quebec (Sundin, Clark, Butcher, Landon Wilson, etc). Everything else paled in comparison to that deal.
 

RJ8812*

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I got some nice Leaf draft controversy:

1999 - Luca Cereda (24th OA): could have had Martin Havlat
1998 - Nikolai Antropov (10th OA): could have had Alex Tanguay
1995 - Jeff Ware (15th OA): could have had Petr Sykora
1993 - Landon Wilson (19th OA): could have had Saku Koivu
1992 - Brandon Convery (8th OA): could have had Sergei Gonchar
1989 - Steve Bancroft (21st OA): could have had Adam Foote
1988 - Scott Pearson (6th OA): could have had Jeremy Roenick
1987 - Luke Richardson (7th OA): could have had Joe Sakic
1982 - Gary Nylund (3rd OA): could have had Scott Stevens
1977 - Trevor Johansen (12th OA): could have had Mike Bossy

there's more, but im to lazy to type the rest out

now, imagine if the leafs had good scouts....they'd have about 20 Stanley Cups in the past 30 years


nothing better then knocking the leafs in your 300th post!
 

kmad

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Jun 16, 2003
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_Flyers_ said:
I got some nice Leaf draft controversy:

1999 - Luca Cereda (24th OA): could have had Martin Havlat
1998 - Nikolai Antropov (10th OA): could have had Alex Tanguay
1995 - Jeff Ware (15th OA): could have had Petr Sykora
1993 - Landon Wilson (19th OA): could have had Saku Koivu
1992 - Brandon Convery (8th OA): could have had Sergei Gonchar
1989 - Steve Bancroft (21st OA): could have had Adam Foote
1988 - Scott Pearson (6th OA): could have had Jeremy Roenick
1987 - Luke Richardson (7th OA): could have had Joe Sakic
1982 - Gary Nylund (3rd OA): could have had Scott Stevens
1977 - Trevor Johansen (12th OA): could have had Mike Bossy

there's more, but im to lazy to type the rest out

now, imagine if the leafs had good scouts....they'd have about 20 Stanley Cups in the past 30 years


nothing better then knocking the leafs in your 300th post!

Hindsight is 20/20 eh?

Find me a team that doesn't have 30 of the type of thing you're listing.
 

oil slick

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I'd say the Oilers selection of Steve Kelly over Shane Doan was pretty controversial... not that Kelly was ranked very much behind Doan, but the draft was held in Edmonton, and the crowd was chanting Doan, Doan, Doan...

Should have listened to the crowd I guess.
 

Shane

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The Buffalo Sabres selecting Taro Tsujimoto in 1974.

Story has it that Sabres general manager Punch Imlach was fed up with what he considered a tedious draft process and decided to have some fun at the NHL's expense by announcing the name of a fictional Japanese player, [Taro] Tsujimoto. Imlach claimed Tsujimoto was a star center for the Tokyo Katanas in the Japanese league. Not knowing any better, the league went ahead and made the pick official, and all major media, including The Hockey News, reported it as a legitimate pick.

It was not until weeks later that Imlach told the truth about this pick. He admitted that he had found the name Taro Tsujimoto in a Buffalo phone book, and the team name Tokyo Katanas translated into English as Tokyo Sabres. The NHL would eventually change the pick to an “invalid claim†for its official record-keeping purposes, but this was after Tsujimoto’s name had appeared in several of the NHL Guide and Record Books issued prior to the 1989-90 season.
http://www.sabres.com/pressbox/index.php?nID=255
 

Stephen

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Feb 28, 2002
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_Flyers_ said:
I got some nice Leaf draft controversy:

1999 - Luca Cereda (24th OA): could have had Martin Havlat
1998 - Nikolai Antropov (10th OA): could have had Alex Tanguay
1995 - Jeff Ware (15th OA): could have had Petr Sykora
1993 - Landon Wilson (19th OA): could have had Saku Koivu
1992 - Brandon Convery (8th OA): could have had Sergei Gonchar
1989 - Steve Bancroft (21st OA): could have had Adam Foote
1988 - Scott Pearson (6th OA): could have had Jeremy Roenick
1987 - Luke Richardson (7th OA): could have had Joe Sakic
1982 - Gary Nylund (3rd OA): could have had Scott Stevens
1977 - Trevor Johansen (12th OA): could have had Mike Bossy

there's more, but im to lazy to type the rest out

now, imagine if the leafs had good scouts....they'd have about 20 Stanley Cups in the past 30 years

