Worst draft year of all time

[Amateur Hour]

I'm not sure if this has been done before, but what, in your opinion, was the NHL's worst draft year, in terms of players who couldn't live up to the hype, flops, and overall ineffectiveness at the NHL level?

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[pnep]

1975, 1996 or 1999?

 

[Wisent]

75 definitely is up there.

 

[jamiebez]

1996 is always the one that springs to mind for me as a Sens fan.

I've had a few people tell me Chris Phillips was a terrible #1 choice. I always send them a link to the 96 draft page on hockeydb.com.

 

[BlueAndWhite]

I'd take the 1996 Draft's defense core any day of the week.

Chara-Kaberle
Phillips-Salo
Kubina-Lydman
Morris-Salei
White-Sarich
Mitchell-Zyuzin

 

[Heat McManus]

1975, 1996 or 1999?

Wow, Great Poseidon's trident those draft classes were horrible.

 

[Amateur Hour]

I think I'll go with 1979.. psht, seven future 1000-point careers in that class... what a disaster

But yeah, I was going to say 1975, that's the one I had in mind when I made the thread up. The best player from that draft was picked in round 15 (Dave Taylor)*, and suffice to say I've never seen another group of first round picks that so severely lacked NHL success.

*Honorable mention goes to Denis Maruk, a 2nd round pick

 

[arrbez]

yeah, 1975 was terrible. at least 1996 has a lot of solid NHLers

 

[Afino]

Tanabe was a 1st round pick??

Seriously??

 

[Afino]

the 1999 draft was a complete wash for Buffalo.....until you see....

138 Buffalo Ryan Miller G Soo Indians (NAHL) 66 0 2 2 0

Zetterberg was also a 7th in that draft....but holy crap, the amount of people that never played a game...

 

[The_Human_Atombomb]

Tanabe was a 1st round pick??

Seriously??

Some time ago, Tanabe was a promising young talent. I mean there are first rounders who never play a single nhl game.

 

[Wisent]

I think I'll go with 1979.. psht, seven future 1000-point careers in that class... what a disaster

But yeah, I was going to say 1975, that's the one I had in mind when I made the thread up. The best player from that draft was picked in round 15 (Dave Taylor)*, and suffice to say I've never seen another group of first round picks that so severely lacked NHL success.

*Honorable mention goes to Denis Maruk, a 2nd round pick

And Willi Plett as a 4th rounder

 

[reckoning]

Re: 1975; In the 1974 Draft, in an effort to compete with the WHA, NHL teams were allowed to draft one underage player. By 1975, the draft age was raised back up to 20, but the best players that age had been taken in `74. That`s why `75 was so weak.

 

[EventHorizon]

Check out '99s second round. Absolutely brutal. Out of all those players, probably only Hall and Leopold will break 100 points in their careers. The only decent goalie there is Auld; possibly the best player out of the group.

 

[God Bless Canada]

In terms of an actual year of first-time eligible players, 1989 was terrible. The class of players born between September 16, 1970 and September 15, 1971 rates among the worst ever. If not for the growing optimism surrounding the USSR, this draft tanks hard. The first round still causes nightmares for scouts, with only four top-end players: Sundin, Guerin, Holik and Kolzig. After Foote, the second round was completely forgettable (Dafoe was a one-year wonder).

Lidstrom went in the third round, but he had already been passed over once. Fedorov was also passed over once thanks to concerns over whether he'd ever play. Nobody thought Bure was eligible until the Canucks got an insider tip. Irbe went in the 10th round and Konstantinov went in the 11th round, but again, those players had been passed over several times, and were only available due to past uncertainty surrounding the USSR.

1997 won't be the worst, but it might be the most disappointing. Two years before it, scouts were talking about it as the best draft since 1979. The rose was off the bloom a little by the time 1996 rolled around, but it was still viewed as potentially the best of the decade. The top end from 1997 is terrific, but the depth is terrible beyond the top 10-15 picks, and it likely had more big-time disappointments than any other draft in history.

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

Doug Jarvis also went in '75. Not a scorer, but a mighty solid career.

 

[Rather Gingerly 1*]

The '75 and '76 drafts were weaker because they were raided in '74 which allowed 18 years old to be drafted for just that one year.

A few examples would be Bryan Trottier or Mario Tremblay

 

[MS]

1997 won't be the worst, but it might be the most disappointing. Two years before it, scouts were talking about it as the best draft since 1979. The rose was off the bloom a little by the time 1996 rolled around, but it was still viewed as potentially the best of the decade. The top end from 1997 is terrific, but the depth is terrible beyond the top 10-15 picks, and it likely had more big-time disappointments than any other draft in history.

1997 is the thinnest draft in history, by a wide margin. First 12 picks were great, after that it was a wasteland.

After pick #12, 25 players out of that draft went on to become NHL regulars. Compare that to 1996 - generally considered the worst draft in recent history - where there were 42 future NHL regulars selected past that point, fully 70% more. Most years it'll be over 50 regulars in that stretch of picks.

 

[Jumptheshark]

I think it should be limitted to either just first or second round

 

[GKJ]

1975 was a year where the draft age was raised to 20 years old before later being put back down. So the entire draft was almost entirely players who went undrafted in previous drafts.

 

[WheatiesHockey]

There are unconfirmed rumours that the 2006 NHL Draft was among the weakest ever.

 

[ResearchFlatEarth]

Keith Yandle signing with the Flyers today sent me down a bad NHL draft spiral, because Yandle is chasing Doug Jarvis' iron-man streak. Jarvis was drafted in 1975 by my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs, and he ended up winning a Selke with the Habs of course. Jarvis was one of the few good players from 1975, that was a brutal draft, I'll say 99 was the worst but it's close between 99 and 96.

 

[double5son10]

Keith Yandle signing with the Flyers today sent me down a bad NHL draft spiral, because Yandle is chasing Doug Jarvis' iron-man streak. Jarvis was drafted in 1975 by my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs, and he ended up winning a Selke with the Habs of course. Jarvis was one of the few good players from 1975, that was a brutal draft, I'll say 99 was the worst but it's close between 99 and 96.

With the Caps actually.

 

[Hockeyholic]

96 or 2012.

 

[NyQuil]

15 year bump. That's something.