1971: Larry Wright and Pierre Plante instead of Terry O'Reilly, Larry Robinson
1976: Mark Suzor instead of Kent Nilsson
1980: Mike Sothers instead of Jari Kurri, Bernie Nicholls
1981: Steve Smith instead of Chris Chelios
1984: Greg Smith instead of Patrick Roy
1985: Glen Seabrooke instead of Joe Nieuwendyk, Mike Richter, Kirk McLean
1987: Darren Rumble instead of John Leclair, Mathieu Schneider or Eric Desjardins
1988: Claude Boivin instead of Rob Blake, Tony Amonte or Mark Recchi
1989: Greg Johnson instead of Sergei Fedorov, Nik Lidstrom, Vladimir Konstantinov, Pavel Bure
1990: Mike Ricci at instead of Jaromir Jagr, Martin Brodeur
1992: Ryan Sittler at instead of Sergei Gonchar, Mike Peca
1996: Dainius Zubrus at instead of Zdeno Chara
1997: Jean Marc Pelletier instead of Kristian Huselius, Mike York, Ladislav Nagy
1999: Maxime Ouellet instead of Martin Havlat
 

WhiskeyYerTheDevils

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Harper said:
And because New Jersey and Pittsburgh were both tanking the season to get him. One example way there is a lottery now. There were others too, closer to when the lottery was initiated

I dont think NJ tanked on purpose, they were a very new team, I think it was like their 1st or 2nd year in NJ.
 

John Flyers Fan

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arnie said:
This is pure nonsense. There were 5 elite players that year who were head and shoulders above everyone else., Jagr was one and everyone knew he would go in the top 5. The only question was where. He fell to the "bottom" because of the possibility of military service, but he was sure to be picked where he was if not higher.


If Jagr was a Swede instead of a Czech there is no doubt he would have gone higher than 5th. At the time it wasn't easy to get eastern bloc players out early. I know the Flyers, picking 4th thought he was the best player in the draft.
 

Sykie

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hockeyman28 said:
I dont think NJ tanked on purpose, they were a very new team, I think it was like their 1st or 2nd year in NJ.

Actually they didn't tank at all, but I didn't want to open another tanking discussion.

Pittsburgh tanked big time, but not New Jersey.
 

CurtisJD13

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What about Joe Murphy going number 1 overall in his draft year? I would consider that controversial...

And also, Patrick Stefan...do I have to say more?
 

Legionnaire

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What was controversial about the Stefan pick? He was the consensus number one player that year. You can't call it controversial just because he hasn't panned out you know.
 

arnie

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John Flyers Fan said:
If Jagr was a Swede instead of a Czech there is no doubt he would have gone higher than 5th. At the time it wasn't easy to get eastern bloc players out early. I know the Flyers, picking 4th thought he was the best player in the draft.

He may have gone higher than 5th, but he would neber have gone lower. That;s the point.
 
hockeyman28 said:
I dont think NJ tanked on purpose, they were a very new team, I think it was like their 1st or 2nd year in NJ.

they started off the season 2-20. and in that stretch was a 13-4 loss to the edmonton oilers. The Devils beat the Penguins in a home at home in late January, and from then on the penguins tanked every game. They even traded thier best player Randy Carlyle to Winnipeg and they sat out players like Rick Kehoe. That was disgraceful!
 
Washington taking a lazy, fat, obnoxious, surly, baffon 4th overall in 1996 named Alexander Volchkov. The 1996 draft was dreadful but that pick was awful and controvesial even back on draft day.


Winnipeg taking D Bautin in 1992. TSN thought they had drafted Sergei Brylin. Bautin was a russian veteran whom TSN didnt think WOULD get drafted much less as a 1st round pick.

They should have selected Brylin instead.
 

clefty

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Machoking2003-04 said:
they started off the season 2-20. and in that stretch was a 13-4 loss to the edmonton oilers. The Devils beat the Penguins in a home at home in late January, and from then on the penguins tanked every game. They even traded thier best player Randy Carlyle to Winnipeg and they sat out players like Rick Kehoe. That was disgraceful!
Cry me a river. The Pens got Mario. People need to get over it already.

Kehoe was injured and on his last legs as well by the way.
 

me2

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Jay Bouwmeester - Taken 3rd overall despite being pimped to go 1st overall uncontested since the age of 15 - 16

Only went 3rd because through backroom deals to get extra draft picks and stuff otherwise he'd have gone #1. Marginally controversial until you factor in the deals, but less so after that.


The Sedins - Brothers taken top 3 in the same draft

not contrversial just unusual
 
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